FOUNDER #17. Building £1 BILLION CBD Business After 16 Years as British Commando - Farard Darver

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1:26Intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See full terms at mintmobile.com. Was there a time when you feared for your own life? Let me paint you a picture. Okay, so our very first patrol was a huge convoy up to Sangin Valley. And I remember looking and I just saw these two bipod legs. And it was an RPK. The burst comes in. It was like, you know, and I'm still like, huh.

1:54Farard Darver: If someone says they're not scared of dying, they're either nuts or a liar. What's it like being in the military for 16 years and then transitioning into an entrepreneur? Well, this is where the story of hemp peep comes from. Because when I got injured, I got really heavily reliant on painkillers. My best mate at the time, we were just chatting about what we can do. And it kind of led from one thing to another. He made an oil and it was fantastic. He's like, what do we do with it? Now we've got it. He says, yeah, let's sell it. Let's get out on the market. I said to him, we could make a few million quid selling it now.

2:25I said, well, we could do it properly and make a few billion. Jumping into entrepreneurship where you've never been involved in entrepreneurship is tough.

2:31Farard Darver: But you know why I'm doing it? Because I'm sat on a unicorn. I know I am. I'm sat on a billion pound enterprise. It's the hardest thing I've ever done. Nothing in the army prepared me for it. You are risking everything. It takes 10 years to be an overnight success. Vision without execution is hallucination. I'll tell you a story, actually, because this could have changed my entire life. One thing that's changed massively with Inside UK Retail, and that is...

3:00Welcome to the Eventful Lives podcast. I'm your host, Dodge, and I'm the founder of Bournemouth 7s, the world's largest sport and music festival. On this podcast, I speak to proper characters of all lived eventful lives. Do us a favour and hit that follow button and be sure to check us out on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok at Dodge Woodall, where we've now had over 100 million views. Farad, welcome to the show, mate. Dodge, thank you, mate. I'm very much looking forward to this one. Let's roll all the way back. What's it like being in the military for 16 years and then transitioning into an entrepreneur?

3:36There's actually a lot of similarities, and you've had a lot of guests on previously that are doing what I'm doing or have done what I've done. It prepares you nicely because there's an element of, you know the normal stuff that people are going to say you know discipline and the ability to write a plan and execute that plan and maybe things don't go the way you want them to go so you you roll with it you know etc etc um but i 100 i'm really really truthful when i say that i wouldn't be doing what i'm doing now if it hadn't been for the army it's as simple as that i have been i've got the tools that i have the confidence the ability to just figure it out is 100 % down to what I was taught whilst I was serving.

4:21And I'm really keen to always, you know, give the kudos to the army that they gave me that because I wouldn't be here doing this if, or at least I wouldn't be in disguise. You know, there's always been a bit of a Del Boy about me from when I was a kid selling my dad's beer in school, you know, that kind of stuff, you know. But that's which has always been there. But the ability to actually focus that down and make it into something and then go and do it, it's 100%. And there's a lot of similarities. Good for you. Good for you. Tell me about your military career. Well, you know, for me, it's different.

4:56I joined quite late. I was 26 and a half when I commissioned into Sandhurst. And the reason for that was, you know, prior to joining the army, I was a singer. You know, I was in a band. And when I decided that I wanted to do something different, I saw an advert on television and it said, do you remember that advert? 99.99 % need not apply it was a Royal Marines one yeah yeah yeah and I went oh cracking adverts yeah you know yeah uh so I went for it and uh I was too old for that batch the intake and they said you have to join as a as a rating I was like what's that you could join as a marine then you become an officer I was like no I don't want that I want to go and lead I want to do something so what's the equivalent and they said uh it's a parachute regiment I went all right I'll have some of that then so I went off and I did uh like this four day acquaint etc and I got sponsored by the paras and off you go to to go to sandhurst the issue is prior during the time that i was doing it used to have to go for a lot of um tests like a a pre-regular commissions board then that brings you onto a commissions board and all this kind of stuff goes and i and i went to the um to the uh it was actually in bourbon yeah uh and they said oh uh you're pretty old uh grades aren't great you know we'll send you let's see how you get on so i went for the the little two day and they give you four categories one to four one meaning you're good to go four meaning see you later bud yeah i got four okay they said no and they actually said to me you don't have the academic capabilities being an officer in the army and i said to them listen you're probably right but um i've been doing something different for a while you know and i haven't really been you know having to use that part of my brain give me you know yes so basically i took a i i it was a year to the day i went and did some more maths and more english i got some you know political all sorts of things i needed to kind of get myself back up to and i i've got this this uh i've got this little book at home of these letters going no no no no you can't do it you know not and regiments all saying no and i went to the main board and they said i've got this letter and it says uh you know we've we've listened to your appeal we're going to send you forward but bear in mind you have a mountain to climb we don't see it happening good luck to you and then i have another letter here saying congratulations you're on commissioning course zero five one you're joining sandhurst in january and that was a year just to get in yeah okay you know there's this thing where i just if i'm told i can't yeah i have a bit of a thing about it yeah and and and that was kind of it so you know when i was in there um you know what do i want to do there's lots of things you get infantry artillery all that kind of stuff so you get a choice so just just to break this down when you get and go into the army what choices do you have so as an officer yeah i went in because i wanted to lead that was it i was under command and i wanted to lead and when you and back when i did it you were sponsored by various regiments so i went off and and i wanted to you know i thought right parachute regiment are the equivalent in essence the army's version of the of the Royal Marines I'll do that whilst I was in the Sandhurst you then you then get opened up to a much wider plethora of what's actually out there and um I just I there was so much more going on and I kind of got to this stage where I was like I wasn't sure why

8:15Farard Darver: I joined what I wanted to do and there's a couple of this there's the artillery the Royal Logistic Corps, Royal Engineers, they all serve with commandos. And I thought, well, what was it? I went out for a pint with my mate and he just, why did you join? Well, what was the whole reason for all this? Wasn't that that advert you saw? Yeah. Well, if you can't, you know, why don't you go and do the armies? I thought, brilliant. There are three specific corps that do that. I said, right. And I ended up joining the Royal Logistic Corps because they have a squadron. It's called the Logistic Commando Squadron.

8:44And it is the only squadron in the army that is within a Royal Marines regiment. I almost, I chose almost, you know, to join, based on just one potential posting I might not even get. But I managed it and that was it. And I went and did my commando course and I got my Green Beret and I served with three commando brigade and I went on tour with them, you know. Brilliant. And it was just, that's what I wanted, you know. And I went and I did it. And actually as an officer, you change every two or three years. You don't always get the opportunity to go back. So my amount of time I served within the brigade specific was actually quite short.

9:17over my 16-year period. I served in a lot of different places, both in regiments as well as on the staff, you know. But all of that has given me the skill set to be able to turn around. And actually, when I decided to pull the pin and do what I'm doing now, you know, but it's all come from the army. And the reason why I did it, it's all from there. So it's fantastic. The opportunities that are afforded to you is great. But you've got to go and work for it. Yeah, you've got to go and work for it. I've got to hand it out. Yeah, exactly. I was almost 30 doing my commando course. And explain to me what a commando course is.

9:54So basically, the Royal Marines, the commandos originally from 1942, it's back in World War I. They're actually originally, it was army commandos. And the Marines took that on and it became the Royal Marines commandos much later. But the commandos is, it basically allows you to operate at a slightly more elite level. Do you want to say that, I suppose? and then there are attached arms so you can be in the army and you can go off and do your commando course and then you can join the brigade and then you can work with the brigade doing their their their type of operations you know obviously sea-based isn't it yeah so um when i then joined i joined as part of the commando logistic regiments we were out there and we were mentoring the afghan national army and we were living in uh camp shorabak with them and my that's what we went off and we did you know for six months and um or seven months what year what year we talking here this is this is 2011 so my first tour was 2006 and 2007 and my tour with the um with the with the with three commander brigade was 2011 and my i got injured in 2007 which is what led to everything that i'm doing now it wasn't a life altering injury but ultimately it was something that wore me down after time and it ended up with me having ankle surgery a full left hip replacement before I left the army, you know, which, which led me onto what I'm doing now.

11:15But, you know, the ability to go and, and, and operate in these various environments and operate with these various people. I mean, you know, the Afghans, I've never, you know, those guys are warriors, genuinely warriors. But there are times when during 2011, I was there, there was, um, let me paint you a picture okay so it's it's about 45 degrees you know it's absolutely roasting every time that we leave the camp we have to walk out of our camp you walk across a helipad and you enter the afghan camp this is around the time where the mentors were getting shot and they put out these guardian angels now you couldn't go out on your own and if you went for a run you had someone on top cover with a vehicle and because they were starting and i was advising the second in command of the regiment and i i always got the feeling that this bloke i couldn't put my finger on it i had no idea i just you know he was always nice and i just thought too nice you are yeah yeah and we used to have a our pistols were sig sours so there was no say that again your pistols were sig sour pistol okay and there was no there's no there's no safety on it it's a it's a double squeeze on the trigger but i always with i just i just was like i'm just gonna have one in the spouting case here you know it's it's that kind of i just wasn't sure with this guy and um and it's funny because all he was interested in ever was like you know can you get me some new boots can you get me a camera i'm trying to teach you how to how to run the supply chain of and run not you know the logistic patrols of and keeping your men alive yeah that's great can you get me some nike trainers from england you kind of like okay you know but it was but but there was um and there was another guy it was a corporal there and one of my one of my one of my guys was mentoring him

13:06Farard Darver: and he was a really nice guy a really nice guy and i thought god i wish they were all like that yeah i come into work one day we're in the camp you say where's muhammad gone oh he's not turned up he's been here for a week or so that's a bit weird isn't it okay fair enough then all right we're going out on the patrol uh we're going to we're i think it's changing some communication devices and various patrol bases so okay let's go you know and we planned it and off we went and we reached one of the patrol bases and as soon as we arrived we started taking some incoming and i thought okay they obviously seen that this was happening etc etc and the rules of engagement don't allow you to engage unless there is a threat to life and they had figured out that if they shot from behind a wall and then lowered their weapon and walked around the side to see where it's landing yeah you can't do anything just so happens that uh about two weeks beforehand one of my corporates was teaching how to how to fire a ugl an underslung grenade launcher from a rifle guess who was firing it into us mohammed okay okay you know he says you're not gonna believe this boss look who it is yeah you know so these are just experiences that have and i look this is one of many stories and you know we're not we're not kicking the doors down and doing black ops you know it's it's you know you've you've had these guys what's it like what's it like for you going into afghanistan not knowing what afghanistan is like

14:39it wasn't so much the not knowing what it's like because you you kind of you well you spend a long time learning to deal with you're not sure what's going to happen or what's out there we were really like the first time i went i was really ready for it it was like a year's training yeah okay you know it was it was we were the i went with a a brigade called 12 mechanized brigade i was part of a regiment called a close support logistic regiment our we you know our ttps that the techniques tactics and procedures that we use were to dismount win the battle get back in our vehicles and go now that changed yeah way you know when they realized but that's what we were training for like you know win the fight and then crack on so so you know the one thing that was out of out of the entire thing the most disheartening is when you spend six months in an area and you see it went from a place that was total anarchy to the kids are out again there's fruit and vegetables for sale

15:37Farard Darver: the town e-commerce it's back and then you go back three years later and it and it's worse than it was the first time around okay but then what was what was the first six months for yeah okay and there was just a lot of that and there was that you could see that where it was just left and right and then you know what are we doing like you know and that that that could get quite disheartening was there a time when you feared for your own life

16:04Farard Darver: i'd say if you if someone says they're not scared of dying they're either nuts or a liar yeah but it doesn't mean that you're scared of what's happening to you um we part of our very first patrol was a huge convoy up to sangin valley um in and the patrol bases that are actually now that were there the north center and south we built those we we drove up with all the kit we dismounted into the uh infantry role left the vehicles there and then protected the engineers whilst they built it and during one of them there was an attack that 82nd airborne us were putting him and they were driving the Taliban down but just so happens they stumble into our location and I remember looking uh I used to have a vehicle that was a land rover it was called a weapons mounted installation kit it was a Wimmick it was a land rover that had no doors no whatever just you know a weapon system in front of me a weapon system on the back whether it's twin mounted GPNGs or an HMG or something like that you know a machine gun and an interpreter and a radop that was it you know it was real like you know it's it's you know the command vehicles came later we were just operating with like you know hf radios hung off of a ballistic door that was held by a bungee cord you know proper you know kind of almost mad max kind of make it up as you go and i remember sitting down and you should never have your rifle more than arm's length away that's just the fact that and i did obviously i left it there and i walked around the other side of the vehicle i remember thinking that'll be all right and i remember looking and i just saw these two legs of bipod legs come over and land on a you know and i i knew what that was and it was an rpk the burst comes in and it just it came in and it was like you know and i'm still like huh yeah and if you could get a spoon out and start digging you would yeah you know because all of a sudden it's like well you no and i'm trying to get to my rifle that i should that should have been next to me yeah you know and it's because actually we were we were working for that particular piece we're working with some green berets from the u.s and we had divided their they were mentoring some afghans and the afghans had left their post simple as that there's a triangular harbour that the six o 'clock position or in essence that you know that where it's supposed to be he had gone so they just stumbled into a sore load of brits and some american humvees and thought i love some of that yeah now i wasn't scared but i was pissed off yeah at myself for not being near my rifle but secondly you know there's a as brits we've got this attitude don't we you cheeky bastard yeah yeah yeah you know and i and i and i i you know it's stood up and then i did we get into it you know you you stand up you you locate the position you give a fire control order you know and and you start doing i can remember my corporal looks up to me and and he shouts up someone get nelson down because i was standing so far above everyone else and it was you know get that bloke down you know the boss gonna get himself killed you know so you're not you're not fearful of this that you're gonna die you know but there was a couple of times where i just thought you know i had a sniper take a round once when we were going through a place called Forb Robinson on the way to Kandahar and I heard it whip past my neck, my head and I thought, I might just, might just sit down and get, get down slightly lower.

19:23It's not need to be, you know, so you don't, there's not, there's not a fear, but if, but if, but if, but you know what, what might happen, you know. What are the, what are the rules, Fred, when, if you're seeing an Afghan with a gun, you've got a gun, he's pointing at you, what are the actual rules? What are you allowed to let fire go? Well, when I was there, we operated under the rules of engagement. And then there were specific engagement boxes where you could maybe do a pre-move. They were called ops boxes. And then, you know, during that area where the rules of engagement is still there, but it gave you a little bit more leeway on what you may have been able to do.

19:59It simply comes down to if you believe and perceive that there is a threat to life, you can engage before that individual. all. So I'll tell you a story actually, because this could have changed my entire life. I

20:15Farard Darver: was asked to go up and there was a Royal Tank Regiment, I think it's called Falcon Squadron. They were bringing in some armoured vehicles and they had been flown into Afghanistan and they needed to be taken down to Bastion. And I was a subject matter expert at transport. what I was doing. I was moving. I was, you know, logistic patrols was my thing. So I went up to advise on their move and then, and then advise bringing them down. And, um, it was a, a huge convoy of armoured vehicles that they were, that they were bringing down. And we were going through Kandahar. I was at the back of a Mastiff cupola cover, uh, had my rifle and I was talking to the commander who was a, a major at the time who was commanding the squadron.

21:02Farard Darver: And as we were going through we turn left at a kind of like a makeshift roundabout big crowds and you could see someone the crowd parting we're higher so we're looking down yeah you can see that happening and all that you know and this person comes flying through the crowd they had this big heavy jacket on them and they and i lifted my rifle think you know and it was it was a kid who basically i think he took out like a rock or a stone or something and was just and you know and i was like jesus christ i nearly yeah you know i nearly killed that kid yeah you know i had to make a split you know was he or was he not you know um so you that that's what it is now i'm not going to go into the what could have happened whatever all i know is that you know that was that happened all the time to every single person that was out there yeah that's not special to me yeah okay you know every single uh soldier on the ground had things like that happening daily and you think about that every single day two or three times a day you know day after day after day week after week month after month it's it's draining i was about to say it's draining how do you know who's good and who's bad you don't because they're all wearing the same white you don't with yeah how do you just don't know oh my god you don't you don't one thing that the uh canadians thought is they've got these vehicles called lavs um they're like a light armored vehicle and it's like a massive box just a huge but you know that you could fire anything at them you're fine and they'd look at the brits and they'd be like you haven't even got windows and doors what you know but we had a different mentality ours was be seen yeah be able to look into the eyes you know i mean it's different to being in a metal box so you walk it i just wanted to visualize are you walking around the streets so that wasn't my that wasn't my role no so my role was was was logistical supply yes uh but in order to get the supplies where it needs to be you have to transit on you know one two-day patrol just to get up there and then once you're there you are then under the command of the local commander who might turn around and go we've got something going on we need your help right okay and then you would dismount and you would then become the infantry role you know i mean because you're always a ultimately you're you're a trick you know you would look at it as being you know you're your trade first or you're a soldier first you're your trade second really technically everyone's a soldier and then you've got your trade so it was very much the way you know 2007 going in with 12 mechanized brigade it was the first brigade that went in after the after 16-hour assault brigade and prior to them three commando so before then you had the you had the paras yeah and the commandos and then we were the first kind of composite brigade that went in meaning you know that from the wider army so you know it was it was there was a lot of training that was done for that and it was very much focused and i think that that changed the relationship of my core and other cores that were combat support or combat service support you know as opposed to that really changed it for everyone because it suddenly realized that there's no frontier it's asymmetric yeah everyone that leaves that is up for grabs doesn't matter who you are what you do you know we had chefs that were cooking food in in uh in patrol bases that were in the ladder man for breaches to infantry compounds the infantry compounds yeah so there was and it just changed it made everyone appreciate a bit more you know you've got and in fact there would you know there were guys laughing going out in armored vehicles looking at looking at my soldiers who are winding their windows up in their in their support vehicles you know dismantle uh you know platform systems that used to do the ISO they're just they're just normal green vehicles they're armored and that you know and we're going out in the exact same atmosphere as someone going out an armored vehicle so it may it really kind of made us as as an army kind of pull together yeah yeah what's the difference between you and the Americans was there a bond there was there respect there 100 there is they yeah yeah I mean look they are great they they working as i said when i first went to afghan we worked with uh for a short patrol for about four weeks um uh a small campaign with the american green berets when we were doing the patrol base builds and they go so great they were just slightly more they do a lot longer tours yeah their tours are like 12 14 months i was a six seven right yeah and i think it gets to a stage where you realize that maybe they've been here a bit too long okay you know when when you've got someone ringing up his wife during a contact hey baby you know they're doing it again yeah and it's like uh what okay what yeah can you pick up the rifle and put down the phone mate you know so that's you know but they but you know my second tour i had a fire support team for from from um from from the u.s marines and they were brilliant you know and these guys can call on anything yeah There is no better sound when you find yourself in the ship.

26:06You're in a chopper come across. An A-10. Yeah, okay. Oh, even now. It makes me feel safe just hearing the A-10. You know, you just get that. Oh, yes. And they've got, they have a huge amount of resource. You know, a huge amount of resource. So there is a, you know, but they're brilliant. And, you know, the commander brigade work a lot with Marines, you know. So what were you doing when you go on a tour six months? Were you happy to come home?

26:34Farard Darver: uh by by i mean yeah by the end of six months you're ready yeah the biggest issue i have is we've got something called r &r that happens halfway into it well it says halfway but actually it's you know you go back for i think it's i think it's a week okay so you you go back for a week well within that six months within that six months you get a week back home they rotate people and it starts kind of it's weird it starts like two months in and then it and it ends up a month before you go because you've got to fit everyone in yeah now i'm not saying it's like this now i don't know with you know this is back in when i was doing it i never felt comfortable about that because i've got no problem with taking someone out and going and do a bit of decompression but send us to i don't know cyprus or send us to whatever or take us make somewhere don't send us back home right okay i went from a pretty intense time up in um sang in dc where i'd just come back from doing this this patrol base build and within 33 hours i was walking down the high street of my local town and i was an angry man i was i didn't i didn't want to be there i had arguments with my my my girlfriend my now wife you know i was i no that for me is no i don't know about that that's that's you can't decompress is one thing but I was a ticking you know I was getting upset when people not walk get out of my way I'm walking the high street here yeah do you know what's funny I've heard this a lot the same story like no decompression coming straight back on the high street buying baked beans when you've just been in war and you're in Sainsbury's buying baked beans and you it's not it's not a good place to be combat yeah combat not war yeah combat yeah and I'll tell you why because I've been in combat but I haven't been to war there's a difference I'm lucky that I haven't how would you explain how would you explain the difference combat and war Normandy Beach yeah okay that's war yeah okay yeah something in DC is not war okay and there is a difference you know could you have ever at the moment where the world is at the moment do you think if there was a World War 3 they would call someone like you back up I think we all know they have yeah that's just been you know you know yeah I I think we are, I think the character of conflict has changed considerably.

29:03You know, I think it's fair to say we're probably in the realms of something around that now. It's just all, it's digital. It's proxy. It's, you know, there's a bit of unrest in the world at the moment. Quite a bit of unrest, I suppose, you know. So as to whether it will ever actually come to, you know, in essence, kind of clout for its total war, I'm not sure that's going to happen again.

29:25Farard Darver: I hope not. But I, but I, but you know, you've got, you've got kids. I've got kids and we're trying to raise them to not worry about that, but be prepared for it probably is the best way of saying it. But do you not think it's odd like growing up in England all these years, I never thought I'd ever be even talking, having this conversation and I think of the government the other day saying, right, get prepared. People have got to get prepared just in case. It's like, wow, where's that come from? That's a real, that sort of really hit home. Yeah, I think, I think that there's a lot that I think, is testing the boundaries.

29:57Farard Darver: Yeah. You know, let's say it in the public domain. Let's see what the feedback is like. Let's see what it's going to go. To answer your question, if I was called up, yeah, of course. 100 % because that's who I am. I think most veterans would say something similar. You know, I've got companies around as well. Yeah. You know, but at the same time, what does that matter if there's, you know, So, and there's a thing that's out nowadays, isn't there, about nationalism and all that type of thing. And I think it's still there. I think people would stand up for what you believe in. Well, there's a lot of patriotic people out there.

30:34Yeah, exactly. I'm certainly one of them.

30:36Farard Darver: Yeah, same, you know. But at the same time, when you've got a leader that you don't respect, it's quite hard as well. Well, especially when he comes after veterans. I mean, that's a right kick in the nethers, isn't it? How, what has actually gone on there? like you're a veteran fighting in uh ireland you might be in your 60s 50s late 50s 60s 70s now the government case time's going after them it's i can't get my head around that from my you know this is everyone's got a point one thing i would like to you know say is that we operate under rules in fact when you go away you operate under three sets of rules you operate under the uk government you operate under the country you're in and you operate under the military yeah there are three sets of laws that you in essence have to abide by yeah so whoever was doing whatever they were doing back in the day in northern ireland they would have been operating under those under under the the laws you know the law of armed conflict or the local local government law etc and everything they did would have been known by someone yeah you know there's not there's not people going around just deciding to do things so you know i think i think make making it public and and going after people for doing their job it probably doesn't those years does those years ago yeah it probably you know it doesn't reflect well on trying to recruit now does it no but i will caveat that with but if laws have been broken and rules have been broken and people have done things then you should be held to account that makes us different as a british army that's why we're the british army that's why people look at this now.

32:10Farard Darver: But 30 years ago? No, no. Like, when you look back, I kind of sit there and think, what? Why? Why? I don't think there is a, personally speaking, I don't think there should be a time limit on breaking the law. You know, if you did something naughty, or whatever that is. What, you're saying if they did something naughty 30 years ago, well, they should be looked at. No, I'm saying that if you broke the law 30 years ago, and you didn't get caught, but because of modern technology and whatever, now you can be proved that actually that was, then isn't that breaking the law, isn't that? You know, if you committed a crime, if you robbed, if you did something, but DNA suddenly now realizes, actually, then should you not be military or not?

32:45I'm just saying, generally speaking. So I believe that you operate under the law. I believe they were operating 100%. Yeah. And going after them, I think, is disgusting. Yeah, I think so. But I also want to caveat that, though. But there are rules. Yeah, no, I understand. There's rules and rules and laws. I get that. If you break rules, then, and that's what makes us different.

33:02Farard Darver: that's you know there are so many times where in afghanistan you would this is what makes us great as an army this is what really makes us great is the ability to switch it on and off you're in a contact you're in a fight you're doing whatever you do you win and then you're now going over it and giving medical aid to the people who you've just yeah because you know why because that's that's what we do yeah you know that's what we do we've won we've done now that's you know so for me that's why we are who we are as an army as not just army as a military and do you think do you think the british military at the moment is strong i think the british military always has a strong resolve but it's no lie that it's been carved out of it we're kind of light on a few bits and pieces yeah which is not as if they haven't been trying saying it for last yeah yeah true but you know when you hollow out something it comes to a stage where there's nothing left to hollow out and and and hopefully now you know with the with the various changes that are happening and and whether it comes through or not you know the extra the money and the the defense budget and all that is increasing then then we will get back you know but be under no illusion that if it all kicked off tomorrow we'd be there for a man and actually we still punch pretty hard so people shouldn't think oh you know unfortunately that's what happens isn't it you get something taken away but you still make it happen oh okay we'll take more away but how do we encourage that younger generation to go right we want you to have a career in the army we want you to have a career in the marines how do you encourage that right now It's quite difficult, I think.

34:50I look at, would I join now?

34:53Farard Darver: Would I say to them? At your age now or an 18, 20-year-old? No, as an 18, 20-year-old. If I was 18, 20-year-old, would I go and join? I would because you don't join the army for money. You don't join the army. You join because there's something driving inside of you that this is, it flicks a switch. It does something. That's still there now. That's 100 % still there. I think the um I think the Royal Navy have got some wicked adverts yeah the whole maiden there you know that's fantastic it really really is you know um so you know and I I and I think it's I think it's swinging back I think it's people are starting to you know and it's a it is great there's so much you can get out of the arm you know and not just you know education you know life experiences everything it's if there's something you want to do and you can demonstrate that it's you're capable enough and it's good for the army yeah yeah go and do it yeah exactly what was the point in your 16 year career when you were like well my time's up I'm starting to think I need to get out of this now well this is where the story of of the company of hemp comes from because hemp yeah this is it you know when I got when I got injured I got really heavily reliant on painkillers anything I get my hand on a bit left over Coconamol some Diclofenac in the cupboard anything massive amounts of ibuprofen yeah and I you know I was taking 1200mg of breufin before going on some patrol before playing some you know sport 1200mg 1200mg yeah yeah yeah because it's a 400mg tablet and they're pink ones you know and I remember sitting down I was playing and my I had a my leg was really hurt and I was always in pain and from From the basic, in 2007, I was in Kandahar, I was inside a vehicle.

36:49Farard Darver: And the Taliban used to put barbed wire out to wrap the axles to slow you down. And then they can, you know, hit you at their time of their choosing type thing. And they used to put these big boulders out as well. And we'd be driving on night vision goggles. So it's sometimes quite difficult to see everything. and we hit one of these and i went flying out the top over the top and i caught my leg on used to have these uh i was in a vehicle um it wasn't a wimic this time it was a a four-wheeled variant of an artillery command vehicle um and i there's a bar you hold just like you know to steady and i caught my leg on it as i kind of went forward and it pulled all of my left hands it wasn't something that ended i was in was limping around for a few days and i just spent a year training to go here i'm not gonna you know so you just suck it up and get on with it you know but that then i never let it repair properly and then you go on and i end up having huge issues with my left side of my leg and also and as i said i and that led to various things where i'd rolled an ankle and i'd done this and i was constantly doing things and they put pins in my ankle to you know and and then eventually it was like you and i went for a hip resurfacing then i went for a replacement so it's all been you know i was really just i was taking a lot of brufen yeah and i remember before a match i used to rugby love playing rugby and did you play did you yeah yeah 28 years did you what position yeah a flanker or back row so number okay you know well i played for my regiment played for the corps um and uh started to play for the for the army vets um and uh actually it was i couldn't read you know it was i remember the exact time i gave up or at least that i stopped and that was when i was playing uh i promoted to major i'd gone to shrivenham to do my my career course and they had a rugby team now the shrivenham rugby team's good you're at that kind of county level and we we played against and there was this 21 year old 19 stone for gene welcome and he and and and he ran at me yeah and it's the first time i ever thought oh shit and i didn't commit to the tackle and i hurt myself and i i looked up at the coach and i kind of did that whole you know and i walked off i never put a set of boots on it because i just knew that when you you know that's so i baseballed it i you know and but i was 40 i think so like you know i've done the time yeah so but i remember one particular time when i sat down and you know rugby pack is eight people we finished an entire box of ibuprofen between the eight of us before a game and that's when something tweaked okay i went hold on this is not normal no actually this is normal and that's not normal yeah it's the norm that boys are doing that and then i spoke to a couple of civvy mates and they're like oh mate yeah same yeah football and you know even guys going to the gym yeah i'm like hold on a second what and i it's like i had this oh this is actually a thing yeah and it's not just an army thing this is a rugby thing sports thing yeah thing thing you know people are reaching and taking chemical painkillers as a standard way of operating yeah and i was like no there's got to be something else out there and i looked and i was trying all sorts of different things and that's nothing worked and i thought oh and um my best mate at the time he uh he he married a czech girl and they live in the czech republic and her mum had uh cancer and suffered a lot with her muscle and joints and you know and um that she was she didn't want to do chemotherapy she said no i mean it's my time i were kind of like that real strong kind this is my time do it natural whatever you know there's a good place for that a really good place for that and it's like okay you can respect that yeah the doctor kind of convinced her try there are some natural stuff try that and she tried this this you know she smoked a bit of weed hated it but it did help but hated it and we were talking and I said well why don't you just get it so that you know maybe she can eat it or something or what you know and he started like we were just chatting about what we can do and it kind of led from one thing to another and he made an oil yeah and it was it was fantastic she tried it's brilliant very metallic-y earthy tasting yeah and i said to him why don't you try and do it you can just rub it in like a like a deep heat or a tiger bum or something like that but one that actually really you know and you know i mean we're going about years now but i said to him i won't give it a shot and he he rings me up about two months after and he says you don't believe this he goes i've done a bit of digging he says uh you know all the studies for for cannabis and it's all from the czech republic i said i was like what he goes yeah it was discovered in america chemist called roger adams back in the early 50s but actually there's a scientist and a chemist from the czech republic called a yanke by like a zanetic krechky and they quantified the healing effects how it works at the molecular level how it works with inside the body's endocannabinoid system how it works inside the central nervous system how you naturally have these what are called cb1 and 2 receptors they're part of your your um your your genetic makeup your body you know and it's natural and i said to him okay he goes and they're gonna like we've had a chat they're gonna use all that research and we found some formula you know we were just kind of you know and then you fast forward to uh 2015 when i was at shrivenham having having promoted and uh i was i remember this i was it was week one day two feet hadn't touched the ground you know i was walking around with all these other newly promoted majors i've got a clue what's going on like you know just trying to figure it out like you know exactly yeah and he rings me up and he just goes mate we've we've we've done this stuff is amazing yeah i was like send it send it now and he sent it to me and i put it on i was like oh my god how does this even work this is ridiculous i mean this is within minutes um you know and i was like this is this is fantastic this needs to be out there how that's that's the big one yeah how what what are we gonna you know and that's when i came up with the plan to to to actually leave and i wrote i wrote a plan and i left four years later because i i went off and got my mba i went off and learned about logistics and managed got chartered as a fellow i went off and got jobs in the army headquarters in procurement and finance and contract management and i just want to learn trying to learn trying to learn what it means to be a commercial business yeah you know and um we and we we joked he's like you know he's like what do we do with it now we've got it he says yeah let's sell it let's let's get out on the market i said to him i said well we could do i said everyone's doing that now and this was back in the boom you know about eight years ago he was everywhere you know and i said we could do i said well we could do something else he's like what's that i said i said if we could do regulatory compliance we could do the one thing no one else does actually demonstrate the efficacy that show that it works really get it so that you know not just sticking it on the shelves and you know and I said because we could make a few million quid selling selling it now I said we could do it properly and make a few billion now I joked genuinely joked because I you know but now I'm sat here and this thing is growing wings I've heard really good stuff about it we are really good and what year are you in at the moment not from the idea from actually going right actually I'm full in on this business so I've just got something I need to say something because this has been this last five minutes my mum passed away today four years ago and you talking about cannabis my mum had cancer and she didn't want to go down the chemotherapy route so she went pure cannabis so we were just buying lots of cannabis turned into liquid form drinking it rubbing it da da da da and she was given six months she lasted 11 months 12 months and I just need to bring that up because I'm in the back of my mind.

45:15I'm like goosebumps in the back of my mind.

45:17Farard Darver: Hence you said there's something in that. When you said I said that, you looked at me and you said there's something in that. That's right. I knew there was something in it. I needed to get that off my chest because I'm like, my mum, bless her. Yeah, so it's four years a day. But yeah. But the thing is, this is a dodge. You know, there is something within this, you know. It made her feel good. Yeah. Like when she was taking the cannabis, like it made her feel good. There's something that was working. I'd like to know more detail in that on what tests have been done to see who's come out the other side or whatever you know i'm quite intrigued by this there is i mean look there is there is a huge amount of research out there there's also a huge amount of just total nonsense yeah and you know you've got to take it a bit at a time you have to take it a bit at a time specifically with something like this i knew what we had was really special and it was good we only use we we stick with cbd the cannabidiol acid you know the anti-inflammatory part of the hemp so the cbd thc tetrahydrocannabinol do they take that out to create cbd so so well the hemp plant yes so you think of it as the uh the the the marijuana plant has hemp on one side which is high in cbd low in thc and then you've got the cannabis which is you know and it's high on t so you yeah okay when we we have a hemp derived cbd we you know and and we only use a cbd isolate so it's just the cbd and the reason is at the moment i think that there is a real change in the mindset of of of the general population and accepting that cbd isn't weed yeah you know when i first started i was cannabis oh yeah yeah yeah whereas this isn't cannabis i've got nothing cbd is a perfectly acceptable and i've got nothing wrong with cannabis yeah no no it's fantastic but but but it's but it's it's it's still not ready yeah for general you know they haven't figured out how it's still technically cbd stands for cannabidiol acid cannabidiol acid so and and there is a lot of it there's a lot of nonsense out there with it what we wanted to do was bring out a product that was based on science efficacy regulatory compliance i sit here today and that that product that you've got there that we've brought out that i've worked on tirelessly for the last like you know how long well uh it was a hot july day in 2019 i had come back from from work i was started the company still working in the army and my wife turns around to me and she says we need to talk i said okay she just goes i can't do this anymore not like this we never see you you're up at five o 'clock in the morning talking to india you'll go all day yeah to the regiment you come back you go back into the office i'd kick my kid out of his room by the way so i was using downstairs office as an office and you're there till one o 'clock or two o 'clock in the morning you're speaking to to to america or where you know she goes i can't you need to i said well i can't do both yeah i'm trying to make a i'm trying to make a life for us trying to grow a brand as well exactly and she's trying to go choose yeah choose then but not this is you know i was like okay fair enough then friday comes and i turn around to And I said, I'm not going to be promoted.

48:33Farard Darver: She looked at me. She says, oh, oh, no. Like, I didn't. What's happened? I said, because I've just resigned. I've turned my commission down. I've walked away from the promotion. We're not getting the full pension. And what we are getting, I've buried it in the company. Oh, by the way, I've also sold the camper van dad's jewellery. Fair play. And she looked at me and went. Love it. Right. Well, then. OK, I said, you said, yeah, yeah, let's do it. We're all in. That's it. Yeah. There's only one way to be, isn't it? You've got to be all in. That's it. Yeah. It was like a weight lifted off my shoulders.

49:04Yeah, I bet. You know, because I was... What were you losing in salary-wise for your family, for you to hand in your notice at that time?

49:12Farard Darver: Well, so it's not so much... Well, as in like... Guaranteed. You're guaranteed X amount of money each month. That had gone because you're going full on into... Yeah, and I then took my... Because at your 16-year point, you get what's called a half pension. Okay. So if you leave after 16, you get a half pension. You get a half pension. Guaranteed for life. Yeah. And I took that and buried it in because I knew I was now not going to be earning anything. And I had the length of time it was for that to last to go and actually get this thing to start ticking over. Up and running. And up and running.

49:41Did you have any savings? No. No savings at all. So you've gone straight in. Have you got a business partner? No, no, no. This is so… Are you 100 % new?

49:49Farard Darver: So that is me. But I started this with, obviously, as I said, my best mate who I've known since I was a kid. i've got four uh really like solid business partners with me as in i've known them since i was there we're all together when we started this thing we said shall we do it to uh like just make a better life for our family let's say you know it kind of gone when he found it and did the bits and pieces he's really good at that yeah he he as i said he retired when i joined the army because he made a load of money during spain the spanish property booms okay great kind of entrepreneur you No, but I said, I'll do the commercialization bit, you know, because I reckon I can do that.

50:30Farard Darver: I can write a plan. I can, you know, and my idea of hemp and the product and how it was and all that. Yeah, that's sort of. Who come up with the name hemp with an E at the end? That was Ross, our chief marketing officer. I like it. And because we wanted to stay true to what it was. Yeah. But the funny thing is, I always get asked, is it hemp or hempy? I said, is it Nike or Nike? Yeah. It's true, isn't it? You know, I'm not going to say either way. Adidas or Adidas. It's true. Tomato, tomato. Whatever you think it is. Get it talking. Yeah. So tell me the journey you've been on then. Because jumping into entrepreneurship, where you've never been involved in entrepreneurship, it's tough.

51:08Yeah. I want to know what your feelings. It's the hardest thing I've ever done. Yeah, I want to know your feelings, what you've gone through. It's the hardest thing I've ever done.

51:16Farard Darver: Yeah. Nothing in the army prepared me for it in regards to, it helped me get through, but the realisation. the one thing I think that is really not understood today is just how hard it is to start your own business. Hey, this is Adam Grant, host of Ted's podcast, Rethinking with Adam Grant. Have you heard of Bill? It's the intelligent finance platform that uses AI to help you avoid costly errors and optimize cashflow. In fact, Bill reports that over 90 of the top 100 US accounting firms trust them to manage, move, and maximize money, proven by over a trillion dollars in secure transactions. Eliminate the friction and start scaling with the proven choice.

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52:39That's Warby Parker dot com.

52:44Farard Darver: I have a bit of a bee in my bonnet about successful business people who give advice to those coming up and it's bullshit go on there are too many people out there who've made it that forget how they made it I'll tell you how you made it you worked your ass off seven days a week for five years you didn't go on holiday you didn't see your kids you didn't buy birthday presents you didn't take your missus out for dinner you were all a you were working you were grinding you probably didn't go to the gym as much as you needed to you most certainly didn't take any days off for yourself it was a hundred percent in all day every day non-stop there are too many people who once they make it turn around and start saying, yeah, go ahead and do it.

53:38Farard Darver: And when you do it, don't forget to look after yourself. Don't forget to take your mental health day. Don't forget to, and I think, that's bullshit. Because you didn't get to where you were by doing that. You got to where you were by grinding for five or six, all the time. It's also people who have made it. They then talk about work-life balance. Oh, bollocks. It's bullshit. If you're building a brand and you're building a business, there is no such thing as work-life balance. You are 24-7 living and breathing. if you want to become a success you've got to live and believe it there's no Netflix at night time there's no like weekend you just doesn't like you speak to anyone around me it doesn't matter if it's Saturday Sunday every day is the same we're just getting through as many days as we possibly can to break the back of this business for the business to go from there to there that's it it's not work whilst juggling people may leave the job whilst juggling you've got bills coming while you've got VAT coming while you've got turnover taxes coming in before you earn a profit you're getting stung by the government everything's everything's against you when you're trying to run a business and being an entrepreneur and building a brand.

54:4190 % of businesses fail. No one talks about this.

54:45Farard Darver: And the thing is, work-life balance, that's actually not the right way of saying it. It's called work-life harmony. You know what that means? It means harmony. That means 95 % work, 5 % home. As long as it's harmony, it can be that. I believe in work-life harmony that's not 50-50 that just means that whatever the percentage is it's harmonised it's understood have you got a good missus? I've got a great missus same yeah because people around me who are setting up business or in business and I see their missus isn't supportive of them that's danger zone I would never invest in someone where they didn't have a brilliant other half we weren't married at the time yeah how long have you been together for?

55:30Farard Darver: we've been together for I met her in September 2005, and we got married four years later. 21 years. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. We weren't married at the time. I was doing my commando course. We used to get every second or third weekend off. I'd come back, and I'd walk in, and I'd just fall out. I'd be in the bath, run, sorted, squared. She'd take my kit. She'd wash it. She'd get me, you know, feed me up. I'd fall asleep for 12 or 14 hours. I'd get up. Kit's packed. Ready to go. Kiss me on the cheek. Off you go. just supportive that's it and you know I've got two kids when I decided to do this I was not a very I wasn't flavour of the month amongst a lot of people work and at home you know Farad you're you know you're giving up and I had a pretty good career I'm not going to blow my own flu but I was good at my job and I was doing well and yeah I was upset people that work and I accept people saying this is ridiculous you are risking everything good for good you know but it's for my but I'm risking it for them it's calculated the biggest risk is not taking a risk in life yeah correct I'd hate to have regret imagine having regret now imagine if you didn't do this and you were like six years in and you were still in the military sure you'd have ended up doing 21 years or whatever fantastic fantastic fantastic but you'd always have in the back of mind what if oh yeah what if I didn't give that a go what would happen if I gave it a go What happened if I could change my family's lives by this?

57:05What happens if I can pay my mortgage? What happens if I can, you know, and you're on a journey to doing that, but people don't talk about this journey. It takes time. You know, if you can break the back of a, my rule is, if you can break the back of a business within a thousand days, you are doing unbelievably well. Just to break even. If you can break the back after five years, you're doing unbelievably well. It takes 10 years to build a moat around your business. It takes 10 years to be an overnight success. It takes 10 years to be an overnight success. Only 2 % of businesses get past 10 years.

57:372%. And there's 6 million businesses, 5.5 million businesses in the UK. No one talks about it because there is an element with the gig economy

57:47Farard Darver: that is making it easier. And it's great that people have the opportunity to start business and do that. And there are some people who've got really lucky and they've had something that's gone flash to bang and then they start offering the advice of how I did it. But they don't last. Everyone's got to be lucky though. You've got to be lucky in business. Create your own luck as well. Yeah, but you have to create your own luck. You know, the more risks you take, the luckier you become. Like it's, you know, I've been around the block for 30 years. I've been, I've had a job in my life. Like I've just building business and building brands and I know what you're going through.

58:18I think it's fantastic what you're doing.

58:20Farard Darver: You know, for me, this is something that is, it's personal. It's life, isn't it? It's life. This is personal, you know. vision without execution is hallucination so you have to get on do it you know find a way or make one either or how many people in your business at the moment we've got 11 11 yeah um and they're amazing because a lot that's a really nice number by the way well a lot of them are um are i mean you know we're we're at a growth phase at the moment a real big growth since when you launch a brand specifically something that's got cbd in it yeah it's difficult because there's so much out there i can remember having conversations with buyers from boots and tescos and all these and And the conversation we had with Tesco, as I remember this, they started the conversation with, just to let you know, we've just removed£1.5 million worth of stock of CBD products off our shelves because they weren't selling.

59:26Farard Darver: So Farard, tell me about your CBD products. quality is that what they say yeah brilliant exactly what makes it different you know yeah and uh but by the end of it they turn around went oh actually this is good difference is the real deal well you see because the one thing that when you've got something like this you've got to get it out there how do you get how do you get it out there you've got to build efficacy you've got to build you know what makes it so different what makes yours what makes yours different what you're holding in your hand yeah what makes this different compared to your competitors that is the only that is the only product in the world that contains CBD as an anti-inflammatory that is certified to world anti-doping standards which means that professional athletes can use it okay we are on the global drugs register online we're on the US gold standard drug database we are registered throughout the world in different guises whether that's a cosmetic registration or the bottom line is we have because I wanted to use sport because I thought if I was a young kid and I saw my sports hero or so using something then I would you know now a lot of people who've finished their sports careers go and do stuff like this but they don't do it whilst they're still because you can't do it so if a boxer if a boxer used this say if Conor Benn used this before a fight and got tested absolutely fine mate we did just this last weekend we partnered with Warren Boxing Management for York Hall and we had all the boxers using it one of our brand ambassadors is Thomas Suchek I've got a West Ham midfielder yeah yeah I like Suchih yeah yeah great player he had a bit of a had a bit of a weekend didn't he oh god it's painful watching that you know but so so and you know he's a premiership footballer we've got we've got Indian cricketers we've got major league baseball players we've got South African rugby players we are now and that's how we're that's what's making it different and then it all changed for us in July August last year when Boots took us on and so that process that process of going to Boots and them actually saying, you know what, we do want you on board.

1:01:27Tell me the process for the listeners out there. What stock do you have to buy? Do they buy a certain amount of stock off you? And they say, right, we're going to test this for six months. And if it's X amount of sales, we want more stock off you.

1:01:38Farard Darver: So one thing has changed, and Doge, you'll notice, one thing has changed massively with Inside UK Retail. And that is, if you're a UK retailer and there's a new product that's come out, you're risking the shelf space for something that's unproven yeah e-commerce has moved that it's got rid of it it's alleviated it no shop no high street retailer will put a brand new product on the shelf what they do is they put it on their online marketplace first to test to test yeah okay and if that then then you'll get in on the shelves did you go online first we were we're online now you're on now you have to do minimum six months okay and we're coming to about month five now And what did they see online for them, for you to go, right, we're going to put you on the shelves now?

1:02:24So our discussion with Boots as to getting on the shelves is happening now.

1:02:27Farard Darver: Yeah. So their refit is, I think it's April. So there's two a year that happen, generally around April or September. And it depends whether your category is up for refit. There's definitely a yearly one. Yeah, okay. And what they do is they want to make sure that the sales are worth it. Yeah. When we got the opportunity to list on Boots.com, it was a game changer for us. because we're on Amazon and we're in about 600 independent stores around the country and for some reason we're really big garden centers garden centers love it you know um but we wanted a high there's one thing missing from the portfolio in essence was a high street retailer and when we got boots and we got online when we're thinking oh how well is it going they put three emergency purchase orders in within 10 days of the first purchase order because it flew and they said okay we need to we need to we need to talk now fantastic so hence you know now we're it's a stage of moving on to shut to stores and then opening up with others yeah and that led us to holand and barrett and then we got put into holand and barrett marketplace and they're doing they said they're seeing the same kind of thing happened you know so this and it's one bit at a time and the funny thing is that's the most frustrating is we sell this around the world we've got this registered in brazil um saudi arabia qatar india south africa it's currently going through australia all around europe america and the hardest place has been the uk yeah i'm sure the hardest support for us as a british business has been with other british businesses and that i didn't wasn't expecting i was expecting people to kind of open the door yeah come on in coming in.

1:04:09Yeah, yeah, yeah. No. Interesting.

1:04:11Farard Darver: No, no. But that's, I think, what, that's why, that's what puts us at the top. You know, if you've got a product that's registered for sale in the UK, you pretty much can sell that around the world. But if you've got products registered in other areas, it doesn't mean you can sell it in the UK. It's got to meet our standards. Yeah, okay. So, you know, there's an, I can see why. For something like this, you've got 11 staff. It's a very dangerous game going from 10, 11 staff and then start building up. Hugely. Because you're going to get into an area where you're employing 15, 20, 22, 23 staff. You're too big to be small.

1:04:46You're too small to be big. You can get caught in the Sahara Desert, I call it, where you're looking left, looking right. Where are we going with this? Have we got enough money? Have we got enough runway? Have we got enough money to look after the people we need to come on board? You may lose that entrepreneurial spirit within there if you go from 11 to 25. The people who were brilliant with you now, you'll be looking like, who's a real expert in this area? they end up might clashing there might be hierarchy there might be politics all these things potentially could happen over your next three four five years have you got any angel investors who have come on board or any VC money come on board to take it to that next level

1:05:22Farard Darver: I've got 38 investors all angel 38 okay and one some are friends and family type thing you know that you know I've got people who've invested everything from 10 ,000 to half a million okay because I've done three three rounds I've done three rounds. Okay. Totalling about 2.2. 2.2 million just in private investors? Yeah. With angels? Yeah, with angels. Okay. Because what I did that was slightly different is most of the time you build a company like a tree. It grows, it's, you know, I didn't do that. I did a bit of a military mindset. I didn't, I wasn't, I don't know how to write ops plans. I didn't know.

1:06:04Farard Darver: and what I did was no no I want to get boots on the ground I want to plant my flag in the sand I want to get on the far bank so what we did was we decided to get the product and go and register it and do everything where we could have it registered it's a lot easier to get a distributor excited about a product that he can import straight away and start selling than get him excited about a product and go give me 12 months so we took all of that investment to create the conditions the company my company now sits with five subsidiary companies i've got companies in india europe and america i'm a trading company here in the uk so we all operate as an intra-company setup that allows for ease of trading specifically brexit yeah i all of my european deals are done through my european company because it makes it easier as now we import the products are made they're made that and they're sent so as easy as possible to make it you know and i raised the capital i didn't know what i was doing i created a linkedin profile and i was going to london three four times a month meetings just me just turning up and just just networking and i ended up um i came across this company called heropreneurs and they are a charity in london that has been created to help veterans who are starting their own businesses entrepreneur fantastic i haven't heard this one before they're brilliant oh i know you're left a real part of what i want to do is to give back yeah and i was I was mentored and I was a mentee I become mentor yeah you know when the time is right I will give back and you fill out a form and you say this is what I'm doing and you know you you and this was about 2019 2020 and um I got an email back in fact got a phone call and it basically was there was the the chairman and the CEO and they asked me to come for a meeting and they basically went look you know this is we we we designed this to help people we've already looked your company's already operating around three continents and you're already but you're still serving like you know yeah so i and they got behind me and they helped and i was introduced to a fantastic guy who became my mentor and what's his name um i'm just thinking because i've been told yeah fine am I allowed to yeah is it alright to I look one thing I got told is make sure if you're going to mention someone's name that they're cool with it they're happy with it do you know what I mean like you know and he what was his name Sagan what was his name his name is Chris okay this is okay I'll just leave that because I don't know if he's I get it I get it I get it the only reason I wanted his name is to give him a big up oh okay just to say fantastic Chris yeah yeah and basically I was I Undercover Chris we'll call him Undercover Chris that's a good one actually isn't it Undercover Chris he he allowed me he introduced me to a few people and then all of a sudden this world opened up to me that I hadn't known hadn't seen and wasn't really aware of you know and these are all people who kind of like want to give their own time and and and and can also open doors can also open very quickly yeah exactly yeah um and i found that it was something that was at the right time yeah lovely you know and all of a sudden then one person led to another led to another and i had then investments that were coming in from just lots of of different people so for your investment now to grow it from what's it what's it turning over at the moment so this is the funny thing is our turnover isn't that big because we only really started turning our proper turnover in august last year brilliant and it's been nothing but a cash so you've been building and building and that's it good for you and now we've got you know we've we were doing boxes every week and now we're sitting up pallets that sat there going out and coming in etc etc and for me it was and and the the the boots thing the pallets going to the USA.

1:10:19Farard Darver: We've had pallets go to Ghana, Namibia. We've just done a deal with, with, in Saudi Arabia for hospital network, you know, so it's, it's, so I'm just trying to get this journey there. 19 was when you left. 20, 20 when you left, but you really got into this full on in lockdown. Yeah. And then really full on when we come out of lockdown in 21, 22. Yeah, because, so really it's a very, it's really still very embryonic stages. massively because I was, because I, you know, but you're, what I'm seeing, what I'm loving about this and I'm loving your mind about this, is that you're putting everything in place to protect this brand from the ground up.

1:10:54Farard Darver: I was asked to go on Dragon's Den and I didn't. Yeah, because it wasn't the right timing. Because I was scared. Yeah. I was scared that someone else with more money, more contacts, would copy, you know, and take the idea and understand. Because I'd seen a gap, you know, and I didn't want to put that out there, you know. I just was a bit, you know, no. That's a good move. A lot of people would have jumped to that and gone, I just want to be seen out there and get the brand out there. But well done. The reason why is because I spoke to a chap who was part of the team at Chase Morgan that interviewed Elon Musk prior to the IPO.

1:11:35Farard Darver: And he said to me, he goes, Farad, everyone thought that cars running off of batteries and an online bookstore were crazy ideas. He says Amazon and Tesla ain't done too bad. He said, the difference you've got is that everyone's in pain and they need a product. So that's already there. Your biggest issue probably would be making it. And distribution. Yeah, this is it. So we've got something that's extremely unique. What's your next move? We're doing a growth cap now. You are, are you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're doing it now. Just this morning, I had a meeting with a PE office. Private equity. Yeah, fourth one in the last kind of few days because it's got to the stage now where I can't continue to do everything.

1:12:23Farard Darver: And I've got an amazing team around me, a lot of goodwill. And you can't operate on goodwill. You actually then need to get bums in seats. You know what I mean? What sort of money would you be after from PE money right now to say, right, we need this runway for the next, I'd imagine what we now, and the way the world is, 2026, to take us to 2030? yeah what is it what would you if you could wave a magic wand would you say if someone the P money's gone in and they've dropped 10 mil I don't know what sort of number you're talking about yeah that's what I'm saying not even I'm actually doing what we're doing every time I've done a round and again this is funny because I don't have a business background okay I went off and did my MBA to learn how to do bits and pieces but I don't come and I'd heard about raising money and I just thought oh that's easy because people see the opportunity and they chuck you the cash it's the most difficult thing the most time consuming thing for the last seven six seven years of doing what I'm doing I would say an inordinate amount of my time has been to do with the actual financing of the company it has been I just that I wasn't prepared for people don't just check job in itself it is 100 % so who's guiding as you're doing that you can because you don't want to take your eye off the ball who's guiding the business to say but protect the business leave it to me I want to be meeting people I want to be opening doors I don't want to get money off the table and into the business that's where we are now yeah okay because we're at the stage i had a shareholders meeting um before christmas i always do a bit of a round up on how we're doing and uh that was when actually two or three of the senior shareholders turned around and just said all right fraud we are we're beyond the startup yeah this is growing arms and legs and rapidly yeah you need the support we need to do a growth cap now yeah and we need it like now because actually we probably should but it's because everything i had put into place we got affected by decisions that were made in washington in january 2025 when the tariffs came in all of the conversations and negotiations i was having with distributors specifically in usa stopped straight away yeah it was just done yeah and they they paused everything and it wasn't just because they were like I think we're going to have to spend 150 % on our Chinese you know they weren't sure what was happening these tariffs were and it knocked everything six, nine months So for the listener here tariffs is just a tax Yeah American website is a tax a tax on importing the products and everything that you take out of the UK and you want to send to America they're going to put higher tax bracket on you and not just us because we were dealing with people who import stuff from China and he was putting 150 % I think up to one point he was talking about.

1:15:08Farard Darver: So they paused any new business. Isn't this mad when you talk about people in a job and think, oh, I'm a nine to five. If I run my own business, I'll have freedom. I'm out. There's no freedom when you're running your own business. There isn't because you're also dealing with lots of emotions. You're dealing with emotions from your team, trying to keep the culture good. You're dealing with emotions of getting the product. You're dealing with emotions of trying to raise money. You're dealing with emotions of Donald Trump changing some tabs. It's constant. It's constant. You have got to be mentally tough.

1:15:38Farard Darver: You are surrounded. You do surround yourself with the right people. When Undercover Chris, he introduced me to a guy called Peter Cunningham, who owns a company called Branding Science Group. And Peter became a mentor to me beyond what you would expect. And I can kind of ring him at any time, ask Chris at any time. and he's always, you know, and he basically allowed me to vocalise without feeling stupid because I didn't know. And I still kind of don't, to be honest. I am massively winging this. We're all winging it. People have probably realised that by that. I'm afraid everyone's winging it. Some people are better at covering up and putting a front on.

1:16:24Yeah. Everyone's winging it. And, and, and he. But this is a whole new world, by the way, what you're doing is a whole new world. Not, not a lot of entrepreneurs get to the point of, what you're trying to do right now. But you know why I'm doing it?

1:16:37Farard Darver: Because I'm sat on a unicorn. I know I am. I'm sat on a billion pound enterprise. I know for a fact. I know because of the people that are involved. I know because of those that have invested. I know because of those I'm talking to now that want to invest. I also know because of the fact that I got off the phone with Amazon India about three hours ago. And we're onboarding with them in about two months time. I've got the biggest pharmacies in the GCC in India, in America. What's GCC? The Gulf States. CBD is still technically illegal in Saudi Arabia. I was going to say it, but it's illegal. But I've got a product registered that the main hospital network is going to say.

1:17:14Farard Darver: Okay. And it comes down to the efficacy, the science. So anyone listening out there who wants to invest in hemp, what's the suggestion you would say to those people? Go to Boots and buy it. Yeah, to test it yourself. because the thing is I need look at the end of the day here's the other thing I've learnt are you saying going to because I tested it and I really liked it before you came in and we all tested it in the studio here if someone's out there and has just sold a company and is going I need to invest money and I really like this conversation I really like Farad where does he or she go to to get in contact with you to say I'm really interested in this oh look we've got my point here Farad is I did a podcast with a guy called Alex Packham.

1:18:01Alex sold his company for 90 million to Adobe. Alex and I were chatting like this and we spoke about a company we both invested in called Jack, Just Ask a Question. It's a mental health app. And I said I invested heavily into this business. And Alex was the CEO of this business. My point is when people listen to this, I got an email two days ago. Hey Dodge, I loved your episode of Alex Packham about Jack and your investment going into there. How can I get involved to solve my company? So I just put him into Alex. Alex, you two meet. There's his WhatsApp number. And he just vested 150 grand. Like my point is, people out there listening are looking for invest, to invest their money rather than sit in the bank.

1:18:41Farard Darver: Look, I'm at the state, I'm doing a growth cap now. We're looking for people. For me, there's two things. Number one, LinkedIn. I really love LinkedIn. LinkedIn's amazing. I love LinkedIn. It's the best social media ever. I've done so much business work through LinkedIn. My LinkedIn is, is I try and keep people updated what we're doing. It's the good, the bad, et cetera. So I don't have my own Instagram. Well, it's all the company. It's all hemp. but, but, but LinkedIn is that if, um, if people want to, and I'll do a bit of a plug on me here. If people want to actually get in touch, the best way is through holo global, which is, there's a fantastic, uh, lady I've been introduced to about 18 months ago.

1:19:21Farard Darver: I'm looking at right now and she's getting, she's getting shy but Tracy's been amazing yeah holo global holo global global dot com yeah it's a fantastic it's basically she she she runs all this for me in regards to you know doing speaking and all that and you know talking to people and doing podcast this type of stuff so from that point of view it's you know Tracy at holo would square that away if people want to have a serious chat by getting involved get me on LinkedIn send you an email yeah fine I'm not going to give people my telephone number and email me. I'm going to get smashed, but do it because they're serious about it.

1:19:56You can send an email to hello at doddswoodall.com and then we just open doors. And this has happened many a time with business people coming on the podcast when they're hearing proper conversations for an hour and 15, hour and 20 minutes. Doors can open. I get nothing from it. I just like putting people together and going, away you go. Mate, I'm sat here at the moment

1:20:11Farard Darver: and I have got, I've got huge multi-billion pound retailers, national retailers, in countries around the world that want to stock our products. And I need help to make that happen because I'm not sat on it, but I need expertise as well. It's not just about money. You want someone... I've never been... Is there someone you've eyed up? Is there someone you've eyed up going, do you know what? He or she would be perfect if they come on board as a board member to advise and they took a small shareholding in it, knowing that if it becomes a billion dollar company, they can have a piece of the pie. There's one person who I've thought, as you said, if you could wave a magic wand and have one particular individual, who would that be?

1:21:00Farard Darver: Peter Jones. Okay. I've watched that guy for years. Have you approached him? No. No, I haven't. No, I haven't, and I wouldn't know how to, because at the end of the day, he probably receives how many, saying I've got an amazing business. You could open a door to him in the next 24 hours. You know? And because… Why him? Why? it's I tell you why I'm going to answer it with a really weird question why him because of him okay him as an individual he's a doer I like him he's well connected I like him too there's lots of people that do this type of thing but actually I have never met him but from what I see on TV from what I've seen and read just based even interviews he just comes across like a really nice bloke who gets it yeah and hasn't kind of forgotten yeah you will never catch him turn around and saying about you know uh make sure you take this day and make sure you look after your he gets it even now and i just think that that's really really really key i was i had run out of money the pension had gone yeah hadn't got my first investment i was 14 days away from a mortgage payment and my wife turned around to me and she just said you know 14th of the month there's nothing there and I was like I know I know I'll sell it square it and I had been offered a hundred thousand pounds investment by someone but he was a dick and I knew I was not going to get on with him don't take money off him for sure and I just but I was desperate at the time just utterly desperate imagine how gutted you'd be now if he was on for a hundred grand because he would have probably got a bigger shareholding at that point you're thinking my god I've still got a deal but I turned it down because it wasn't what was his name it's not just about the money richard

1:22:51Farard Darver: i'm dicky dick but that's the point is it's not just about the cash and then funny enough you know i managed to get a small 25 yeah that led to a 50 and the rest is history so i've held my nerve so you've raised 2.2 but the next one in an ideal world what would you like in as a lump five five mil okay i mean because what we're doing is is it's global it's management and marketing only. It's that kind of get it out there. You know, we've got, I've got professional sports teams sat waiting to do a deal with us in the U S that want this, you know, they, I've got not just in the U S major league teams there.

1:23:26Farard Darver: We've got, you know, team cricket teams in India, you know, South African rugby teams. We, we've got these to be, but you just, you need to be able to, you can't enter a market unless you've got the ability to back it up. That's stupid. You only get one bite. Are you ever going to get to a point where you get brand ambassadors on board where they're being paid? Or is that a dangerous game for you? For me, that's a very dangerous game. The brand ambassadors that we do have have really, really helped us. So in the beginning... But they want to use it and they like it. And that's what you want rather than going, there's a check, pretend that you like it.

1:23:58Paying someone to say that they like what you...

1:24:01Farard Darver: I just find that very, very strange. You know, we've got... I mean, we started off in obscure... So I looked at Red Bull and I'm like, they had the X games. They were doing like obscure stuff. So that's what we did. My first brand ambassador was an IFBB pro bodybuilder called Flex Wheeler. Very well known. Flex is one brand. And then that moved on to Magnus Ver Magnussen, whom we were involved with. All the strongmen. Yeah, yeah. And we sponsor the World Disabled Strongman Championships. You know, our other brand ambassador is a guy called Dan the Beast. And Dan the Beast, he's a former, he's MMA.

1:24:37Farard Darver: He's the first triple champion for MMA. back in the days when UFC, he's UFC triple champion, Dan the B7. And Dan, again, he got us into kind of doing some stuff with UFC and MMA. But our latest, and that, but they were, they were, well, I wouldn't say obscure, but they weren't mainstream sports. When we got our certification and we realised that this is, now can be, that's when we got Thomas Suchek on board. Yeah, okay. And Thomas Suchek. And he's from Czech Republic as well. Czech Republic. And that's where it originally came from. That's right. So that's where we did, you know, and Thomas is a fantastic brand ambassador for us and he uses it and he's a West Ham player and he's a West Ham player and we're all West Ham fans even better you know so so it's you know and so we're always looking for brand ambassadors to work with but what I what I don't want to do is turn around and go there's a retainer whatever you know yeah don't get me wrong remuneration for for time absolutely yeah but I don't have to you know because they've got a and every single one of our brand ambassadors and every single person that uses our product yeah they believe in it and they know that actually this is something else but different Farad I've really enjoyed this Dodge mate it's been a pleasure I've really enjoyed this apologies I can get on my pedestal mate I've really enjoyed it and do you know I love the journey this is real still on it no but this you're at the start you're still at the start from where you're going from what I'm listening to now you're on a serious you're on a seriously exciting journey and anyone out there who gets on board with this right now I think I think they're on to something special I love the branding I love the product and I think you as an entrepreneur as a front man you're another level oh cheers man you really are only one little bit of advice please do if you don't mind me mate go ahead yeah you mentioned a minute ago I rolled a bit back a minute ago you said oh you can get hold of me on you can get hold of me on LinkedIn because I don't bother with Instagram I went public five years ago and I was always behind my company the company was the front I was at the festival and I had this and I had that they were all at the front I was happy being behind it as soon as you put yourself being the front man and the face of your company everything changes so the only thing that i can say to you is just i know you're an agent now i was the same i was like really have i got to do this really i want to stay in the shadows yeah no i get it i was the same as you yeah but i tell you now my business as over the last five years my businesses has completely changed the opportunities that come in daily with dms on across facebook instagram LinkedIn it's constant and then opportunities come about and then I can either put people in contact or I'll end up taking the opportunity my only bit of advice is if I was you I'd be the front man of it that is something that I think what we've just done here is potentially looking at someone said to me about 18 months ago Farad you are this is you this is you you have to be you know I was a bit hesitant about that we all are age we all are in your 20s they can see why everyone's doing it.

1:27:28But our age, and when you... Don't get me wrong, I used to love it when I was younger.

1:27:31Farard Darver: No, of course. In a band and all that stuff. Yeah, of course. But now it's like, you know, but I get it. I wouldn't fight it. I would leave you in. My Instagram account is there, I just don't use it. I've never posted. Yeah. So maybe that's going to look to change. But it takes, you'll have zero followers for a long time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But all it takes is that one person to Google your name, Farad, what comes up? Oh, LinkedIn. Farad, Instagram. Okay, he hasn't got tons of followers, but I'm not surprised he's got tons of followers. He doesn't need tons and tons of followers, but he's been posting, oh, that's who he is behind the scenes.

1:27:59That's the man behind it. I like him.

1:28:01Farard Darver: Yeah. No, I appreciate it. Yeah. Because the thing is, you know, we're both from the same, well, okay, we live in the same area. We're here with our families. We're doing, what you have done, it does, you know, people like yourself, there's an inspiration for those that are going, oh, actually, you can still stay real. You can still do it. You can still, you know what I mean so saying something like that I appreciate it absolutely I've loved this I've enjoyed this I've really enjoyed it and I wish you all the best I think you're on a really exciting journey and you're a special entrepreneur oh mate thank you very much I appreciate it thank you you're a good man cheers mate nice one thank you nice one if you'd like to see someone on the show leave a comment below and if you haven't already do us a favour share us a bit of love press the subscribe button and it allows us to grow the show even bigger and bigger each week nice one

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