29 Marketing Secrets: How Gozney Became a $100 Million Global Pizza Oven Brand - Tom Gozney

38:04And like, he really genuinely, he's like, I can't, I'm not going to do his accent, but he's like, you slice open, he's like, Franco Fabuni, Franco Fabuni. But he's like, you slice open an Egyptian mango, right? And he's like, that to me is like a piece of fucking art. Totally. And I'm like, wow. And I feel like what you're doing, mate, with this connection to nature is like, yeah, nature helps you breathe. And it's just so true. But then you've got this beautiful modern thing that's in a, you know. Yeah, it feels like, I just feel like we can connect to a different audience. And I guess like when you were asking me about what my overarching sort of like core strategy is, it's been very clear to me for the beginning.

38:39And I think, you know, as an entrepreneur, you know, you're always told to have focus and have drive. And I, you know, like focus, drive, stay on track. Don't have like butterfly thinking and chase every fucking opportunity. Do you disagree with that? No, do you know what? I think it's really, I guess the one consistent thing that I've had is like the overarching vision never fucking changes. It evolves and gets bigger when we hit certain milestones. But like, I will always be consistent about what we're trying to achieve. Which is? Which, you know, like, so if I look at our overarching vision now, I think Gosney can become the world's largest outdoor cooking brand.

39:16I think we can disrupt, like Apple disrupted the tech market. I think we can disrupt outdoor cooking and we can pull new consumers into it. I don't feel any brand in the world. I don't look at the competitive set out there, like even the incumbents like Weber. I don't look at them as a competitor. I don't like, they give me nothing for my design process. They give me nothing from an inspirational process. apple inspires me yes like apple like brands and people fucking laugh when i relate to myself as like the visionary of steve jobs and i've got a fucking pizza oven but you watch you watch the next five to ten years of what we're gonna do yeah it's just like and i don't you know i'm not saying that we're gonna become as big as apple but like for the sector and the ability to disrupt with an outdoor cooking because it's so much more entrenched with a richness that people fucking need which is about human connection it's about connecting apple do an amazing thing and they serve the world from a tech perspective like we've gone on this fucking journey that's accelerated in the last 15 20 years where everyone is glued to their phones you go to a fucking concert now and all people are doing is recording it with their iphones like who's watching anymore yeah it's like they're think diff i think apple's is think different it's like yours is cook outdoors but i think you're yeah or cook different sorry cook different yeah sorry mate this research escaped me there but it's like that it's you you get whether it's a phone or or a pizza oven you're still getting the same visceral experience experience with the brand yeah what's your definition of a brand oh do you know what i just um not like in a sentence but like just like in general i don't know do you know what am i like i feel like brands inspire they elevate they change people's lives and i just feel like well that's what my sort of aspirations are with gosney you know like in the early days when I was talking about our brand positioning you know and truly saying to the team like we change people's lives they're like what the fuck are you talking about we've got a pizza oven like I'm not no we'll change people's lives and what our ovens have done and how we've marketed them is there's this there's this emotional significance that takes place in a garden with our products that doesn't exist in a world today right like and I have countless people say it to me you know I know the CEO of Yeti he's Matt he's got one of our products and it was just him and countless other people saying like when you like the pizza oven in the garden the way we've designed it the speed that they cook up the interaction in the process of building like not only are you producing food but it truly brings people together and I know a lot of brands say like food brings people together but the core difference is there's like this infatuation that everyone has with the products because of the way they work and because of the way that we position a visceral experience with our products so i also think the fire right like there's like if you literally boil us back down to neanderthal's caveman it's like the fire was the thing that kept us alive fire was the thing where we showed stories the fire was like light warm i think it was in um the invention of fire which was in um the guy wrote homo sapiens that book everyone was reading like that was like one of the biggest inventions was fire yeah and it's like that we're still human beings in a modern world but that connects us yeah it's not right like there's different yeah something instinctively rooted to it right yeah instinctively rooted to like the primal elements of where we came from and i think you know my mum said to me and i've said this on other i've said this i've said this on other podcasts before but like my mum said something so poignant to me in the early days of me building a pizza oven was just like when you build a fire you can be on your own but you can feel like you've got company and it's just like, that was just magical to me and it was partially that, right?

42:51My mate Raz the other day, he's like, he's like a Romanian guy but he's like, bruv, I'm just addicted to fire and he was like watching this fire on his wands and he was like, he was just on his wands but like watching, they were like, I think his missus was away but yeah, I completely agree. It's me, I used to sit in the garden like after I finished cooking and I just put logs on the fire and just watch the fire. I was so obsessed with the notion, this product like engaged me so much but just the sort of like spiritual escapism, you know, of fire was just like, it was, you look at a fire and it's, I don't know, just the outside world seems to disappear or at least get diluted down.

43:28How does fire like help your creativity, do you think? Do you know, it's like the central point of everything we do, you know, is around like how we can innovate with fire. And I think, you know, it's the big driving force. If I think about the core tenants of our products, it's like stone, stone and fire, you know, is really like what our products are built from. And obviously we've got that with the housing and casing of them. But, you know, like there's something so beautiful about like heating up a piece of rock and like cooking on it with a fire. And we just brought that into the modern day.

43:59And I guess jumping back to like the sort of core question about the overarching vision and strategy when, you know, talking about like not being inspired by other incumbent cooking brands um I kind of just like stay in my own lane right I've got like a very very sort of considered and deliberate vision on what I want to achieve with the brand and it like far exceeds anybody's thoughts of like you know looking at target addressable markets and like the 22 billion dollar market that outdoor cooking is I don't like just don't give a fuck about all that stuff I'm like we'll build it like we will build it because we will we will share the essence of what our brand is to more people and we will get people to come in and we will bring different consumers into it and so like our job as a business and as a brand is to create these experiences for consumers that don't necessarily exist in their lives now and like that's the overarching thing that I think I like from a brand perspective is like creating new experiences for people that didn't know they could have and and then if I look at that from a commercial perspective like how that cascades down into some of our business objectives is like I'm like granularly obsessed with the sort of like psychological and emotional messages that our products convey visually and then we also build the brand around that but I think there's just this distinct opportunity for us to be able to leverage the sort of core principles and tenants that we have around product design into new verticals right and so like Gosney in 2026 is is moving into new cooking verticals and I guess if if I truly believe from a commercial perspective how we say what they are now or no I can't say what they are do you know what like you don't need to be a rock star to fucking figure out like how people cook in their gardens one thing I would say Gosney does so brilliantly and what we did with pizza ovens is we just flip the fucking idea of normal on its head and we innovate and we create stuff that's beautiful but functional that's easy to use so we like I'm obsessed with the art form of ancient methods of cooking and I think you know translating that into a modern brand that's accessible and that allow consumers to have incredible results out the box I think is the art and the gift that we can bring to people through our brand um you know so like Gosney is going to transcend into being more than a pizza oven brand.

46:21And I guess like my overarching vision that I've had for maybe five, 10 years about that is like, you create this ecosystem, right? You create this brand that is like rich through the core elements of why it exists. It's not a piece of hardware and it's not a pizza. It's an experience that we create for consumers that can change the way that they live. And what I was going to say about some of the people that speak to us is a lot of people have had you know the way our products change people's lives they've got stroppy teenagers at home they don't want to hang out with their fucking parents when they've got pizza night they want to make the dough they want to do the toppings and it actually changes the way that people socially interact and so there's magic in that for us to harness and the fact that not only is it a cliche not only it's not a cliche brand statement to say that we bring people together like our products truly change the way that families interact.

47:16It's almost like another dichotomy or tension maybe is a better way of saying it is like the technology and the emotion. Like people often see them as different things. Yeah. It's like almost like, yeah, this is an amazing piece of technology, but it's also going to help you build a better relationship with your kid. Yeah. It's like, that's a beautiful thing to swim in, you know? Yeah. It's, mate, a hundred percent. I love that. It's like innovation rooted in, you know. What have been, so as you built this to a global brand, like what have been the big marketing? Because I think we talked about brand, like you naturally get brand.

47:43and not on the marketing side of things. Like what have been the big things you've sort of done that have really kind of helped this become a global beast? Yeah. Two big movements. I think, you know, like we've always been ambitious with everything we've done. So like everything is rooted at the central core philosophy of why the brand exists, which we've talked about in detail, right? And like you then have a product that I always wanted someone to look at one of our products and be like, fuck what is that I want it you know is like their core like knee-jerk reaction to it so or like what the fuck is that I need it you know and if we look at you know we've had a few moments that have really elevated us and I sort of look of the way that I've built brand there has always been significant rungs on the ladder that we've jumped three or four rungs up the ladder and it's created a fucking bunch of chaos within the company some of them but one of them was the dome launch you know we did the dome launch we dropped that in in you know in the midst of covid um which was incredibly challenging time from a supply chain and operational perspective because consumer demand for home products was through the roof factories were really busy you couldn't travel out to you know manufacturing countries because everyone was on lockdown so you couldn't manage like the process of manufacturing these products and we actually launched it with a really you know as a really really interesting and strategic launch we sort of essentially did a sort of viral instagram campaign with the dome which you know i orchestrated which was basically like creating what we called a fomo tile like a fear of missing out tile it was the first time we released the aesthetic of the dome into the market no product in the world exists that looked like the dome at that time and i think this notion of taking a 300 year old neapolitan oven making it look like it had a baby with apple and it coming out it was like what the fuck is this like people were like that's fucking wild but we create this instagram tile i managed to persuade about 35 influencers to post it at a synchronized timing and it just said i'm on the list were these chef influencers or are they a mix of a mix there was a real mix one thing i think i love from your brand is like you've worked with like obviously matty matheson yeah yeah um lee is it tianan yeah i think black axe man gal yeah i was with him yesterday oh really yeah yeah i'd love to speak to him actually on the pod oh mate you should yeah yeah i can link you that would be because i think like black axe man gal as a restaurant is just like an insane it's like going into the mind of a beautiful psycho like yeah you know i mean it's like you've been in there yeah i've been in there yeah this is on the floor but also it's like the top floor feels like it's like you know you've got the paintings of the death yeah um like it's all dark and then you go downstairs and it the toilet's like being in like some back street in hong kong it's like ding ding ding it's like crazy crazy but so like yeah he's a g well i don't know him but like from what i've seen yeah and his wife him and his wife but were those the people those influences that you were yeah so like people like that but you know like benny blanco the producer was you know i just we buddied up he loved the brand like i just i just sort of made inroads and connections with people on social interesting so it wasn't no so in terms of like the bigger just culinary right that's really that's so smart because it's like that opens it up to so much more than it yeah yeah and like you know like there was you know so we got basically like 35 of these guys they posted at a specific time from you know us to uk europe to australia and then basically in the caption we just said um you know like to get there was direction call to action to go and find the list which was on Gosney's Instagram you clicked in the bio you got on the list you signed up for early access for the dome um and then if someone signed up on the list they then got emailed the artwork the FOMO artwork and if they used a hashtag they were entered in to win the free the first ever dome off the production line so I think in like the first week of dropping that campaign that didn't cost us any money it cost us 35 ovens for the influencers that we hadn't even made yet you know we were making them and it was in good faith that they would do the post on the basis that we would give them a dome um and then we sort of like launched it and I think we had sort of like 27 ,000 people post it in the first week it was just wild it just like took over insta and then we did a countdown essentially like a countdown to the launch of the dome where we were taking money and taking transactions um which was about five or six months later so we'd created this like tidal wave of engagement on insta and then we counted down to the launch and um yeah the launch was wild we launched it and i think we did you know we did just shy of 10 million dollars in five hours on the website what and it was yeah it was wild but it was like one of the greatest successes in the company's evolution but it was also a fucking disaster the website broke we had people that were first on the list that were in the checkout and then because it was like glastonbury tickets the shit sold out it chucked everybody out their carts before they transacted then they'd go back in and the lead time would be pushed back so we had i think we had something like four or five thousand complaints you know in an in the first two hours of the launch and everyone in the company was like working around the clock to respond to everyone so it was this amazing launch but i just knew at that point that was the first time that we delivered my vision for this design-led dichotomy driven product into the market and i knew that there there would be like emotional resonance with it.

53:19And I guess having that volume of demand and then having that volume of negative energy when people couldn't get their hands on it, you know, I was just like, we fucking captured, we put magic in a bottle here, you know, like whilst we were going through the fucking chaos of like getting back to every single person that wasn't fortunate enough to be able to purchase it and then dealing with production and delivering all the products into the market, you know, it was this huge achievement internally for the business, but externally it was just chaos, right? There was people complaining on social left and right.

53:49And so it was just, it was one of those points where we like really leveled up as a brand. You know, we'd, I'd been talking to these guys in the US. I'd gone out and seen Denny who had had this amazing or has had this amazing career. He's CEO, right? He's CEO. Yeah. I'd been pestering him to join our board as a non-exec director for ages. He was part of a brand called Skullcandy that grew and went public. Headphones. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Before Dre Beats came out and like disrupted their growth. And then he moved to a brand called Traeger Grills, which was Traeger were, you know, a small business in the US.

54:30But like they just they went in, a group of them went in, backed by private equity and just sort of like built that into this incredible success story. and it was essentially like a pellet smoker, you know, that you made brisket and ribs in and they'd automated it. So it was like push of a button, you can become like a pit master or whatever, you know, and this notion of making it easy for people to create true barbecue was the journey that they went on. And they bought it, I think it was circa, like don't quote me on this, but I think they bought it circa$100 million and three years later, they recapped it a billion and then it went on to actually go public like a three and a half billion valuation.

55:09And Denny was running the show that - No, no. So Denny wasn't the CEO. He was essentially like a CMO. So he covered product sales, marketing, but just went on that incredible journey. And I'd met, I'd learned about what I was fascinated by was the guy that like had the vision for building the cult community, like really positioned their products, how they thought about positioning the products into the North American market to get this ridiculous cult following to grow their sales to the rate they did. I think they, you know, they went from sort of 80 million in sales and at their height, they were at eight or 900 million in sales, you know.

55:46So that was fascinating to me. And then Denny went, which is also like another hugely interesting thing to me. Denny went and ran Dickies Apparel under VF Corp. So he was part of Dickies. And what are some of the lessons or principles from him that you think help other people listening to this have helped you in the building the thing yeah i think you know like well denny has been like so integral to helping me shape you know shape my vision and i guess like the core emphasis of what denny's about he's a he's a world-class operator he's an incredible brand strategist he's obsessed with our internal culture and he's obsessed with consumer, you know, everything is rooted in consumer.

56:31Who is the consumer? What are the product benefits? Like, what are the feature benefits to our consumers? And actually - Feature benefits as in - Of our products, sorry. So like when we think about product, like what does it give the consumer? How do we communicate? Is that in terms of the feeling or like literally? Feeling, in terms of the output, like everything. Where does the consumer shop? It was just like this overarching notion that like all of, you know, like his core emphasis of how he's built brands is being rooted in understanding the psychology of the consumer wow so it's almost like your vision sorry to interrupt it's like i'm just yeah your vision's almost like the that whole thing we're talking about the ancient with the modern the dichotomy the making people feel something more changing people's lives but then he's got the granularity to be like with you to be like right well where is that person shopping 100 it's just like an incredible operator that can like basically what i would say is distill down this overarching huge vision into like a bite-sized chunk strategy that we can go and disseminate you know which is which is you know like basically becoming omni-channel you know so going from a d2c brand that we were before denny joined to going into like um true wholesale retail partnerships but with like an integrated marketplace segmentation strategy so sorry for the fucking words but you know understanding how to go into retail correctly right like understanding which retail partners a brand elevational to the brand and then how you cascade down to grow revenue at the right times at the you know like the right nuance phases within the brand's growth to really make the brand pop and drive revenue drive profitability so denny had like basically throughout the course of his career learned truly how to I think disrupt as a brand as well and I guess the core qualities that I have I'm essentially fucking rooted in consumer it's what I'm obsessed about like every inch of the product that I design is rooted in how a consumer is going to react to that from a design perspective emotional perspective like the output of how it fucking functions um and Denny is like rooted in how to connect with those consumers on a widespread basis you know building out channels and all of those things so our um connection as sort of founder designer with him as the ceo is just this incredible relationship where we're both very aligned on like how we build it with those two things like you with you consumer then him how to almost get to those people like you're now a global brand yeah what have what has been the hardest market to get into to deliver on those two things yeah do you know what i think um people like people especially from this country just think the us is one country it's europe right it's like however many states so nuanced by it yeah so many idiosyncrasies cali which is like really socialist down to like texas they have completely different cultures you know you go across to New York and it's completely different and it's so nuanced state by state and really thinking and we did it in the early days like we were just like right we're going to market to America before Denny joined 50 % of our sales were North America but we were DC whereabouts in America was it or was it was it like pockets or yeah like they were really sort of like accelerated pockets like New York state pizza's obviously a big thing in New York um Cali weather and Texas weather and culture around cooking outdoors with food.

59:59But like we had a really interesting spread. Also like Washington State up near Seattle, you know, there's affluence. There's a big outdoor lifestyle. You know, people really enjoy. There's lots of good restaurants. People want to buy into quality products and stuff like that. So those have been really compelling states for us, yeah. But in terms of delivering those things, obsession with consumer and like how we actually build this out with Denny? Like how did you, what was the hardest state to get into and how did you crack that? Do you know what? That's a really interesting question. I guess, you know, we've got a sort of like overarching North American wholesale and DTC strategy anyway.

1:00:42Some markets perform better than others. I guess like the key thing that we're trying to do is at the rate that we're growing and basically being a bootstrap business, You know, we've never done a true series A, series B. We've sort of like bootstrapped it on the journey. So I guess like being really strategic about how you tackle key states one at a time. So you don't spread yourself too thin and dilute your impact in those states is something that's really interesting. You know, I think America is just a fucking beast, right? It's an absolute beast. So we've gone into strategic retail partnerships that are bearing like significant fruit.

1:01:21I guess one of the core things that Denny's really done as well, I was really adamant on this, but we said no to going into any retail partners before the North American team joined. I was so transfixed with protecting the brand from how it was presented in retail, how people are selling it, how people are talking about us, that it was probably to our detriment in a degree. the fact that I was so focused on protecting the brand and the word that I didn't want anyone else doing a shit job of representing it. So we actually just didn't go into wholesale. And I think that's another thing that Denny has done so well.

1:01:57He's so intrinsically connected to the brand and how to remain premium, how to remain exclusive, that we say no to more people than we say yes to. That's such a really good point, actually, that I haven't really talked about. I think being able to change your mind and like being, because sometimes it's not change your mind and ego like two things that people battle with i think real real kind of openness and being able to like yeah what was the last thing you change your mind on is a question i kind of i i i love but like what other things have you changed your mind on since i talk all the time man do you know what like what are the big ones you think um yeah let me think let me think some of them are more recent which probably can't talk about but you know like if i revert that back right the core emphasis and the core root of some of the qualities that I've got of being able to be an entrepreneur and evolve and learn.

1:02:46When I left rehab, Oliver, my pastor said, Tom, you know, you'll do incredibly in life. You'll do incredibly in life. You just need to remain humble and kind, you know? And that was, that was like, that statement just stuck with me. So like on my journey and this isn't directly related but like Humility is so unbelievably important to me. and that's something that I've really battled with as the company's gained more traction I'm like building out my personal brand or my personal positioning that like notion of self-promotion like edging into arrogance edging into ego like where's the fucking balance and actually you know there's a it's this overarching notion that you know the journey that I've gone on from being a drug addict to starting to building an idea to building a business is like an incredibly inspirational journey for a lot of people that don't have qualifications that are told constantly that they can't achieve shit they shouldn't quit their jobs they've got to be in a mundane shit existence for the rest of their lives it's just not fucking true and like i'm proof of that but i think you know on my journey i've been like i've been like a fucking sponge man I'm literally a sponge.

1:04:00I like, I will take all the key nuggets that you've given me today. They will be lodged in my head. I will think about them. I'll reflect on them. And I guess, I guess that's the, like having humility and being open. You know, I remember in the early days when we professionalized the business, probably in 2016, I would sit in a board and I would pretend that I knew everything. Can I pretend that I got an answer for everything if I didn't really know? and now I sit in a boardroom with incredibly smart people and I'm like, what the fuck does that word mean that you've just said? I don't know what that word is.

1:04:32Yeah, I mean, I think that the smart answer lies in the dumb question and people are too scared to ask dumb questions, especially in school because they basically castigate you for asking dumb questions. That's another interesting dichotomy as well. It's more from like a leadership perspective, I suppose. It's like being able to change your mind and or like being open to change your mind, but then obviously probably balancing with that, like especially from the brand side it's like yeah being like i ain't changed my mind on this like i think there's doing when to like hold your yeah because it's like there's a difference between business decisions and brand decisions 100 like and i think that something will like uh who was i i was down in bristol the other day we did a supper club you know i was saying sunny stores banging restaurant does good pizza as well actually and he was like we we make our in-house this like mascarpone pudding thing like oh it we actually lose money on it but like but like from the brand like I get out of bed every morning so I want to make this and it makes the dish better and it's like some of those things like people agonize over brand decisions that a lot of business people are like well surely just do that because we're going to cut costs what have been some of those brand decisions that you've like really agonized over which kind of only you in the room really gets your head around I think you know like there's there's always this notion as a premium brand like we've designed products that are just like incredible products and actually there's been an ongoing debate in the company and this isn't an area where i've changed my mind this is an area where i've been steadfast yep um you know like do we take features and quality out of our products to hit a certain price point consumer you know and like there's competition that are getting a ton of volume at$299 are we ever going to go and make a light oven at$299 and i'm like fuck no we're not doing it yeah like we're just it's just not fucking happening but like equally outside of that i feel like i've got i feel like the brand's dna is my dna around how we feel about the positioning of it how we feel about like i want to be more expensive than the competition out there i want to but in order to be more expensive than the competition you have to give value to the consumer you have to build brand and you have to put quality into the products and so we're building a product that i would be like i'm proud to own i'm proud to sell i'm like i think they're incredibly good value um got five minutes left however we can go longer if you want yeah that can we go a bit longer we are yeah i'm good yeah yeah yeah it sort of just goes within two minutes yeah yeah i need a piss as well yeah yeah yeah go for go for a piss if you're a challenger brand that's absolutely killing it in d2c but you're struggling to crack retail then you've got to listen to this maybe you've got an ocado listing maybe you've got a whole foods listing maybe you're absolutely killing it in selfridges maybe absolutely killing it in your farm shop and your indies but my friends making the leap crossing el chasum crossing el rubicon to grocery retail is not easy it's the champions league of fmcg it's super hard it means playing at a higher level and that's where some of you amazing brands sadly stumble look retailers want stories backed by data not dreams and a pretty pitch deck and let's be real supermarkets are not just going to magically make a space for you and your little brand.

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1:08:16You don't need a massive sales team. You need Northstar. Link in the show notes. Click that link and you'll be able to book a free demo with Northstar. Highly, highly recommend that and thank me later. But yeah, good to jump back in. I'm trying to think where we were. Is it saying no or did we... Oh yeah, yeah, saying no. yeah how does brand decisions versus business decisions and like being able to like stick to your guns like you need it's almost that again another dichotomy of being like open to change your mind yeah otherwise you end up with hubris when like you just yeah nothing happens but then also if you change it too much you change your mind too much it's like you don't have a brand yeah you see a lot of brands that kind of just just go with the the sort of general direction the wind wherever the trends are going it's like every brand now is basically or not every brand but so many of these brands are going into protein because protein is the new thing.

1:09:04And it's like holding true to your guns. But one of the other things I wanted to ask you is like some of the other big marketing things. I know you talked about the launch of the dome. What are some other ways you think about marketing, not necessarily from like a further upstream. So it's like, say you're in a meeting with Denny, like how do you think about marketing different from other sort of entrepreneurs you think? Interesting question. I guess, I guess like from a brand marketing perspective, you know, we sell pizza ovens, but we actually, you know, I guess like the cultural impact of how we're building brand is probably quite different from some of the others, you know, like we, I guess I don't, yeah, let me stop stuttering my fucking words.

1:09:53That's all good. how to articulate this i guess like how we build our culture internally right is like as you said at the beginning i listen to hip-hop like we have a value within our company which is like respectfully irreverent like we say fuck you to convention but we don't hurt people's feelings we don't do anything to you know hurt anyone else um but it's i i guess it's like i don't want to use the word being overly disruptive but we just we just like to connect with like people that are grounded in the cultural ambitions of the business and so they're not like necessarily the normal people that we would go and connect with we build out communities in different areas we i guess we spearhead our brand through thinking about streetwear and fashion and you know like if i think about the communities that we move into it's like skate snow surf you know like we're in those communities yeah a lot of our sales guys that we hire on the ground in the u.s all come from the action sports industry.

1:10:49So it's like, we don't have clipboards and polo shirts, you know, like it's just - Yeah, I can't imagine that, mate. And I think I just, do you know what? I truly feel like, you know, having this incredible, again, another dichotomy, but this sort of like performance led, design led product range, but then like coupled with this like irreverence and it's like fucking cool. yeah and fun and that's the heart of everything and i guess i guess you know what you go through so much change as you grow up like how old are you 31 yeah 31 so as you get older right and you get like you know you're married and you have two and a half kids and all of that stuff two and a half kids well you know like average family you fucking life fundamentally changes you grow up and you lose connection with like your sort of cultural roots of what made you cool when you're a kid you've got to fucking change nappies and you're like doing school runs and you're taking them to football practice and like again like I went through when I was like in rehab you sort of like lose your identity and you've got to re-find it and you go through this stage at your mid-life where you're like what the fuck is going on in my life and so I but my overarching sort of like north star or notion was the majority of our customers is sort of 35 to 50 year olds men and women um and then I'm like, if we can build a brand that is rooted in everything that they fucking love, right?

1:12:18It may not necessarily, we're not necessarily targeting the way that we're building brands, we're custom demographic, you know, it's, we're not like targeting. Psychographic versus demographic. Exactly. Yeah. And then, and then you basically like, you know, we go and create this cultural energy in the market that makes it feel cool for people to be a part of it. And it was the same with Matty, right? It was just like, when my board of directors in the UK, when I said that we were going to work with Matty and he's dressed in fucking S &M gear, you know, like tattooed up, like he's a big dude and he's screaming obscenities.

1:12:50They're like, what the fuck is wrong with you? And they were just like, we are not having this guy associated to our brand. And I'm like, you're wrong. And it was just like this cultural movement, you know, and I was just sort of saying like this overarching pyramid of influence, you know, you go and get Matty, his followers might not necessarily be our demographic, right? Like they're younger kids or whatever, but he influences the influential people that influences people that cook at home and there's this overarching like wow wow mate that's really good that's like not but like the way you've said that so he he influences people who influence other people it's almost that paleo effect but it's like if if i think about like when i was reaching out and a lot of this how did you meet him lee ternan lee ternan like lee ternan introduced matty to rockbox matty bought a rockbox and then And one day he just posted it.

1:13:38And I was like a fan of Matty. And I'm like, fucking hell, he's just posted a picture of himself with Rockbox. And then he fell in love with the product and he just started using it. And we've had like a tight relationship ever since. And it's been like such an incredible, like symbiotic relationship where he was in the early days of his career, we were starting out. We didn't really have two pennies to rub together. He did a bit of work for us, low cost. Didn't he have a big drug problem as well? Yeah, he's talked about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's talked about that a lot. He's an incredibly inspirational guy, you know, like.

1:14:05What are some of the lessons you've picked up from him? Oh, do you know what, man? Having fun, you know, having fun. And like, I guess my relationship with Matty has been really, really interesting as we've grown. You know, like we were super scrappy in the beginning. We were, you know, we were beg, borrow and steal every post from people when we didn't have money to pay people. And Matty, like, I guess going on a journey with Matty has like, like helped mature my approach to having partnerships, I suppose. you know, like in the early days, it was like scrappy and you're asking for everything for free.

1:14:37And then realizing that Matty's business and the core tenants of his business are his social. And it's not just a place where we can ask him for a favor, you know, and like that mutual respect as the journey has grown, I think about, you know, building like, I guess what I've learned from Matty is like, our relationship was founded on his love for our product initially, then like a mutual connection to the fact that he loved how we were thinking about building brand and then my respect for him as an entrepreneur and what he's doing but like I guess the core thing that Matty has really been the north star for is building like hyper meaningful relationships that turn into commercial partnerships and it was just like finding him that loved the fucking product it was like the first tick in the box we've just completely sidestepped going out and doing transactional influencer relationships.

1:15:30Is that like another way to go up four rings on the ladder? It's like become pals with him, not like organically, it's not like a nefarious way of doing it. It's like, you guys get on. But then he's so influential that he's a super, yeah. Yeah, his influence has grown as our business has grown, not because of our business, because of his own actions. But like, I would say, I would say like the core element of like what really remained true is like living and breathing a relationship with Matty It was just like, this isn't him being an influencer and getting paid to post for us. This is an authentic, meaningful relationship.

1:16:04He loves our products, loves our brand, loves what we're trying to do. Loved me as a founder. I loved him. And it was just like, gone was this ideology that we would go and pay someone to post something. It was just like, fuck you. We'll send people product if they're influential. And what I learned from the early days was, every brand goes out there and says, I'll give you a product but can I have three posts and like I did that in the beginning I was like can you post three times for me or whatever or once or whatever and then you chase them up and I realized like that was bullshit that was fucking bullshit like if you believe someone's got something that you want and you see something in the way they're building their personal brand I would then go out to people now and just say look I fucking love what you're about I would love for you to just own one of our products no strings don't need to post shit you know and just to them and because of that notion, the psychology of that, like these guys had just become fans of using the product and they would naturally lean into building a relationship with the product versus feeling like it was a transaction.

1:17:05And then they would just start to organically post and use the product and all those things. So that was a really interesting lesson for me in the early days, you know, like finding people that loved the products and like partnering with those people and like fucking cutting out all the guys on the outside that were just after a freebie and that would, you know, like all that stuff. So what about Lee Tin and in terms of what he's taught you about, maybe creativity? Because like you go to his restaurant and as I say, it's like being in the mind of a beautiful psycho, but in the most perfect way.

1:17:40Yeah, yeah. But like, I just never see anything like it. If I take one step back actually from talking about Matty, like Lee was the sort of like figurehead for me in a guy that I think on his personal Insta had 1 ,200 followers. When I started saying to the guys in the company, we need to get this guy on the books. Like we need to - Just for context for listeners, actually. So Lee was at St. John, head chef. Yeah. Now he's got formerly known as Black Axe Mangal in Islington. In Islington, yeah. And like an incredible chef, like I would say, you know, maybe a controversial menu to some people that don't, you know, like if you go - Thick though.

1:18:19Yeah. fucking sick so sick yeah squid ink flatbreads yeah you know like um like all the row and making awful pizza awful flatbreads and like some of the most incredible food i've ever eaten but if you were to ask you know like five out of ten people if they knew the ingredients they wouldn't want to eat it right but actually if they didn't know the ingredients they go in there they'll say it's the best meal i've ever had you know and so but like he doesn't give a fuck to capture like mainstream audiences he's about that's why i wrote i wrote about that restaurant like on a newsletter and i was like it's just everything i love about a brand and it's just like part of that was that you can um feel the founder's sort of soul in the in the same with these products right like you can it's like an umbilical cord from your fucking tummy to the fucking oven right but like it's um you those are the brands that i really love you know you can really you just palp you walk in there you just feel his personality and lee is i was chatting to kate lee's wife about it last night oh really i was literally chatting to her about this exact topic and just she was basically saying some people come in and they're you know like were you up in london last night yeah i was up in london oh right yeah yeah yeah and or was it the night before i can't remember yeah within the last 24 hours and she was just you know you get some customers that come in like you that are just like it's palpable the founders like energy and other people are coming in just like oh can you turn the music down a bit you know and she's just like that's cool but they're just not our customer yeah like we don't care to have every single customer like going away raving about it but the people that love it fucking love it because they connect to it and like that's what lee and kate do so magically yeah um but you know reverting back to lessons around creativity i mean lee was lee was lee was wild in his when we put the oven in for him i was actually talking to him about him last night he wanted to get he wanted to get six I think it was six kilograms of doll's eyes, like extracted from dolls or bought from China to put doll's eyes all over his oven.

1:20:11This is because this is the oven in the restaurant. Yeah, the oven that we did. But like that oven, arguably, right? Like that commercial oven that we've installed there is the most famous commercial. Wait, hasn't it got Kiss on it? Or is that, it changes a lot. Yeah, it's changed. And they had the Warriors, didn't they? The Warriors, then they got Kiss now. I think, I can't remember what was before that. I can't remember. But yeah, it's like, you know, there's so many, so many shots of that oven in so many places with so many interesting people stood in front of it you know i think bourdain went there didn't he he's like bourdain did quite a bit of stuff with him i can't actually remember yeah yeah he did i think because i've seen yeah i've said yeah but lee like if i if i talk about like matty being the influencer of influencers lee is the epitome of that right yeah lee lee would have like i think when we started working with him he personally maybe had 1200 followers but i would say 90 of them were chefs that were just hyper relevant wow and so you'd like people didn't see that but like i went and met lee and his like cultural and brand values and how he just communicated with me as a normal fucking human didn't want no bullshit didn't want to take the piss and it was just like this reciprocal relationship where you know he intro'd me to frank pinello who's now one of the biggest ambassadors for our brand he intro'd me to action bronson he intro'd me he made the ins with matty with me after matty bought one of our products you know he's just opened the door for me like lee has done that and it was like if you go and look at him on face value as a marketing person with 1200 followers you'd be like you know so it's i think that's another like one of your like amazing strengths mate is is be able to like take things that are face value to most people yeah like almost look at it from a different angle or like dig deeper and see where where that can take you think almost thinking three three rungs ahead hundred percent like because people one rung ahead is all that's 1200 followers that's like most probably think, you've got this ability to be like, well, okay, that's 1 ,200 followers, but 900 of them are the most impactful chefs.

1:22:05If I get into two of those, I know it wasn't - The influencers of influencers. It says influencers, and we get five rings ahead. 100%. Mate, that's such a good way of putting it. And what about Action Bronson? Because I know, like I think, what I love about him is his ability to kind of, I know kind of a lot of people say, like focus, do one thing well. Like he just does whatever the fuck he wants. Yeah. Like Satuji. like what's what's he did you like have you cooked pizza with him haven't you yeah yeah what talk me about that experience oh mate you know like we like firstly i was like the biggest action bronson fan ever when his music erupted onto the scene maybe when it was in 2011 maybe i was just like literally i'm like so obsessed with my hip-hop and then he was he was rapping about his recipes and i was like who the fuck has done this he's this big like albanian guy from Flushing Queens and, you know, big fuck off gnarly ginger beards, just, you know, like the sickest flow and his lyrics were just disruptive to hip hop.

1:23:07It was just, it was so, it was like in a world that I was in, it was like culinary and hip hop. And it was just like, oh my God, I was just like, yeah, so in awe of his music. And, and then we just got chatting. I can't remember. I think, yeah, Lee, Lee intro'd me to him. And then we started chatting to him about him coming in and doing stuff with the brand and then i was living in the states in 2022 um and i was flying back to england and we organized to cook together we were just like look let's meet up let's just see if we vibe it all that stuff and then we were meant to cook on his roof terrace of his apartment but there was construction work and scaffolding in new york this is in yeah in brooklyn right yeah and then we ended up because construction started on his block of apartments a few days before we ended up just getting an oven delivered on the street and he bought out a load of A5 Wagyu.

1:23:56I went, a good friend of mine, Anthony Mangieri from Una Neapolitana, which is a great pizzeria in New York. He made me some of his incredible dough. I went to a deli and stocked up and we basically just like bust out pizzas for an afternoon on the streets in Queens. And it was just, mate, we were just cooking Wagyu, like making Wagyu pizzas and just, mate, it was just sick, man. It was just this like, you know, he just loves food, loves hip hop. we just hit it off and um you know it was an incredible it was an incredible moment for me as a fan of his music and then being able to cook on the streets with him was just rad it's um what i was saying to chloe before like you rocked up mate was about like how i think you've been so instrumental in um uh like this whole sort of renaissance of pizza in london i've interviewed tom at vincenzo's yeah he's a g absolute g um yeah that was a really fun conversation that but um obviously but there's just so many amazing sort of pizza places what are some of your sort of favorite pizza places in london or i do you know what man i love literally like tom's vincenzo's is like yeah i haven't even been to crisp yet um i need to go everyone's raving about crisp i haven't been um you know mate there's a there's a whole host like some of the people are like really loyal friends that's what i mean that's what i love to shine light on is some of the underrated ones yeah from a neapolitan pizza perspective like peddling pizza his handler adam atkins he's just a g where's that that's inst albans yep he does street food markets but he's been like a figurehead in people quitting their jobs and moving into mobile pizza like you know production and he sort of started on a bike got a rock box has upgraded multiple vans and now he's just this you know he's maybe a couple hundred thousand followers now on insta just as this like street food G.

1:25:42His pizzas are fucking sick. You know, he's like classically Neapolitan with his own twist on it. Tom at Vincenzo's is amazing for like where pizza is going and the progressive nature of like, we were in this like Neapolitan era for a few years. And then people are like edging out into doing these like hybrid New York tavern style pies now, slightly crispier bakes and just different style of pizza. So love Tom at Vincenzo's. yeah, Tomat Vincenzo's is amazing. Adam from a Neapolitan perspective. You know, Gracie's is good. Ali Katz is good. All these guys are fucking... I went to Dohan's on Saturday.

1:26:24Yeah. My mate's about to open a bar in Waterloo and they were like, they're trying to look at different concessions and he'd been there like the week before and the lady's names escaped me but she was, she's like, mate, like, well, you've got to try this. I think our team were there last night. yeah yeah they were yeah yeah yeah yeah he was saying mate what's she called chloe yeah um my mate alex had been to meet her and um we were there ordering ordering the munch and and i was like i'll get that he's like mate you gotta try this pizza like hannah recommended it it was the tuna one yeah i was like what tuna on a pizza that sounds a bit sort of boogie right mate it was honestly one of the best pizza was it was like raw tuna it was no raw tuna it was like cooked tin tuna no like but it was like obviously of the highest sort of caliber like the Ferrari of thin tuna yeah yeah amazing my boy my boy Richie P who's head of our media content he's like a pizza geek I've just given him some 120 hour fermented dough for him to go and trial tonight um but he was he was at dough hands and just saying Hannah's pizza is by far he's just I haven't had it but he's just saying it's fucking insane really good yeah it's really really good one so a marketing genius do you know Seth Godin have you yeah yeah I don't know him person he's been on the pod twice um and like he's like my fucking hero yeah i rate him so much so to like actually chat with him was just like wild but one of the things he talks about is uh how you know what a good brand is versus a bad brand yeah so he says if nike created a hotel yeah you know exactly what it fucking looks like right you just picture it yeah if hyatt regency created as trainer so i'd love to know like what and it's kind of more of a brandy question but like if gosney was to build like a hotel or like how would it how would it look and how would you think about things yeah do you know what man like the first place that I go um as you know it's an interesting point because I've been designing my own house which I feel in my head as a Gosney house you know I've been doing it for two years we've we've bought a lot of land in the new forest and it was been a dream for me to do it and I guess um yeah I mean the first thing I think about god how deep do i go go deep the first thing i think about is social architecture right so like the energy of the property the flow of the property so okay so let me explain it's not it's not a fucking term that anyone uses it's a term that i've made up to talk to my wife yeah but social architecture is it's it's basically built around community right like what is the energy how does the how does the property provide energy to the to the users and so our house that we've been designing has been built around centralized communal spaces that built differently from normal living spaces.

1:29:01So everything is centralized to an external courtyard that we've got within the property that has the sort of living wing that goes off that. And so I think the first thing that I've created, and this is purely from an energetic perspective, is like a central hub to the house where you can have really fucking fun and cool amenities within it. So not only do you have a kitchen and a back kitchen, but it opens the courtyard, the swimming pool but you've got the DJ booth the decks like hidden within the actual main living space and then you know it basically creates this nuanced area where instead of just having kitchen diner you know you've got like a big sort of centralized seating area that is within the main living space so so and this is so you got one of these or each individual thing has this sort of so I've I've basically built a house um you know and I'll release it on my social I'm sure at some point soon like when i get planning but i've really i've basically built this house that arguably looks like a plus symbol right and it's got like essentially different wings that serve different energetic processes so if you bird's eye view it looks like a like a plus symbol yeah so there's like the the sort of like reversed l in the top left is about outdoor courtyard and main living space with a pool there um that sort of like initial top wing opens up on both sides east and west but then it goes on to having um like a sort of wellness space down below which is more about relaxation i sort of core i had core framing when i was designing the house in like live play rest sleep you know those were the core energetic elements that i wanted to capture um and then the sleep wing comes off the other side of the property but it was all about community and all about connection but then it's creating what i would say it's like exactly the same journey that I've gone on with the products, it's like a hyper-modern, it's a hyper-modern construction methodology just rooted in ancient architecture and ancient materials.

1:31:00So the only way I can explain what a house is, it's like a hybrid. It's like a Japanese Scandinavian farmhouse. I love that so much. Yeah, and that's, but then it's built around like the energetic flow of the property and how people like interact within it and then it's like rooted like so it's got a core aesthetic that captures that sort of like Japanese Scandinavian farmhouse but then it's got ancient cobbles that make up some of the floors within it but like precise glass that comes off that below ground it's got like gnarly concrete but nothing above ground isn't anything but an organic natural material so it's just got this level of discovery that goes into it so i think if gosney were to design a house i think you know i i started thinking when we're designing the house like what house looks perfect with a dome sat in it you know and like sort of cascade out from there and i just feel like i just follow the exact same design principles with a property that i did with the ovens you know it's got to feel modern but rooted in in the heritage it's got to feel like you can escape when you're within it it's got to have all those tactile elements of smoke and fire it's like really elemental i would say the property is so you know in our main kitchen we've designed just instead of having a traditional kitchen we've just got a live firewall so the whole wall is built around fire for cooking so you've got the oven we've got like grills that go up and down with like wood fired burning units in them so in the main living space you walk in and it's centered the actual traditional kitchen is hidden behind that in like a sort of like rear kitchen that's hidden away that's got your standard ovens and all of that stuff so it's like an experiential inexperiential property but also like to me the plus is like that a whole like community of you know like plus is community yeah adding people together and it's like the whole house has all that stuff in terms of deals you've done like in because i think didn't you sell like to the pig or something was one of your first yeah yeah i'd love to know like what you've learned about structuring um deals like because i think um like again i'm asking this selfishly right because we're doing more stuff coming to the pod which is good but it's like trying to work out how to sort of do them and like what have you learned about the art of a deal because i think again linking this back to sort of the hustle and the kind of the the whole hip-hop vibe is there's a look there's a deal as a part of that you know i've read read lots about that i think like firstly i think what's really fucking important is like making sure that it's a deal that you love and I just think that the the synergy between whatever the other person brings to the table is like really important so like not doing deals just because they're commercially driven necessarily it's like if I think about recapitalizing the business or getting investors in I don't want the biggest check man I want the purpose the person that's most relevant or the person that's like the most inspiring to me that can add strategic value and that's an obvious thing to say I know that's an obvious thing to say but it's not always about the check size because i think if you can if you can basically protect your brand it will go much further like i i guess there's an interesting tension here right we've got investors within gosney that have invested in the business that want to return on their money and actually like it would be so easy to be a p &l driven business right where you're just looking at maximizing profits not investing in culture not investing in making products that are truly disruptive in the world and having, you know, like a P &L driven business will give you a short term aspect to looking at how you drive the business.

1:34:34And actually what makes magic happen, what makes you become Apple is vision, right? And so like some of the deals that you do in the early days could cripple your ability to actually give you the freedom to be able to build the vision that you need to build, to make it like something truly magical that transcends any vision that you could have possibly had. Right. And so I don't do deals with anyone I don't like, I just don't. And like, I have to like the people. Um, and you know, I guess like art of negotiating, um, I guess what I'm really good at doing instinctively as a founder to get deals done is just like getting people to believe in the vision of where I want to take it you know and like if if i was looking for people to be inspired by getting involved in my business as investors or anything like that just have to speak honestly about like what your fucking vision is what your passions are and like how big you want to take it and i think some people think yeah he's a fucking dickhead he's away with the fairies and then you'll get the other people that be like i believe in that guy yeah yeah yeah and and so like i i think that's really interesting I think like the art of structuring a deal is just making sure that both parties win.

1:35:48So both parties feel excited by the deal as well. I just think if you're crippling people from their side of the commercial agreement and they're not getting what they need out of it, you know, the partnership's destined to fail. So partnerships are just a big part of what we do. Yeah, brand partnerships is another, again, everything we talked about with Lee is genius. In terms of that Nassim Taleb guy, that anti-fragile guy, again, read loads of his stuff. I think he's brilliant, especially that you can apply a lot of his stuff to brand building. But he says like, we need, there's so many books of like, how to be a founder, how to be a marketeer, how to make loads of dough sort of thing, right?

1:36:29But he goes, well, that's, we need actually need more how not to books, right? Because it's like, how I fucked up. I've never read one of those books in my life. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they're bollocks. And that's basically what he's saying. But say you were to write a book of like all the things that you've balled up on this journey. Because I think, oh my God, if you like creativity, the Robert Rodriguez, the director was just on Joe Rogan. Right. Mate, it's one of the best podcasts I've ever listened to on creativity. Oh, mate, like I was just, it's like in terms of palpability, it was just like, wow.

1:37:04But he says you've got to study the ashes of your failure. Yeah. Because when you study the ashes of your failure, there's like within that, as a gem which will then take you on to the next bit but sort of convolut way of saying all this but like if you if you were to study some of your big failures like what have in the ashes of those failures like what have you learned um and they can be chapters of the how not to sort of book yeah i mean do you know what it's really interesting like studying the ashes of your failures i yeah I feel like, I feel like nothing's truly been a failure because it's just all learning.

1:37:43I just honestly feel like that. And I even feel like we've clearly had failures, clearly fucked up and made shit decisions, right? Like, you know, like, I mean, that happens fucking daily, right? You know, and we wouldn't be, we wouldn't be driving the business at the pace that we're driving the business if we didn't have like a propensity for risk and like risk, you know, is risk, right? And so I think I've, you know, I think I have driven the business like close, you know, close to the wind a few times. And, you know, like - Specifically when? Well, I just think in the early days, like scaling up when we launched Rockbox in 2016, launching it into three continents when we didn't have fucking two pennies to rub together and it was just hungry for growth.

1:38:31And it nearly crippled the business. We nearly went bust. you know we had all this opportunity and we it just nearly went tits up um you know like when we hired all of our us team the business we were growing so quickly but we're a d2c brand we didn't have the ability to leverage purchase orders with banks to get financing we were unfinanceable right apart from equity investment and we had you know we had like an inefficient an immature supply chain built so we didn't have the margins in our products and we just decided to go all in get into retail hire the fucking team and you know that was a that was a transitional year that was like highly stressful from a cash perspective but do you know what I just I just don't feel like um I feel like a lot of the challenging decisions that we've made have just like bared through and like to your point earlier what was the glass half empty half full and then high agency yeah i'll send you that mate it's so good yeah i just i just feel like that's how i've conducted myself and i'm not saying i've never made mistakes i've made a fucking ton of mistakes i i guess like learning from those is is is just an instinctive part of being able to drive yeah i think there's a there's a we've rebranded mistakes as failure and it's like this whole failure porn it's like oh i failed like sorry i shouldn't say like that but like oh i've failed it's like you haven't failed you've made a mistake like failed is such a sort of um a terminal thing and it's like actually 100 % mistake that's how I feel that yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and it's like and it's like because failure works so well on social media and it's like it's this whole sort of like failure is like a a honey hive sorry to bees it's oh my god the failure but I think the reframe and again it's like I think one of your superpowers mate your ability to reframe your situation yeah and like you know like how and it's like they were just they were just part like maybe risky decisions but it was just the path forward i look at the dome launch like the that is like the most disruptive external failure that we've ever had as a business right like 5 000 pissed off people that weren't able to purchase an oven and like the amount the influx and the essentially like the the stress that put on brand but you know we just fucking leveled up we did how did you how that?

1:40:50Mate, we just, we, we did everything within our power to commit, commit to our promises of delivering product, which we delivered, you know, we delivered the product. We, you know, like we leveled up from a CX for a customer experience perspective, you know, like these, like the adversity gives you elevation, right? It's like you go through significant fucking pain and like, it's painful. And I was getting hate on, so, you know, I was getting inbound chaos, but like you level up and you professionalize to not be there again you're just like we're fucking sorry you know we messed up like we're we're fixing it and you know what i think like a lot of you know the the the core lesson for me out of that was like you know like yeah we had an incredibly successful launch internally and commercially which basically allowed us to hire denny because you know before that like denny wouldn't have joined our business we were too small you know like what size of the business well then versus now i don't know yeah i think um you know we're when were we dome launch i think we were probably like sub we were probably seven million in sales before the dome launch maybe five this year will be over a hundred and but you know but like i would say um you know now it's like it's like professionalize the business world-class leadership team world-class team within it um like talk to me about the because i love what the way you think about i know you say you're sort of like a designer and an entrepreneur i love the swing between those two sort of things um and like we've talked a lot about design of product product design of brand, like in terms of, I believe I could brand an internal and external thing.

1:42:44It's like, I can see this in here, right? So I walked in today. That's why I love coming to people's places. It's like, yeah, like action Blomson's blasting as I walked through the doors. I'm like sick, you know what I mean? But like, how have you been really purposeful about how you design the culture and the team to deliver on all those things externally? Yeah, I think, you know, you go through a process. we've built out, you know, like on board or like recruitment culture decks, you know? So like we, before, I mean, with me specifically, you know, like resume CVs are less relevant. We obviously want people to have the right experience, you know, and come from the right roles, but actually like culture is so much more important.

1:43:23And again, it's a cliche thing to say, but you know, like you can't teach a shitty attitude and like ego is also a really challenging thing. Certainly from my perspective with like high profile board members and c-suite leaders like we've i guess the core thing that i have you know recruited against is ego i want people that are open to taking feedback and you know i will be the first person to say i'm wrong put my hand in the air you know and i just expect that culture to be part of the culture at gosney i want us to be able to take risks to put ourselves out there um to fail or win but say my bad now you know like we tried you know and like that that's like propensity to go after it and to not have judgment i just take it back to my rehab days or fucking aa when you sit in aa and you sit in a meeting and it's a place where there's no judgment you know and you can sit and you can share stuff and like that's the sort of culture that we want to try some of the other lessons you took from rehab that you think uh salient to brand building mate i mean so much man like consumers i don't know i just i feel like i what the fuck is that that's fine I feel like first of all it starts with how like rehab shaped I guess my personal moral principles right and I guess like I was in a Christian facility I'm not a Christian I'm not religious but like actually learning about being open-minded to their religion and being open-minded to that you just realize that they all the guys in there just lived with a really good set of moral standings and moral code right like don't cheat on your missus don't be a dickhead to your friends say sorry when you've been a knob like all of those sorts of things right I've just embedded into my daily life and I guess when it comes down to thinking about brand the core tenets of what makes us like so rich from an authenticity perspective is like a level of vulnerability right like vulnerability honesty so I've shared my story of addiction I never wanted to do it before the business got to a certain size where it's standing on his own two feet I didn't want to use it as a PR fucking stunt to get press and to like drive people into the awareness but I wanted to use it to a give back and to inspire people out there that are struggling with their life that don't want to be in the job that they're in, that there is more to it and people that are still using and drinking.

1:45:57And I just think there's like a real, I just, you know, I'm like a hyper transparent person. Like what you see is what you get. What I say is what I feel. I treat people with respect. I'm kind. But I think from a brand building perspective, authenticity is everything, right? If you can build an authentic narrative into your brand and you can be led, you know like we're led by me as the face of the brand and the founder and there's notions and stories for me about like vulnerability and I guess that I just I don't know man I guess one of the things that I've realized through going through such difficult times coming out the other side having lots of people that I was in rehab with die around me and all of that stuff is just like we have to have fucking fun and I just think that is you know like that that is like one of my hero pillars at Gosney, if I come in and the hip hop's not blazing, there's a guy called James that I call Hugh because he's got really good hair.

1:46:56So he's like Hugh Grant. I call him Hugh and I'm like, Hugh, where's the fucking hip hop? Yeah, yeah. And you know, they know when I come in the door that like the vibe has to be on, the business has to be having fun. People need to get out of bed in the morning and they need to be conducting themselves like they would at their mate's house on a Friday night. You know, we work hard, but we enjoy our time here. And, you know, that cascades out from inwardly in culture to externally in brand. And if you look at the way we shoot some of our launch videos, like the sort of irreverent nature, this isn't an act of me getting on and performing for the camera.

1:47:27I'm just me when I talk about our products. And like, I just think authenticity is rich throughout the course of brand building. Do you know the restaurant Fallow? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, all good. Thank you. You know, do you know Fallow in London? Yeah. So interviewed them and they're similar. Like their whole thing, they're like one of the kpis again i hate all that business yeah technology but like it's like how are we gonna have fun yeah i think it's like so many people in business forget to have fun yeah it's like mate like life's short like you gotta have fun and like their whole thing is right if the vibes that their whole thing or that what i took from them is energy and like sort of the view today mate it's like the dichotomy i love that like it's such a big learning but um there's like right the vibe shit whack the house music up yeah like go and get people some haribos go and give the customers tequila shots totally like make someone's day given and it's like this culture of fun and like no one they're one of like london's busiest restaurants like that place is packed the whole time yeah magic and it really bringing a fucking vibe bringing a fucking vibe yeah um final thing again like so problems and like as i know denny's a ceo but like as a global founder like i think there's this sort of um and i've experienced this i love people i speak to is that kind of electric feeling of, it can be anxiety when you wake up in the morning and you turn your blower on and it's like, you know it's problem time, baby.

1:48:54And it's kind of like, which fire are you putting out kind of thing. Yeah, yeah. How have you learned to kind of be, despite the tumultuous waves, kind of being like, develop that. For listeners, I'm kind of like gliding with my hand, but like, that's the thing I need help with because I kind of catastrophize things in my head. I'm like, oh, everything's fucked. And like, yeah, could you speak to that? Oh, yeah, interesting. I mean, like we've been on some crazy highs and lows at Gosney, right? And like, I just, I guess like what I have even today, even getting out of bed this morning, right? And dealing with some internal stuff that we've got going on.

1:49:38there are like no catastrophes but just like challenges in various different aspects of the business i've just got like a bias for action and a bias for problem solving and i guess it's just like get out of bed that's high agency i need to send you this thing just fucking get the shit done man like it's just like dissect it problem solve it speak to the right people get it solved i just like have an intolerance to creating additional work to not solving the problems it's just like if you want to go and if there's a fire put it out you know and then go and put the next one out and then you just you know like you wade your way through it and i just think i feel like business business it's like not easy it's a series of inbound fucking missiles coming at your head right to blow you up and you've just got to navigate it you've just got to navigate it but like having the belief that it's going to be easy and that there's going to you're not going to be punched in the face on a daily basis is bullshit as soon as you realize like business and as soon as you take yourself out of that out of that like sort of subjective view of like my life is really fucking hard because this business is really demanding and you just be objective that your role is to like block and tackle and move around business is just about solving inbound problems because growth generates problems and so I just think like that's what we do as entrepreneurs we just navigate a world of problems and as soon as you can change them from being a problem to just being actually a you know it's just your objective is to solve these things like business actually just becomes more enjoyable and it doesn't need to be a fucking stress fest you know and granted like some of the problems are bigger than others and they create stress because your livelihood is attached to it yeah and like that's real but i think you know i think just action orientation coming to the realization that it's just never going to be plain sailing and you've just got to solve problems to grow there's an acceptance of it how do you make when you've got like imperfect information like with like solving problems like um you're not always gonna have the perfect information i don't care to like i don't do you know what i don't care to always necessarily be 100 % right.

1:51:32I just want to make decisions and I want to move. And like, you know, I just think, I think that is a problem with, that was one of the core strengths that I've got as an entrepreneur. I've got like, Denny and I often talk about data and making data led approaches. And like my argument back to Denny is like, my argument, if you surveyed 100 ,000 people in 2016 and asked them how many needed a portable stone oven, they'd be like, what the fuck are you thinking? What are you talking about? They didn't, category didn't exist. Then we launched Rockbox and the world adopted it. And I just, I sort of like leverage, you know, like I think instinct, right, is just a series of inbound data points.

1:52:12You just, you go and I speak to you. I look out the window. I look at the sun shining. I'm like everything that I absorb into my senses on a daily basis is like data. And that like helps me form this instinctive view for growing the business. So I feel like this ability to be tactical and cater for inbound problems in an instinctive way is built through obsessing and living and breathing everything about your brand. I walk around and I look at a fucking sign and I'm like absorbing that and thinking about the Gosney brand. What do you mean? I just take inspiration from everything in the world, everything that you say to me.

1:52:51I've been transfixed on building this business, right? I'm obsessed with building this business. So every conversation that I have, every nuanced piece of information that I get from something completely unrelated, I'm relating it to my brand and my business. How can I build it better? How can I build it stronger? But equally as a leader and as an entrepreneur, you build out this level of instinct for what is the right thing to do. And that's just ingrained in you because if you're focused on building your business and you're obsessed with building your business, every nuanced piece of information that you absorb on a daily basis, you're relating it to your company and you're building an instinct for what is the right decisions on how we build a brand or how we build what I'm looking in front of me.

1:53:31And I guess like the thing that I've said to you earlier in this interview is I am just a sponge. I've been a sponge my entire life. And that sponge just allows me to deliver decisions for how we grow. And I've just used that man. And I, do you know what? It's probably not, it's probably not the best approach all the time because you can shoot from the hip a little bit, you know and but i think as you get bigger managing to be able to make decisions quickly and to drive you know it's i don't want to be cliche again but like it's better to make the wrong decision to make progress somewhere than just not move fast yeah like the whole ready fire aim is what like one of the things i live like just like fire and you're like fail quickly learn all that stuff final question mate but what have been some of the underrated lessons you've picked up from that sponge mate you know what like on the point of our various uh our previous conversation that we've just had but like self-belief and instinct man is so fucking underrated like people just do not back themselves enough and i just i truly believe like no one out there has all the answers for your business like no one does like i've had board members come into the company that have got like 30 40 years experience as the world-class ceos like global ceos and they made awful decisions for our brand you know at a board level and i just think you know like saying fuck you to imposter syndrome and actually do you feel it what's that do you feel imposter syndrome and say fuck you to it or have you built like i used to i don't give a fuck now yeah I'm just like I've I've just like I've proven out that my instincts win time over time my vision my drive my ambition underpinned with my knowledge base for the brand the sector and everything now I just feel like I've got conviction in my opinions and I feel like I can deliver them quickly but I think in the early days like it's a fear-mongering world of everyone telling you you can't do shit people telling you you're doing shit wrong and i just mate i just like truly believe that we would be further in our journey today if i just followed my instincts and less instead of like allowing people to really derail my confidence you know on the journey that's been a big one in terms of stretching ambition that's something i can everyone i think everyone listened to this could help with like how have you stretched your ambition because i think the more you stretch your ambition the more you quell imposter syndrome because you're like the thing's so big you know what i mean yeah i mean you know like my um I just, I just like, I, you know, like a friend of mine, Maverick in LA.

1:56:23that's an amazing name yeah he's he's a really he's a really nice guy he said you know if your vision isn't fucking like arrogant you know like and people don't think you're an absolute dickhead for having it it's not big enough and i i frame it probably a little bit differently like i you know i i want people to sort of their knee-jerk reactions to laugh when i tell them my vision and just be like are you joking and i sort of like that so i i guess like Like, I don't know. I guess, man, like my ambition is never going to change. We're like, we're targeting to get to 100 million valuation. We surpassed that.

1:57:00Then it's 500. It's like, I'm at a 10 billion valuation from my family office in my head now. That's what I'm building towards. And I guess the overarching thing about doing that, and Denny and I have conversations about this all the time. If you have got a vision to get you to your target, which is three years out, you are going to probably miss your target because business is hard. You might not smash it. If you're trying to get to 200 million in revenue. Do you think specifically about the numbers? Is that like - I think about the numbers because I think it drives behaviors. Yeah, I like having numbers.

1:57:32Like, so for example, you know, we're targeting getting to a 300 million revenue number in the next couple of years, two, three years. You know, like I implore Denny and Denny and I chat about like, our target should be 800 million in our heads because all the decisions that we're making around product roadmap, all the decisions that we're making around marketing bets, they may not pay out by 27 or 28 when our sort of like investor transaction target date is. But actually, if we're building a vision that gets us to 800 million in revenue, we've got all the fucking missiles lined up that we're in the hopper, you know, to get us there.

1:58:08So we're thinking about channel, we're thinking about product, we're thinking about marketing collateral, we're thinking about how we're building brand. But channel marketing collateral. all so like basically like what markets are we going to go into like if you know we could get to 300 million in sales without ever going into we could do that with america alone right so you wouldn't necessarily go into we gotta go we gotta wrap this yeah okay yeah yeah yeah so so it's like how do we think about building like new markets we might not necessarily need them for a short-term goal cramping that we might not need them for a short-term goal but actually to get to 800 million of revenue how do we think about product roadmap how do we think about really landing when you say product roadmap like i don't i get that in my head but like in terms of linking it to that big ambition yeah so it's just like what you know like rather than building the next three years of products that we're going to launch i'm building 10 years you know and it's like i'm filling the hopper with innovation so you know a lot of brands or a lot of founders entrepreneurs whatever would fight to get to a, let's call it a 2027 number.

1:59:14You know, they would hit their targets. They would create good value in the company. They would become exceptionally wealthy. I'm like, well, we've done all the heavy lifting. We've built this global distribution infrastructure. We've built incredible relationships with all of these influencers. Why wouldn't we just fill that with innovation? Why wouldn't we fill the top of the hopper with innovation? Like we've got innovation in our DNA. Like, why is the point in cashing out? There's something remarkable over the hill, right? You know, and I just think if we can continue to think with a further lens, and I think that's the quality that I bring in conjunction with Denny.

1:59:52I think 10 years, Denny's thinking tactically. I'm thinking visionary. And when we connect, we're thinking both. Yes. Wait, wait. So I love that. There's something remarkable over the hill. And again, it's just that high agency optimism. like what does that what do you think if we were to do this conversation and say 10 years time like what would the utopia of Gosney be do you think I just think Gosney will become is well Gosney is going to become the like global leading outdoor cooking brand that's completely disrupted and revolutionized outdoor cooking it's like not what anyone's expect through the way that we build brand and the way that we can connect with the consumers we're we're just going to to change the entire landscape.

2:00:33That is what we will do through media, through relationships, through influencers. I don't even like calling them influencers, through partners of the brand and through innovation. Just the way that Apple has this sort of like limitless approach to innovation, right? They're just so blue sky. So I think like having no ceiling to the idea of what we could innovate at Gosney is like the first key driver and that's basically like built within me and then having the team to be able to believe in that vision and execute upon that you know so Gosney will become a huge you know like a globally recognized consumer cult following lifestyle brand whatever and we'll be in gardens all over the world that is happening now and it is going to continue to happen um and the ecosystem of Gosney products will take over the garden but then where else can we go right like I'm not I'm not done with the garden and like from a personal perspective i've got other ambitions outside of um you know like consumer cooking products i you know love real estate i love experiences so i want to go on a journey to do even more mate final thing i ask this all guests is what's one truth you believe that most people would disagree with you on that you can do anything you want and like absolutely anything is possible mate perfect let's wrap that up absolute joy that was so much fun hey that was epic thank you so so much for listening to the podcast i really really do appreciate it if you like that episode only if you liked it please do give it five stars subscribe tell all your friends families foes next door but one cat dog whatever please tell everyone about this podcast it means the world to me and i really want to understand what your pain points are as the new wave of of challenger food and drink brands please do hit me up on linkedin search Dan Pope and hopefully we can together create a more meaningful and powerful podcast for the next wave of challenger food and drink brands thank you so much