The Rapper Who Turned Down Millions to Build A Baby Skincare Brand | Krept

0:00I was not settling until I got it to a point where I was like this is it, this is perfect this is what I wanted I'm so happy and proud of this brand. And I was like, I'm going to war. And that's genuinely how I felt. And if you feel like that with your brand or your product or whatever it is, you genuinely will have a chance. Today we're joined by Crept, rapper, entrepreneur and co-founder of Nala's Baby, one of the fastest growing skincare brands in the UK. Crept's about to take us into the room where he turned down millions from private investors, the near disasters that almost broke up his company and why failure does not define him.

0:33He talks about building a team that can fix problems, creating a culture where ownership and pride matter more than hierarchy, and how the lessons he learned from losing a lot of money, missing deadlines and losing control have shaped the way that he leads today. This is The Room Where It Happened. First-hand accounts from behind closed doors in business to better understand the world today and lessons to improve your work tomorrow. Brought to you by IFS. This is The Room Where It Happened with Crept. Krep, nice to see you. Nice to see you, man. Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure. And I guess if we were doing something and you're about to perform on stage, I would call you Krep for the rest of the conversation.

1:13But can we just go with Casio, your name? Yeah, absolutely. Great. Look, Casio, take us to a moment in your Nala's Baby journey that you think is so significant. It's a room where you want to kind of plant the audience to begin with, to really tell us a story. I'll take it back to a point where, to me, it felt like a make or break crucial decision we done our first round of investment and stuff and you know at that point we're putting everything in the business of spending marketing this and the fourth and at that point i had people around me saying like you know we need to to start thinking about you know the next phase of investment wise it needs to be big it needs to do this so we can go here and do this and all of these crazy things and i was like yeah yeah yeah and then we got an offer and we met a private equity firm and we got an offer for like millions and i was like yes we need to and at the time we also got a listing in the middle east this is the moment this is the global yeah we're going global it just felt like everything that I needed to do and I've been introduced to to someone who my friend who was actually invested in another baby said I want you to meet this person I think it would be great to be on your advisory board and then I've met him his name's Saab and he's one of those like straight to the point he will say how it is or how he feels and at the time I was explaining I'm excited and And I'm like, yeah, we're going to, you know, the Middle East and, you know, got an offer from a private equity firm for millions.

2:56And this is what we needed to cap all the business. And he looked at me and said, don't do it. Don't go to the Middle East and don't take the money. But bearing in mind, we've just met, kind of. So I don't really fully know him as much as I do now. um but at that time to hear that but he's got so much experience he's done so much things and i'm sitting in the room with them and they're saying don't you need to stop all processes to to go to the middle east right now we printed the bottles the labels why do they think that and and their their thought process was focus on the uk become a dominant brand here in the uk do not think about the outside noise and all these shiny things that people are throwing at you and don't take the money you don't need the money and looked at your financials and they said you got enough to do what you need to do profitably if you get the right team and the right people in place bearing in mind i didn't have the right team at the point at this point so i'm just thinking the money's there and it was just such a like hard decision for me and i said i'm this time I'm going to listen and I'm going to take the advice of people that's done it before me.

4:17So I made the decision to not take the money. I made the decision to stop the process to go into the Middle East and Dubai and Saudi. And it was the best, absolutely best decision I made because you know, we went from doing 500 ,000 bottles to millions of bottles, becoming one of the top brands in boots and then going into all of the retailers and we was able to focus on getting listings and all of the retailers growing in those categories becoming a dominant brand and i i'm and we've done it with the finances that we had i didn't need to take investment i would have given out this equity they was asking for like you know they want to be on the board and the director and all of the stuff and i could have potentially lost control of my business if i had had made that move so early on and i'm just so glad that you know i listened to them and everything worked out exactly how they said it would if i listen and we do it this way so that was a kind of like a moment where i'm just like i'm so glad i didn't do that if you can just take a couple of seconds to subscribe then of course you can get each episode directly to your inbox and honestly for you to subscribe it makes such a difference to our show it means we can grow and it means we can attract more incredible guests like George Heaton, Rory Sutherland or Richard Branson to come and join us.

5:44And I think that is such a great place to start, right? Because I've been on, like you, a journey of trying to build businesses. And the truth is that people go, oh, you've got a successful business, you must know what you're doing. But isn't it true that you still have no idea? It's crazy because a lot of the time we just have big dreams and you know we just think about the end goal but you know there's a road that goes like this to get there and we if we haven't experienced that yet you don't know what's what's going to happen so it's full of surprises that naivety though is the only reason you begin and you would have thought the same right with nala's baby you're like well i'll start it sell some bottles then sell loads and sell it for millions literally you do not think about all the hurdles and all the problems that you're gonna face all the crazy things that you just think would never happen talk to us about some i've got a new product line coming out with one of the biggest retailers in the country and we've agreed dates and products that you plan to put in their failed testing and that's a three-month process and now you can't launch these products you're going to let down the retailer and these are things that are like I did not think, oh what happens if this fails testing right at the end, because it's like imagine a three month process and then you're thinking, oh we're on week 11 so it's going to pass testing and then on week 12 it fails and you're just like back to the drawing board, we can't launch this product got to go back and start you just don't even think about these things or there's a there was a time where a customer messaged us and was like I've bought the product but I don't think this is the same product that I bought before and I was like, I don't know how it said it smells differently I'm like, wait what?

7:43and this has happened I was on holiday with my daughter at the time and they're like, yeah no it's different then another customer said the same thing I think this is a different product then we've realised that they've put the wrong filling line in the wrong and it's just like how does this even happen like you never think this is going to happen luckily it was kind of a like for like product but it was just a different it was the wrong fragrance and the wrong smell so they could smell it and it was it smelled differently but imagine it was like something completely different or so luckily and it and it just got onto a few shelves so we did have to recall everything to be safe and then identify the batch numbers and then remove those and then send them and it's just like things like that you just can't even fathom that is it this is going to happen in business and there's just so many hurdles that you have to deal with and i've just realized like you know we're always firefighting but it's also not about what happens it's about how you deal with it i'm always just like okay this is the problem how do we fix it that is how i operate now it's like what and and i want that mentality with my team as well so my team wouldn't come to me and say oh we've got a problem they'll come to me and say we've got a problem but this is what we've done to mitigate this and that's the mentality i want with everybody around me and my team so it's just like okay the problems happen but this is what we're going to do to fix it and this is the next step some are might be you know worse than the others but that's the mentality i have with everything and i'm so adamant that i know there's going to be problems i know there's future things that's going to happen go wrong but how do we deal with it and i've just started to kind of learn that and you know i feel like being naive though if i knew all the problems that you would face when it comes to business you probably wouldn't even do it but probably or definitely not definitely you definitely wouldn't do it if you had any idea how many years ago did you first have the original concept in your head five so five years so five years the original concept but as soon as I had the concept I acted on it because I was just like oh my god there's a gap for it there's no other products that are clean natural and score great on Yucca and all of these apps it doesn't exist but every product is and you know in your head when you have that idea you think well this is just going to fly it has to work because you believe it so wholeheartedly like how many times have you laid there at night thinking this could be the end of our business I've had that so many times oh yeah yeah yeah absolutely Even starting it, sometimes it just felt like this isn't even going to get off the ground.

10:16Because I didn't realise how much it would take to even get it to a place where it ticks all the boxes I want to be ready for market and mass production and having the right supply chain. I didn't even realise the scale of that. I'm just like, I want to develop some products. And then it was like, yeah. At the start, I was quoted like 15 grand. I was like, yeah, great, 15 grand. I can do that, get the first range. And then it was like, I want it to be tier three. And they're like, okay, if you want it to be tier three, it's going to cost you 40 grand. If you want it to be approved dermis, you've got 15 grand, 20 grand.

10:54And I'm just like, oh my God, like this is crazy. And I haven't even produced any stock. I'm just developing the product and I'm back and forth and it's costing. And I'm like, before I know it, I've probably spent like a quarter million pounds just before I've even placed an order. And then you don't even know if you're going to get the right distribution. So then you're hoping you do. So I pitched it to Boots and then I didn't realise that was an issue because I pitched it to Boots and Boots were like, lovely, this makes so much sense. We'd love to have this product. And then they're like, yeah, we want to launch in 400 stores.

11:32But this is the rate of sale, so we're going to need hundreds of thousands of bottles, tens of thousands of bottles. and then there's minimum order quantities of £20 ,000 per product you've got eight SKUs and now people are listening to this who have not done this kind of thing and hold on you've just set up a business and Boots want to spend millions of pounds with you that feels like a great thing the reality is so far from being a great thing it's like it's like way out of your depth it's like you jumping into the deep end it's like a non-league team being promoted to the Premier League and suddenly having to play Liverpool and winning.

12:07Absolutely. Because with them, it's like, if you don't deliver it on a time that you say you're going to deliver it and you're doing all these things, you'll get delisted. You're basically bankrupt at that point. You're finished. So it's like, oh, this is real. And yeah, so then there's that and now you're like, I've just spent X amount to just develop these products and now I've got to place hundreds of thousands of bottles. This is, and then you don't even know if it's going to, if I knew I was going to spend that money, so if I went initially when they quoted me 15 grand and they said this is probably going to cost you close enough to you know 700 grand or whatever it was at the time I would have been like yeah probably let me just do something else but it's the naivety you're thinking yeah so 15 grand to develop these products you know and then I'll sell it to Boots probably a couple thousand and it's like no you're dealing with a massive organisation that has stores all around the country and they need stock and they need this and they need that and it's just like oh my god what have I got myself into?

13:05But that is what makes you do it. So why do it? What's the thrill in creating your own brand and growing it? The thrill of creating, for me, is actually owning my own brand. I come from music and in music, it's like you sign to a record label, they own your masters, they own your music, they actually own the business and you're kind of, you know, you make money from it, you do brand deals, performances, shows and all of that stuff, but you technically don't own this. So when people want to, for example, use our song as a sample, it's like, I can't say no or yes, they have to go to, and then you realise, hold on, I don't run this business.

13:52I'm a commodity in this business. So for me, coming from that to owning the business and making the decisions and being able to actually feel the lows and highs of the business is, I love it, do you know what I mean? I feel like, and I can actually make a difference in decisions that I make, do you know what I mean? I can be the one to say, okay, we want to donate X amount of products to this family here or, you know, people that might not be able to afford it. I can go and make that decision and do that. I couldn't do that before. I can actually make those decisions for the business and just what's next and do we want to do this product?

14:32No, I don't want to do this product. I want to do this product. And I can actually make those decisions. And then obviously the rough of this move and the hurdles and the team. Like I love having my team and I love, you know, the thrill of like knowing my team, love working here and being able to say I want to give you 50 % bonus and just making a difference in other people's life and saying, you know, I think you've done a great job this year. I'd love to do this for you. And just that, creating a community, creating a team, creating a team of love and people that genuinely care about something that I'm building as well.

15:08And, yeah, the journey of that, man, like, I can't even describe it. I'm so interested in this side of the conversation because if you took your two worlds, right, you as a musician and you as a businessman, right, musician, you can turn up, you'd be the last person to turn up, You can be the first person to leave. You can get driven there in a chauffeur-driven car. You can get a green room that someone's already set up for you with all the food and all the snacks. You've got a runner to look after you and make sure there's anything you want. You get to walk out on stage. You get that amazing hit when there's tens of thousands of people screaming your name, singing along to your songs.

15:44And then you get to go back and you might go to a club before you go home or whatever. Sounds amazing. And then there's the business side of you, which is first one out of bed in the morning, the last one to get paid, the first one to worry about the finances, the first one to have a conversation about HR, the first one to get a phone call when the wrong bottles are being stocked on the shelves with the wrong product in them. All of these stresses and anxieties and fears and worries. But it's so hard to explain to someone because I feel so similar that I went, I came from a TV world where I was presenting television programs to a world of business, you know, building media businesses.

16:20I can't tell you how much more rewarding the stressful, painful, full of worry business world is compared to just like being paid. It feels like, it feels empty the previous world I was in. Yeah, you're spot on with that. It's because like I even had like a realisation when I was, when my business really started to take off and, you know, things started getting a bit more real for me. Just little things that I would notice that didn't apply when I did music. So even signing a record deal, I think we was an hour late. and I remember I had to put an important Zoom and I was five minutes late and they said, yep, we're just going to do the Zoom another time because you were late.

17:02And it was just like, it was no nonsense. People really value their time. Why does this feel more real? Because it really does feel more real and I'm sure you can understand what I mean. Yeah, it does. It feels... I feel like as well, I feel like I've got a responsibility as well. You got as well, if you're running a business and you own a business, you've got to lead by example as well. So if you're, you know, not doing certain things or you're setting a bad precedent in the business, then like I was speaking to my MD, Ben, and I'm glad I've got him as well because he is so like, no, we need to set the precedent for everybody.

17:43Everybody needs to be in the same amount of days. everybody needs to be on time and if someone's a bit late he doesn't like it and it's it's those those kind of things also kind of are installed in me as well and i feel like coming from a world where that didn't apply and now it just feels real because it's you really have to be on time if you're not on time you might miss this it might have a domino effect on your business your team your staff like how people might perceive you've got an important meeting you have to be there on time you've got a meeting with somebody that wants to do business with you or potentially wants to distribute your your products in another country if you turn up late to that meeting they might lose a little bit of faith in you just as a person just you've turned up late you don't really care and it's it's a completely different world it feels like it is the real world you have to be on time you have to show people that you're serious and you can't can't take really nothing for granted because it's business and yeah it just feels so different now man but i also think it shows that you grow as a person there was a time where just doing music was enough that gave you every thrill you need but it's just not enough now you need something tangible yeah yeah 100 % man and and i always used to think if i had i have a child or i have kids and they don't like music or they're not into music what have i what can i leave for them and what might i leave some rap lyrics on on a piece of paper it's it's not tangible and i just feel like i've always wanted to do business me and conan's always wanted to do business like you know we've attempted business businesses didn't work some did some didn't and having those failures those lessons but knowing that if you get it right you can make 99 mistakes we get right once like you can be on your way do know i mean so i always had that in my mind so i'd always keep pushing business business business and business is something that i could you know leave behind or pass on or leave a legacy and if you build something incredible and even if you was to leave it it still exists and and yeah man it's so much bigger to me it's easy to look at some of those early businesses that you set up including the one you know setting up going into business with conan right it's easy to look at those and say they were failures but the truth is they weren't failures they were they were lessons it was feedback right you were you were seeing the mistakes you were making and i'm hoping there'll be loads of people listening to this that are inspired by your story to launch out into the world of business and i say this so often to my kids you can get a job and earn a salary fine but if you really want to feel like you're living then go and do your passion project turn it into a business take us to one of those early businesses that failed why it failed and what you learned from it so we've actually got such a good example of that with something that we did that failed and something that we're doing now that's working and it's similar fields but we opened a restaurant called crepes and cones after our names it was like a dessert restaurant but we also done soul food and like it was it was it was a nice setup but it cost a lot of money and we didn't have a clue what we was doing your money yeah so you guys put in no investment we literally bootstrapped what do you think you you would have put in probably spent about half a million pounds on that um and we didn't have a clue what we was doing we did have an unfortunate circumstance though because we was doing it with one of our friends um and he was helping us so he was like our MD, our manager, our store manager, and he was kind of leading all of the logistics, hiring staff, accounts, all of that stuff.

21:25And then on the week that we were to launch, he passed away. So thank you. When we launched, we genuinely didn't have an idea what we was doing. So you launched without your leader? We had, we've announced it, we've got this date. It was, I was just like, oh my God, like what are we going to do? So we was in the shop every day, just learning trying to hire people ourself didn't have a clue what we was doing we didn't have a team no management it was it was insane and trying to kind of recover from it was it was just like a never-ending hole that was just throwing money into trying to recover this this situation but what we learned in terms of even just the hiring process and we was at that time it was like let's get our friends in and family and you know give back and we're trying to make this everywhere and we realized too late that that was definitely not the way to go like i wish now if i if i'd open that now and redone that now i would have started from the top in terms of hiring who's going to be running it hierarchy of the business how we're going to do that and and go from there but at that time we were just winging it also it sounds to me like you had a non-business mentality to it all.

22:44Because it was just going with the flow. It was a fun process. We had so many nice events. We're not thinking about anything. People was in there, people are eating. And it felt good, but when you look back at it now, it was like we was not running a business. It was like a passion project. I don't know, I can't explain it. but it was crazy but I learnt so much from that and we said whenever we do our next venture let's partner up with the right people let's do it with people that are experienced in this field like now I would love to have done that but with someone that has experience in running a restaurant scaling restaurants whether it's franchising whatever it is and have an actual partner that knows that side because we're great at marketing we know how to you know get that place packed and jammed with people and cause hype.

23:38We know how to do that, do you know what I mean? And I was just like, any time I do a business now, this team is the right people, having the right people in place. And so when we now open up our supermarket, we've done it with our partner, Quasar, who's got franchises of stores and this is his back. And do you do the partnership with an experienced person right at the start? Yeah, if you can. so with us it was someone that we knew that has experience in this and the partnership we just knew that he would have that side covered in terms of logistics and running it and staff and just managing this big supermarket he would be the best person to do it with rather than us trying to do it and he knew that in terms of awareness and being able to so we just knew this would be a perfect partnership you know and now it is it's so seamless and he deals with the stuff that we don't do don't like or necessarily our strong points and we do the stuff that are not necessarily his strong points and now it really works and it's smooth you're going there it's peaceful you see the start it's a completely different experience to what it was before and that was just due to learning from doing it wrong you had to get it wrong had to get it right exactly I remember when I started out in my sports presenting where I worked in Formula One at the beginning and hosted that for the BBC.

25:05And I suddenly was working with all of these really wealthy people. They were investors in Formula One. They were living in Monaco and all these other places. One of the big things that I took from them was that people who are serious about business are able to treat it like business, even when it infects their own life. So a really good example I always refer to is like Richard Branson hires out his ski chalet, right, in Switzerland. Richard Branson does not need to hire his ski chalet out to people for 30 grand a week because he's Richard Branson. But it's a business decision. And it's either a business or it isn't a business, right?

25:41And it can't be both. And it feels like that, you know, Crepes and Cones was like you thought it was a business, but it wasn't really a business. You were just giving people a good day out. Exactly. And kind of understanding the difference when to switch that on and switch that off, I think is key as well, man. Like, I wish I could go back. But then at the same time, if I didn't, if I knew everything then, I wouldn't have learned everything that I've learned now to be able to do the stuff that I'm doing now and apply all of those lessons into Nala's Baby. And the first thing that was on my mind when I was doing Nala's Baby was the team.

26:15I need the right people in place, the right infrastructure. I need advisors. I need an MD. I need a CFO. I need this. I need all of these people in place that can help me run this business. and it's literally been the best decision I've made in terms of where we've spent our money hiring the right people is probably the best investment you can make into your business. Let's talk then about how you hire the right people. What are the questions that you ask or the processes that you go through to make sure the people you're getting in are the right people? Experience, one. but what's what helped me at the start of in terms of hiring people it was getting um references from people and people referring people that have worked in similar fields or they know their work ethic and how they and what we need in a company so that's why it was so important for me to start at the top in terms of getting an advisory board that was from my friend who has invested in the business so he has the same interest as me for this business to succeed because he's invested in it so when he's saying i would love for you to sit down and meet this person and then this person saying this is great and i think you should sit down with this person and then that person saying that's great i think i know somebody who used to work in this business which is in this world and the baby world they've you know done extremely well they know their stuff but great and then it was speaking to that person and then that person who is now one of my advisors but also acts as like our COO and she's amazing and she was like I work with someone called Ben and I think and Ben is a doer and Ben will get stuff done and you're at the stage now in a business where you need someone that is going to go out and get it done and he is that person where I do this and out oversee some things forecast numbers this down and forth and he will go out and get it done and so the the the hierarchy of my team in terms of you know all the the management team and advisors was all recommended by people with experience to start with and then at that point you know me and ben was just like the ultimate duo working back and forth and then as the company started growing was like we need to hire you know someone to manage these accounts because we're getting listed in all of these supermarkets and it's like i don't have the time to do this he was ben was doing logistics he was doing new product development he was doing finances he was doing literally everything one man and so right at the beginning when he was doing everything what did you see your role as at that point i was dealing with the market in the brand how we're gonna you're the face you're the pr guy yeah the ideas guy pr ideas content creation and in terms of and and and also assisting him with like the new product development and like this is the new products i want to do i think this will work because of this i think we should do something like this and we do so it was like the innovation of the brand the market of the brand how we're going to land this to people how we're going to get this brand out there and and then he was doing that side so we was just like the ultimate duo at the time and then i had um a marketing assistant that would help me in terms of when i because i've got loads of ideas so i need someone that's going to go and bring these ideas to life i've got this idea i want you to to go and sort this out i want to do a shoot like this i want to get this and that and she will go and make it happen india she's amazing and that that was that was us and then we decided like okay we've got 10 different accounts retailers we need to get an account manager and at that point i was like okay i need to do this in the best way possible and then um my friend he has like a recruitment agency but he's he's amazing and he got like access to so i don't even know where he finds all of these people but he was like um okay i find you an account manager literally the next day he had someone and who's actually our account manager now and it's helped us scale the the accounts to where we're at now in terms of sales revenue all of that stuff and so i went through him and then And I was like, nah, he's brilliant.

30:38And then he ended up getting our logistics person and now our financial person. And we've used the recruitment agency, but they vet them and they align them with kind of like-minded companies and people that have, you know, so our account manager was in a massive beauty brand and done the accounts for, you know. So it was hiring. They're going to be more expensive than the usual, but I'm a strong believer in, you know, they're worth every single penny if you hired a, right? people and that's kind of where we're at now it's just hiring these key people and paying people what they deserve to be paid to have them really passionate about their role and their job and make them enjoy it as well so it's exciting isn't it when you get someone in a role and you're like they are full-time fully dedicated to that one thing one thing oh i can see you get excited just when i say which we can only spend like maybe two days a week on because it's stupid though that But once you're involved in running a business, this is the stuff that lights you up.

31:37Someone going, I'm going to do logistics as a full-time job. And that just makes you so happy because it feels safe. It's so funny because we were in the process of hiring someone to do a BRFC at the minute. And when we was doing that, there was one person that, when they spoke about accounts, they just face this lit up. and I was just like, my face can't light up for this. But they were so excited about just accounts and doing the finances and the full, they were just so, I was like, I need that energy on this specific thing that they can just focus on. And yeah, like literally, it's game changing when you can get someone to offset a bit of work or a part of the business that you can't put your 100 % into.

32:25And that's how you grow a great team and a great business because you have people that love their roles. And yeah, that's where I'm at now. And I found that that's changed my whole business. Was there a time where you tried to do it all yourself? Because I think great leaders have the humility to just know that they're not everything. Like I've never been a CEO because I know that I can't have appraisals and meetings about KPIs. And I just can't have those conversations. I just, I have silly ideas and give them to someone. yeah no no 100 % like I don't want to sit in a meeting and utilize my time that it's not best spent here I'd rather someone that you know they love doing this so their time is best spent here and early on in the business you end up doing a lot more like when initially launched it I was doing the budgeting I was doing all of that the numbers the account I was doing all of that as well as doing the marketing as well as you know doing that new product development and as well as you know going through ingredient all of this stuff i was doing everything and then you hire people in to take a bit of that workload off and then you start and then and then it grows but it happens and sometimes you have to get stuck in but at the top of my mind i was always like okay as soon as i feel uncomfortable in a certain area i need someone to do that is that what you think So as soon as you feel something's not under control in the business, you bring something up?

33:53Yeah, and I'll always ask my MD, I'll say, like we'll always catch up and I'll say, what part of the business do you feel that is taking up too much of your time so you can't focus on this aspect? And then he will tell me, so that's how I realised, we're like, okay, we need someone to do the accounting. He's like, okay, let's get someone in to do that. And I was like, what's taking up your time now? Logistics. Okay, let's get someone in to do that. What's taking up your time now? MPD. get someone in to do that what's taking up your time now financial contract get someone to do that now you can focus on growth and international and expansion and all of this stuff and this is like our ethos in terms of as soon as you feel that the weight's getting too heavy just communicate it so we can get that sorted and keep it moving you know like performing music is much easier oh mate

34:44tell me about it man like just going on stage you haven't given up the easy life 45 minutes performing and going home job done but to be honest like with music there's moments where it can be a little bit hard where it's like you know you've got to go to the studio every day you're recording you're hearing the same music over 24 hours being played and you've got to write lyrics you've got to come up with the concepts the beats and all of the stuff you've got to sit in and mix it I think the reason why it's hard because I always think like everything's hard work if it doesn't if you don't feel it if you don't love it and nothing's hard work if you're passionate about it and you love it.

35:21And I'm not saying you don't love music, but I think from what I can glean, the lack of ownership is the thing for you. You will give your all if you own something. And that often leads to challenges, actually, for owners of businesses because you stand there with your team and you're like, why do you not care like me? Why do you not think like me? Well, quite rightly, they go, well, because I get a salary and I'm not going to one day have a multi-million pound exit. So I don't know whether for your sort of advisory board or your senior people, you give away equity. I do. I think it's really important.

35:51I do. For the advisory board and management part of equity. Now, that scares a lot of people because they think they're giving something up rather than getting something. So what's your approach to... I'm not scared of that at all because I feel like if we get where we need to get to, everybody's going to benefit. And I'd rather, you know, have people that feel like they're also fighting the same journey as me because the bigger this gets, the more they're going to benefit from so i want them to share that same experience and hunger as me do you know i mean so i feel like it is important man to incentivize your team and yeah that's what i'm literally literally now said i've done the advisory side but in terms of the management side we're literally setting all of that up to incentivize the team and and and make everybody feel a part of this business for real so when we do you know go and have that big exit or whatever it is or whatever that looks like they're going to benefit from it too and it doesn't feel like we're doing all of this hard work for just your benefit and then also like hence why even at the start before we even started talking about getting a management part and all of this stuff i wanted to make sure people are paid generously and giving away great bonuses and they feel like they enjoy working here do you know i mean and then i'm a strong believer in what are your sort of exit thoughts are you someone that has a specific exit plan in mind or are you just at the minute because because i genuinely don't know what's going to happen and what i've learned to do is just focus on growing the business and you know when that happens and when we're at a point where you know everybody that's invested and you can say like this is there's a potential opportunity for people to cash out or whatever it is then we'll do that but I think if I get too caught up thinking about that um it might just mess up my objective of what I've got to focus on now and my main focus now is just getting you know new products out expanding and international and all of this stuff and I just want to focus on that and then once we because there's so much milestones that I know I need to achieve before I even think about an exit there's so much stuff I need to do and need to get done and once those get done then I can start thinking about you know what would this look like or that and um and I've got a great team to help me with that process as well when when it's time and and as well they will always say just focus on the business like just focus on the business don't get sidetracked with all these shiny things focus on the business grow the business and and when that happens you've got a great team and enough people around you to make sure that you do the right thing it's a good point there because there's always an exciting opportunity around the time does it take you closer to the dream or does it take you further away from the dream you have to make sure you ask that question every time something exciting is there yeah every time there's something exciting it's like exciting things usually have it's like a butterfly effect and you don't know what if i take the shiny thing what effect that's going to have and they feel like the biggest decisions of running a business for me anyway so anytime a great opportunity comes i always just sit down with my team and say guys i just need everybody's thoughts on this and then we all kind of collectively make the right decision and it's worked for us we've made really good decisions doing that and just getting everybody's input everybody's opinions and then they always say what is your decision to make at the end of it and I'm just like, I need no pressure.

39:22And are you nervous about being really publicly the face of Nala's baby? Because I think sometimes people have this view that if it's a celebrity, for want of a better word, lead brand, then it's not really real. He's probably got some company in China bottling up some stuff for him and he just puts his name to it. He's guaranteed 50 grand a year and everyone's a winner. It's the total opposite of that. So I just wonder whether you see the pitfalls about being, like putting yourself too much at the center of it yeah so it's it's weird that it's it's funny that you say that because i will promote the the business in terms of people that follow me and watch me yeah but like in terms of nala's baby the brand nala's baby the brand doesn't even acknowledge me so it doesn't we don't it doesn't follow me you won't see me on that's a conscious decision yeah conscious decision like you won't see nala's baby posting crept and it doesn't acknowledge me i acknowledge the brand and i'll promote and drive everything i can to the brand because i have a platform and i'm and i might as well do that however if you go and you follow the brand or you come across it in a store and i'm so focused on like the brand having presence in stores so when people are going there they can see the brand they can there's messaging this and people can fall in love with the brand on their shop and their journey and it's so important so i I spend a lot of marketing in-store, where I have nothing to do with that.

40:45But I spend more marketing on that than marketing in terms of, hey, here's Nala's baby. Most of the budget and most of the spend goes on the brand building its own presence in these stores. And that is a conscious decision, because I want the brand to be... And I've met so much people that don't even know that I don't even own the brand. They've said, Nala's baby, I'll use that. and how's that your, yeah, and they just have no idea. But that's a good thing. A hundred percent. And I purposely want that to be the case. I want the brand to be bigger than me. I'm so impressed, right, by what you've done because over the time that I've done this job and just generally being around, I've met so many well-known founders who've created a business and I'm interested.

41:31So I start talking to them about it and I ask them a question. I'll ask the CEO, what about this? Ask the head of marketing, what are your plans for the future? Ask my distribution. Yeah, I talked to you, and you know this brand inside out, upside down. You clearly live it, breathe it. I mean, you're wearing, for those that are watching, they'll know, but for those listening on their podcast player, you're wearing a Nala's baby hoodie. And I think your superpower is that you're a master marketeer. For those listening or watching this that would love to have some sort of cut through and some kind of impact, what are the secrets to great marketing that you would want people to understand, how you can create moments?

42:09for me when I when I launched it I wanted to compete with the the biggest brands of in the country so I knew I was going up against these giants so that's why the investment side was important for me so that's why that was actually the main reason why I raised the investment because I was like and how much did you raise? I raised 3 million yeah so I've done it in two phases I started 1.5 million and then not long after I've done another 1.5 million. And I raised that money because I was like, I am going in with this marketing. I want this to be as loud as possible. So I tried to have every kind of touch point when it came to marketing.

42:56People that, you know, I walk in, I had like close proximity billboards to the stores that we was in just so that people can see it. Then I was doing influencer marketing, of course. I feel like that's standard, so we do a lot of gifting and outreach that way. And choosing influencers and people of influence and mothers and parents that have voices in different sides of the country. And we wanted someone that has a voice in Scotland and Ireland. And it was just kind of tapping into people that have voices in all of these key areas. so we dug and dug to find people where they're from their audiences getting their insights and finding out their demographic and you know the geography of their actual followers rather than just looking at someone they've got a million followers issues them it was like finding where they are and kind of mapping out okay we want to tap into all of these areas in the uk and i've done something where and there's also capitalizing on moments as well like i've done something which was really it worked out really good but um i've done an ad on love island where um i'm friends with um kem and chris and chris had a like a viral moment in previous season of love island where he said does anyone want me to rap to lift the mood a little bit and like that was like a viral moment and i was thinking okay if i make an advert for love island that audience is going to straight away get the concept of it so i had a had a version where i created an advert where all the babies are crying and then one baby who i got chris to do the voiceover for so the babies are talking and stuff in it so i've got chris to do the voiceover these babies are crying making up noise and then chris interrupts and says does anyone want some nala's baby to lift the mood a little bit and all the babies stop crying and i put that advert on love island and mate that like converted so many people to our website it was it was crazy but it was just things like that i'm a creative so i think of ways to kind of really land certain aspects of marketing and um i've done a lot of communication in terms of communicating about the product um the main usp for us was at the time was obviously we were the most natural baby skincare brand it didn't exist hence why we started this branding project in the first place.

45:20But when Nala's mum was pregnant, she used to get a lot of people saying, oh, you know, if you have this, a drink, eat this, or you put this on your skin, it can go into the fears and affect the baby and all of this stuff. So we got introduced to a product ingredient rating app. So there was two. There was one called Think Dirty and one called Yucca. And, like, you scan things and it tells you how clean, how dirty or how bad they are. So we was getting all these baby shower gifts and scanning all these products. and we're like, these are all the products that was in the shops. And we were like, why is none of them rating excellent on Yucca Wear?

45:51It was just like, you know, might have one good, bad, very bad, maybe one random excellent. It was just like, where is the consistency here? So we was like, we're going to be that brand to have excellent rated products, clean, non-toxic, natural, and all of the above. So we communicated a lot of that in the messaging when we was promoting it and when we was getting people to talk about it, It was making them say, look, scan Nandas, baby. You've got the app, scan it, then scan whatever you have now and you'll see the difference. And we did a lot of that communicative marketing and that really helped.

46:26And then the part that you can't pay for is the testimonies and people actually come in and saying, oh my God, we love this brand. Look what it's done before and after pictures. And it's helped my kid hasn't been able to use anything but steroid cream or this. There was so much of that. And I think that is obviously the most powerful tool because you can't plan for that. And that was like, so back to the original question, for me, creating a product or brand that there's USPs for it, for one, and something that you can be so proud of and shout about for so many reasons. If you can do that and communicate that to other people, people will take it on board.

47:07So for us to convert people is so easy because I was just like, look at this app, whatever you use now, scan that. then scan Nala's baby and see the difference and it was just like easy to sales technique do you know what I mean so it's just if you genuinely have a product or brand and you can communicate why yours is either better or superior whatever the reason is and you can stand on that being able to communicate that and putting that out there you will win so that was the main bit of marketing I think changed everything for the business I think it's such an important point because you're talking about credibility and imagine how hard the last few years would have been if you didn't believe in Nala's Baby.

47:46Every minute of your day was trying to convince people to buy it. You'd be dead inside. It would be crazy. And that's the thing. I always tell people, don't cut corners when it comes to, if you're building something and you want to build, whatever it is, I want to build, you know, a football boot. I want to build a car. Whatever it is, are you absolutely happy with it? Because I delayed the launch of Nala's Baby for probably an extra year just because I wasn't happy with the product. And I was like, nope, back to the drawing board. Change that. I want that ingredient change. I want this change.

48:12that changed like I was not settling until I got it to a point where I was like this is it this is perfect this is what I wanted I'm so happy and proud of this brand and these are all the ticks and the USPs and I was like I'm going to war and that's genuinely how I felt and if you feel like that with your brand or your product or whatever it is you genuinely will have a chance I think and if you can communicate that yeah there's a Japanese concept called Ikigai have you heard of it? no Ikigai Ikigai you'd really like it so basically it's four questions that you ask yourself and where these four things meet in the middle is your ikigai and ikigai translates in Japanese as your reason for being and the four questions are what do you love?

48:53what does the world need? what are you good at? and can you make money from it? so if you take that I would apply it to yeah the reason why it's so hard but while it's so hard it's also so easy is because you found your ikigai and if people could just find that in their life It is, literally. That's crazy. I'm going to use that one. It could, I. Search it up when you leave here. I will, I will. We've come to the end, but thank you so much for the conversation. Thank you for having me. Would you do one thing for me? Of course. Would you just, for people listening to this, who might have the fear that a lot of people have when they're starting out in business or not really sure what the world might hold for them, if you could just give them 30 seconds of an MBA from you about business, what would you want them to know from the heart from you about why you have to have a go at these things in life?

49:41One thing that is definitely going to happen is there's going to be points of failure. And what differentiates people are the people that go around that, overcome that, and the people that let failure stop them or it becomes a barrier to their next step. Normalising failure, because not everybody gets it right, you won't get it right. It might take you, you know, a hundred times to get something right. you only need to get it right once so my thing to people would be failure use failure as a lesson and keep going i i i met a founder yesterday at the times 100 yesterday and they was actually number one and when he was telling me their story and he was like i failed over and over and over and over and over again and i had nothing and then for them to do what they they're doing now and be the number one on times 100 list and having you know a massive multi-million pound brand and what the the base of what he was saying was is i failed i failed i failed i failed i failed i failed i failed i failed and then i got it right and i live by that ethos so yes i'll fail i could start corruption cones fail i'm going again how do i overcome this what have i learned from this how do i apply to the next thing and just keep going so i know it was more than 30 seconds but they Embrace the failure.

51:01It was good. Thank you so much. Thank you. Appreciate you, man. Lovely to meet you, man. Thank you. Thank you. I think there's so many things I loved about that conversation, but what stands out to me most is that he was actually given the dream. If you think about the way he started saying, I was offered millions of pounds and global growth, and I turned it down. That actually is the most important message from the whole conversation, because that is the dream for all entrepreneurs. I want to get to a point where someone offers me millions of pounds to take some of my business and grows me globally.

51:29Yeah, he said no, because he truly understands the purpose of Nala's baby. He understands that this isn't about a quick win. It's not about jam today. It's about jam tomorrow. It's about actually how big can this be? And that's why when we have conversations on this show with entrepreneurs and business builders who build from a place of purpose and from a place of passion, it often makes it harder because you care so deeply that when you get things wrong, it stings. but it also means that actually it's what keeps you going because there is going to be moments of failure, there is going to be disappointment, there is going to be doubt, there is going to be fear and often the only thing that keeps you going in those moments is this sense of purpose, this belief that you're doing something that is worth the fight and what did he say there?

52:14He said, I was ready to go to war and I think that is actually how you have to approach being a self-starter in business. You have to be ready to go to war in business but of course you can't do this alone and of all the things that he's learned, And I think it's clear that he's learned that he's very talented and he's an amazing marketeer and he's a great communicator, but he's also limited. And he's limited because he's a human being and we all are. Therefore, if you want distribution and if you want health and safety and if you want global growth and all the other things that comes with the business, then you need to get the people to do that.

52:46And how cool that he understands he's not an MD, so he has an MD for the business. And as soon as that person says, listen, we've got a gap here, we've got an issue, he works hard to fill it. And they work together to bring the best people, to build a great team, to make a difference, so that eventually he can get this business to where he wants it. And that's why we finished talking about Ikigai. And if you do one thing after this conversation, maybe ask yourself those four questions. What does the world need? What am I good at? What can make me money? And what do I love? If you find those four things, then you've also found your Ikigai.

53:21And maybe one day you can be just as passionate. Thanks so much for joining us. Look, I hope you feel you got loads of takeaways from being in the room where it happened. If you can do me one favour, please just take two seconds to subscribe to the show. You can get each episode directly to your inbox. It means we can attract even more incredible guests like George Heaton, Rory Sutherland, Richard Branson and Will Ahmed to the show. Thanks for watching. See you next time.