From Bedroom Idea To Award-Winning Rum w/ Louis & Bruce || Sly Dog Rum

0:00The big risk is trying to be premium in a category that doesn't like premium. You know, our dad used to always say cheap shit sells. Yeah. And at the first opportunity, gone and made something not cheap. In real life events are really important. Like getting your customer in front of you, having your drink at a party. You know, it's such a nice experience to bring the brand and the consumer together. Yeah. And we did a Lab 54 house party. Louis volunteered his flat for that. No way. I don't think I've ever seen him so stressed. I think the biggest misconception that we had was our product is nice.

0:36People will then buy it. Getting that first wholesale listing, which, I mean, it's crazy now, like, that we actually managed to do that. But that was a year and a half of complete and utter persistence. First day, I sold into 10 farm shops. I literally went around in my car with boxes in the boom. I think you made over£1 ,000. Yeah, literally. This is so easy. This is so cool. It wasn't a realistic view of how easy it was to sell, but it was a realistic view of if I go somewhere and I sample it with someone, they are going to think it's a good product. Going out cold into a bar, into a venue, you might meet the owner of 20 different sites and then suddenly it's like, because you've met him, he cares much more about what you're doing and those opportunities come, which you will never get that opportunity if you're emailing that same guy.

1:20He's never going to give a shit. Well I think a lot of people like us, you kind of go into it not realising the cost of running an alcohol brand. Yeah. It gets expensive very quickly. In every single podcast, I always do, the same kind of sentence comes up, but it's like how naivety at the start is your total superpower. Because if you knew all this, would you have done it? I reckon we still probably would have done it. I just think, no, we wouldn't. I think we would. Before we get into today's episode, I want to give a shout out to a special sponsor, Sam Lawrence Recruitment. We all know that finding the right people or the right job can feel really overwhelming, and that's exactly where Sam comes in.

1:54He really just gets it. It's not just about ticking boxes. It's about connecting the right people with the right opportunities. He takes the time to understand you and exactly what you're looking for, whether you're building a team or taking that next career leap. So definitely get in touch. Trust me, you'll be glad you did. Charlie is a three-time founding member of Startup Brands, taking each from 0 to 1 million within 18 months across different categories, channels and countries, including launching operations in the US and Australia. He is now the founder of Plugin Brands, an award-winning outsourced FMCG sales agency working with the fast-growth food and drink brands, and Dive-In Agency, a tick-top shop agency helping brands turn social commerce into real revenue.

2:38With a background in go-to market strategy, brand development and distribution through retail and wholesale channels, there is an anyone better place to help you supercharge your brand. Charlie and the Plugin Brands team work with a host of brands, including Moju, Muller, Clipper T, Who Gives a Crap and Lovecorn. So if you're in need of an extra pair of hands to really step on your growth this year, Charlie is the guy you need to be in touch with. Getting to Grow is also brought to you by the Coconut Collab and full disclosure, as I'm sure most of you are aware, I work there so I know how much love goes into everything that we make.

3:13We're all about creating delicious dairy-free plant-based treats that do not compromise on taste. From our creamy yogurts to our indulgent desserts, everything's made with coconuts and a whole lot of care. If you're looking for something naturally good but seriously tasty, and my favourite is just our natural coconut yoghurt, I have it most mornings with granola and lots of honey. Trust me, you're going to absolutely love it. Welcome back to another episode of Getting to Grow. On this week's episode, we have Louis and Bruce, the founders of Slide Our Grom. So, welcome to the show. Hello Zoe, how are you?

3:45I'm good, I'm good. Thank you so much for coming, the really long travels you've done this morning from Ballam and Battersea all the way up to Clapham. So tell me firstly how you guys are connected, how you know each other, and then how the idea came about. Yeah, well we are brothers, so we've known each other for a very long time, and obviously spent lots of time over lockdown discussing all sorts of different ideas about what we wanted to do but it was entirely Louis idea to start a rum company and I was working I was coding and doing all sorts of stuff I didn't really like and which was fine when everyone was in an office and I could sort of enjoy that bit and then having to do it in the bedroom by myself was not that fun and Louis had been working on his little idea which essentially meant lots of rum samples being shared out amongst us so where were you in lockdown back back a month's house in Dorset.

4:43Oh nice, whereabouts? So near Sherborne. Okay, I went to Bournemouth University, so I was wondering if he was like, oh no. Other end of Dorset. Other end of Dorset. Countryside Dorset. Countryside Dorset. So you had the idea for a rum company a little bit before. To be fair, I was working on it before. I mean the whole idea for Sly Dog Rum comes from, well me and my mates would always go out, we'd always be drinking spiced rum. Yeah. And the options, we were kind of happy with the Captain Morgans at the time. and then you know there was an occasion or something that was a bit more um you know a bit more reason to celebrate there was nothing that sort of filled the gap of going a bit more you know a bit more of an occasion a bit more premium and it was always we'd always get served if you wanted something like on the rum list it would always be something like a traditional aged not not basically a spice on which is what with the flavors we were all wanting so we were just like why is there no one filling the gap between you know there's captain morgan's and a few other cheap cheap house pours there wasn't something that was uh giving a similar flavor profile but on a more premium scale so that's kind of where I started going to work did research on the whole market basically I was actually looking at the spreadsheet yesterday that I made of every single thing that was in existence like what the story was what formats they sold in and kind of just did a whole overview and everything and I also couldn't believe how many of them were like it was all pirates it was all cliches made up stories and I was like it was just crazy to me that it was in the spirits world yeah made up stories we just we were we were talking we always discuss and it's like in all the other kind of other consumer goods like made up stories is not a thing it's like when it comes to spirits and especially rum it's just like these made up fantasy stories that think that's going to like connect with people so I think that was where from from the beginning it was like this is going to be against all the cliches something that actually if it i feel like because i was not a rum connoisseur so if it was resonating with me and my friends who are also not rum connoisseurs and i feel like it's got a better chance of resonating with the rest of the population and also if there's a fake story like i that's a really hard sell like because when you're in those meetings you know you're so passionate because it comes from a story and it's a real story so i don't know how these big brands have actually done it then that's really it's really not what small fmcg is all about yeah no exactly i mean like it almost came down to this idea of like a trade show you wanted to be able to tell some story to someone where they'd go oh that's quite cool yeah really it just seems those stories just seem to be a reason behind the name yeah that is just something to talk about but at the start so many people were having this idea it's like you need to have a brand story you need to have a brand story and it's almost like they expected us to say that we were in the shed in the back garden messing around with flavours and all this kind of stuff and we suddenly came up with this thing.

7:32It's like, no, obviously it didn't happen like that. We were working with really good people who knew exactly what to do. We were obviously the ones telling them what to do, but there wasn't some mad hat story as to what happened. But I think all of the reasonably established established brands almost backdate their brand story to come up with some form of marketing later on and it just gives them something to talk about. But like Louis said, you don't get that with other consumer goods. It's like the brand story for most things these days is the consumer. It's not some made up story to connect with the consumer, it is the consumer.

8:11This is when you will use this product, this is how you'll feel when you're using it. It's no weird brand story as to some guy in the past who decided he needed to. It's just not there. It's just this is the kind of person who is going to enjoy using our product and they're going to feel good when they use it. And this is the niche that I'm filling. Yeah. Yeah. So why, like, I guess, spiced rum over non-spiced rum? I just feel like that is, I mean, my market research for starting doing it was friends and people I ever hang out with. And to be honest, in the people I hang out with, I think people consider if they ask to name a rum they're going to go for a captain morgan's even a kraken like i feel like spice rum is the one that is driving the growth in the rum category and i just think it's the most exciting there's so many different sort of variations of flavors like when i was trying all the different ones it's like you can go for some that are really clovey and quite medicinal and then all the way to the ones that are overly sweet i just feel like it's the most exciting kind of category whereas as much as we do love rum and traditional rum I think that is, yeah, I just think Spice Rump's got the oomph to do something different with it.

9:21And Sly Dog, the name, I mean, I can kind of understand why it's called that, but give us the kind of like brand. Where did the name come from? Well, it was about like not doing it the same as other people. It's like almost a bit, like a bit sneaky. It also does sound like a good name. Well, I said it sounds like something that already existed. Yeah. But it didn't. But it does play out in this idea of, you know, we're not going to go with the stupid brand story. We're going to do it slightly differently. I mean, since then I've gone back... It's a dark horse, but more fun is what I will whip out to people when I'm trying to make something sound clever.

9:58But yeah, really it was about not doing things in the same way that everybody else was. Not going along the same lines as... Most drinks brands are started by someone who already works in the industry. and they're so then affected by all the stuff that they know about that particular sector, about that particular category, all of this sort of stuff. Whereas we weren't, we weren't like, we thought people aren't going to necessarily care about the wood of the cask that it's aged in. Because as drinkers of Spice Run, we did not care about that. We cared just about what it tasted like. So in that way, we weren't going to do the same things that other people, we weren't going to focus on the same things as other people.

10:37and yeah doing it differently being a bit sly um yeah the sly dogs I'm on and um in the early like days when you're kind of like finalizing your concepts and tasting it where were you getting all like the samples from because I mean also around alcohol right there must be more regulations than being like oh I need some I'm making a potato chip brand you there must be some more like basically harder to kind of bring product to market yeah I think I was actually looking over all my emails which I haven't done forever is all the emails when I first was trying and it's quite funny to look and I was like I want to make a rum and they see the emails where I'm like I have no idea how I where do I get rum from and all these different people trying to connect me to where I like but in the end enough different people but like then the thing is that if you ask if you ask people for help there's always people gonna like people are willing to help yeah so kind of over a period of about a month I kind of got pointed in the right direction of where do you actually get rum from and like supplies and that kind of thing.

11:34And then in terms of actually creating the recipe,

11:39he's the guy I love so much. Okay, shout out. Shout out, but not too much for shout out because I don't want anyone else getting any ideas. Okay, so like we'll beep all this out then. Shout out to your beep. Honestly, with our two products as well, I couldn't, and even our new RTD can as well, like that if Darren's not doing it then I kind of but so basically worked with him kind of during lockdown as well so there wasn't a lot of going to work with him it was a lot of send me things sending things back and forth basically which worked out quite well because it was locked down it was our family kind of like the extended older family as well and was able to get like feedback on different flavors try all the other things that are out there as well and I think what is also quite good with what how that happened is my family Bruce included and my extended family like they are all the family like a granny and stuff and staying with us um they're not rum drinkers they don't know anything about it and I think what we were trying to do with Sly Dog is give it sort of flavors that are just like a normal person that doesn't know much about it yeah just like not not trying to be like this is you have to have drunk rum for five years to really understand what we're trying to do here it's just really good quality and of a palette of just normal people basically and I think that was good to get the kind of feedback from people our normal family basically on what tastes good so Darren would basically send samples to us we'd all sit around with the sheets of paper and they'd all have to give me their feedback on what they thought of the different flavors and kind of then mix it with all different things it was kind of fun it's something quite good to do during lockdown to be honest um although I get I get hesitant telling people it was a lockdown project because it felt at the time it felt like oh everybody was having their silly little project yeah but it was louie's idea beforehand and i'll always say to people it's like no that lockdown was literally just when the work got done it was a convenient time to do it all um but yeah having having everybody there to sort of be involved in the whole thing it was it was really nice um are you a big family then yes it's slightly smaller now due to um yeah no but it was good i mean there were seven of us yeah yeah okay yeah that is quite big like there was three of us in lockdown so like that's yeah seven and fun though right like lots going on like there's no time to be bored well i still had another job that i hated so i was this was desperate this was before we i persuaded bruce to join yeah join the gang exactly but like by that but like obviously i'm going to want to join because that was the only bit of my day that i wasn't absolutely despising yeah um so yeah no but but by the end of lockdown we had a pretty good idea of the direction it was going so it was like in september 2020 that i quit my job to do this properly um and then march 2021 we properly launched it we had 10 000 bottles wow yeah and growing up were you guys like entrepreneurial because i think there's a lot of um like entrepreneurs i think they definitely think differently you know you're more up for taking risk because you know the average person always everybody would be an entrepreneur but most people like you know sustainability in their job they're like a nine-to-five they don't like like stepping out the box whereas I think entrepreneurs they think very differently their brain works differently is that something that was innately in you as kids well I mean there was a certain amount of I wouldn't say expectation like our family had had lots of entrepreneurs in it okay as you're growing up you don't know what that word means yeah you don't think it's anything you just think oh they they run businesses and they do these different kind of things and so I think it was definitely always in the back of my minds but I don't know I expected like you go to school, you go to uni and then you get a job.

15:14I was very much just on that normal track but wasn't really feeling it. I think I took, I did a physics degree and then took a job in data engineering and was just trying to compete with myself almost but that doesn't really work very well when you don't really enjoy what you're doing. I wasn't even very good at coding, I was just good enough to make people not think I should lose my job yes but I could like I don't know it just wasn't satisfying yeah um and obviously Louis is clearly the more entrepreneurial of the two of us given that he had the idea um but I think that was just because I wasn't didn't enjoy working for other people which I just think it does come from the way we grew up which was like our family like everyone in our family was doing stuff for themselves yeah so I think that was just kind of what we grew up thinking that's what everyone like that's just how you do it basically yeah it It was almost like summer holidays, like you get like eight weeks off, and dad's with you for the whole holiday.

16:08And in my head, that's what everyone gets to do in the summer holidays, even when you've got a job. Yeah. Obviously you don't. And I got there and I was like, what the hell? This is not what I expected. So yeah, I mean, there was definitely, it wasn't like there was pressure to do it. It's not like anyone was angling for it. But I think maybe a little bit of self-imposed pressure that was like, well, they've done it. and like a level above them they've done it we need to do our thing um do our thing as well and but yeah i'm just glad that louie had quite a good idea very helpful the og sly dog i think as well there's so much to be said in in it when like what you want out of life i think like as you've got as i've got older i've realized like really how short it is um and you definitely don't think like that as a child you just do your day to day come home mom's making supper you go to the go to school and you know you don't want to be i want to not like it's hard because there's so much to be said in having a business and being like remembered and you know that's also you want to like build for the future but living in the now is an entrepreneur is really hard because i think you're always thinking about like right well this is the strategy in five years we need to be here because we need to take that box how do you deal with the like day-to-day running of the business because it is so exciting you're small you're agile you can move quicker than the big the big guys can in the category but also looking at your like long term okay well this is actually how we need to implement the next five to ten years yeah i mean it's that is certainly to start with it's very easy to just focus on what's going on on that day um and almost like with a lot of the people we sell to like our big thing is if you ask us to do something for you this evening we will come up with something for you this evening so you know whether that's you know pubs like the region down in like they came to us and they were like we need this by this weekend and then we can organize everything and we're doing it.

18:00So having to shift into a more long-term view is quite, it's not difficult, but it's something that needs to happen. Otherwise you will end up miles away from where you should be because you've said yes to too many of the slightly wrong things. I mean, it's always spoken about. I don't think we shy away from that sort of thing, but I mean we're constantly talking to each other. Yeah. So it's like, you know, it's like probably our best phone calls are at nine o 'clock at night. Yeah. You know, when we sat opposite each other all day, and then got sick of each other, and then gone home, and then actually that would be really good.

18:37Yeah. But in terms of like implementing it all, it's like taking it slowly, not being too rash with the big decisions. I mean we've got except well for a very long time we had one skew and then it was a big decision to go for a second one and then the moment you start doing that everyone's like oh what's coming next what you know we're doing all this it's like we're taking that side of it slow big decision to decide to put it in a can as well because fundamentally we're not a can company we don't want to become a can company yeah we want to use cans to show off our rum which is in our cans yeah anything and we're not trying to own a specific cocktail but yeah we're just trying to demonstrate the best way of drinking it and but it's still that that that was a tough one to decide do we actually go do that because RTD is so crowded isn't it like you go to all the you go to all the supermarkets the corner shops and you're like now with all these buzz balls have just come out of nowhere like what is that?

19:33and the big sips now the one that's suddenly like yeah everything's just like it's suddenly all there and and it's so crowded i think like i i get like even i go to the aisle and i work in fmcg and i'm like oh my gosh what do you even pick up here like there's so many now um so i can understand why cans but there's i think these are really good opportunities for like airlines and like trains as well because then when and also when they can't have the range that's in a corner shop so when you get that audience where you know that they have no choice you have a bit of a monopoly they're really good there yeah i do think i do think that like lots of lots of places you would expect that would have made had a bartender and made cocktails even like wagamamas and stuff like that it's like now they just have cans and i just think that a lot a big part of it for us was sampling as well like it's quite hard to sample somewhere that is not just stood at a trade show stand yeah when you've got like a bottle of rum like it's yeah because you're giving giving out like little shots or whatever.

20:34Which is not even how anyone would really drink it. Yeah it's so true. No one is buying a bottle of rum to drink shots of rum, they are going to mix it with stuff and it is like what are they going to mix it with. So in the end our ideal way of sampling it is to be stood there with a full bar and the ability to make anyone a drink which is never going to happen. So that way having a can that we can just sort of turn up the stuff and hand out to people and they can actually experience it how they would do if they were to buy a bottle. Yeah. That's with the how was what was your strategy in terms of like selling was it so you that you had your you had what did you say how many bottles did you have 10 ,000 to start with you had 10 ,000 is your first production run that is quite a lot yeah with a best before day of what was the kind of shots yeah there's no one that's the best thing that was that was why it wasn't a worry because it has a lifetime VVD yeah yeah okay so what was your was it like right we're going in vans we're going around to like kind of nice deli farm shops etc everything was shut on the day we launched yeah there was no like all the bars were shut oh is it it was still locked down 2021 god it just never ended did it no exactly but like so we launched at that point and it was all um dc online yes as a as basically a way of people having seen it yeah before we then go went and try and sell it to people and did you have trouble with it being dc initially because obviously you might not have tested sending big bottles in the post that you had smashes we did no it was actually it was more the the logistics of which delivery partner to use and trying to get the royal mail guy to turn up every day and not having enough bottles on that day and then you know things like that we obviously had not worked out and also it was a really good time for d2c when we first launched i was like oh my god if that if that's all that happens in like you know so many orders every day because everyone was just at home ordering yeah and we're like if that's what just happens every day there then everything else we do is going to be so much easier because we just got all those happening in the background almost like when you first i mean when you first launch and you make enough noise there's a lot of like new people that want to come and try your first bottle and then like all your people that know you and that kind of thing so it was like the first the first few months online it was like well if you've just got that as like a standard then everything else we do is and then obviously nowadays it's not quite as juicy you have to work a lot harder and you have to advertise a lot more to get people to order online because just i don't people buying their rum out and about more these days and also we're not as home anywhere near as much as we were right yeah um so it was all sharp the day you launched but dc was kind of like the booming part that was basically what it was when we first started and then going around dorset to all the places yeah i think once once that sort of once everything started to open up again yeah there were i mean literally we're living in dorset at the time and there are so many farm shops around Dorset and as people came out of lockdown those places were packed yeah they were actually deceivingly even now farm shops is like a dark horse of like us yeah sorry not farm garden centers yeah yeah the similar similar style thing but they said Dorset there's lots of independent ones who would they were they were selling out stuff every day so someone turns up and says would you like to buy this box of rum I live down the road of course they do get it in yeah And then be ringing you up next week and say, can we get another box?

23:52I think I remember that you went out. The first day, I sold into 10 farm shop. I literally went around in my car with boxes in the boot. I think you made over£1 ,000. Yeah, literally. This is so easy. It was like, this is so cool. But look, it wasn't a realistic view of how easy it was to sell. But it was a realistic view of, like, if I go somewhere and I sample it with someone, they are going to think it's a good product. We're not turning up with something that no one thinks it's going to sell. they were more willing to to risk putting new brands on the shelf which is what's died down now but in terms of the effects that the product had on people on buyers essentially be it a buyer a small farm shop you know they still had to think is that going to sell if it goes on my shelf and the response from that was really good um but yeah to start with it was just all of these it was quite fun back then as well yeah it was like the good old days yeah well it was just like it was kind of carefree and it was all like we didn't even know how serious of a thing this was going to be and it was like obviously we had intentions of it being serious but just felt kind of free and you were just so excited with you made like even just a few sales now it's like you know it's always like where's the next one where's the next one it just becomes a little bit more stressful yeah and also like every year it gets more crowded right like new brand category to be fair it was really exciting time for spice rum just like there was so many startups lots of them have sadly like not doing it anymore but I think that's more of just like the climate of alcohol brands but it was just like there was so many popping up and all like different ideas and it just felt like this was like they're gonna be the sort of the burst of rum that everyone was taught everyone was sort of talking about that might happen after June and like like trade shows that you go to like like BBC good food show there was just so many people all doing well all selling all these bottles of this really cool innovative different stuff um so yeah it really felt at that point like ah we've we've done this at the right time you know we've got in at the right time before this sort of explodes but it has not gone like that you know they they most of them aren't around anymore yeah um well 93 percent of businesses fell in their first year right so yeah i think i think i think at that point probably maybe like most of the brands we knew made it to two years which then you start thinking oh these are all brilliant and then all of a sudden you sort of well i think a lot of people like us you kind of go into it not realizing the cost yeah running an alcohol brand just the upfront costs of duty and all these kind of things there's just so many um yeah yeah it gets expensive very quickly yeah but actually in in every single podcast i always do the like same kind of sentence comes up but it's like how naivety at the start is like your total superpower because if you knew all this would you have done it?

26:39I reckon we still probably would have done it I just think no we wouldn't I think we would I think it was fun but I was just like I think maybe there's safer more easy on the cash flow categories to get involved in but that's what I mean we've picked possibly the most taxed category unless we say cigarettes or something yeah you can't even have any packaging that was our other idea exactly so tell me about like the failures at the start well not failures like big mistakes you did that you then like learned from that if someone was listening to this thinking you would like maybe like you would warn them about this certain type of thing that you meant and jump in i think the biggest misconception that we had was our product is nice people will then buy it and then you start taking it to so when we when initially all this like d2c and independent retail that's all we were really doing but we obviously understood that we wanted to sell to pubs but we sort of didn't understand that process we had people who we sort of started to know um getting that first wholesale listing which was uh it was lwc okay first national wholesale listing which i mean it's crazy now like that we actually managed to do that but that was a year and a half of complete and utter persistence trying to get that listing we just assumed if a pub bought through LWC and they said to LWC we want to buy this rum they would go okay let's stick it in and we were completely naive about the fact that that's not how it works and you'd have to have a minimum of you know 20 sites already ordering who then want to all of this sort of stuff and definitely at the start you can I can remember thinking oh this is ridiculous like what are they doing why are they doing this the longer I've done it the more I understand of course they need to do that yeah because otherwise they'd be sticking a new product in every week because one person wanted it one bar wanted to put it in one cocktail whatever and the warehouse would be like the size of England precisely and also I mean they can even get stuck with things where they've got plenty of potential listings and then suddenly the guy doesn't really want to do it anymore or they run out of money or something like this that means they've now got 600 bottles that they can't sell because the business isn't money anymore they need to do something with that stock like there are lots of complaints that people have about oh how hard it is to get listed in a wholesaler all of this but it's like I mean I'm quite happy to like post date my complaints because we are now listed in all the wholesalers yeah but like I I do not think it is a bad thing that it is that hard to get listed in those wholesalers yeah because that was the work that we did that actually meant when we got listed it didn't just sit there and it was being taken into places and it meant that the wholesalers themselves could sort of trust that we were a brand worth working with they've got limited time yeah obviously they'd much rather be selling loads of Diageo products and probably getting a nice fat bit on the side from them but we have to prove to them that we're the one worth suggesting to people that is not the one that they've seen before but the work required to get there was necessary even though it was annoying the end account pull through is something that's like absolutely massive like i work so um with my day job at coconut like one of my biggest accounts in like out home so like non-grocery is breaks and breaks is it's a really big account for us i've got a really good relationship with like my buyer he's lovely tom and shout out tom um and he you know at the start it was very like i was i was like you i was incredibly naive and i just assumed like oh well i'll have one cool and they'll just list my yogurt like why would they not um and then obviously very quickly realized that like you have to show like a lot of category data and you have to like prove your space and stuff and i think because i'm a commodity in the sense of like it's yogurt it was um there's not a lot of space for um like too many of the same type of things in in this space in dairy because we're chill with shelf life except there's a lot more kind of stuff going on than maybe there is like with alcohol in terms of like the shelf buy because obviously mine would run out of life a lot quicker than yours does.

30:50And yeah, I remember the day I got the listing and then it went in and we were like, they were kind of calling me up at like waste. And I was like, oh, well, why is it not being pulled through? And then I realised, ah, that's like where I have to now like absolutely graft my ass off to like ensure that people are like pulling through and using it. Just becoming available doesn't actually result in... Nope. Yeah. Nope. And requires like a lot of time, it's door knocking. Like it's back to that field sales, like calling up people cold calling right you do and trying to like figure out everything you know about breaks like who the end customer is because obviously they can't share with you they didn't even tell you they used to be able to yeah now they can't gdpr etc so like i'm doing like this is a really good hack anyway anyone listening what i do and you might guys might do it but as i i'll go on breaks is like instagram i look at tab pics and all the tag pics are generally like bars and restaurants that obviously use breaks as a route to market and dm like every single one obviously we're like you know there are some that i'm like probably not really my audience but you know within reason and that's actually ended up in quite a few listings um so like that's something that i've done to like help because you don't you don't know yeah no no no that's a good point i mean the amount of time spent out on foot just working out who someone's wholesaler is just to start with yeah and you know you could have a really good conversation with someone and say who do you buy through oh so and so it's like oh well hopefully in a year's time you might be able to buy us because we're not listed for them now yeah but then you make all that list of don't you you have your CLF, whatever your whole sales are, all these guys want to buy.

32:17And then when you're at that 50 kind of maybe touch points, you can go to the buyer and say, look, I have all these guys that are interested. I'm going to do the backing work. I'll pull it through. Like, yeah, it's this whole fat chicken and egg. Yeah, and a lot of ours is we can take on the risk of, or take on almost like the logistics of delivering direct to a venue before we're in their wholesaler, which is, I mean, almost like we can't afford to do that. All the having to deliver it, that is what a wholesaler does. Yeah. and we're having to drive stuff across London and do this and stuff, but if you can go to a wholesaler and say, these 10 sites already buy it off us at the same price that you sell it, so why don't you just do it, and then you can get three pounds each bottle.

32:57Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're quite happy for that, because it's costing us more than three pounds a bottle to spend the time and effort to get it there. But yeah, yeah, just a lot of work. Yeah, and really interesting though, because actually that time on foot is really key, because you're then speaking to the customer, and you're getting feedback. I don't do that. Bruce does that. You're a behind the scenes guy. Weirdly, even though I made, I don't know, there's some kind of, when you've made it, I think if you gave me something else to go in and sell, like that, one of those products in your kitchen, I could probably do quite a good job.

33:24But the minute is my thing. I just have this like, I don't know what it is. It's like a block that I like, the last thing I want to do is go in and pitch my own product. That's why you have a yin and yang there in business, right? You know that. I think, yeah, I don't know if you enjoy it loads, but weirdly, because you think you're like proud of it I like the idea that a cold conversation could be the best conversation I have that day. Because it could be rubbish, it could be great. But it's like, I could meet anyone with that conversation or something like that. I can put something, they could absolutely love it.

33:57If I'm going into it already knowing I've got the meeting, I sort of already know there are really two outcomes. There are a yes or a no. And it's like, going out cold into a bar, into a venue, you might meet the owner of 20 different sites. and then suddenly it's like because you've met him he cares much more about what you're doing and those opportunities come which you will never get that opportunity if you're emailing that same guy he's never going to give a shit you know it's being seen it's people by people well 100 yeah and like that's just been again it just doesn't it never if it's a no okay fine but at least you've met me and like that's you know i've still had that relationship with you but ultimately like if you can build a relationship with someone like that's basically what sales is isn't it it's all relationship building.

34:39Exactly. What would you say was one of the riskiest moves you made early on? Was it like, is it all self-funded? Did you guys get investment? Did you take one investment? Did you give a bit of business away? Anything about that? Well, it was self-funded. Yeah, it was self-funded. Yeah. Which we probably wouldn't have done quite so much of. Okay. Now that we realize people are very keen to invest in drinks brands that are doing well, we probably wouldn't have taken as much risk at the start. but we didn't literally we didn't know that yeah we we almost thought more skin in the game is better and i don't think it plays against us that much it is just you know there's there's money that we've put into it into this that we don't get back unless it works yeah rather than a risk that someone else has taken because they trust us yeah which i mean we're now sort of doing both yeah but um it was it was a while before we were spending anyone else's money other than our own um and that makes you think about each thing in a completely different way absolutely when you're spending your cash i think i think the problem was it meant we were too quickly looking for profit which is you know it sounds like that's not a bad thing but it's like no what we need is volume because unless we've got volume we're going to be paying the most we can ever pay for our product when we're when we're producing it and and then the price is never going to come down like give the economies of scales yeah like we would never we we never had access to those economies the scale before now now that we are able to raise money and you know have these conversations with people who love what we're doing and think yeah I'll put some money of course I will um people love the idea of owning part of a drinks brand far more than far more than other things they think that's very cool um but yeah it was definitely looking back it was a big risk to put that money in ourselves we didn't think that that was the big risk we thought you know louise things always the big risk is trying to be premium in a category that doesn't like premium well i just think yeah like what in our you know our dad used to always say cheap shit sells yeah and then the first opportunity gone and made something not cheap just it just i mean it's i like that well i like that i've chosen something that we're proud of and everyone that tries it on the on the main thinks it's good and we're confident going in but there is an argument if it was if we just made a sort of cheap shit sales product, we might sort of find it a lot easier, you know, cause we are, we do come out expensive in a lot of places and that was often a barrier to people.

37:08But you know, I, yeah, we don't get many complaints or returns or anything like that. So I don't know which one's better to deal with is having cheap stuff with loads of complaints or. But I think the product, like, especially within drinks, we cannot compete with the economies of scale of a Diageo or a Pernod or a Bacardi. So we're never going to be able to sell something as cheap as they are. Even if we tried to make the cheapest thing we could possibly make they can still make it a lot cheaper than we can um that's not why we went premium but it's nice to know that i don't think that was an option to just go cheap yeah really because this came from thinking where is the thing that i want to buy yeah there's no option there's expensive rum that tastes nothing like what i would want to drink a cheap version of so I need to make this.

37:54That was the reason for it. But in the end, it feels risky to have... It is possibly... Like, it is the most... It is probably the most expensive way we... Like, we wanted to take the best that we could do. So, like, the brief to Darren was not, can you make a... This within this kind of prize. And I think if I did have my time again, I might have looked at the different suppliers and everything. Because very thankfully, he's got a different supplier for every single flavour so when it comes to production there's always a struggle but we what I literally said to him when I was speaking to him I was like I don't really care about much else just want the best possible thing the best possible tasty spice rum and obviously we did win the world's best spice drum at the World Rum Awards I saw this massive congrats I mean it was in 2023 are we still claiming it?

38:42yeah we haven't actually yet we don't enter it again yeah we did yeah that's right yeah you know one time what's that um sentence one time like oh i can't remember anyway carry on um no so that i mean that is like the whole winning that is obviously like what the whole thing is what we tried to make the best possible thing we could um i think it also depends on your business goal as well like do you want to be a mass brand like do you want to be 100 % household penetration of rum or do you have your consumer in mind that is right we are going to only be able to hit these abc1 consumers that maybe can afford this kind of type of bottle of rum or is it like you want to be a guinness of the world like what yeah that i think that also plays into it i think we're premium but we're still like on the 35 pounds is expensive if you compare it to captain morgan's yes but not expensive if you compare it to some pretty common gin brands yeah and some pretty common vodka brand this kind of stuff like it's not like crazy expensive probably we should be charge more given how much it costs us to make it but that that is I think is fairly reasonable price point for it given the quality of the liquid that you're getting the the issue is going into a bar or venue and when they say how much does it cost and you say out of wholesale it might cost you 25 quid they go for a spiced rum because they just do not think a spiced rum should cost that much because they've had you know probably they've had loads but so So that's a big barrier when selling into pubs?

40:09Yeah. And bars, yeah. I think just, well, yeah. That has been a barrier. But when they try it, that barrier starts to fade away a little bit. And there's lots of things that we can do to make it worth their while in other areas, like the commitment that we can put forward towards the venue to do activations, to, I mean, like social media stuff, all the filming and things that we can do for them, that a big brand is just gonna give them a fat check now no one's gonna turn down a fat check but you're building a community exactly there has to be some other part yeah otherwise how is it ever gonna penetrate to people who aren't constantly looking at new spirits brands they're never gonna find it um yeah so going on the marketing kind of activation side you obviously brought out your rtds ready drinks because of that it's way easier to sample what how what has your marketing i guess like strategy developed since launching like what is your where do you go where could we find you at marketing activation is it summer plans is it christmas stuff like where do you guys um how do you plan the year well i do feel over in my in the four years we've been doing it there i think we've probably done most things once to see like sponsoring a festival tram so much fun but just not a good way to spend your money you know we're not available anywhere at that time but thinking that if we go and do a festival then maybe we might become available instead of thinking right what I mean we do do any of the marketing and we have all these ideas but a lot of it is kind of only necessary like it's kind of when we get sort of if there was to be a big grocery listing then we can start spending because at the moment there's no point spending lots of money on marketing that isn't kind of targeted to individual places or on like digital ads and stuff just because if you if you saw us if you saw us at a festival that at Tramolines Festival, the majority of people have probably never seen the brand ever again, which is just a complete waste of money, isn't it?

42:06Yeah. So we try and be a little bit more mindful. That was more just like, how cool would it be to do a festival? And it was really fun, but it's definitely not a good way. I think so. So this year, our main tactic has been to be done partnership with other brands, non-spirits brands. So partnering with restaurants, partnering with DJs, this kind of stuff is so much fun. much fun actually getting to do stuff with people who are doing the same same idea sort of thing as you but in a completely different area yeah so the stuff we've done this summer with um with ginger wings which is jack blimithoff's chicken wing restaurant okay and then famous when dead records which is um cash dj cash only's like record label right doing stuff as a three of us yeah all summer doing all these different things it's been so good because he's like ginger wings is they've got people who love their chicken, but he's got no sort of alcohol angle.

43:02All they want is to have a drink when they're eating it. And then they've got the DJ there, and so the three work together perfectly, but that being able to build something across three different groups of people, that essentially you're drawing people in. It's extra reach from all their different people, yeah. Exactly. So stuff like that has been really fun. We did like a - They have ginger-ings engagements, pretty crazy as well. Yeah, I know, it's bad. Everyone loves ginger. I mean the chicken is great but the way that they go about it I sort of feel is quite similar to how we do which is completely like trying to be completely unpretentious and just very I mean flavor focused is a good one but like really understanding that that is all people actually care about at the end of the day is what what it's like to consume that yeah how's it taste exactly that's all that really matters and the stuff that you go around it shouldn't be some sort of fake thing that you've made up to make it sound interesting and so other other like food let us we did a our drunken noodles that slurped high I was a fan of and which was for World Rum Day which was literally just put some rum in their sauce but like that is I mean it's quite an easy fun thing to do but all we've got to do is give them some bottles of rum yeah they do their separate little menu and it's like it just gives all of those people a chance to see us and interact with us in a way that they wouldn't normally be expected.

44:24I also think real life, in real life events are really important. Like there's so much going on at the moment with like, you know, TikTok live and da, da, da, da. But actually like getting your customer in front of you, having your drink at a party, you know, it's such a nice experience to bring the brand and the consumer together. Yeah. And we did a Lab 54 house party, which Louis volunteered his flat for that. No way. I don't think I've ever seen him so stressed. Some friends of mine left because it was too busy, and Louis was in the Latchmere. I went for 15 minutes. It was chaos in the front.

45:02It was a lot of fun, and the content was great, and it was good to get everyone there and do it with it. But there was complaints from everyone. All the neighbours were unhappy. They're my full-time neighbours. Everyone else is going to leave, and they're still my neighbours. And the police were coming, and I just knew there was like 20 minutes left, and I just decided if I did this lap around the block, by the time I got back, it was time for everyone to leave. So it was just a little bit much for me. That's so funny. So I'm getting very clear personality roles between you guys and how you split your time for the business.

45:33So I'm assuming like sales, that's definitely your area. You're more the numbers guy. No, Louis does no numbers. Louis hates numbers. I'm terrible at maths. I really can't do... He's got a physics degree. So Louis, you're like the idea. Yeah. I do the nice stuff. Fine. And your numbers, commercial, and marketing? Yeah, but Louis is more of the marketing ideas. Okay, so you're like, yeah, the creative kind of one. You're the more in the, like, numbers, sales commercial. Not that I'm not creative. Well, you can be very creative within sales. I love doing all my own decks. Thank you very much. Putting GIFs in where needed.

46:07So creative. No, but I do think that, I mean, when we're so small, everything goes through. Yeah, literally, we're all doing everything. Yeah, of course. So there's all of this. oh, you're CEO so you don't touch and you're marketing executive. Please just tell me on Monday at 2pm. There's four of us full time now. So I was going to ask you about teams. So how have you broadened out the team? How did you hire? Who are the hires? So, well, currently we've got four of us full time. Initially, we use lots of day rate salespeople because they had industry experience and they knew who to talk to. And so Lou is up in the northeast.

46:43She's been with us pretty much from the start. But she works two days a week for us. Pretty much all of our big sales that have not come through us directly have been from her. We went through several different periods of using lots of brand ambassadors, focusing on loads of different areas. And it's all great, it's all good. But in the end, I think we wanted to, certainly in the last year, really start focusing on the Sly Dog team. As in the people who are... Because Louis and I spend all day, every day thinking about this. And I feel like that benefits us. So if you've got someone working for you one day a week, the most you can expect is that they're waking up one night a week, you know, unable to think about anything else.