Mid-Day Squares & PerfectTed, Live in London PART 1 How to Build a $100M Brand Out Loud:

21:10You have to put work into it. And I think of business partnerships very similarly. You have to devote time and attention to your partner to actually communicate, discuss issues, big ideas, what's happening in the future so that you can get back to that alignment. If you ever step out of line, right, and you need to come back together, the only way you're going to do that is by having the time together in person. And that's why as a trio, we have a weekly standing meeting. It's not therapy, but sometimes it turns into it. It's a type of therapy. Type of therapy. And did you say standing meeting?

21:47Standing meeting every week. You don't sit? No, sorry. Maybe it's a UK thing. I know. I thought it was maybe an American thing because I didn't know what it was. Sometimes we stand. It depends on the mood. But no, it's every single week. We try to make it happen regardless of if we're traveling or not. It's very, it's kind of like, you know, we really try to stay. It's a non-negotiable almost. I could geek out on this all day, but I know that probably lots of people will want us to move on to the really sexy stuff, which is community building and engagement and rain making and all of the all of the travel that you do.

22:22It doesn't work. Without this, it doesn't work. But just really quickly in one or two lines. Do you do reviews like as in performance reviews on your co-founders and do they do performance reviews on you in the same way that you do on your employees? We don't. Look, my partners and I, we trust each other tremendously. You know, my role is I basically make friends for the business in every category from investors to media to new team members to retailers. They trust me that I'm going out there every day doing my best to build those relationships. I know my partners are ones that they're co-CEOs, one's in charge of innovation and one's in charge of production and all that stuff.

22:58I know that they're doing it. So we don't cross each other's paths. The trust that's built is critical because if you don't trust, everything again is going to fall. The animosity builds. You start to be insecure. You start to micromanage Marissa and you're like, oh, well, maybe she's not doing what she's supposed to do. I'm going to check in and that makes her uncomfortable. So I think that, again, trust is the forefront of the foundation of any partnership or any marriage. You said it before. Without it, it doesn't work. And I think that if I hated my partners at the end of this business and we built a multi-billion dollar business, it was a fail.

23:26That's a fail. I lost best friend. Couldn't agree more. And honestly, I feel we run the business with such radical transparency that if there's ever a time when anyone feels unsettled or has negative feelings towards the other, we just say it right then and there because if you let it build up over time it's dangerous it's dangerous we have a 24-hour feedback rule so if you don't deliver see this is what i wanted to hear yeah within 24 hours then it's one not as effective it's kind of like okay i'm not equating people to a dog right but like if if your dog a kid let's use a kid it's much nicer if a child does something naughty and you wait naughty and you wait a while to tell them what they've they've done is wrong.

24:08It's not fair. Well, but it's not fair, but also the odds of them understanding the significance of what they've done is probably much lower. And then they won't actually, you won't reinforce that positive behavior for the future. So we try to just nip it in the bud immediately. And then it actually solves everything. Because think about how much time, if you're in an argument with someone, think about how much time and energy you end up spending on thinking about it. It takes up headspace that actually is so much better spent towards using it towards the business. That's what we'd rather do. So anything that is distracting, including an inter-founder argument, we will try to immediately resolve.

24:48And I think as we have matured, as people, as the business has grown, as the team has grown, as the stakes have become higher, the time in which it's taken us to resolve conflict has gone from what could have been several days years ago, truthfully, to now we resolve it in five minutes. That is fabulous. Same thing with trolls, by the way. Have any of you been trolled on the internet before? Raise your hand. It's the hottest thing. No one, okay, you guys are also good people, I guess. But being loud on social media, which we're going to get into, is a similar thing of wasting time. I used to focus on what someone would say.

25:21They would say something really mean, make fun of my insecurity, maybe, which I didn't even know this person. I used to try to come back with a witty response. I'd have their anger energy. at them at the same time. And then it would take two, three, four, five hours of my energy. I'd be so mad that this person said that. I don't even know the person. Then when I went through therapy, I realized that a troll typically, most of the time, is actually someone going through something and they just take it out on you. They might not know you. And I realized that if I just empathize with them and I actually be there for them as a human to the world, then a lot of the time, six out of 10 times or seven out of 10 times, they actually apologize and said they had a bad day.

25:55They don't even know you. They saw one of your ads and they're like, that gave me an evoke this emotion and I'm embarrassed of how I behaved. And four to the 10 times, it's actually mean people, so you just block them and you never see them again. But instead of being angry, I look at it in a different perspective that this is a human as well, and within five minutes, it's gone and my life goes on, my day goes on. And sometimes I'll invite them for dinner, I'll invite them for drinks, and some have come and they become my friends. That's pretty lovely. No, because trolls are just like us. It's easy to get caught in a moment, right?

26:22And if you're there as a human, you've really gone the way of living a good life by actually being there for them. And then the bad people, the bad people. And you just learn who's bad and you get rid of them. My mom used to say to me when I was growing up, and none of my friends ever understood this when I was a teenager. She used to always say to me, you know, anyone who ever asks you on a date, go. Even if they're the most boring person in the whole world, you should go. And I would say, what? And she'd say, yeah, because even the fact that they're that boring is really fascinating. Yeah, so I travel a lot.

26:52I call it a rainmaking job. I think we have a rainmaker in here as well, which I'm fired up to hear your side. Rockstar. So what I think is interesting about it is I travel over 100 flights a year, mostly North America. And I go for meetings or I go for speaking opportunities or I go for brand building stuff. And what I'm doing is I'm traveling to meet these people to allow serendipity to happen. So it could be someone in a completely different industry that's not in midday squares. And I'll go sit with them for five minutes or 10 minutes or an hour, have a drink, have a coffee, go for a workout.

27:20and I'll get to know them. And what ends up happening is that a lot of the time, these certain folks will come back to the business in a year or two years. And in certain situations, we raised$10 million from somebody because of meetings I kept showing up to with no intention, no agenda. And she came through because we were in a horrible situation. I picked up the phone. I said, we are in a bad situation. You guys are a fund. Can you write this check? And she says, within six days, we can. And it was the craziest moment because I wouldn't be sitting with you today if it wasn't for her. But that's because I showed up on planes for five minutes, for 10 minutes.

27:49And what ends up happening is you learn human to human what this person's about. So much is transaction in our world. So much is digital. So much is on Zoom, which people are so fed up with and exhausted of, that when you show up, you show that you care, that you have respect, old school or new school, whatever you want to look at it as. But it's an ability to learn something about that person that you might have not seen otherwise that you could utilize. So yeah, I get on planes. It affects my marriage 100 % because when I come home on a Sunday night after the red eye and I land at whatever, it's Monday morning, I'm exhausted and I'm in a bad mood because you just ate plain food and it's disgusting.

28:21And you're now home and now you've got to deal with your relationship. And you might not have that energy because you just were performative for the last three, four days, back-to-back meetings. And that's part of the game though. And if I can't figure that out, then I failed in all aspects. So now we concentrate on how do I give to that and how do I have energy for that. Maybe it's an extra, I take a day early and I come home. Or maybe I rest the day of, or the last day and I get back my sleep or I eat well and I come home and I'm energized. And I think that if you don't have that, you're screwed.

28:50And the first two years, it was a disaster. I've come home exhausted and miserable. Now we've changed that and we've worked really hard on that. And without it, I don't think I'd be here. So the fourth partner of Midday Squares is Melissa, even though she's not directly involved. But without that support, I'm screwed. Has any investor or VC or I don't know what kind of funding you have, and maybe you could share that with us, ever said, well, Jake, you know, I want to know what the ROI on all this travel is. Would you not be better off sitting down and doing some old-fashioned marketing at home?

29:18The VCs, no, because all the VCs came from that. So the way I found them was simply through these rainmaking activities. And I think one of the most memorable things was sharing content online is part of it. And I think that when we shared one time, we shared a story about almost my partner's getting divorced, actually, in the year two of the business. And I'll never forget, we shared this video, and it was very intimate. It was very uncomfortable. It was like, it was the comeback story of how they got through it through therapy and all these things. and I used to sit there with them and we filmed everything.

29:44Long story short, one of the VCs wrote to us saying, can you please take this video down? It was going viral. And they said, it has nothing to do with selling chocolate bars. And I looked at them and I said, I have two options. I could answer him being angry and be emotional, or I could wait 24 hours, calm down like you guys do. And I sent him a PDF of 1 ,000 messages. And I sent him the messages of all the consumers saying, thank you for being real. This is why we love you guys. The transparency, the showing up, this is why we care about your business more than just a product. he responded back saying, holy shit, transparency and vulnerability is helping you build fans rather than customers.

30:18Keep doing it. Now he's become a huge advocate.

30:23If this episode is inspiring you to think about new ways that you can drive growth for your business, don't forget to click follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast app and even leave a review. Your small gesture has a big impact on me and my business and will be truly appreciated. So the showing up, the storytelling has become one of the fuels of this business. So we will never stop. Now, if I burn out, then I'll stop again. Has there ever been something that you've shared that you actually still feel slightly uncomfortable about or cringey about? I once shared something uncomfortable. I do a lot of speaking gigs at universities.

30:57I did one with Columbia, right? And I met this individual here. But one at McGill University, I was, someone, a student asked me a question about my sex life. And I thought it was, oh, I'm okay. Like, I can't answer anything. And I answered and it was uncomfortable. And I didn't realize that it crossed the line a little bit. And it made my wife a little bit uncomfortable. So I learned my lesson. Never again. I don't do it again. But again, I'm a very open person, probably like you guys, where like, what am I hiding? What's there to hide? If we're building a business out loud, like, everything is on the table.

31:29And we agreed on the beginning of doing that. And if we're not going to do that now, then it's going to change the values that we create the business on. I love this language that you've come up with. I think it's yours, you know, building a business out loud. Is Perfect Ted building a business out loud? I know you had an in-house. Do you still have an in-house team? Talk to us a little bit about that. We have Cornelia with us tonight right over here. And, of course, Charlotte, who also does incredible content. Yeah, we are filming as much as humanly possible right now. Teddy and Levi, my co-founders, are traveling, meeting all of our suppliers out in Japan, and they have been blogging the whole thing.

32:09Would you say you're building the business out loud in the same way as Midday Squares, or do you have a different point of view about how to build a business out loud? Well, I think they've absolutely crushed it. If we're actually getting into the granular of channel strategy... Oh, it's so much better, sorry. I got you, I got you. If we're getting into like channel strategy, Jake absolutely crushes it on LinkedIn. Like so consistent, has built such an incredible following, audience, people that really are invested in the journey. I think you guys have done an exceptional job on Instagram, just TikTok as well, sharing as much as humanly possible and crafting these incredibly compelling stories that are not just entertaining, it's edutainment.

33:00Edutainment. Edutainment. It's the mix between education and storytelling. And it's fun to watch and you learn something. And then you also feel bought into the journey. I think they've done a really remarkable job of that. We want to double down even more on that right now. So that's definitely, hopefully you'll see. We are doing that. We're doing it in a smaller way right now through LinkedIn mostly. I think we're trying to increase output across different channels. But we've been going really hard on EGC, so we encourage our whole team to get active on LinkedIn specifically. We also encourage other channels, but it's up to them.

33:39We can't really enforce that. Every single person on LinkedIn in Perfect TED is going to post about this tonight, now, and tomorrow on LinkedIn, right? That's a big promise. I have a question. How many of you actually actively post on LinkedIn? Raise your hand. Okay, that's pretty high. You're way more than North America. Because we encourage it. We not only encourage it at Perfect Head, but we incentivize it. We run a weekly competition. And whoever has the highest engagement or the most creative post gets a really fun, oversized check that Kelly spearheaded the creation of. Let's go, Kelly. Let's go, Kelly.

34:13And that we also then gift them a 50-pound delivery voucher. So that's actually like a, you know, it's a meaningful gift. LinkedIn's huge, by the way. Yeah, because the network effects. The network effects are real because it's one of the only platforms that still benefits from it. If I like Jake's post and Shawnee doesn't follow Jake, but Shawnee follows me, she will see Jake's post. It's like the old Instagram. Do you know, I joined LinkedIn in 2002 and I got an email like three years ago from them to say, we just want to say thank you because you were the 1 ,200 ,000th person in the world to join LinkedIn.

34:51Wow. Yeah, no joke. Did you post about that? I think I did. I must bring it out again. But yeah, so I've been on LinkedIn for whatever that is, 23 years. And certainly I wouldn't have the business I have today if it wasn't for LinkedIn because I think it's absolutely brilliant. It's where I hang out every day. It's all of the people in this room. I mean, that's where I see you all other than on some WhatsApp groups. I see you on LinkedIn. I see what you're doing on LinkedIn. We cheer each other on on LinkedIn. I think nowadays, though, it's easier than ever to create content. And there's definitely a proliferation of content out there from everyone.

35:29I mean, it's not just brands. And kind of going back to what you were saying about living in an attention economy, me. It's the stories that are so innately human that I feel have the highest chance of cutting through because you actually create an emotional response in the viewer. And they say, oh, I identify with that. Oh, I have ADHD and anxiety. Oh, I get in fights with my sister. It's relatable. And I think the related bit, exactly. And we're all on this planet for such a short period of time relative to the history of the world, of the earth, of the universe, that people want to feel that human connection.

36:06I will always live by this, that relationships are permanent and transactions are temporary. And that is why relationships should always be prioritized. What does that do to you and your life? You know, if you're becoming a celebrity, right? You know, you talk about people coming up to you in restaurants. I don't know if that's happening to you yet, Marissa, with your face on things as is. Sometimes. But you know what it is, I think, back to the LinkedIn, and I'll get into the humanization, which, what the effects, the negative effects of it, but the positive effects is like, think about this platform.

36:36People are allowed to use it at their work, right? So a lot of the other platforms are banned at work. So they could actually go on their social media channel and actually scroll through their daytime on the computers. So you have an opportunity where you're getting people's attention, and they're actually there, like you said, for education slash entertainment. So if you give a little bit of corporate, just a little bit mixed with personalization, you are guaranteed to stand out. And I couldn't believe it, when I first started, I started posting business quotes, because I thought that's what people wanted to see.

37:04It was like Oscar Wilde quotes, and I got five views or 10 views. Then I posted a stat, and I got 100 views. And then I started to post me dancing in a grocery store with half my shirt off, my nipples showing, and it got 150 ,000 views. And I was like, oh shit, something's working. And I realized that all people wanted was to evoke an emotion within the corporate setting. So then a lot of successful businesses now are doing it. I see you guys crushing it on LinkedIn. I see you crushing it. I have a friend here that I met on LinkedIn in the room. It's a powerful platform. It sells product. People's attention is focused.

37:35It's not like other platforms where they're scrolling like this. They actually look and they read and they're like, oh, this could be value to my life. I'm going to read it. And the networking effect. So I think that. But the problem with it is then you become, you know, someone once said to me, you know, it's nice to not be, you don't have a boss. And I was like, well, I have a board, number one. That's my boss of the company. But the second thing is, no, I have a boss. Every single person is my boss. And the person said, what do you mean? And I was like, well, when I go to a restaurant, if I'm in a bad mood and I'm not even wearing the brand, I'm just being myself.

38:03And I have an incident or a moment. Everyone has a lapse of moment, right? And you're there and someone's sitting next to you that is a fan of your company or a fan of your product and seeing you on social media. They then interpret your situation that you're in by who you are on social compared to who you are in person. and they're like, oh, maybe there's a disconnect, or maybe there's this thing, or it's not a lapse moment, but this is the character, and you can lose that customer. Or that could be even worse. They could tell thousands of people about it. And I think that that's where it gets hard when you're sharing your story is you're going to have that.

38:33Everyone's your boss at that point. And the moment you're out there, you open your life up to trolls. You open your life up to a ton of negativity. And then if you get caught in the dopamine addiction of what social media is, which is a real thing, then your life becomes almost dependent on the feelings of that, which is very dangerous. So both of you have talked openly online on LinkedIn and in podcasts about having ADHD. And I know one of the big parts of ADHD is, you know, rejection sensitivity and that dopamine thing. Not even more difficult for you both to put yourselves out there into the spotlight if that is the risk.

39:07You know, if the risk is you're always going to have to be always on, which is exhausting for most people, but particularly exhausting for, I think, people with particular types of neurodiversity. and then at the same time you're trying not to be addicted to that dopamine rush, how do you be very aware of that and manage that? I mean, Marissa, do you want to talk about that? I remember when I first started posting on LinkedIn, I would hit post and immediately throw my phone on the bed and just not check it for like 30 minutes because I was so anxious. I was like, ah, what am I doing? Like, no one's going to read it.

39:39This is stupid. And you have all these really negative thoughts. I think negative self-talk is very, it's just, it's part of the process, I believe, of building a company, especially in the early days when you have these feelings of self-doubt, imposter syndrome, you don't know what the hell you're doing, and you're figuring it out on the fly. So you're constantly thinking, shit, I don't know this, or I'm not good enough. Obviously, with reps, that changes. And as you mature, you grow, you become more comfortable in your own skin. you start speaking to yourself like you would your best friend.

40:14I believe that's something that everyone should adopt because you wouldn't tell your best friend that they just posted something really shitty on LinkedIn, would you? You'd say, yeah, it was great. Or you know what? You trick yourself into thinking that it was a great, valuable insight that helped someone. And nine out of 10 times, it usually is because even if it has one reaction, you still touched one person. It does not matter how many people you reach. I really truly believe this because regardless if you have one like, 10 likes or 10 ,000 likes, you're still helping other people by just showing up, being yourself, giving them some sort of lesson or just having this moment of connection saying, I really resonated with that or I loved that thought and opinion.

40:58So I think it doesn't really matter. Just we know consistency compounds. And as long as you keep showing up, keep putting yourself out there. You learn to block out the noise and start to just have this delusional level of self-confidence, really. Delusion is a good thing. A hundred percent. You can't be successful without some degree of delusion. Absolutely. Everyone in this room is delusional, even just being here and thinking it'd be a great idea. Let's talk about delusional. You talk about delusional on the one hand, but then also the self-doubt and the need for resilience on the other side.

41:29So how do you balance the delusion and the need for resilience? In a world full of inauthenticity, the way that you stand out is to be authentic. Reps is critical. I think this is the most important thing. If you do little things every day, you're going to get better at a very fast compounded rate. I think Warren Buffett or Charlie Munger always said, people don't realize the power of compound, how actually strong it is, how much you can turn something from almost nothing to exponential in a significant period of time. What I said to myself originally from being scared of the poster, like the idea of the rejections or the sensitivities and the moments of depression that I've gone through on this journey from feeling bad about sometimes the things that people would say or what I would do is I just 1 % a day.

42:10And I start telling my story that I'm delusional. I believe what I'm doing. I have conviction. And I started posting it. And then I did it again. And then again. And then again. Next thing you know, you start to stop caring about anything. You care about the people that matter to you. You care about being a kind person. Obviously, hopefully that's what we all are here. And the third part is that you believe so much in what you're doing that it doesn't matter what someone else thinks. There's seven plus billion or close to eight billion people in the world. If someone doesn't like you, that's you telling your story that that's the end of the world.

42:36It's the opposite of the end of the world. And the more I grew, the more I cared less and less and less. And even when someone in the industry didn't like you, it doesn't make a difference. There's always going to be somebody else. And you've said it right. One person can change your life. It takes one thing, one moment or one individual that's in this room or that's listening to the podcast or that's watching your post to say, I want to help this person. And that That could change the trajectory of your entire personal or professional life. And once you know that, nothing else matters. Tell your story loud and proud.

43:04Also, not to be morbid and we're all about spreading positive energy, but we're all going to die one day. So we might as well just enjoy it, make connections that are real and human. And being human is messy, and it's not always the most straightforward. Of course, we know that. You're not always going to have the biggest win. You're going to experience a lot of L's. But that's what this beautiful, crazy, messy thing called life is. And we just have to try to enjoy it while we're here. Let's bring it back to some business kind of like fundamentals. One of the things that both of you have done is created new categories.

43:39OK, and one of the things I would like to ask is for both Midday Squares and Perfect Head, are you starting to see followers that are creeping up behind you with speed? because I know in the life of every challenger, eventually that starts to happen. I have a new category, Midday Ted. I don't even know what that means. Let's do it, Midday Ted. The collab of dreams. As you said here, naughty, I guess is the word. But I think that everyone says go after niches or new things. I actually think the category we chose, refrigerated bars, it's actually built in the US. In Canada, it was not built at the time.

44:17And I don't think here it's not really a thing. but when we went after we actually had data we actually had a lot of data showing that dark chocolate at the time was growing and that proteins plant-based proteins were growing so we actually built this product via data so we knew that there'd be product market fit even if we were putting it in another section of the store but because we chose the refrigerator we felt that the future of snacking was moving to that where people wanted fresh stuff not preservatives they want something that was a little you know in quotations cleaner so we built this we're like okay no matter how hard it is to do we're going to figure it out because we truly have conviction in the future of this category.

44:49We didn't know in 10 years what it was going to look like. Now it's way bigger than it was when we started. But the idea was it was a white space in that sense, but it was built on a product that had data on product market fit. If you don't have product market fit, it doesn't matter how much storytelling you do, it doesn't matter how much marketing or how much attention you have, you see celebrity brands all the time collapse in terms of products because the product doesn't have product market fit. They're not going to repurchase the snack or the drink if it's not, I say fuck yeah. I would call it if it's not fuck yeah, then it's no, excuse my language.

45:15But that's the truth. So I think that once you understand product market fit, it doesn't matter what category you're doing. It will work as long as you get it to everybody. So product market fit and then get the attention and the storytelling. That will create the repurchase cycle. And the distribution. But that creates a growing category with lots of buzz. And then you're going to get people who come in and join you in that category, right? So have you got competitors now? So we have amazing competitors. There's one brand that's over 350 million that's the leader in the category. And they're a phenomenal brand.

45:45And we love them. They've been around for 20, 25 years maybe. And a very different product, but in the fridge with us. Then there's a lot of other brands that are our size, between 10 and 100 million, that have now come in. And this has now created a destination for this new shopper to have options, optionality, which then they bring their friends to the base. So the more competition, actually, the better, I find, because being alone in the set is actually devastating. Like, we were alone in Canada, and the amount of work that we had to put into just the education or where the product is in the store, how to buy the product, why should this buyer even look at this category if no one's in it, it's a lot harder.

46:21So actually having peers and pals in the space is way better. And I think that if you don't have a Me Too product, so a copycat of somebody else, and you have an innovation that's true product market fit, then you shouldn't worry about any competition. Jeff Bezos always said he focused on Amazon's experience throughout the years, even though everyone told him, focus on your competitors, look who's coming up, look who has a bigger business than you. He said, I'm going to build the best company experience, customer experience ever. And what did he do? He built one of the most successful e-commerce businesses from a logistical perspective ever in history because he stayed focused.

46:52He blocked the noise, like Marissa said, and that's what made him great. And I think that what makes Perfect Teta at least great, and I think what Midday Squares is, it's a new product. It's fun. It's different. It's disruptive, but it's also great. And then the brand makes people feel. So you're doing two wins at once. And without that, I don't think you even stand a chance today, unfortunately, because there's new products that come every single year. There's harder to get attention than ever before because of all the content that's out there. So you really got to get lucky and have that product market fit and storytelling.

47:20We are similar to what you said about Jeff Bezos. I'm not equating us to Jeff Bezos whatsoever. He is a legend. We are trying to be legendary as well, but we block out the noise completely. We're so laser focused on our mission to make Matcha as accessible as possible that we don't even think about competition at all. So really for us, it's how can we constantly improve the product range? How can we serve our customers better? What products are we not currently making that we should be, that customers want, that they're making themselves? Because I actually believe that's where the best product innovation comes from, is when your customers are already making a solution for themselves from whatever.

48:01So we're just constantly focused on how do we evolve and always improve. And not everyone's going to like your product. That's a key pillar. And I think that for us, sometimes we get feedback, oh, this doesn't taste like a confectionary company. I'm not going to say the name, but a confectionary company. And it's like, we didn't make it to be that. It's for everyday afternoon snack that fills you up. It's indulgence, but it's also functional. And it doesn't make you feel bloated or gaseous. And it's like, we're focused on that. We're not focused on everyone. We can't win everybody. And the moment you as a business think you can win everybody is the moment you spread yourself thin.

48:35You don't have a moat. You don't have your, you know, your raison d 'être, as they say in French, I guess. In English too, so I'm sure we can do that, yeah. But like, I think that that's the most important thing. And it's like, again, we don't talk enough about product today. I think everyone talks about storytelling and marketing. But product is where everything starts. And without that, you have no chance. You have to have a great product. You were saying before, I look at Prime. Prime had the two most powerful influencers behind them. They got all of the UK grocers on board, and then within 12 months, it went downhill.

49:09Collapses. Collapsed, because the product doesn't stand up to what the consumer expects or wants. So you try it once, but then there's no repeat purchase, and then eventually it dies. And there's nothing worse than trying a product where the flavor says it's mint chocolate, let's just say for an example, and it doesn't taste like that. It tastes like something completely different. And that's where I think there's so much distrust with consumers today, because there's a lack of focus on innovation and deep product development. And when they try something that is innovative or something that is differentiated, they love it because this is something beyond their expectations of the distrust that's been built in our consumerism world, unfortunately just through products that just keep getting made and different packages.

49:49That's all it is. It's different packages and same making. Let's talk a little bit about global expansion. So you've gone from Canada into the US. What was the biggest learning? And I know the reason I'm asking this is we have this kind of myth amongst all of the founders in the UK that, you know, the US is just so full of opportunity yet really expensive and easy to fail. Oh, yeah, that's right. Is that your experience? It's one of the greatest consumers and capitals of the world. And, you know, when you're 360 million people that buy a lot of product, it definitely opportunity. Now, here's the danger is it's exciting to take an opportunity of 2 ,500 stores on one shot and expect that you're going to sell, but every state is different.

50:29The country, yes, they're all under one roof, but each state has different cultures and different ways of buying. And I think for us, not in the UK, but in Canada, we thought that it's the same because it's Western civilization. We're neighbors. But when you realize that the shopping experience is actually so different, they buy different things, maybe same categories, but different types of products, you learn. So what we did is instead of launching nationwide, we focused on California first, a little, not a little store, they're a nice store called Air One. Does anyone know them? very popular store and great family that runs it and we went there first and then we basically what we did was we went to like coffee shops and like you know like different like gyms and we built that region up of excitement and then only when we were ready to take on another region did we take another region and then we took a retailer that had 20 states we built that but we didn't rush into it because it's very expensive there's not such no such thing as unlimited capital and last but not least is you get one shot you get one shot at a retailer if it fails you likely have a staying on your brand and they're not going to maybe take you again.

51:24Maybe by luck they do. But at the end of the day, if you screw up, you're out. And I think that you've got to be very careful. Don't get excited by the dollars. Get excited by the strategy that you can implement with the resources that you have. But now it's been three years or three and a half years we sell in the US and we're across all 50 states. And we do well. Some of them we do extremely well, some of them we don't do as well. But we commit now resources to, we do 80-20. So 80 % of the resource are going to 20 % of the actual growth. And it works. And again, listening to your buyers, retailers will tell you what they need.

51:54Understanding how their shoppers work compared to another retail account is very different. I always give the example, Costco is a very different retailer than many other retailers. Understanding how Costco members shop compared to maybe a shopper at XYZ is different and different strategies are required from your team to execute at the retail level. So you don't just say all promos are the same, they're different. I think something really important to discuss though is that you responded to consumer demand. And I think a lot of brands in the UK forget that. That's a really important part. They think there's a massive opportunity in America.

52:27So many people, so many stores, so much money, a lot of capital going around, but they might not be contributing something that is actually additive to the category. And what you did was create an entirely new category, which brought value to the retailers, brought entirely new customers into stores that would typically never see them come in. And you also were responding to demand because you had built up a really strong fan base in the States. And we showed up. Exactly. But I think sometimes brands, especially UK brands, forget that. They think, OK, we're dominating America next. Really? But do they want you there?

53:05Think about it. But you got to be very cautious when you enter a new country. Again, cultures are very different. You know, me being here for the first time ever in my life, I'm 32 years old, first time I'm in London, should have come before I had like this like thing about I was like, I can not go to London. Like, you know, like I did that with New York too. And then I fell in love with New York. No, it's gorgeous. The city's absolutely stunning and the people are incredible. And I'm going to be here more often. But just I walked around with a guy named James today and we just walked through the stores and I was just like, even your Tesco, like as a great retailer, but like it's so different than some of them in North America that are of the same size.

53:39And I was looking at the store and like even the perimeter of where your chilled section is, your fridges are in a different section than where our fridges are. And that would mean that the customer is someone potentially different. It's mixed with beverages instead of other snacks, right? So learning is critical before you, like walk before you run and make sure you have the resources, both financially and the team. You don't just launch a country and don't go there. You have to be on the ground. We had boots on the ground and a bit of luck as well. I think luck is critical in life, but you set yourself up for that luck.

54:08So I think that that was important. But don't just rush because America is one of the greatest consumer capitalists in the world. I think that you've got to be ready that it's very different than the UK and the UK is very different than Canada and Canada is very different than China, right? So I think that once you understand that things take time, like we're not coming to the UK for at least two years and everyone keeps telling us, come, come, come, not till we're ready. I think it's a beautiful place, but until we can give you guys the full resources and the full brand of midday squares you better get what the canadians got and the u.s citizens got because it wouldn't be fair if we came here and just said let's put it in stores and that gives us a chance it wouldn't work i think it would be a lot harder you know you should talk to i think i said this to you the last time but my friend sam denigan of strong roots it's strong roots yeah frozen brands that is now being bought by mccain's but there was no cool frozen quick service restaurant style food in the freezer aisle in ireland and the uk or even it was just all kind of private label, very price driven, 80 % on promotion, sold on deal.

55:04And Sam said, okay, if I put this frozen product, these kind of kale and quinoa burgers and these broccoli bites and this kind of stuff. Oh yeah, the big one was sweet potato fries. If I put these in the really cool bags that he designed himself in the freezer, the shopper going down that aisle is demographically kind of c1d in terms of like ability to spend buying huge amounts of private label and they're just not going to be able to afford it so what do i do he's like i've pretty much like you guys having you know a refrigerated snack bar in a country where there's no refrigerated snacking so what he did was he said all right i'm just going to have to get my own freezers and put them in the aisle where the my shoppers the gen z gen x whatever are shopping.

55:49So he basically took, you know, the same approach you did. So he took 25 of the best stores, did a deal, got his own freezers in that he bought himself, made it happen. And then he had like a fan, an army of fans who went looking for it. And then he created an explosion of growth for the frozen category in the UK and Ireland and now France. I think build fans, like you said, rather than customers. And community is the best way to do it. Tell your story, emotionally connect, make people care about what you're doing other than just buying your product for a transaction. And when you do that, things will happen.

56:21We literally launched a collaboration, first collaboration ever yesterday. Yesterday was the first one we've ever done product collab with this company called Coconut Cult. Yeah, Coconut Cult, great brand. It's basically probiotic yogurt. It's coconut yogurt. And we launched our first flavor midday cookie dough, Coconut Cult. Within 13 minutes, it sold out. And the reason being is because both of us have very strong fan bases that wanted to show up to number one support, be part of, experience, try. And the only way to do that is not by just creating a great product. Unfortunately, you need to connect.

56:52You need to build emotionality, show up on the ground, make people feel something. When they do that, they're going to want to do tons of support for you. But again, I will say both brands involved have incredible products that are effective. They work. They keep you satiated. They improve your gut health. So it makes sense. At the core, I love what you were saying before about this emphasis on product and how that actually at the core is the most important thing. You need to forget about product. A hundred percent, because that's not as sexy as marketing or telling stories or speaking on a stage.

57:24But it's all about the product. It's all about the quality of the product and how effective it is. I just wanted to ask, you know, Perfect Ted, how do you feel about international expansion? Where are you going next? Are you able to share with us? We are in a lot of countries already. Yeah. So we have a presence in about 50 countries. And we're predominantly in Europe. The Middle East is massive. Is this through wholesale? Many through wholesale. Predominantly, yeah, through wholesale, as well as we work with a lot of different distributors. And we're actually going to be, Shawnee and I are flying out to Australia in a little less than a month.

58:00So we're launching across the nation's largest retailer there, bringing our healthy energy to Aussies across the continent. Which is fun, fun stuff. But it's funny because we've taken a very different approach to a lot of UK brands where we've actually rejected America. We have said, not yet, not now. Because even though there is demand, which is super exciting and promising to see, we want to be ready and do it right at the right time. I think timing is incredibly important. And people forget the world is massive, right? It's a huge world out there, right? America's only 375 million people or something, but we have billions of people out there.

58:45So give some attention to the other countries, okay? Create FOMO. Yeah, create FOMO, exactly. And I think, especially as an American living in Europe, I see it's a common phenomenon you see, and we all know this, that American trends eventually make their way across the Atlantic, and the rate of adoption is much slower. So you actually have an advantage if you're bringing a concept that has come from the West and you're bringing it across Europe. And we're seeing that now, which has been incredible to experience as a brand. But we think it's absolutely critical to our growth and our path as well to 100 million.

59:21Oh, you're getting there. Marissa, do you want to hand over your mic to Shani so she can take the Q &A on your behalf? And that way you can slip off to your next event that you couldn't get out of. And we give a massive round of applause for Shawnee, who is our head of sales and employee numero uno. She believed in us when no one else did. And you have to tell everybody how you met Shawnee. We met Shawnee through Brand Growth Heroes because through Fiona Fitzpatrick, the absolute goat in food and beverage. and because I have to leave and I won't see it, I want to really give a round of applause to Jake and Fiona.

1:00:03Jake, especially, coming over here, being a legend as he is, and honestly, for inspiring me, and I can speak on behalf of Levi and Teddy, we get so much energy from everything you're doing, and it's incredibly, you know, it can be lonely. It can be really lonely when you're on this journey, and to know that there are other people out there that are hustling like you, like this entire room, And it's hard. And that's why building connection, building relationships like we have over the past few years has been so helpful to us. So thank you. Thank you for your friendship. Guys, a round of applause for Marissa.

1:00:43Shani, welcome to the stage. Big boots to fill. Big boots to fill. But, you know, I've got to thank Shani. I've already done this publicly, but Shani was my number one customer on Brand Growth Heroes. I'm B's biggest fan. No, you're not. You know, you are my number, you were my number one customer. She was the first person who signed up and paid money to my first course in 2021 during lockdown. So thank you, Shani. thing on that because it was during COVID and I remember thinking nobody has a course on like how to start a business and food and drink and this is like pre-chat gbt so like nothing exists on Google for these things and then I already loved Fee and I loved her content and I'd stood into LinkedIn DMs a couple of times and you were very kind enough to reply and when I saw that come up I was like, this is exactly what startups need.

1:01:34This is exactly the thing that everyone is looking for in this space. So yeah, I very quickly dove into the... And we've got loads of alumni in the room. Hands up if you're in the room, if you're an alumni. Yay! And very recent alumni too.

1:01:51That's the end of our first part of our Midday Squares series. Hope you enjoyed it. We're going to drop the Q &A part next week. as you know from listening to the end of this episode Shani is now taking over from Marissa Shani's head of sales for Perfect Ted and she was in as number four just after the three founders so you're going to learn a lot stay tuned as always thanks again to my tech guru and sound engineer Jip Bagan of Ballagroove and my podcast producer Catherine of Social Cues