Tenzing: How to scale a challenger energy drink

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0:41We look forward to seeing you there. I was never in it to sell it. When I started, I just thought, I love this. I want to do this. And then I got an email and it said, do not come to our office unannounced. Take so much out of you to launch a business. every can you sell you become slightly less needed

1:11I'm Richard Harpin and this is the business leader podcast where we look at the stories and strategies behind modern businesses today my guest is Hub van Bockel the founder and CEO of the natural energy drink Tenzing I wanted to find out from him why he decided to start his own business after a successful career in marketing working for other large companies. What was it like for him to scale a new retail product in the drinks market and his ambitions for his company?

1:46Well, I hope great to have you on the Business Leader podcast and I'd like to start by just telling us a bit about your career pre-Tensing. Yeah, I was always kind of interested in the kind of business marketing side. My dad was in it, actually, and he'd always come home with his, like, I remember he's coming home with his first ever, like, tomato ketchup the other way around. And I was, like, always intrigued by that. Because he was at Unilever and you were as well. I then started there as well. Father and son. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We didn't really work together, but, like, you know, went into it because I'm from Holland.

2:21I lived there at the time and yeah Unilever was kind of like the big marketing traineeship you wanted to go for so I went for that and yeah I really enjoyed it was my first ever brand was Flora so it's like functional food so I learned a lot about the functional side of things and you know reasons to believe and all that kind of stuff but then I did think like okay after a while I was there for six years so I learned a lot so you know as you know your first job a lot of good friends and then but I did feel like I'm always been a very creative person I think and I didn't I thought at one point I was more of a manager than a marketing person right so so then I went to MTV which I just saw stopped playing all music end of last year so the last one quite a big difference what got you to MTV it was like I remember like you know if you're six years you leave where you get these calls from let's say Proctor or or or other kind of like-minded companies I was like well I didn't I felt like I've done that done that and I remember like I got a call from MTV and I was like wow can you even work there like it was always just like it's a big part of my youth and I just thought it'd be so cool and I'm really glad and it was really funny because if I look back I thought that would be the end of my career because it was like it was a very small business in Europe and uh but I just I'm just gonna follow my passion so that is like if there's one learning out of that thing I think following your passion was the best thing because you never know what's gonna what a good path is anyway so you might as well just do what you love and then I was actually responsible for one of the first ever social media platforms before facebook was even around so mtv had a local tv channel called tmf and we had like there was two social media platforms and i was responsible one of them so i just looked right there in the beginning with content creation social media and then of course then red bull came along after i was three years at mtv so you're at ntv and got the the headhunting call from my red bull yes and i was in doubt because i was like do i really want to go to fm back to FMCG because I did like the creative side and the constant creation and I know there was a lot of events going on the MTV Awards which I loved and then so I but I went for talks and I realized that Red Bull wasn't just any FMCG company even back then although YouTube wasn't even around yet so when I started when was it like whatever early 2000s no no it was end of 2000s I guess MTV wasn't sorry YouTube wasn't even around so it was very it was a very event-based company you could argue but i did love events and then so i i joined uh red bull yeah still relatively early days and in a marketing role i was head of marketing for the netherlands at the time with what sort of what sort of marketing budget oh i think when i left it was i was quite you know substantial when i left after four years holland i probably had like eight million euros so you know pretty decent team of about 16 17 and then i went to you know they asked me to do head of Europe role and then a head of UK head of marketing for the UK which is obviously their budgets were yeah humongous and like huge teams and so where was the magic moment where you said I yeah I've got to run my own business and I've got that idea yeah so it started funny enough it was one of those classic ones where I I just saw obviously you see the trend of health so this was like again 2000 I started 2016 but obviously the idea was always already there for like the like that was a launch and I developed it for about years I think I left Red Bull by end of 2014 but I think actually actually pitched a natural energy to the founder to the to the CEO the big man years before that already I think at the end of my Dutch start so before years before I started Tenzi I'd already pitched it in turn and he said no then they said no yeah yeah but I think you know rightly and they've become so big by like hyper focus you know doing one thing well and it was for such a long time as a one skew one brand business you know it's like coke in that sense so very successful they did and they just didn't want to do it and so it wasn't like oh i'm going to do this straight i didn't even think of that back then to be honest i'm still enjoying it a lot a lot but then i think after eight years it's like it's like a combination of facts i had actually started my one business before it was uh it was in socks so actually next to my mtv time i started the business which all went to charity so but it was a nice dabble in it because it was actually quite cool.

6:27It was before Happy Socks was around. So the internet had just started roughly. Online shopping was really small. And I thought, what clothing can you order online? No one ever, of course now they do, but then wasn't going to buy a sweater or a suit online because you have to fit it. As you're running this business in the evening. Yeah, in the evenings, in the weekends. I do remember a business that was Sock Shop, wasn't it, in the UK? Yeah, exactly. Well, Happy Socks is still around. And I think they started about two years after us. and it was a really cool brand. It was like, you know, it's called Dr.

6:56Finkelbaum. It had, you got socks prescribed for use. It had like, you know, little messages like wear once daily with clothes and it was like really fun. It was like fun. I think I'm still wearing them by the way. Yeah, we should see them later. It was a subscription model, was it? We'll send you socks every month. Yeah, no, no. You just had to order them. It wasn't a subscription yet but the interesting thing was back in the day, I think you had to sell like 2 ,000 socks a month in order to be able to outsource it. So we never even reached that. So it was like me and my wife, we were just like, you know, packing these socks in the evening.

7:30So the key things I learned from that, actually, that I took into Tenzing was I never fully committed, not also financially, but also psychologically, because I just, I was looking back, I loved the jobs I did there. To be totally honest, I didn't know anything about it. Like I didn't know anything about digital stuff. I didn't know anything about fashion. But it gave you a bit of learning as an entrepreneur and a bit of confidence to then say, right, let's go for it with Tenzing. 100 % because what always people overestimate as in difficulty you I mean you know this as a you know one of the most successful entrepreneurs you've probably spoken to many people I always find people overestimate the difficulty it is to create the product you know obviously you have to create a very good product that's the difficulty but just creating something is not that difficult yeah so tell us a bit more about Tenzing and how it came about and what it is yeah after I left I was like okay I want to stay I know so based on that knowledge I was like I'm gonna fully commit I'm going to go in an industry I know, and I want to do something that I love, because that's also what I learned from the socks, was I didn't love that, packing in socks and thinking about distribution, like, you know, that kind of thing, thinking about logistics.

8:32So doing something I really love. So I knew I loved this kind of work. And the insight was basically, people were kind of tired of artificial ingredients, high sugar, and high calorie, you know, already 10 years ago, of course. That's only increased. So I was like, okay, the simple solution is launch a drink that is low calorie and 100 % from nature. So that was the basic concept I had straight from the beginning. And then you have to, of course, come up with the most difficult things is the exact recipe and the exact name. And is the recipe secret? Is it like Coca-Cola? No, because I think with Coca-Cola, the recipe is also not that secret.

9:07It's just more like the flavor is a bit secret, which I guess the flavor is very hard to copy because no one even dared copy it really because we went about 60 % lower in sugar and we didn't replace it with anything. And most brands still to this day, they take out sugar, but they replace it with artificial sweeteners or whatever. So it was really about finding that perfect recipe that was healthy, but also still tasted good, which I guess was the key challenge for me. And then secondly, you know, so then it was really like, and that's the cool thing. I think if you start your own business as well, a lot of people want to help.

9:34So I was on LinkedIn. I found this nutritional doctor that he said, yeah, sure, I'll give you all my expertise. I actually emailed professors like how much caffeine you need, how much sugar do you need? Because I think that's the beauty of when you start something new, old businesses are always stuck with their old product. I always think if you could ask the CEO of Coca-Cola or Red Bull or whatever to say, hey, how about we just make your recipe totally natural, make it low in sugar, and you'd still sell the same amount. Of course they'd say yes. But it's too difficult if they're starting with something and the risk of changing.

10:05Exactly. They can't. Change will alienate their base. And like it happened with LucasAid when they took all the sugar out and replaced it with artificial sweetness with sugar tax. it plummeted so they're just effectively stuck with an old product that they can't do anything about and that's where you know that's where we come in and then go hey you know we can actually so i really spent a lot of time looking at what's the current latest science what can we do and also the ultra processed stuff that's now so big ultra processed foods wasn't even that big then but luckily i was already ahead of that curve so spoke to many people and at the same time that's the beauty where like the magic kind of happened I went to travel and then I found out what the what they drink in Nepal and sure what the Sherpas drink when they you know scale the world's highest mountains and they drink a really strong tea with salt then if you ever tried it's like a Sherpa it's nearly like a soup and then they have a lemon tea and I remember emailing my doctor and I said is this like what is this like this is work or is it like a cultural thing is do they take it for the taste or do they actually have a benefit and he goes actually has a lot of benefits because it's a triple hit of natural caffeine, vitamin C and electrolytes.

11:11And again, electrolytes are super popular now, but wasn't so much back in the day or 10 years ago. And that became always the basis of our recipe. And then I thought, and my dad was always a big Sherpa Tenzing fan. So Sherpa Tenzing was the first man on Mount Everest, together with Edmund Hillary. And my dad was always like an underdog man. He loved the underdog. If we'd be watching a tennis game, he'd always be for the underdog. And Tenzing was the ultimate underdog in that sense. You know, against all odds, climbed Everest. You know, it was always kind of, it was very much Europeans. You know, obviously Edmondson going to this in South Polnare.

11:46It was very European. And I think very clever putting the two together and coming up with a Tenzing name. And I think you then went to Nepal and visited the family, didn't you? 100%. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I remember, so it was when it came to me. I was, it was a bit of nearly like, I wouldn't say it was clever. It was there just like a, felt like a spiritual moment. Like, oh my God, this really all makes sense now. I think Tenzing is such a beautiful name as well. No one knows him. He's been forgotten in that sense, which is a shame because he was such a great man. The name itself is beautiful.

12:18You know, it can be pronounced in every country. Zing means energy. So it was like, wow, everything came together. Luck in that sense. And then I went to a trademark, you have to trademark the thing, it was available. And I said, do I need the permission? and he goes you don't because it's a very common name there it was the same if if someone in the pool would call the drink john so i was like well for me i want i want to speak to them get their permission my whole family ended up meeting their whole family work very closely with them still the shareholders they get a revenue share so they'd be partners into in the business right from the beginning yeah i think that's great isn't it sort of connecting with the the name that you've created and yeah very very clever yeah and just fun like you know you never knew that this was kind of that's the beauty I think of starting your business which you know too well I think in a career it's more like laid out with a business you never know what's going to happen and I never expected to go on this journey as I hope you were 42 when you set up Tenzing yeah I think that was the same age as the at the founder of Red Bull yeah is that difficult because you've got a mortgage you've got a family you've got responsibilities or is that the right age because you've learned so much elsewhere and that gives you the confidence to be successful as an entrepreneur.

13:31I think people, I mean you were in that sense quite impressed with starting your business at 28. I think funny if the average age is also, no I think the average age people start the business at 45 or something and then the most successful age funny I think is around 42. Personally I think it's a great age because you still have all the energy and you've got all the experience right so and the network, which is very important. But I remember telling my wife, I was like, I think I'm going to want to start my own business. And in the beginning, she was like, really? Because my whole kind of, you know, I had a good salary at Red Bull.

14:03I had this housing allowance because I came from Holland. And she was not that keen. We had twins, so they were like seven. Life in London is expensive. So I said, could you give me a month? Again, I didn't have any name. All I had was that insight, right, of a healthier, natural, low-calorie energy drink. I said, give me a month. I'll look at all our finances and I'll work out the concept. She's also kind of in marketing and business. So I actually did a PowerPoint presentation for her. So she sat at the kitchen table and she was like, I first did the finances and I said, here's the bad news.

14:37We have to move house. We can't afford a house with a garden. The kids have to be in the same room. So we had to like, we lived in Chiswick, you know, we had a beautiful Virgin Active Chiswick membership. We had to go. So we really had to cut back And we didn't have to suffer anything, but probably cut back. And then secondly, I said, I probably won't be able to take salary for about three years, which turned out to be like four and a half. Luckily, she had a job so we could continue on her salary with that kind of cutting back. And then secondly, I presented the presentation to her. I said, you know, this is how big the market is.

15:10I think there's a better for you option. Two billion pound market, I think. Two billion pound market. There was no such thing as natural energy then. we were actually the very very first ones that kind of had a better for you option and i remember at the end she just goes this can work this could work if you can sell this to your wife you can sell it to anybody exactly exactly maybe gave you the confidence we'll come on and talk about how you sold it into retailers yeah yeah no it's a good one because yeah it's a lot of business that you didn't go out and say oh i need a load of um investors i think you what you bootstrapped the business yeah and why um it was part like funny enough i think i was a bit naive in that sense i think i was like you know i hadn't obviously i'd started one business before i was thinking maybe not even two things one is like how easy it would be i thought if someone told me how difficult it was i don't know if i'd do it again but it is genuinely like very very hard like and i just thought because the insight was so clear 80 was roughly the number that was worried about all these bad things that were in there, high sugar, artificial ingredients, just solve that issue and they'll buy it.

16:19But it doesn't work that way. So it just takes a lot longer. And the other one is that I didn't know a lot about funding or fundraising. And I remember I met a guy, and I realized back then I was quite investable, being the head of marketing, coming up with the first better for your option. So everyone I spoke to wanted to nearly invest. Well, I wanted just their advice. And the first guy that really wanted to invest, I'm doing a proper proposal, said, I'll give you, and I just had, again, no name, nothing. And he said, I'll give you£600 ,000, but I won 55 % of the business. And I think if he would have said, give me 40 % of the business, I probably would have done it.

16:56Yes, I'm really happy. I bet he's looking back now and regretting that he was too greedy. I know. I guess he was because he just came out of a big job. I think that was also not a very experienced thing for him to say because I don't think if you're just starting, I don't want to give a 55 % of the business. that could have just stayed at Red Bull, like, you know, you can work for someone else. And doesn't bootstrapping also give you the discipline of keeping it small and learning rather than saying, oh, I've got loads of investor money and I'm going to sort of blow it on getting too big too quickly before I prove the model.

17:28Couldn't agree more. And that says, again, luck nearly that this guy came and I was like, no, I'm not going to do that. Then I got a bit of a side. Then I spoke to my dad. I had to go loan in for about, I think, about 90 ,000 euros. I didn't pay any. And I wrote a book, actually, while I was at Red Bull. Although Red Bull, I wasn't allowed to publish it under my own name because they didn't like me thinking that I would share Red Bull secrets. But it wasn't about that. It was about how it was called the social brand, how to be kind of social in the social area and give more than you take, kind of be a brand that actually contributes.

18:01And I published that under my own name. And then I did a lot of speaking gigs. And that kind of funded. so I would do that from the Tenzing business so I would just get money obviously we weren't making a profit with Tenzing so it was, you know, from a tax perspective it was also great all totally perfect and then, you know, so that money would and I'd earned quite a bit of that over the years so that then funded and then it kept super simple like second we went in a hotel we sat Citizen M for about three, four years worked at Citizen M so instead of making like £50 ,000 mistakes you make£5 ,000 mistakes and you just automatically bootstrap Yes, I am really all for that.

18:37But equally, you're up against some big brands and big marketing budgets in Red Bull and Monster. How did you build a brand at low cost? I think that's probably one of the most, I always think if people watch this and people watch other entrepreneurs, I'd be very skeptical taking on any advice. Obviously, the closer you are to the market, the better. But I think one advice that always works is focus. you know it's like so I realized so like I said I thought it was gonna be easier I thought they'd go oh this is better for your option I put natural energy on the can should be quite clear but it doesn't work that way right you know that the current uh you know habits are just in to enter in drenched in people with extreme marketing extreme budgets extreme claims extreme amount of like distribution so I realized very early on hyper focus so only London first of all I did nothing online i didn't even do anything really on socials other than my linkedin so it was really like you know linkedin was a thing for me but also just kind of in shops and i would just you know sell into a shop let's say um planets organic and we would just sample it every single day and we'd become the best-selling drink in planets organic and then with that data you can go to like whole foods and then you sample there every single day and then with that days you go to holland barrett so that was one way to focus the other way to focus was through communities so we have a climbing heritage and we were also again it was an amazing time because bouldering that's now a big sport just started in London so I think there was three bouldering two, three bouldering walls, you know bouldering?

20:11It's like indoor climbing and there's now like 180 bouldering walls in all the UK and we are in every single one of them And good brand association between the two It's all about clean living it's a great community so we grew with that community We helped grow, I'd like to believe. And I'm a big boulderer. I go three times a week with my son and with my team. And then we added the running community. So we were very, and we worked with that, you know, with the runners. We organized run clubs, Strava. So very community led. We really built it. Influencers and ambassadors was the role? No. And I also thought, again, from a Red Bull perspective, if you look at the competitors, it's like it had to look like, where can I compete?

20:55you know, Red Bull is very good at looking at talent early on. I don't think I've ever said this on public thing, but I signed Max Verstappen when he was 12. In Holland, we found him, we signed him, and, you know, and there's no way I can compete with that. Their budgets they have, and it's very individual. Like, you know, all those artificial legacy brands, let's say, they all work with the best individuals. And I was quite soon, I wanted to be about community. So we worked always, like, our events is always invitation. So again, the big guys don't do any real invitational events. So climbing, running, any other areas that would help build the brand?

21:32Those were the two. And then we add like the gym, like the gym girl, like CrossFit to that mix as our last one. And now we're looking at some other sports, but again, taking it really slowly. I love the best example, I think, in that sense, Strava. I love that brand. And they were like cyclists only. You know, it's such a great story where they said this app could do anything as long as you moved. but they didn't open it up to runners until like 80 years. He said the biggest debate they had internally was when to open up to runners. Staying very disciplined and focused then which is important.

22:03Yeah, and then you can make the experience really true for that community as opposed to like, you know, dabbling in lots of different ones. So I think in the running community we are the number one brand and in the climbing community we're the number one brand. And I think that's, and then now, so we had this about nearly 10 years now. Like what other communities do you go to and like do that really you know and if you do it we have to do it well and then distribution how are you going to get this product into some of the big retailers and maybe if you've got that powerpoint and you persuaded your wife then similar powerpoint that could persuade some of the big retailers yep i was so tesco was the very first one um you know i have to give a lot of credit to them in the uk environment i think they are a real leader when it comes to um you know they've got all these incubator programs that I was part of.

22:54And talk us through how you prepared for the pitch, how you got in through the door. It's really an interesting one because I heard they had an innovation day. So what you tend to do as a founder or whatever, and you try and get your stuff into retail or anywhere, you know, long-winded emails is a potential downfall. You know, this is what's great about it. And I remember in the beginning, I got like, you get so much turned down. I remember someone said, I get inundated with these things. I even had to Google the word inundated, and it wasn't a very nice thing. Didn't the Selfridges buyer have you in tears when you met him and he said no?

23:32Yeah, 100%. That was my... I remember because I just started. And I remember because I was also like, where do I start? I'd only marketed big businesses. So when you start a new one together, well, you've got to do the trickle-down system. Go to Selfridges first, and then you get Whole Foods, and that's the classic. And then Alden Barrett, and then you get a Waitrose. So I thought, okay, I need to go to Selfridges. Then Selfridges was like, they said no. And then I heard, obviously, their offices are above the store. So it's like, if you go there, they'll always come down. And it was like January.

24:02This was done exactly 10 years ago now. And there with my cans. And he came down and he saw me and he saw my cans. And he said, I told you I wasn't interested. And he walked back up. And I was like, I was caught. and I literally cried because I was like because obviously everything hits you we just moved to a smaller house when I put my family through so that's like the pain that you feel then that you mentioned in the beginning like God did I do the right thing and you're thinking wow this is this might not work or it's a combination also like of which I also had to be honest about if you are if I was head of marketing for a huge brand huge budgets I had an assistant I could ask my assistant get a meeting with the global head of Sky Sports and the guy would come to my office the next week and here I was like I was all by myself I couldn't even get like you know a meeting with the buyer of Selfridges you know so it's like but you learned from that knockback and that helped you to get into Tesco I guess so I think that it's about like keep trying it's like I read this beautiful bit about like what are the best sales people actually I didn't have a sales background but i think i'm kind of naturally good at it because i think you what you naturally need to have is two things one endless commitment and not being knocked down although i'm not going to say it was extremely painful and still is but still keep going but doing it in a friendly kind of charming way because if you kind of keep going and they're just and you're and then they'll be like so annoyed so i think one of the key things that you have to do is find creative ways uh tesco was a bit different where i remember i didn't want to send all those long emails because I'd got them at Red Bull as well of course all the time they go like we want to work with you I just like you know I didn't have time and I remember so I heard there was an innovation day and I knew of the big boss at Tesco I'd never met him or anything but knew he was I had his email so all I said was I've got I was this job I've now got the better for your option I heard you have an innovation day I'd love to come and what he did he just sent that email to his assistant he didn't even reply to me his assistant contacted me for the innovation day so I think that's a good way to just try and get it in one sentence.

26:16But if it's passed, if you go to the top and it's passed down, that has a big positive effect to it. In this case it did, yeah. The decision needs to be made. I don't think she even knew, the buyer knew that I got there through that way, because I don't think that's how Jessica works. So she, in her own right, and then there's always that bit of luck. I think you know this better than anyone, I guess. You need to get a hard commitment, like a good concept and she i remember she took a sip and she goes i could drink this and i was like high-fiving i was like so we're in like and it's so funny because again i didn't have any sales experience people like probably if you had a lot of sales and dealt with tesco like oh this is and i was just so excited and she goes well yeah well maybe and i remember calling the guy that was going to start for us as a sale as a head of sales and i said we're in we're in and he goes it can't be it can't be and then we were indeed it took us about like another nine months to get into Tesco but I think that worked well but another great example is how about like you have to be super creative I remember Sainsbury's friends we couldn't get a meeting she didn't reply to her emails at all and then at one point we thought okay what could we do to get her attention and obviously I know the the Tenzing family uh well and I said Jam Ling I said do you have anyone do you know that goes I was going to the top of Everest uh anytime soon he goes yeah yeah well my cousin or my friend is going up so we sent a Sainsbury's flag or Tenzing Sainsbury's flag to him.

27:36He gave it to his friend. We took a picture on the top of Mount Everest with St. Grynski. Very clever. Right. Yeah. And the guy had like a big mask on, so you didn't see who it was. So he came into St. Grynski's office and I went to the reception and I said, yeah, we'd like to meet the buyer and I had her name. And do you have an appointment? And I'm like, no, we can't meet the buyer. And then I took out the picture and the flag said, we came from the top of the world. They were not leaving until we meet the buyer. And everyone's like, you went to the top of the world. And I think they thought it was me as well.

28:07So it was like, oh my God. And then they, I'll sit down, I'll make sure she comes up. Anyway, she didn't come down. But I'm sorry, she can't make it now, but she sent you an email, nothing. So I had to, went back with my picture again, came from the top of the world, sit down. And then I again had to go back. And then I got an email and it said, do not come to our office unannounced. and i thought again i'm gonna this first time i got an email for her i said so great to get an email from you and then you know we kind of you know and i could show some data ready from like maybe and then we got in so it's like it's and how long was that journey from the start to well from my first email first product on the shelves of sainsbury's well i guess from my very first email my dad never replied to actually on shelf two and a half three years and the learning then is persistence, persistence, never, like we have one saying in our office, which I think more than anything is important, always love your buyer.

29:09Love everyone you work with. Always love your buyer. Yeah. Right. Because I've heard so many people in my industry where you're so dependent on retailers who go like, he's an arsehole, she doesn't, she doesn't get back some of my emails. As soon as you think that, you're lost. How wide is the distribution today in terms of... We're in every retailer. Yeah, we're in every single retailer. Obviously, we don't have, you know, in some reasons we're in all retailers and other retailers were in specific amounts of them. But we're in all of them. And yeah, so that's like, you know, before that happened again, probably like six years, seven years in, you know, so some of these things take long.

29:42And, you know, Waitrose, we're now got a great relationship. They're great. They've really stepped up their game as well from an innovation perspective. There's a new buyer there. It's amazing. But I think the whole principle of always having super, a lot of respect for the other person because they are inundated. They get this all the time. so as soon as you feel somewhere that's an ass or that's an I don't like that person they'll feel that and you're lost so I think every time like if someone says that in the team still to this day like oh they didn't get back to me yeah well of course let's talk a bit about the the product range Red Bull is single product you've got quite a range of different flavored products How do you decide how many, how many SKUs you should have?

30:25And then the bundling into multi-packs. I saw that you've got a, people can buy 48 cans at a time. Yeah, yeah. So we actually, so that was also one of my biggest strategic pivots. I thought, much like Red Bull, much like Coke, I want to have a single product, single brand business. because obviously very easy when you, you know, you also don't have to get your rate of sales. So in my business, rate of sale is everything in a store, of course. How much do you sell per week per store? So I started with one. And again, you know, that was with, you know, so there's one SKU business for probably about two to three years.

31:05And then actually with Tesco, we were like, maybe it's good to try and launch a flavor. So we launched this one, the Raspberry. And it was also like pink was kind of a cool color. I love it. Yeah, it's our bestseller. And then so what happened was we launched it and from day one it outsold our original. So I was a bit like, oh my God, because I was like, you know, my original, I wanted to be that my neck oil or my, you know, your base product that you build the others around. But that was like, and I, and looking back, I think that's, if there's always, would you do something differently? It's hard to say, right?

31:35You know, but that is one I would have done differently. Then I would have just seen the success and pivoted on that faster. I really hold on to my original for two. We still sell it. It has a massive, I think we sell more than a million cans online only because it has a massive fan base. But those are all the original people that just stayed with it. And the number of flavors today? About seven. Yeah. And then we've got like, so we have three core flavors now on our kind of normal range. And then we have a 500 ml, which we're going to kind of relaunch. And that kind of has added benefits. So it's bigger.

32:06It's stronger, but it has added functional benefits like Lion's Mane or like, you know, for your cognitive health or like a magnesium. So we have our normal, let's say, everyday natural energy range, and then we have a natural energy plus range where we have extra benefits to it. And which allows us as well to kind of really stay on top. Like we're just saying when people are stuck with their old products, you know, I don't want to fall into that trap. And that's what like our big can range does. We can then say, OK, Lion's Man, that wasn't the thing when it was 10 years ago, but that's the thing now.

32:35So we add that to our kind of big can range. I'm a big believer in evolution. And where could that seven get to? and would you ever withdraw any of the flavors that the worst performing one yeah and then uh i think innovation is a key part of evolution just talk a little bit about that hub and i'm a big believer in that i actually did that myself you know the whole classic example of the lean startup where you start with your minimum viable product and actually looking back i did that really you know just start with the product learn along the way so we did we are a brand that has changed and we've always been very consistent tensing the logo has been the same but we have you know changed the the because obviously we had to change it a bit because i thought was a single skew business and if you go to flavor range it has to look different so we've always you know slow evolution but also the flavor has allowed us to kind of really keep our rate of sale on top of the game so we see one actually not doing that well we'd launch another one difference is that peach was our last full flavor that we launched extremely successful it's our most successful after raspberry so you know that you know we launched that in waitrose and immediately sold on par raspberry which our best seller so it's also really one of my favorite flavors so sometimes you just get it all get it right the color has to be right you know it's it's in there it's always a bit of like magic has to come into play but i think you know and that's the beauty to say for us tenzing has the strongest repeat rate of any drink on amazon amazon you get the hard numbers so average i think is around 50 i repeat purchase 80 so that's why i say our original has so many and finally if people start so we do a lot of course people start drinking Tenzing because it's a better free option they're looking for I want the energy but I don't want the jitters or the crash I don't want other artificial ingredients I don't want the high sugar levels that's why they usually start drinking it they actually stay because it makes them feel good and it tastes good when we say raspberry and yuzu there's actually raspberry and yuzu in our can so it tastes like a raspberry well all our artificial competitors put like a whatever apple on the can They even have a picture of it on the can, like Celsius new brand.

34:35But there's not a trace of that fruit actually in the can. And I think people are a bit tired of that as well. It's like nearly misleading advertising, I think. And it just doesn't taste as good. It doesn't taste as fresh. If people stay because it makes them feel good, you don't get the crash. And also it tastes good. And does Amazon help to provide you with some of the learning about customers and what's happening in the market? Yep, Amazon. And we have a D2C arm now as well. So it's not like I said, we're really a grocery first business or a retail or any shop base, or whether it's climbing walls or grocery.

35:07And then we started to add on Amazon. So actually, just before COVID, we started on Amazon. Plus your own online B2C business. And that also gives us the insights. Indeed, it's not only a good way of finding new customers and getting awareness, but it's also a really great inside piece. I'm a big believer in Omnichannel. Is there any other distribution routes that you haven't done yet that you could do in the future? What we've never done and we've always kind of actively stayed away from is the on-prem or the on-trade. So like in bars or clubs or whatever, which was how kind of Red Bull started back in the day.

35:43But, you know, and as you know, we had the Heineken investment last year. They took a minority stake in the tensing business. So it's one area we could potentially look at. But I'm not, I don't know what you think. I'm not 100 % sure because obviously there's a lot of people going to Nook. I don't want to be a mixer. I don't want this to be like the new Jager bomb, right? But if people don't drink, it's like a perfect drink to drink because you get a bit, you know, on the evening. Yeah, I still feel that the move to non-alcoholic drinks, there isn't a big enough range in restaurants and pubs. Yeah.

36:16No, so it could be a good angle to go. It's like, I hear a lot of the separate striping. Have you heard the theory where you go, I'll have a beer and then I'll have like a water or something else just to kind of not get too drunk and have a nice night. You know, we can play a good role there. We have two beers and then a Tenzing, for instance. So, yeah, it could happen. And, of course, with our new partner, that might be a totally new channel. So whether you could sort of target some specific restaurants or pubs that are in tune with your brand. Yeah. And ideally on the cocktail menu, there's a page which is pictures of your products yeah exactly so that could be something we could try out and do with exactly like you say we try different restaurants and see where it sticks and it was also like for us because it's a very expensive channel to tackle expensive in what way?

37:13let's say you want to go to Wetherspoons for instance I know that there's big contracts with one energy suppliers so of course you know let's say the likes of the retailers don't have that they want to have choice while the big uh on trade partner she said would have one so in that sense it's expensive and the other hand there's a lot of independence so it means more like more feet on the street you have to like win them one by one so yeah it's expensive channel in that sense

37:41let's talk a little bit about people and your leadership team and how many people are in the business today what are the skills and how have you um how have you how have you recruited and found your leadership team and developed the organization so we're about kind of just over 20 now um so there also i've also been like you know i don't want to it's all you know again you know there's better than most you know it's all about the team is the most important thing that you do right there's so i think you know finding the right team evolving that you know uh into like you know getting now we actually we've just since the investment we've got some real experience in we used to really like a grad you know business where you get like lots of grads in and then there's always these beautiful and then they tend to stay because that that are just amazing you know and then they move up into the business and so that's what that's been our um kind of really key philosophy also just basically because we didn't have the money to hire like and i'm also i've never really believed in hiring like very big people that have a corporate background or so yeah i think it's mainly been through my network and then hiring uh you know trying to hire as good as grads possible and very often the the best ones come to us so they would then have seen us you know we've got one freddie who like you know so he was you know at uni in cardiff saw the brand loved the brand got in touch and said i'd love to work for you guys and he's still with us five years later, you know.

39:07And the key ones have kind of nearly always kind of come to us in that regard because they're like what we stand for. We haven't really touched on that, but we've got real sustainabilities at the heart of what we do. So one of the key first things I said, we want to take our energy from nature and want to give back as much as we can. So we carbon label. We know exactly our carbon footprint. We're B Corp certified. We use rainforest lines ingredients. And we kind of don't tend to talk about it that much because I think in the energy decision tree, it's not that high up you know people want effects and then they want no crash and then they want good flavour and what are the gaps in the management team are there any roles that you're currently trying to fill or you've got the full team so we're actually looking for someone at the moment to you know so our so we are in the retail we're really big right now we're nearly the third brand so you've got obviously Red Bull, Monster and then us which is quite special You know, we've passed the lines of rock star and relentless.

40:07But where we're really still behind is the whole convenience channel. You know, so that means literally all your corner shops. There's 45 ,000 corner shops in the UK. And that's obviously you have to go one by one nearly. So there we're not even scratching the surface yet. Now, Heineken is going to support us there. So they have a whole team that's going to visit. But we want someone to come in and manage that. So we have our own group we call the Mountaineers. So they go out, they have their little mountain, let's say their area in London. So we've got four or five of those. And they're all amazing.

40:33and then we need someone to manage the wholesalers. So that's like the likes of Booker, you know, the bigger wholesalers. So you manage the wholesalers and you manage a team of very enthusiastic, great people. So that's the kind of role we're looking for at the moment. And you talk about having a flat hierarchy. Just talk a little bit about that. I've always hated having bosses and I have had amazing bosses, right? It's not that it wasn't, but I always, I was very, and I think maybe it was more of a sign that I should start my own business, but I never listened to anyone. Some people loved it and some people hated it.

41:09And I was like, one of the key things I actually wanted to start for myself was like, I'm always so stubborn. Let's show myself what I'm capable of. Like, are my ideas indeed better than I thought? So then I remember when I started and I said, I don't want to be the only one who benefits from not having a boss. So I'm like, I'm not going to be a boss. I just want everyone. And also when you're smaller, it kind of works because you don't want to have all these layers when you're a team of six or anything. And we even went so far, you know, as to go. So you chose your own coach. So we didn't have the term boss.

41:45We called a coach. You came into the business. You chose your own coach. You could fire your coach. So the coaches were always in the management team or something? Well, we didn't really have a management team. Hire a coach externally. No, no, it was always internal. Right. So you go like, oh, I think I'm going to go into this job. I think I can learn a lot from that person. I want him as my coach. So it was always like a quite cool thing because you'd be honored like, oh, hey, I'd call her. Hey, Katie, you've been chosen as a coach. She's like, oh, wow, really? So it was really nice. And I took it so far that I said, okay, I'm not the boss.

42:12I'm not going to decide on salaries. So again, read a lot about it. And then I was like, so what I did was together with our CFO, we made a pot, like what happens in a normal company. So you have a salary increase pot. So, and then I said, and then we did, so I said to the guys, this is the total pot, you know, let's say 30 ,000 pounds, whatever to share. You have a look at yours, we call them summits. So we have our whole kind of, you've got the mountaineers and summits. So summits is what you want to achieve that year. Yeah, I love the mountain technology. Yeah, exactly. So you could see if you'd achieved those, you have to look at them yourself and you could check them with your coach.

42:48And then we did a 360, which we still do today. So do your 360 on key attributes of leadership attributes. And then you could see how you scored versus the rest of the team. It was super open. And then my thinking was, okay, I will say, let's say I scored highest. I hit all my summits. There's a 30 ,000 pot. We're with six people. So average is 5 ,000. So I think really well, I'm going to go for seven. Anyway, that massively backfired. Why? The first guy I spoke to once, the whole pot. Our relationship, you know, whatever. That wasn't a great moment for us. but um but but i think i i also just wasn't wasn't a great strategy because i think it was like that the the psychological the psychological aspect i hadn't thought through enough because people are like what if i i'll have two and someone just grabs 12 so we stopped that and to be honest now we've gone bigger we have got a bit more hierarchy in place where we go like you know i think i still believe in the flat structure like it's not like you have to go like if you don't report directly into me i'm right there in the office every day like you can come but everybody still has a coach Everyone still has a coach.

43:54Who's your coach? Well, I don't have one in that sense. But I always make sure that, like, you know, my wife is extremely good and she's always been my... Like, I've got a lot of... Like, I've got a friend who started his own advertising agency, became advertising agent of the year twice in Amsterdam. So I'd, like... I always try and find my coaches. So I'd have, like, a coach for specific areas that I'd make sure to get. Because I realized early on that is important. And also, to be honest, our CFO, she's, like, very experienced. She's actually out in Seattle. so she works part-time. She's very objective, very good and I'd also like, you know, just call her for specific things.

44:28And what about mentors? Do you believe in that? Have you had mentors over the years, Hub? Not so much. I would say, also really nice, actually right in the beginning, my dad a lot. So when, you know, because obviously, you know, he's also been in marketing and he also, of course, tell me you need people like, you know, so I've got my wife, my dad. You need people to tell you how it is, right? I think that's always one of the most important things once you get higher up somewhere people are not that honest you know i think that's also i remember that very well from my uh red bull days when i'd presenting to the big man and i remember i read a book once long story but i read a book about mal this is his the personal physician of mal wrote a book when he passed away and like and no one dared to speak against him you know it was the classic example when he did the industrial revolution and people had to like burn their kind of spades and stuff and like, I don't know, hundreds of millions of people died and he always went around in his train and they always put a couple of people that still looked alive besides the train.

45:25And I was like a regional manager, let's say in Mao's regime. And I said, oh, Mao, your strategy is so amazing. Look at all my... Because if you would screw up, he would say it's your fault. And I saw that in big companies where I've always been... Yes, people. You've got to have people that can say you're wrong. 100%. And that's down to the boss. You can't go like, oh, why are you not speaking up? Well, because then you'll, you know, they don't feel. So we have one of the things. So we've kind of let the whole flat hierarchy go because it didn't work. As soon as we got bigger, you can't say, I'll choose a coach that's not even in, you know.

46:02But what we have done, and we've just done it actually Monday. We do, for instance, speed feedback sessions. So we go, everyone gives feedback to me and everyone to each other, right? Not only me, just like you get five minutes. It's one way. and all you're allowed to do is you're not allowed to go, yeah, but you're also, you know, so you're really open and it's really beautiful and we do that twice a year and therefore we totally normalize feedback. And so I, for instance, I always want to make sure that when I give feedback twice a year, there's nothing new there. So I always, if I see something, I always give feedback and I always expect people and I tell them every single day, please just tell me how it is.

46:36The most people that I respect, I respect, I literally, it's also maybe a bit of a Dutch culture thing. If someone goes, that's a bad idea, I know, like, I love that. But I think you have to make sure that that's constantly there. And I think even in a small business, don't underestimate that. If you're a founder and you're young and you've got five people, don't just think they'll give you the... Short feedback and regular feedback. Yeah, and just to make it normal. What about the international opportunity? So we're available in a couple of countries, Australia, Switzerland, and the Netherlands.

47:10But, you know, like I said in the beginning, you said exactly it's two billion you know even if you look at like the out of home price people says nearly three billion like if you add sports and energy three billion total so like just focus on the uk we're only scratching the surface here still i think there are many businesses that go international too early and lose focus on the core country yep but how did you um how did you decide on those three international countries uh it was a combination of like um so holland was like i moved to the Netherlands back in COVID. Well, I didn't obviously do that for COVID, but I remember landing on Schiphol Airport and stores closed for the very first time on that day.

47:53Not a great moment to launch a business in a second country. So that's where I was from. I moved there. What I noticed there, for instance, is really interesting. Also, purely myself, take so much out of you to launch a business. Again, I can't stress that enough. The little example of like you know the selfridges like you know it it's this it's a funny story now but if you get that every day for half a year you know which you get or a year and years it is tough and it just and i would go out every day myself go to a local gym sell it i'd be like king's college was one of the first the university is also a big bus we're actually the number one drink in all london universities but i would go there every day sample sample sample i went to back to king's college she was the same uh yvonne her name was she's the same catering manager and we like we hugged because i was there like nearly every week and then going to holland i couldn't do that again i was like you know a couple years older but no that wasn't the point really i said i went to like my the local gym no one knew tensing and i after two weeks i was like i can't do this anymore i i just said that to myself it was like so then you so i hired a team and then you just got to be clever about it of course but i think that's that's a lot of why a lot of people don't make it in a second country is they just think it'll be easier but it's not it's going to be exactly the same and you need the same resilience the same time so i think yeah i think so be really mindful and we want to bring it to a next level at at the uk where we're just we're so big so effectively we're the number three in london at the moment and if we're the number three in the uk we are already a really big size you've mentioned a couple of times heineken took an investment last year yeah just talk a little bit about how that came about it's really interesting our investment journey and that sounds very different to most like i was talking to you before about like we never we had all this interest and we went to like friends and family angels we never closed any of them because every time we got more interest then we got one uh company that invested but that kind of um they had a change of management and that kind of they didn't want they were an asian business and they didn't want any kind of which i understood they didn't want anything in the uk or abroad anymore really but that put us into a bit of a tough situation where like how are we going to get them out or they wanted out and then at the end we came to a really good agreement that we we could buy them out but it was high risk because we had to then i had to remortgage mouse again this was a year and a half ago again sit down with my wife look at the finances another powerpoint presentation a lot of excel this time yeah bought them out then went out to look for investors and it was really interesting because i have funny i've never worked with a pe or a vc firm and i've kind of liked working with the and they're funny like so then heineke came along and then we were looking at a lot of like vcs the main thing of course there were a lot of those they were really and they believe in long term it's a real long-term stretch for them where the pe's and they're much more kind of short term i could turn around because i need to kind of you know get the money back so that was a key thing i liked i just liked the people and then the other bit is that in the convenience channel it's 45 000 stores like i said we were in like red bulls of course or coke is in 45 000 of them we were in like i'm not kidding in 83 of them you know so we need and for that you need feeds on the street as they say like you know your sales force and they have that so in as part of the deal they're going to visit all those stores for us and it's great because heint and the all the beers are in that uh fridge and we're in that fridge so you know so that was a big but are they then leaving you alone to get on and run the business or are they um more so no no no i think more so than if vc would because i think so we have i have a quarterly uh update it's very much and so in in our board is the head of marketing so he's of course got a lot of big brands just to think about and you know i just find them just very sharp very kind of uh willing to work we've had like some change that we needed to do for for in the contract easy you know so i've been they've been amazing and it's nearly been a year of course but i know but the cool thing is actually only like kick-starting now because they're only gonna the whole uh um kind of feet on the street only starts in in a week time so then we'll really start to benefit from how does it having a um a minority See trade buyer influence your future one day, selling the business, contemplating an exit?

52:26Yeah. So they were all, they of course have first picks, as you can imagine. You know, so if we do well and we continue to grow like we're currently growing, they will most likely think, hey, this would love to make this part of our business. But if not, like we've also got, you know, I'm, I would, and that's also I think an interesting one that I would also recommend, And I guess you'd recommend the same. I was never in it to sell it. When I started, I just thought, I love this. I want to do this. To be honest, a tiny bit inspired by the red. And I didn't think I was getting it that big. But just like having a business that you love doing.

53:00And just, you know, doing that. So I was, and I heard so many, oh, start this, exit in two years. And I was like, really? It always takes longer than you think. So if you have a mindset, I'm just going to do this forever. Then at least that's, that's like kind of covered. so I love it I didn't I also like there was an element of like do I want to burden my kids with it you know do you want to kind of say well then you have to take over the business which I didn't want so you know so I'll see what happens but yeah for now I'm absolutely loving it and we'll keep on doing it You've been listening to me Richard Harpin speaking to Hub Van Bockel of Tenzing for the Business Leader podcast Please do rate and subscribe to us wherever you get your podcasts.

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