Meet The Marketing Genius Behind PerfectTed | $200M Brand Masterclass | Marisa Poster

23:29Sell, market, sell. You want to get it out there as much as possible. You're not necessarily so focused on the numbers. But we knew that they were going to grill us on the numbers. They were going to grill us on order quantity that Holland and Barrett placed, you know, that first purchase order. They were going to grill us on our monthly turnover, of course, our margins. and to be honest, Teddy and I really didn't know because we were just so in it.

23:52Marisa Poster:Yeah, that's so interesting. Yeah, when you're working in the business and it's just two people because at the time it was just Teddy and I full time. Levi was still working a day job which was very helpful because it funded the business. But when you're just so in it, you have very little time to work on it. So you're really rarely lifting your head above the clouds to think big picture. So at that point, when you're selling your product to Holland and Barrett, do you know what your margins are or anything like that? Or you just you roughly know that it's somewhat profitable or. You know, you know what your margins are for that initial run.

24:27You have an idea of what your margins can get to with scale because you do you benefit from economies of scale as your your volumes increase and thus your margin improves. And but we just knew that we we didn't even break even. we did make profit, which I'm really proud of. But we knew that over time, it would be more profitable. I think in that case, we knew what it would be. But otherwise, business-wide, we didn't really know because it's not just Holland and Barrett we were selling to at the time. We were selling to other chains, wholesalers, independents. We were already working with Facebook, which is a great story of how we got listed there.

25:04But yeah, we didn't know anything. And then we spent five days essentially studying everything, memorizing somewhat of a script, looking through the most successful Dragon's Den deals on YouTube and just studying every question that the dragons could possibly ask. Like we tried to anticipate everything. We didn't sleep. We didn't eat. It was like, it was really, imagine you're cramming for a midterm or a final at uni or something like that. That's what it felt like.

25:35Marisa Poster:Did you know what you wanted? Like, did you need, did you want investment? Did you need investment? how important was this for you both? The way that we thought about Dragon's Den was really as an advertising campaign. We knew that to have a segment on the den would be equivalent to millions and millions of pounds in marketing. And we just wanted to make good TV. I think we, if we went on now we would have done it differently but we wanted to be cheeky but not too avant-garde. We wanted to push it, but not too much because, of course, we were still early and we didn't want to take such a big risk.

26:13Really, for us, the goal was to end with five yeses. Wow. Because I'll tell you why. There's another brand that went on a year or two before us and they got five yeses. And we knew how rare that was. And because it was so rare, they had so much buzz around their segment and so much PR around the airing. And we just knew how good that could be for the brand.

26:39Marisa Poster:Yeah. The worst thing that could come of it is that they hated the drinks. They thought the business proposition sucked. And they said no. Yeah. But we just wanted to, we wanted to do everything in our power to get them all as close to a yes as possible. And we're really lucky because that's what happened. And it was really surreal because we said that's obviously the goal. We have high standards and we have great aspirations. but it might not work out and we have to be okay with that and just talk to me a little bit about the pitch because i think there's so much curiosity online about this like what actually happens on dragon's den are you there for five minutes are you there for two hours is there like a pre-grilling um and then you also i think it's quite iconic your pitch because you both come in you both come in in green yeah teddy's wearing green sweatpants and i'm wearing a green vest under a blazer yeah even that was genius because it's like it's such a pattern interrupt up to you like who the hell are these two people wearing bright green why are they in green what is this what is like for people who are out there thinking what is it actually like is it staged are the questions predetermined like what what's the experience actually like so you're actually not allowed to go on the show if you've ever had contact with the dragons before interesting so we did not we had no communication with them ahead of time them we didn't speak to them nothing you You speak to the producers who are lovely and you prepare a pitch that's around a minute and a half, two minutes.

28:11And you do a few walkthroughs before you can practice several times. Funny enough, because we only had five days to prepare, Teddy and I. The only time we ever nailed our pitch was when you saw it on air. Wow. Because every time we practice it, we fumbled. even the two times that we did it in front of the producer as the practice and we were freaking out because we were like oh my gosh we can't fumble because then that'll ruin the flow it'll knock our confidence so we were so lucky that we just the pressure was on and i guess we're good under pressure yeah um but you walk through you do a few takes going up to the elevator elevator is not real i think most people hopefully know that by now but i was kind of surprised to learn that and you're actually in there for a really long time.

29:01We were in there for about an hour and a half.

29:02Marisa Poster:Wow. But they edit it so seamlessly. It's really beautifully edited that you wouldn't know. It doesn't feel as jumpy at all. It feels quite natural, actually. What you don't see is a lot of the very granular questions about the business. You're not given questions in advance. You are really not told anything. The only thing that was unusual about our pitch was that, you know, you go into the fake elevator, the doors open. And as you can imagine, the dragons are all sitting there. And in this case, the year that we were on, it was still kind of COVID. And they had a six foot rule, like or the two meter rule.

29:47and they were all so spread apart that when you were talking to Peter, you were facing, your back was facing Tuca and it was really odd. You felt like almost rude. It was quite challenging to navigate that because then Teddy and I had to stand very close together. You're given spots on the floor to stand and you walk. They say, don't start your pitch until you get to your spots. You're trying to look at the dragons and exude confidence and smile and look happy. but then you're also trying not to like overstep the spot on the floor and it's just this tiny piece of yellow tape so you you make it there you start the pitch i am so emphatic about i'm marissa and i just i'm kind of like screaming at them right and i touch my chest where my mic was and all of a sudden you hear cut and the producer comes out and i'm like oh my god what happened and you're kind of rattled for a second and they're like you touch your mic we're gonna have to redo that whole thing.

30:43You go back to the elevator and you're, Teddy and I were just laughing. So we're like, obviously this happens in like the first two seconds, but I actually think it was quite good. And it's something that Steve said he reflected on that we weren't shaken by it. Like we were kind of, we took it very much in stride because that's just what happens. It's life, right? It's never going to be perfect. After that, you're uninterrupted for about an hour and a half and literally you forget the cameras are there because you're just so in flow. And it feels as though it's just a pitch to an invest to a potential group of investors um but you forget the cameras are there and it's just like a normal conversation obviously in front of five very intimidating dragons who you want to like you you know you want to make a good impression but

31:24Marisa Poster:it's just like any normal day and then you get you close the deal with steven and peter yes and And then what happens? Like you literally just walk off the set and you leave and then you. I think in non-COVID times, you actually wait to meet them, shake their hand, give them a hug. But because of the COVID restrictions that were still in place, we left. I mean, it was a weird feeling leaving because you just have this monumentous thing happen and you can't tell anyone about it. What's funny is I said I was going to circle back to it when the dragons. So two things. when we did our pitch, you finish the pitch and you say, okay, if you could please open the baskets next to you.

32:09We have our drinks free to sample. They all open their baskets. And Stephen was the only one to not try it. Wow. He didn't try the drink for about 30 minutes. Wow. Which freaked us out. It freaked Teddy out more than it did me. I actually thought it was a good sign because I thought that it was clear from that he wanted to be the first dragon to question and also evaluate us in those moments where if the dragon's not looking, you can kind of, you know, you can fall back. You can like, your posture can sink a little bit, but I think he wanted to kind of study us in a moment where we wouldn't necessarily be on guard.

32:51So I actually think that was kind of intentional from him, but

32:55Marisa Poster:But he didn't try it for 30 minutes and then asked us, the first question was, how old are you guys? And I think he could see that we were quite young at the time. But I feel like I've aged like 10 years since then. But Peter then made a comment later on about our packaging, actually. And that's what I was going to circle back to, that he thought our logo. He said, what's the name of your brand? Oh, yeah. Because I can't see your logo. and we had actually we had discussed that because we had seen in a previous episode that he he he questioned someone on it but that was an intentional decision at the time we had no brand equity no one knew what perfect head was what we stood for who we were what we did so we were like it doesn't matter we'll make it small we want people to know what match is obviously that that whole thing shifted yeah and then the show comes out like when nine months later nine months later nine months later and in that time you signed the paperwork with them both we signed the deal with steven the the i think it was 10 minutes before our episode our segment aired really it was wow the episode was actually live wow but our segment wasn't on yet that is how That's crazy.

34:13We signed.

34:14Marisa Poster:Wow. Yeah. I think for about eight months, we sent paperwork back and forth. And then it wasn't until about a month prior that we got on a call with Peter's head of investment and Stephen's brother, actually, who looks after his investments, Jason. He's great. and it was at that point that we made the decision to not take the deal with Peter because the reason why we wanted to work with Peter was because one he's just he's an icon iconic dragon of course you want to deal with Peter but we felt that the most value he would add was really in the distribution and the connections with Stephen we knew that he's a branding genius and that he is you know just his promotion alone and his advocacy is so meaningful he has such a great audience he people really trust him and we were also just I think the age difference you know we're close in age with Steve it just felt like we were in more similar parts of our journeys and i mean now it's cool because we're a floor above him in his in his office um and where we have a lot of fun honestly but it felt most aligned at the time and that's yeah we signed the deal with steven then about 10 minutes before our segment aired if someone's listening to this it's like the the opportunity to unlock distribution and awareness through channels that already exist is huge.

35:53I mean, you'd done the early iteration of this

35:57Marisa Poster:on like Kickstarter, which is like you got 10 ,000 orders from it. Then you did the coffee show where you got your like industry orders. And then Dragon's Den, I guess, is this dual vehicle where like you can raise investment, but really the awareness is crazy because how many people watch that show? About 7 million eyeballs on that. 7 million, wow. So what is the impact of 7 million eyeballs when the show comes out? Because what does that unlock for you? Everyone tells you prepare in advance for the spike. So you think, okay, how big is this spike going to be, right? We never focused so much in the beginning on D2C.

36:39We were really more focused on pushing physical channels, retail, places where people would find it naturally and pick it up. but we had a pretty good infrastructure on there and we made sure well in advance to have enough stock i think one thing that we did which if anyone is going on dragon's den i would encourage them to do or if they've gone on and they're waiting for their episode to air we approached some of the nation's largest retailers and we said we can't say what but we're going to be on a show that you've probably watched and it will have nationwide appeal and we want to tell everyone where they can go try perfect head we'd love for that to be you yeah and that was a really good pitch that's genius yeah and luckily at the time buyers at some of our largest partners now were also women and they recognized the need they said you know what when i walk when i walk up to the shelf i don't want to pick up anything and this i would pick up so we were really we had great fortune that they identified with the need and luckily the same week that our dragon son episode air aired we launched in tesco nationwide in 1200 stores wow which looking back i don't know if i would do that again because it put a lot of pressure on the system i think if you ever want to test in resilience that was probably it i mean we were literally at the warehouse packaging orders ourselves.

38:11And everything that went wrong could possibly have gone wrong. We had whisks that were custom made that we had ordered months and months in advance in a boat from Asia stuck because of, I think, some issue with the Suez Canal or something crazy, like so out of our control, things that you just don't think about as a business owner, but especially if you're importing things from abroad and sea freight is a disaster sometimes, they were stuck on a boat and we didn't know what to do. So we panicked. I said, okay, wait, we could go to Ikea. They're one quid to buy these as replacements. We can incorporate some quirky little note to the customer so that we fulfill on time, but say, hey, we've marked your order as partially fulfilled.

39:00This is a temporary whisk as a token of our apologies. And your, your whisk will be coming shortly in two to three weeks. We will keep you updated. We knew that the communication and the over-communication with the customer at that time was going to be really important. We actually set our delivery time to like, I think five to seven days because we just knew that expectation management is so important. I love the saying that happiness lives between expectation and reality. And I think if you promise someone the world and you under deliver, you're going to end up with some pretty pissed off customers.

39:36But if you tell them, look, it's going to take a little while, but we're working on it and we love you. We thank you, too, for your support. They are happy to wait as long as you're honest and open up front. It's OK.

39:49Marisa Poster:Just a quick thing. If you're enjoying this episode and getting lots of value, I've put a breakdown of all of Marissa's frameworks for brand building in my newsletter. And you can get a copy at the link in the description. Now let's get back to the episode. So what's the impact of that when it comes out? Do you sell like, how many do you sell on the website? I think did Holland and Barrett, did they have like their biggest spike ever on their website? Colin and Barrett, because we mentioned them in the episode when we were asked where we're stocked, they saw the largest traffic spike on their website that they've ever experienced, confirmed by their head of e-com.

40:28Love that. Love that stat. I think it was, I mean, we just, we sold so much more than we had actually expected. I think we did, what was it, 400K that month? the month prior we maybe did 40k wow so it was a big jump and then the month that we the month we filmed our dragon center episode we did 9 000 pounds wow and now our episode was filmed in june of 2022 this is now september of 2025 so a little over three years later, we're now doing over 4 million pounds a month. It's a big jump.

41:12Marisa Poster:That is insane. Yeah. Like how do you feel about that? How do you feel about that? Really stoked because I love that people love matcha as much as I do. I love that people understand what it is and they see the beauty with it. Yeah. It makes nothing brings me more joy than knowing that people love matcha. I don't even care if it's, I'm not going to be, I'm not going to lie. I don't even care if it's are matcha i just love that people love the product i love that they also appreciate the cultural context in which it comes from in japan um that they adopt the rituals around it i just love that it's become ubiquitous yeah but that wasn't the case uh like three or four years ago in the in the uk five years ago so maybe let's come on to how do you build a iconic brand and take a market by storm there's like so many layers to this like educating the market um explaining to them what the hell matcher is and then um selling them the benefits and everything let's start with the can like did you design this i did i did design that um it's always we're actually making changes to it pretty frequently that probably you wouldn't notice but that we obviously notice.

42:29But yes, designed it. Initially, we worked with a branding agency, but actually what I realized really early on was that the way that the brand shows up in the world, the look and the feel is so important. I personally love design. I'm a very visual person. I never knew how to do Adobe Illustrator or use any of these kind of Adobe tools, but I taught myself how to do everything. And it was actually one of the best skills that I have undertaken as a founder, because I can, the time and the money that we've saved as a result of me now being a self-taught graphic designer has been incredibly valuable.

43:11I mean, I can't tell you enough. If anyone can learn how to do it, I would recommend it. It's really, it's also fun. I find it quite therapeutic.

43:18Marisa Poster:What's important here to you? Like what do you think is important here? I mean, what I like, I like we've already talked about, like you're selling the benefits, healthy energy. It's got personality to it. There's a lot I dislike, funny enough. And I'm someone that looks at the, I'm definitely someone who can come away from a podcast and I'm like, oh, I won't think about the good things I said. I'll think about the ways that I fumbled. So that's like my frame of, I'm working on it. It's a mindset shift, but at least I'm honest. Hey, but I will say the hierarchy is super important. so the logo as well as healthy energy being like in the mid of pack the one thing that isn't so great is that our flavor is at the bottom and sometimes that can get cut off by what is called srps or shelf ready packaging so sometimes you'll see cans in a crate of cardboard on shelf in a supermarket and sometimes that can cut it off so you have to be really intentional with your srp design as well so that it is very clear what the flavor is but we're making some changes so I'm excited about that.

44:21Marisa Poster:What about the note from the founder? What I like is like if I've got this it it educates me on the product so I can see like it's got 80 mg match caffeine immunity support mental performance reduced fatigue and then a little note about you and your story I struggled with jitters and crashes from coffee and sugary energy drinks so I switched to matcha I love the difference. So I created this energy drink as a way to feel more energized like this. I don't need to know your story or see an advert that tells me anything about you and the product. I can I can learn it all from this. And then maybe I can tell my friends about it.

45:00Marisa Poster:Did you do that by accident or you? So firstly, when you're a challenger brand and you're self-funded because we didn't actually we didn't. We eventually raised a million pounds from Steven. Yeah. But up until that point, we hadn't taken on any money for the business other than our finance savings and Levi's salary. But when you have no money, you have to think of creative ways to get your brand out there. And we knew that if we could secure distribution and get it into people's hands, whether that's through buying it in a store or just sampling, they could use they could read this. Because if they're opening it and they leave it on their desk or they carry it with them to the tube, maybe they're bored, maybe they twist it, and maybe they stumble upon my story and they can see, oh, actually, a person with a real need, she identified like a solution for this need.

45:59And oh, maybe I have ADHD. You would be I mean, maybe you wouldn't be surprised, but I'm so fortunate to receive so many messages from people now to say, hey, I have ADHD. I saw that you're the founder, read your message on the side of the can, really resonates with me. I have ADHD, too. Tried your drink. Can't tell you how much it's helped me. Thank you. And just that alone, that human to human connection is everything. I think when you think about brands, I don't like to think about brands as some esoteric being like they're not a thing. I think of them as a person because people buy from people.

46:39They buy from stories. People respond emotionally to stories and they identify with them in other people's stories. So I felt like if we put that on the side of PAC and someone, even if one out of 50 customers read it, I think they'll develop a deeper connection with the brand.

46:57Marisa Poster:Yeah. Because they now know me a little bit more. And how do you feel about being the face of a brand? Like, what's that like as a burden? Is that something that is really cool or is it like a burden sometimes? I'm lucky because... It feels like a lot. Like you're on the side of a lot of cans. I know we just did our largest production run and we're now producing every week. And I think it was like a million cans just in one week, which was like wild. I mean, I would never have been able to fathom that three years ago. But yeah, it's a lot of cans to be on the side of. But I'm actually so happy to be.

47:30I mean, we're intentionally building out the team around me to help push my personal brand a bit more as well. Because I'm really happy to be a face for women, to be a face for people with ADHD and anxiety who have self-doubt. I mean, my whole life I've been afflicted with self-doubt and feelings of I'm not good enough. Not as much imposter syndrome, but just very self-critical. And despite that, I have managed alongside two incredible co-founders to create a successful brand and corral incredible people to join this mission. and come on the journey. And honestly, we have a lot of fun doing it.

48:13Like I wouldn't do this if it wasn't fun. I kind of, I just feel like life is so short and you never know what can happen tomorrow. And so why waste your time being miserable sitting in a cubicle somewhere? That's how I felt when I was working in finance. I just didn't feel like I was doing anything meaningful. So not only to have fun with the people that I love, with a team that are dope, and I genuinely enjoy the company of, but to also create a product that brings joy into people's lives, that helps people, allows them to meet their goals because they feel energized in the right way. That's such a privilege.

48:50Like I actually, I wake up every day now and I'm like, I am so grateful to be able to do what I do. I think it's so cool. And even if it's, I mean, I can't, who knows, ask me in a year from now, I'll tell you if it's a burden. I don't think it will be because I'm an open book anyways. I tell my, I tell my story on my sleeve. Um, I go deep, I go as deep as people will let me go, you know, and I don't really care cause I have so much confidence now in who I am and clarity as to who I am that I don't really care. Take me or leave me. I'm just, I'm just a gal. I'm just a gal. Uh, I'm just a gal trying to do a lot of things and I'm very nuanced as a person with like a whole lot of interest.

49:30but I think that's why I'm comfortable being the face because I want other people to see me and think if she can do this and she's weird she has ADHD she's quirky whatever she has all these other things going on in her life if she can do this then I can do something really hard and thrive

49:48Marisa Poster:at it too yeah that's such that's so cool and I think yeah it's a massive again a massive lesson if you're if you're building a brand you're building a product from zero and you've got so few assets like one of the number one assets you've got is yourself and your story and that personal touch and as you say people buy from people and they want to support people they love stories and they don't like soulless uh corporate big brands and particularly if you're a challenger like that is got to be one of your unfair advantages and by the way that is one of the reasons why very early on we made the decision that whenever we were going somewhere and you You can look in photos or videos or anything, really.

50:30If I'm ever at an event, you will not see me at said event without a can in my hand. I go so far as to say if I have to throw away my drink before entering a venue, I say this is an emotional support aid or it's a prop that I need to use throughout a talk or something. Because that is free marketing. You are, especially as a founder, if you don't believe in your brand, no one else will. How can you expect anyone else to? So I knew from the very beginning that we're the biggest assets. That's also why we wear green every day. That's why I bring samples with me everywhere. I'm a big bag girl. I'm a tote gal because I have to carry a lot of product with me wherever I go.

51:12I'm handing out cans. I'm handing out sachets. Take one, take one. Like no one else is going to do it if you're not willing to. And from the very beginning, we were always on the ground going from door to door, pitching the product, getting no's left, right, and center. But you just, it doesn't matter. Over time, it builds up and eventually it'll catch on. You asked a question earlier about how do you build it into something like this? And I think we've had really interesting tactics that other people who are starting up can think about that I've never really spoken about before. so this is a fun one we we very early on about three months into launching the drinks it must have been january of 2020 we identified several channels that we felt were really good use occasions for our drinks one of them being the office because when i thought about where i drank the most matcha, it was definitely in my cubicle in finance.

52:18So we thought, okay, how do we get it into the biggest companies in London? And we can do London because we can actually go there, we can sample, we can activate it. So we set our sights on Facebook. Facebook at the time had just moved into their new headquarters in King's Cross. And we were like, perfect. It's massive. We can send loads of drinks. And we were like, okay, but how do we get listed? Because we don't know how to get in. We spoke to some industry folk and they said, oh, you're never going to get in. You have to go through a long lengthy process getting listed with the catering manager and the distributor.

52:54So we thought, yeah, we're not going to do that. So we thought, how does a product actually get in to the selection? And surely if people who work at Facebook are requesting the product to the catering manager, maybe the catering manager will finally cave in and say, I should look into this product.

53:17Marisa Poster:That's genius. Yeah. So the side door, always a side door to the nightclub. 100%. We love the side door. Not all the big queue out the front. There's a side door. Absolutely. So we found random people who worked at Facebook. We found them just on LinkedIn of all levels and just DM them on LinkedIn. Some didn't respond, but some did. and we said hey we're a new brand we gave the spiel we said we'd love to send you some free cases of drinks and now think about it if you're just a working professional and i'm not trying to no shade at working professionals that's great but you're probably not used to having or being treated like an influencer so of course they're going to accept it i think some of them are a bit skeptical like why are you sending me free product but some of them graciously accepted and then we'd send them the tracking information followed up with them once we knew it was received and we'd ask them, how'd you like it?

54:08And thankfully, a lot of them were like, this is brilliant. How can I get this?

54:12Marisa Poster:That's awesome. And we said, well, thanks so much. Actually, you could do us a favor if you've liked them. Could you actually ask your catering manager to stalk them? No problem. They felt a degree of almost indebtedness towards us because we had gifted them something and it had a lot of value. So of course they requested it. And then And a very well-timed email to the catering manager just so happened to coincide with a load of requests for this new product, Perfect Head, and a partnership was born. Wow. That's genius. I love that. It was a lot of fun. And then it was great because it was the perfect occasion.

54:48These people understood why they needed it. And then those people in Facebook were then the people going out to Holland and Barrett, buying it on the high street. So it made so much sense in this synergistic cycle of customers. is they were getting in the office for free because Facebook is, they give free products out to people. And then they were buying it in their free time or on the weekends, on their way home, on their way to work at Holland and Barrett. It was perfect.

55:11Marisa Poster:That's amazing. Have you got any others like that? Oh my gosh. Actually, this is another really funny story related to Holland and Barrett. If you are starting a brand, and even if it's not a brand, if you're a creator and you don't have a lot of budget, whatever it is, you just really have to think outside of the box. Yeah. And I actually believe that restraint breeds more creativity because you're forced to work with what you got. So we were in very tense negotiations with Holland and Barrett, and they wanted us to pay a£12 ,000 listing fee for our drinks, and we couldn't afford that. So we said, okay, in exchange for dropping the fee, we we can give you celebrity promotion and they were like what what do you mean at the time we actually we weren't on the den we had no we didn't know any celebrities and had no idea how we were actually going to come up with it but we just thought we could make it work we thought we could knock on doors and make it happen and they said yes actually we went on cameo and we paid as an individual, not even a business account because you were that cheap because it's like eight times more expensive if you're a business account.

56:28We went on Cameo and we got Carole Baskin from Tiger King, the Island Boys, and John Burkow, former Speaker of the House, to all deliver this message that we wrote thanking or actually congratulating their friend Ted for getting his perfect products into Holland and Barrett.

56:51Marisa Poster:Yeah. Edited the video seamlessly so it looked as though we were saying Perfect Head is now available in Holland and Barrett. And it just, these three banging pieces of content, we sent it to our buyer, they loved it. They were over the moon ecstatic. And we were just like, this is it. This is why you have to think creatively and problem solve. Like sometimes, you know, you're going to get in trouble and you just have to ask for forgiveness. after the fact. But nine out of 10 times, I feel like it's worth it. It works. There's a lot here, like I feel around like the brand values. Do you have brand values?

57:30Marisa Poster:Like what are they? It feels like there's fun and there's like craziness and stuff like that in there. Is that fair or? It's funny because we actually, at a baseline, we have like several base values that we believe everyone needs to have coming into the company. That is like kindness, respect, things that underpin just like a decent human being um i think when you think about The brand values, positivity, that's pretty much the main one. But we actually abide by a set of virtues because we believe virtues are what you behave and values are what you believe. And we believe in behaving and putting thought to action as opposed to just believing aimlessly in something.

58:17so our virtues are actually not at all about creativity or fun um i think that just is about the type of people that we attract because honestly we work so hard that it has to be fun to make up for it you know what i mean it like if it's not fun then what's the point but i feel like creativity does underpin everything that we do and truthfully it's more of this earned first mentality that we have we we barely spend a penny on digital marketing yeah like we have barely invested in paid ads meta is i'm not even that well versed in meta advertising as a result so and actually i think kelly recently told me it's just changed but we spend like one less than one percent of our turnover on marketing wow because a lot of it is earned i'm excited to share that

59:11Marisa Poster:This episode is brought to you by a sponsor, which is my business, 7x Content. We're a full service podcast agency. So if you want to start a podcast for your brand or you want to take your existing one to the next level, then you can check us out at 7xcontent.com. We'd love to hear from you. Now let's get back to the show. Talk to me about like, I see you in Joe and the Juice. I think I see you in Marks and Spencer. It seems like almost that is the marketing. Obviously you're in the supermarkets, but like in terms of educating the market and getting your product in front of as many people as possible, not using paid ads or billboard advertising or anything like that.

59:48Marisa Poster:What's your approach there? Because that seems like super smart if you can partner with those companies again who have got this distribution and use them to educate the market on your product. So when we pivoted eventually to canned drinks over the latte, we always thought, okay, we'll do the latte again one day. But we also, we had this incredible raw ingredient in our matcha powder. Ceremonial grade, of course, the purest quality, absolutely delicious, naturally sweet, obviously no additives or preservatives. And we knew that we wanted to sell it to cafes as well. We just felt that if we can't deliver a latte in the format that we were intending on, we could at least partner with cafe chains to do it.

1:00:36And actually, where do people go to get their caffeine fix? A coffee shop, right? Where are they going in the morning to grab their pre-work caffeine kick? So we were reached out to actually by Joe and the Juice. They sent out, I think, a tender to a bunch of matcha companies. And we knew how critical it was to land that account. And we were kind of like, whoa, I can't believe Joe and the Juice even know we exist. but we we were like we must make sure that we win this so how do we do this and around the time we were thinking about different ways of pitching the buyers and firstly we looked at the procurement manager's signature we kind of found them on linkedin we did a bunch of other like google sleuthing almost to like a creepy extent and found where they lived and also found that they liked cats and this whole thing.

1:01:35And we were like, can we do something around their house with a cat and matcha? And then we were like, honestly, that's so freaking creepy. We can't do that. So instead, what we did was we wanted them to see Perfect Head everywhere. In the weeks coming up to the decision that they had to make, we wanted them to think of us subliminally. Like, how would we be front of mind as the best contender? so what we did was i went on photoshop and i mocked up an image of perfect head in with the perfect head logo in a joe and the juice cup with the circle that was edited slightly so we didn't get in trouble with copywriting or whatever um and it had some cute slogan about being the perfect matcha um and then it had our logo very large so we basically printed this out into like every billboard size poster as possible and we identified the four major tube routes that led into their head office and literally just mapped it out on google maps and plastered this picture everywhere like I have I have such great photos at the time that we took um and it was just it was so fun and we were like okay hopefully this works so by the time that they made the decision the procurement manager was like you know I've been seeing you guys everywhere we're like I wonder why crazy so it's just things like that thinking a bit more creatively about how you can really disrupt someone's day.

1:03:13Marisa Poster:And what kind of results do you get from those listings? It's incredible because it drives this trial engine. So by working with their in-house teams, by sharing the best practices for matcha preparation, for recipes, I mean, we help them on recipe development. We co-developed the Blank Streets infamous, you know, or their famous blueberry matcha latte with their team because we wanted to create delicious recipes that customers would come back for time and time again. And we knew that that was so important to nail because it gets people accustomed to the flavor profile of matcha, which is different for Western palates.

1:03:52It's different than black tea. It's different than coffee, of course. So we knew that by doing that over and over again, it would drive this engine. And then ultimately, that's what led us to finally, after three years, launch our matcha latte ready to drink cans in vanilla and strawberry flavors. The other really incredible thing about partnering with this many cafes is that we get access to or not all of them, but a lot of them share their sales data with us and we're able to see the top performing flavors. So then it actually we have we have proprietary data showing that flavors perform better than original.

1:04:30So then this obviously informed our decision to go with a flavored match latte as opposed to just a regular one, even though I think we'll definitely launch a regular in the future. but it's just incredible from a data perspective as well as a sampling perspective and having another touch point with our customer because a customer goes into the store. They decide they love matcha now. They not only want to make it at home so they buy our powders at Tesco but then they're also like, but I love the way it makes me feel so I'm going to pick up one of their cans as well. So it just drives, it brings them in.

1:05:05It's just a great way to reduce the barrier. exactly yeah it's it's genius thank you i don't know if it's genius or if it's just we got scrappy and pursued every opportunity that we could possibly get it's no it's a real good case

1:05:21Marisa Poster:study i think i saw steven do a post on that and it really like it struck me as super smart because obviously you want to make margin on that kind of thing but in a way it's it's as you say it's like your free marketing it's someone promoting in every every store in the country your product and giving them a route to taste it and trial it. And then hopefully, as you say, if the product's good enough, they'll then become a customer in store, in the supermarket and the rest of it. One of the really interesting things in building a brand is like association. And so Joe and the Juice feels like a good association.

1:05:51Marisa Poster:Steven feels like a good association. But then there are some other associations that are like maybe more unexpected. Like I think you're in some other supermarket cafes. Maybe you're in M &S. how do you think about like balancing the opportunity of those versus the brand association and like how do you think about that so we've actually we've said no to potential retailers who have been wanting to list us for quite a while due to the the negative perception tied to the brand like what it would mean if we were to go into said said retailer yeah so we actually everything that we've done to date is really intentional.

1:06:33And I love our supermarket cafe partnerships because they're almost unexpected that they surprise and delight our customers. They're like, I wasn't expecting to find Perfect Head here, but oh my gosh, thank God it's delicious. And it actually causes this moment for virality because there's confusion. It's like, this doesn't really make sense, but I love it. It's kind of like when you see, I don't know, when probably like when McDonald's for the first time partnered with Cactus Jack, Travis Scott's brand, and you're like, that's really unexpected. But because it's unexpected, it disrupts and it makes people pay attention.

1:07:11So for us, it's been absolutely brilliant. And it's so great because it drives not only trial in their cafes and this kind of viral moment, but it also then helps our retail sales because then people are like, well, I want to remake this at home. Oh, great. You can go down to the tea aisle in M &S and buy our pouch. Or you could do the same thing at Waitrose. You could do the same thing at Tesco. So it's been really helpful because you have this ability to cross promote.

1:07:42Marisa Poster:What do you get? Do you get people making TikToks? But it's funny because we actually, we didn't seed any of it. We realized what was happening. And so we tried to add fuel to the fire, but it was already taking off. So, for instance, I think it was when M &S launched their white chocolate matcha and people were going absolutely nuts over it. But then or maybe actually it was when our blueberry pouch launched in Tesco. people were going crazy on tiktok because the blueberry matcha was very viral from blank street and everyone was like this is how you can make it at home now and it was happening just without us doing anything and that's really where i think a great product makes a difference and where npd that is okay so i actually think the best npd comes from solutions that your customers are already doing.

1:08:46So we knew that our customers were going and buying our organic, regular, ceremonial grade powder and buying blueberry syrup and milk. We knew they were doing this. So we just thought, why don't we just make a one-stop shop product for them? All they need is a little bit of milk and that's it. And that's where I think if your customers are already doing it, that's probably what you should be offering. The same with the sticks. We had customers that We're like, I've been individually portioning my matcha into little Ziploc baggies to take on vacation. We're like, that's ridiculous. But like, we should just solve that for you.

1:09:22Marisa Poster:Yeah. So I think if you're looking to expand a range, look to what your customers are already doing with your products. Yeah. It's just like, yeah, they've solved more problems for them. Exactly. Because they'll tell you. And if you're listening, your customers will tell you. They're very vocal. And it's quite helpful that we have our, my mother-in-law is our head of customer excellence. And she's in the office as much as she possibly can be. She has four children. So she travels a lot. They all live in different countries. She's incredible. And she's in the office as frequently as possible, communicating daily with the entire team.

1:09:58And we're getting instant feedback from inquiries, complaints, requests that are coming in every single day. not just that but feed that with tiktok and and instagram and all forms of social media you you have so much gold just sitting in your inbox read it yeah you really made me think as well just

1:10:17Marisa Poster:there like one of the principles uh i think it's one of like seth godin's principles like the purple cow and steven talks about it i think he calls it something else absurdity um it's really interesting what what what's it been like working with him um you obviously came like chose him for the marketing prowess like what what's the good stuff he's given you and what's the advice that you've ignored um can you go into that a little bit absolutely steven's been such an incredible partner for us and we obviously respect him so much as a business person but really as a friend that we can confide in about the troubles and tribulations of running a business he gets it from a personal level as well.

1:11:00So it's been really nice having someone who's amassed the level of success he's had. Obviously, we have the office, which he has graciously, you know, given us a floor in his headquarters. Obviously, we pay for it, but still it's there for us and it's beautiful and green. And it's lovely being around his team. They're just such a kick-ass team and very aligned culturally. but we have obviously ignored a lot of his advice and I think it's down to a few reasons and I'll go into what that advice is but I want to first say that no one knows your brand better than you do especially if you're a founder a founding member of the team if you're on the team if you live and breathe it every single day someone I don't care how big they are I don't care if it's as well as you do.

1:11:56So trust your gut. If you have built something and it's just getting off the ground and you have a really good gut feel about it, lean into your intuition because it'll usually be right. But I will say with that, there are so many examples, but one that comes to mind from pretty early on, Stephen said, you have to have an enemy. You have to position yourself against something. I don't care what perfect head is for. What is perfect head against? And obviously we knew where he was going with that. But as a brand, we've made the really intentional decision to always focus on the positives because we're a brand that is all about spreading positive energy.

1:12:39So we've been intentional not to bring in language that is inflammatory negative anything that can be denoted as a negative we will lean away from so we thought if the product is strong enough to stand on its own without disparaging others why would we do that and we believe so wholeheartedly in the strength of the product it's not necessary to to try to take down others and actually mad respect to them as i said to you before i admire these brands in our category because they've done phenomenal jobs i mean their household names. Their penetration is insane. So we want to get to that stage. And I love what they've done.

1:13:19Obviously, I don't love their products, but I think the way that they've built their businesses are absolutely remarkable. So there's no need. If your brand is strong enough on its own, you don't need to take down others. That's our opinion. And we've stood by that. And I think he's now come around to see why.

1:13:35Marisa Poster:What's it like negotiating with him? Because didn't you negotiate like a second deal with him? He's a businessman, you know, like it's, it can be intimidating negotiating any sort of deal, whether it's with an investor, whether it's with a future co-founder, even if you're bringing someone on later stage, it's really nerve-wracking and you want to stand on your ground, but you both, you're at the table because you both want something, right? You want something out of the other party. So you know that, but even though you know that, You always are second guessing yourself because what if they walk away?

1:14:11What if I offend them? What if I say the wrong thing? What if I do something wrong that I cannot come back from that's unrecoverable? So obviously, it's incredibly nerve wracking. I mean, I think I lost more hair in the year that we were negotiating a deal than I've ever lost in my life because it's just so freaking trustful. But at the end of the day, we learned so much from the negotiation process. I think ultimately, we shook out at a deal that we were both really happy with. and ended with a huge amount of respect for one another. And I actually think, or at least I hope, and I think he has said to date now that the way that we stood our ground so wholeheartedly in kind of like defense of our position made him believe more in the business because we were so adamant about keeping as much of it as possible.

1:15:02So I think it actually made him respect us a bit more as business people. I always say people want what they can't get right yeah so I mean in in the VC world the best time to raise money is when you don't need it yeah because that means you're actually good on your own you don't need the cash you are not in a position of weakness you have leverage in that situation so and I also think sometimes if you say no it makes them want you a bit more think about it in dating. If you're rejected by someone, it's like a game. You pursue them harder. So I think sometimes you can be strategic about it and not just give in because of the status of the person or what they can offer.

1:15:51Marisa Poster:Have you heard Jibby Carr, like his response whenever he gets sent a contract? No, what is it? His first response is he doesn't open the contract or the offer. He just replies, if I'm being honest, I'm a little bit disappointed. I love that. Regards, Jimmy. That's freaking amazing. That's hilarious. Because I think that shows a level of confidence in himself. Like he knows what value he's bringing to the table. And I think if you think about our business, it can go to the moon. Yeah. I really believe that because matcha is still in its kind of an ascent phase in the Western market. and we are at the forefront of leading that movement.

1:16:29And I feel so strongly that we're building a household brand, something that really can become a unicorn one day. I do really firmly believe that. I wouldn't be here saying that if I didn't.

1:16:43Marisa Poster:No, I see it. I love that you see that. Because matcha, we're not trying to take over coffee, but we want to be the second greatest caffeine routine in the world. So how much does Steven have for the business? A decent amount. Decent amount. Yeah. And then there's three co-founders, right? Yes. So the other co-founders are your husband and your brother-in-law. Yes, Teddy and Levi. So what is that like being family in a business? It is amazing. It, you know, when we met and the three of us had this relationship in college, obviously not romantic. I mean, relationship, I mean, friendship and romantic separately.

1:17:25Although at times it did feel like, you know, did you ever see It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia?

1:17:30Marisa Poster:I've not seen it, but yeah, okay. It was kind of like that mixed with friends because we lived together for four years. So it can be really fun. It can also be very stressful. we now live in the same building uh which is pretty hilarious because teddy doesn't like to be too far from us um but i wouldn't have it any other way i trust them ultimately uh with my life with my business with everything and we have you know a great amount of respect for each other i love it i think it's super cool i was talking to a friend of mine uh jody recently and she has she runs her business with her husband love and um yeah it's something i'm thinking about it's like with my with my with my wife like i think it's so cool if you can build a business with your friends and your family.

1:18:13Marisa Poster:I'm obviously not in it, so I don't know if it's a bad idea or not, but I think it is very interesting. Maybe something people should think about. I'm a huge proponent of it because if I didn't do this with Levi, my husband, I'd never see him. And to have a shared passion is such a beautiful thing. People always ask, oh, is it all you talk about? Thankfully, because we started the business five years into our relationship, we have such a strong base that we have so many shared experiences to come back to. But I don't think of it as a negative. I actually think of it as such an advantage because I know him so well.

1:18:48He knows me so well. There's ultimate trust. I can literally just call him out and be like, you're being a dickhead and not have to fear for like the repercussion of calling someone a dickhead in my business. Right. So I'd never say that to our team, but you know, it's a level of closeness and transparency you couldn't get with someone that's not family or you're romantically

1:19:06Marisa Poster:involved with yeah and like it's founder energy i assume as well like you're probably thinking about this business 24 7 so you can work on it together 24 7 and we love it like that is it like we are so genuinely and i think this is why we work so well with steven because we are obsessed and we are relentless like ask anyone my typical day looks like i am in the office all day until the very late very very late and then we live two minutes away from our office because we want to optimize for being as close as possible because all of our time and energy goes into building this thing that we honestly love and i just i pinch myself that i can literally i get high on my own supply every day it's my obsession in life i pinch myself that i get to do it and with the people i love sick that's amazing because my next question was like what What is a typical week like Monday to Sunday?

1:20:03Marisa Poster:What do you do every day? Like, do you have a daily routine? Are you working every day? Like, what's the, and what are you focused on? Are you just promoting the hell out of the business and someone else takes care of the operations? Like, what's a week in the life? I love that you asked Monday to Sunday because literally no days off. So thanks for keeping it real. Every week is different, but the way that we kind of look at the business is we split it into three. I look more at brand marketing. Levi looks more over ops and biz ops, Teddy on the sales side, and also manufacturing. This has always been the way that we've divided things, which has been great.

1:20:43But that said, I'm also leading the AI and automation charge for the business. So that's a project I'm very excited about. We've just hired a head of AI and we have a lot of automation projects to help us automate order processing and a lot of like admin heavy tasks that we just feel humans don't need to be involved in. We'd rather have our team do higher urgency, you know, higher requiring more brain kind of thought and activity. So that's cool. I am very in the business, although I try to have perspective more frequently than I used to I guess I mean because the team is larger I definitely can be elevated but I I'm so obsessed with the details like every little thing matters to me I know that sounds a little crazy but I think if you're not obsessed with the details How can you end up with something that, you know, if you accumulate all of those little details into one thing, they would eventually become something amazing.

1:21:53And that's what I think something amazing is comprised of. It's all just incredible small details. So I'm really obsessed with the very small things that you might not see, that other people might not even think about, but that I know will have a difference in how people feel. like i'll give you a perfect example um anytime does not matter who they are they could literally be there for five seconds but anytime someone steps foot into our office you are not leaving our office without a goodie bag without a green goodie bag that has perfect head on the side big and you were walking around london and promoting it but also we want you to feel special in that moment and it's all about how do you make someone feel do you make them feel seen part of a community?

1:22:37Do you make them feel valued? Like, you know, oh my gosh, why me? Do you make them feel special? I want everyone who interacts with our brand to feel special and to feel like the best version of themselves. Because I do, I feel like I'm always the person that's seen the good in others. And I want people to feel that way when they interact with the brand. And that's why, honestly, the brand is kind of like an extension of me, Levi, Teddy, the two of them embody the same values as me we just want people to like be happy and have fun because that's like what life is all about like we're literally on a pebble of a revolving planet like might as well make the most

1:23:13Marisa Poster:of it while we're here man so cool what's the biggest mistake you've made in all this or biggest lesson well firstly i try not to think of anything as so much of a mistake but just a learning opportunity um because i think if it's a mistake you can like be kind of hard on yourself yeah We've had so many fuck ups. I mean, from ordering hundreds and hundreds of thousands of sticks from like a semi confirmed launch that we then had to figure out a way to sell them elsewhere and spending loads of money to having import paperwork incorrect and then having to spend millions on shipping back stock to a different country.

1:23:53we've had the whole gamut go wrong and every day it feels like you're dealing with a new problem when you're running a business but um i think the biggest would be around people and not hiring or firing fast enough i think a lot of business owners will say that but we've really tried to keep it as lean as possible but sometimes it can become too lean to the point where the team feels really under-resourced and we never want to burn anyone out. And we always will try to identify where there is potential for that. And now we're quite proactive, but it's all learning in the early days, of course.

1:24:35But I would definitely say people is where you have the biggest problems as you grow.

1:24:40Marisa Poster:What's the one thing I should have asked you about or you feel like you want to say, but it doesn't get said? I want to say that not everyone should start a business It's funny today. I was asked I was I was actually you asked about a typical day in my life I mean some days are so different and before this I was at a really incredible festival and after this i'm going to an awesome Female founders dinner, which i'm super pumped for but one of the questions that was asked while I was in this panel was I want to give advice to my my niece About becoming an entrepreneur What should I tell her and I all and?

1:25:14And I didn't have time to say it, and I wish I did. So if you're listening to this, this is what I would tell her is that not everyone actually should be an entrepreneur. It isn't for everyone. In fact, I have loads of friends who just want to have, you know, just a normal day job. And it's great because they're able to totally disengage and really, like, have very separate lives. if something if work life balance matters to you i don't think entrepreneurship is a route that you should consider and i know that might be controversial but i don't really care because the truth is you're in for a really rude awakening if you sign up to become an entrepreneur and you expect something else than that if you're an entrepreneur you're on at all times it doesn't matter if you just had surgery if you're on vacation those emails aren't stopping and ultimately as a founder, it starts and stops with you.

1:26:10Just be realistic about what you're getting yourself into. I'd say that plus love the quote that you don't need to be great to get started. You just have to get started to be great. And often I meet so many people who are kind of twiddling their thumbs and they want to be entrepreneurs and they have great ideas, but they're apprehensive. They don't know. They don't feel ready. You're never going to be ready. I would be embarrassed if I came in here and brought you our initial product that we launched with in October of 2021. It wasn't good. It was thick. The taste was off. Looking back, it really wasn't great.

1:26:44But hey, it was at least a starting point that we were able to collect feedback on and iterate from there. So just start. I know it's really cliche, but I feel that people sometimes need to hear that repeatedly until they feel pushed.

1:26:58Marisa Poster:Do you get paid? Like, are you making money now? Are you making more money now than you did in your corporate job? It's a great question. No, I'm not making more money now. I actually only started taking a salary this year, which is exciting for me. But we did so because, you know, we never wanted to feel like a burden on the business. Now it's pretty much in line with the average, I would say, of compensation across the team. um but no not making as much as i did in finance they pay nice especially in america but that's not really what it's about for me i want to create something of value um that's why we give you know equity to every employee in our business because we we want them to to benefit from the immense success that we hope this this brand is um and we want them to think like owners and how can you expect anyone to think like an owner if they're not actually an owner so it's very important to us our emi scheme this has been like insanely valuable i think we've done i think we've done step to step how to start um a brand um and make it blow up just be different and be freaking bold like i think stop being so timid like i just i used to care a lot about what people think i think you have to you can't care what anyone thinks you You just have to go with what you feel is right and hope for the best.

1:28:30That's literally what it is. It's like throwing shit at the wall, seeing what sticks and trying to make intelligent decisions along the way.

1:28:36Marisa Poster:Is there also a thing here? I think one of the things that just stands out talking to you is the ambition and also like the nightclub, right? So there is a way to build a brand, which is you go to the farmer's market with your little can and you hope to sell 10 or 20 every Saturday and then uh you know try and knock at the door at Sainsbury's and Tesco and get and get listed or whatever and then there are like these side doors right so there's the Facebook order side door there's the Dragon's Den exposure to seven million side door there's the partnering with Stephen there's like the Joe and the Juice there are all these like ways where if you're a little bit innovative a little bit creative and you also just shoot for the stars, like you can actually crush it.

1:29:20Marisa Poster:And it's probably not that much difference in building any business, right? No, not at all. Someone working in a coffee shop or running a little coffee shop, it's probably just as stressful and intense working seven days a week as it is like trying to build a global iconic brand. Absolutely. But I think - You've got to have the ambition though. Well, what I'll come back to always and something I have not said, but I guess I'll end on is - clarity is the single-handed most important thing that you have to have as a founder because I will I will get asked all the time about other people's businesses and it it's I feel privileged to be in that position now but the first thing I ask him is well what do you want out of it what do you want to grow what do you want to build because is it a lifestyle business is it something that you wanted to you know make income from it has to be profitable in that case design your life for what you want it to look like in five to 10 years from now.

1:30:17And it's challenging. You have to, that's why I guess founders are visionaries, right? Because you have to see into the future to some respect, but have clarity. And we've had so much clarity from the very beginning. I remember when Steven asked us, what's your vision for this brand? And my response, no hesitation, was world domination. And that has not changed. We're in 50 countries to date. We're in over 30 ,000 doors. That's growing by the day. I'm going to Australia next month to launch nationwide and close to a thousand stores. Like that was always the ambition. We didn't think we'd get there this quickly, but that was always the ambition because we wanted to build something just absolutely legendary and epic.

1:31:00And you mentioned the farmer's market. A lot of food and beverage brands do start there to validate the concept. We took a different route. We thought, what's a little bit faster than that to validate the concept? Okay, Kickstarter, great. I think if you're going to go for it and you want to build something big, that's what your clarity has set you on. Go big or go home, right? Just like go big and fail big and then learn again, right? Like at least you've put everything into it. You never want to look back on your life and think, you know, what if? I'd rather look back and say, oh, well, at least I tried, you know?

1:31:36Marisa Poster:That's amazing. And also at least it was freaking epic at the time. Like at least we had fun doing it too. so clarity is the ultimate thing i can't help anyone unless they know what they want because if you have no clarity of vision then no one else can can get on board and have the same and join you on that journey because where are you going so where what what where are you going you know that's a beautiful place to wrap it i actually love this marissa it's so much fun you're so fun your energy is insane it's all this thanks so much for listening to this episode if you enjoyed it I'd love to hear the most valuable thing you learn in the comments.

1:32:14Marisa Poster:I read everyone and it just really helps me improve the episodes and make sure I'm pulling out the right kind of insights and lessons for you guys. So let me know what you got from the episode and what you'd like to see more of and equally what you'd like to see less of. And I'll do my best to nail it for you in the next episode. Appreciate you listening and see you in the next one.