Al Barratt Founder of Grenade

53:16And then you look at our product and make as direct a comparison as you can. And let's say that the number one selling chocolate bar is in 100 ,000 locations and he's doing 5 million. Well, and then we look at us and we're in 10 ,000 locations but are doing 4 million. we've actually got the better rate of sale so you think well if we've got 10 000 yeah we've got less distribution points so so we're saying well look look how many they've got and what they do look how many we've got and what they do and also look how much cash it puts in the till because the one of the first conversations i had with rontech and the petrol stations were you know every time you sell a chocolate bar you make 13p every time you sell one of our bars you make one pound 50 what would you rather have in the till you've got to sell 10 chocolate bars for every one of our protein bars that's quite compelling to a retailer so all of a sudden our fairly high price is actually a massive selling point yeah um did you use so then because i'm sorry i love really getting deep on this it's i find it such a fascinating game but like the with the with the petrol stations did you almost use that because that's when you're in all as i was in the bp last night mate like you're in it's like fine then you've got the big it's everywhere it's like a gondola end well not a gondola end but like a fsdu you know what they've realized so again this goes back to another conversation i had with ron tech fairly early on and gerald ronson told me this he said you know where do you want to be in my store and i said at the till point and he said no you don't why did he say that because everything sells at the till points they don't learn anything so he said yeah so you can put like because everyone sees it yeah so what he said about you don't learn and think is so what because he because he knew if he put us at the till point we'd sell quite a lot but it wasn't going to live at the till point forever because that is prime real estate and people pay for that so um it wasn't it wouldn't have been a fair trial so he said i'm gonna put you at the back of the store and basically which he did and i went to that store it was in peterborough and i met the store owner and i gave him a t-shirt and gave him some samples of bars and i said everyone who comes into the store ask him if they want to buy a protein bar and explained again the well you could make 13p or you could make one pound 50 or whatever what would you rather have and then get we got the data and then we did that with 10 stores and 50 stores like i said and before you know it not only are we out selling chocolate 10 to 1 but we're actually the cat that were their cash margin is 10 uh 10 fold as well so every everyone's winning and actually you know again really apart from the confectionery companies but to a certain extent the confectionery you know people are still buying chocolate but also they've kind of had it themselves for the last 100 years so you know that's how business works someone comes along and you know we're a lot more expensive and we're different products if you want to go buy chocolate go and buy chocolate we all like chocolate but if you want something different this is something different so we've been an absolute nightmare to compete with um for confectioners because there's not a lot they could do coming back to the the mars protein bar example for instance they it helped out with the price point we've actually never ever spoken to mars either which weird because we've spoken to everybody else but we've never spoken to mars it's strange um but especially seeing as they were interested in this category um and i can't remember the numbers of how we would outsell their mars protein bars but i mean it wouldn't even be in the same planet in terms of what we sell versus what they sell and there's a reason for that and that is they do a mars bar which is fantastic and then we do a protein bar which is fantastic and in the middle you've got that sort of Mars protein bar I'm going back 10 years and it's not the best protein bar and it's also not the best chocolate bar so it goes bang in the middle and people are a bit nah you're strong at their week at exactly and I bought a few boxes of that because also I love the competition as a consumer I've tried it once because it was a novelty thing and I think it's too much of a heavy lift for the consumer it's like it's so entrenched that a mars bar is a fucking mars bar and like and then and then a protein bar is a is a you own that category you know and i think it's just and we know where they're made and they've done a really really good job with that but the problem is you know um it's fairly high in sugar you've got to overcome the sugar issue i think this may have changed now but i think at the time it still had about 13 grams of sugar it was just too high yeah and it and you know all of a sudden compromises start sneaking in and consumers and brand owners don't like compromises um so it it kind of ended up being no man's land and i bought a few boxes of those bars i ate the first sort of two or three and i thought oh just i just wanted it to be better or a mars bar to be honest so um and i knew then i thought actually you know know again because this could kill the category to be fair um but i think collectively if we had 20 people in our office at the time i don't think we ever finished that box of whatever it was 15 or 16 mars protein bars yeah they just threw them away one thing you've got in one of your superpowers mate i'm picking up is just this ability to ask really kind of commonsensical well i'm brutally honest which people nowadays and that's why i don't look social media because it's mostly bullshit but also it's just like um it's just asking but also questions that people are kind of scared to ask it's like well why you know why hasn't chocolate been in uh yeah cabbie cabbie dairy milk spoon why hasn't no one innovated in it or like you know it's just quite ambitious but simple fucking questions i've always questioned things um i mean in terms of like when i was at school i think so many people are just happy to just go with the flow which is which is fine yeah but i found school unbelievably boring yeah just because i was quite bright and i've got a really good photographic memory and school's strange in the sense that you know you get taught something and then you regurgitate it back and then that means you're clever and i don't really understand that um so i just found school quite boring and again i was very very good at spelling specifically probably better then than i am now and i remember like when and I actually went through all through my infant and junior school and I'm not making this up I never got anything wrong where we did no we're just where we did exams and like you know little tests and stuff I always got 100 % and then there was a there was a case when I was in junior school and I it was it was a maths um paper and I I handed it in and the teacher marked it and I've got one wrong and I was so mortified about getting something wrong and the teacher said oh it's funny everyone gets that one wrong and I said um I'm sure I'm I'm sure I'm right and she will know because this is the answer in the book and I said well can you work it out anyway I sort of I dug my heels in and she did the she went through the the question and the answer book was wrong and for years they'd been marking all the kids homework as wrong when it was actually probably correct and they had to change the answer book.

1:00:50It was G and Maths, I think this particular book was. So my record of not getting anything wrong stood and I became this kind of perfectionist. I've never been scared to challenge things if I think I'm right. Makes me like a real arrogant cock, doesn't it? But then I was actually, recently I was thinking as well, because obviously we've had lots and lots of failures with Grenade and the brand. Failure is actually where you learn and I think that was my point about going through school and getting everything right I learned very little because actually then the failures are where you learn getting things wrong is where you learn if you just keep getting things right all the time um it's not particularly character building so I actually learned and years later I was I was I was scared as a kid to get things wrong and now I like I absolutely I cherish getting things wrong it's a chance to learn yeah what are some of your favorite failures on the journey I mean just well talking protein bars we had 41 versions that we didn't like yeah but that was there were 41 versions of how we learned more about how to make the protein bar that we actually wanted yeah as opposed to sort of failures on like the on the way to the exit deals oh i mean yeah i mean there'd be stacks i mean you know there'd be certain deals i'd do there'd be um other deals i wouldn't do um you know there'd be people i i'd hire um who i didn't there'd be people i wouldn't hire you know who who i did um so there's always things you'd look back and and and be uh you know reminisce because again if i invented a invented a retrospective scope you know i could go back and do things differently but otherwise you know for the most part i'm just i'm really happy and proud of the journey that we've had today and actually we're still on because i still feel you know we talked about cadbury's 200 years old grenade is 15 so where do you think grenade could be in 200 years time um so where do you think that could be i really don't know i mean it's really impossible at the moment so where grenade could be in a year or two's time because if everything's going on in the world and um you know the the the pace of which we've got change and ai and whatever but i genuinely believe that you know people will keep training i think nutrition is going to be you know just as important and more important than ever as we live longer and all these diseases and stuff out there you people have really got to think about what they put in their body um and as always we'll keep disrupting ourselves and making the best product that we can put them in places that consumers find convenient um and most importantly enjoying the journey so few people just and actually you were talking with james watt earlier james did a great post yesterday about he wished he enjoyed the journey more i'd have to agree with him yeah in the sense that i have enjoyed it but i've missed a lot i mean even i don't think i'm successful so because i know people who i think are successful and they don't think they're successful you know so there's always someone who's got a bigger brain in a um a faster plane but i like that yeah but well you know i i spent time i was on uh i was on neca with uh richard b a few years ago and again i was looking at one of the neighboring islands which he also owns and i was saying to him actually what does it feel like to get there and he said i don't know where there is you know entrepreneurs just can't help themselves it's a fantastic skill to just you know be always hungry um but also it can be it can be a real curse where you're sort of never satisfied so having contentment's really important because again he's looking at his neighbors one of his neighbors owns google you know so you're always looking at the next person up and you know it's dangerous better at finding peace and contentment.

1:04:28I've got better at it by... comparing it to training so when i first set out training when i was 14 years old i had certain things I wanted a lift I wanted a bench deadlift or squat x amount and and that you know I just had goals I I surpassed all those goals um and then you know things can get a bit boring you just you just don't keep on getting bigger and stronger so I changed the goals and I found contentment by realizing that being happy and healthy is gives you all the wealth that you ever need um and actually everything i've achieved today is great and i'll go and do other things and i'll go and do more things and those things will change so i think you just stop beating yourself up for not having done more i guess is what what i'm saying yeah it's interesting because there's a guy because i'm the same i'm always the next guest next next hurdle next thing you do have to do that to a point but you also have to just say actually you you've got to stop take a breath and go you actually mentioned interesting earlier when you know you've obviously come to my house in Cornwall and when you were here last time or the time before there was you were on your own there was one of you now there's three of you so you have to keep making these comparisons and actually give yourself a pat on the back yeah yeah I mean I'm the worst it's improvement yeah and sometimes people think improvement is financial sometimes it is sometimes you know we had years at Grenade where the business looked fairly flat financially but we had a better business so let's say the the turnover or the profit might not have gone if it might have gone down but then thinking that but actually last year you know we had 20 people and i wasn't happy with five of them and now we've got 40 people and they're all superstars but but we're turning over less but that's a better business i needed this is exactly what i needed to hear and as i say all these questions are selfish questions right um because that's kind of what we're at now as like the as you know if we were to do this two years ago or a year and a half ago it's me on my wands kind of walking around fucking cornwall like a lemon you know and you've been chasing me for years and actually fair play because you have persevered and i did say i'll do it but also there has to come a point where it makes sense for sort of both parties as well i i don't do as many interviews as i should do just because again you know time and and whatever but uh i'm really glad you stayed persistent with it and the podcast has grown and rightly so and again then you just it's all levels you just keep going to the next level it's mad that this week has been as i say kind of two big dogs yourself and michelle roost and but i think you're right is i'm looking at the wrong metrics in terms of like when's the next bit of money coming in and actually it's like you know i've come down we went for a banging meal at four boys in rock last night yeah rock's lovely it's absolutely gorgeous and i was like the sun was setting that's four brothers that own that i've not i've not actually they'll love the plug to be fair i've not actually eaten in there as it's been four boys good but it's a it's a great yeah it's a great name i'll go there this week yeah yeah yeah i mean the focaccia bread is just like otherworldly but i love to see people i don't know them from adam but i love to see people do well yeah i genuinely i get off on it i think i spent a lot of time in the u.s i actually had a house in america till until fairly recently I think in Florida I had that for 14 15 years um and I think I've sold it now but I think that's very much an American mentality where they're really pleased for you and I'm not sure we've got the same mindset in the UK I'm not actually sure they've got the same mindset in the US anymore either but I I genuinely if I see someone doing well even in again in a competing business let's say i was chatting earlier about um competition you know if you're just on your own in a category um that's one thing but let's say there's three four five brands and you're all good you could you can maybe have you know a smaller share but have a much bigger category but collectively you can all do things differently market differently but pull more consumers you can share consumers you can learn more i think it's a really good way of keeping you competitive and honest and making the best product you can so i think competition so i think really good i can't remember who said this but like a bit linking this back to your focus on your strengths their weaknesses competition's a mirror so i don't know who told me that it was like i can't remember but someone was like competition's a mirror and what so many people do is they try and copy the competition and actually the competition is like be more grenade and well if you if you look at the competition you tend to look like the competition yeah exactly if anything think what his point was is the mirror should be like the whole sort of point of that is focus on more of what you do you know well i mean you know we're a niche business but i love i love niche businesses because we've actually got 50 market share so we've got a because we've got a very dominant position in a still a fairly niche business which we think again can grow exponentially certainly around the world because you know do we have the number one selling protein around the world no do i think we can do it absolutely so that's the next goal really there'll be other smaller goals um before then but that that's an ambition to make it the best selling protein in the world because who's made anything that you can think of and it's the best-selling one of best-selling item in the world yeah yeah i can't think of any examples at the moment of people still alive um whether they've actually got the market leader the bit i want to talk about is that we may have not had growth in terms of absolute terms but we've grown and we're a better business because a lot of people go through that kind of period where it's it's kind of just a you think you're getting nowhere i think that's perfectly normal yeah that is normal i still feel like that I have days like that today where I look around and I think, am I achieving anything here?

1:10:10Because again, because I've been such a high achiever. Yeah. If I don't have these like absolutely monumental days where I've done something extraordinary, I think it's been a wasted day, which is terrible really. Because sometimes like you can have a day where you just kind of chill a bit. And that itself just taking some time to pause actually makes it a really productive day for a different reason. You know what you're saying, like, how there's the sort of the theme of, like, entrepreneurs are never satisfied, right? And I think there's that, but also, and this is what James Smith taught me, he goes, I need to be productive to be happy.

1:10:44And I think it's a really good way of looking at it. But he's also productive because he's happy. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. As well. It's a vicious circle. Interesting. To be fair, Richard B. always says that he's not happy because he's successful. he's successful because he's happy what underrated lessons you've taken from him that you'd only get from him by being on necker island with him i mean again that not knowing where there is is a really powerful one um the power of simplicity i love how he looks at businesses and i i've been really fortunate so how to go into well for instance so i was in africa with richard a few years ago and he was sort of sitting in his his chair where he looks with um with his PA and they were again he's got a fantastic view of the the Saby Sands it overlooks Saby Sands incredible view and again you can see wildlife coming past and stuff and as always he's got messages and emails and stuff to do and um and I think he um Helen went off to go and do something and um Richard was just sort of sat there on his iPad and um I was just sort of walking past and our eyes caught and he said oh do you want to kind of have a sit down he was looking at buying grenade at the time so this was 2017 which didn't happen actually but i'm glad that didn't happen but i'll come into that later um he was looking at grenade we sat and chatted about grenade and i said what are you working on and he was working on virgin galactic and he got it on his ipad and he just he just showed me the 20 questions that he was asking his team about space travel what were some of those questions oh just how long does it how long you know what does it cost to build a spaceship basically uh how long would the you know how many um trips could you do in a day or in a week you know how many crew there'd be the staff that were involved where it would go from where it would go to um the oh just just the most simple questions you could think you know what each trip would cost them in terms of their hard costs what do they think they could charge a consumer i mean just the most basic question you could think of any business and it was space travel and i just thought god he simplified that i mean there'll be a load of stuff beyond that obviously but he just likes simplicity and the answers to those questions would tell him whether or not that was worth pursuing or not it's mad mate because so the power of simplicity should never be underestimated to be fair yeah because so there's um this is what i was asking james watt about right and um i think the the smart answer lies in the dumb questions like we're so often asked looking for a great answer but actually it's like i don't have any clever answers you've noticed i can just tell you what we've done no but no but and then so i was speaking to james what about this and because actually i think what founders need is a better set of questions because that's the and so what some of the ones you know james asks himself what are the biggest five problems in my business happening right now that's one he goes how do i um how do i 10x the growth of my business in six months they're like questions to get you out of like the small thinking or just questions the other one I like is like what would this look like if it was easy which is Tim Ferriss and it's like okay suddenly all this bollocks that's in your head fucks off and you're like oh I've just got to do that it's so out of everything on your journey mate what are like some one two three questions that you sort of like to ask yourself not necessarily to the team but like it's like just to get a steer on how things are going or like if you've got a problem you're like I don't know it could be I still think it probably it comes back down to my five or six rules of investing as in the sense looking at looking at grenade and again going back 10 years and looking at the the growth of the protein bars first thing going would i eat this because if i wouldn't what's what would anyone else secondly would i pay that where would i buy it from um what are my alternatives you know what else is on the market and i think just being really honest with yourself is pretty important because I think people aren't honest with themselves and they convince themselves that they've got different answers maybe to those questions than they really have.

1:14:57So I think, you know, for me, is there a better one? You know, can I make a best version of this that's not just slightly better than the next brand because why bother? Can I make something that's just miles ahead of the competition? and actually to be fair when Mondelez invested us in 2021 they had some very interesting thoughts about India China and America in terms of launching there and actually we were in America at the time and we're going back to America with Oreo and they said you know with America for instance can you be the number one selling protein bar and hold it for the next 25 years and that was one of their questions and i said no why and they said because at the time we'd got our you see i think again going back to 2021 our protein bars we made with you know belgian sugar-free chocolate were better than american chocolate bars which are made with compound chocolate but that's what i think what's compound chocolate is that so compound chocolate is a is a specific chocolate which has got a different melting point and is better sold in countries where they've got hotter temperatures the uk is not a hot place so english chocolate that's why that's one of the reasons it tastes different because having a chocolate bar in texas fucking rank i think it's yeah this is a really so this actually answers the question so i think our chocolate's better as in the uk as it yeah as in uk versus america let's say but there's a reason for that because i grew up with it and you grew up with it because we grew up with cadbury therefore we like cadbury now the american consumer can like ours they can think actually yeah that grenade bar is nice but they still like theirs because they grew up with hershey yeah chocolate their moms gave them when they were five or six candies yeah that's the thing you see so they really like hershey which again probably we don't well because you like what you grew up with yeah and what is that How's that different to India and China?

1:17:01Do they have a different palate? So China sounds bizarre. Snacking's not really a thing in the same way. They'll snack on different foods than we would snack on. What such as? Well, they like, again, they like stuff that we wouldn't eat, don't they? So, again, you get things like insects as snacks. And there's just, you know, they've just got a lot strange to us. yeah so yeah yeah put it this way chocolate's not really a thing you know they don't snack on chocolate when they're kids um india again hot country you know an enormous amount of poverty so you've got you know there's not really that middle class potentially in you it's getting there but you've just got really rich people and really poor people and i think so again chocolate wasn't so much of a thing and again you've got huge import taxes of like 70 at the time which actually now as of this week are probably going to change and you've got a hot country and the demographics not really there the same.

1:17:59So some of these markets, I think even Cadbury's there. And I think for the size of the country, Cadbury would do better probably in smaller Scandinavian countries than it does in the likes of India. So all of these countries have their own anomalies, let's say. And so I thought the question for Mondalees, can you be number one and hold it? And me saying no. And as such, we pulled out the US. So, but now we've got Oreo and Americans like Oreo and if they want Oreo in a protein bar Would you change the chocolate's compound? No, I wouldn't. I'd still keep it the same chocolate so I'd still keep it the same sugar-free chocolate.

1:18:38I'm a big consumer, right? But I would say the one I've still got the issue with melting point so our chocolate will melt at a lower temperature than compound chocolate does but that's where then we either compromise which you don't want to do or we have an incredible delivery option where it's kind of refrigerated to someone's front door we've done that in the past we were shipping protein bars in 2021 we were shipping protein bars to um to texas in a heat wave and we were getting them all the way from europe to someone's front door in texas and they were perfect the problem being then if that person wasn't in oh yeah they melt on the doorstep and then it's our fault yeah and then you've got a shitty message of a consumer probably to me yeah saying yeah you know your product's rubbish yeah So we can only control the parts of the delivery that we can control.

1:19:29I think, again, you know, to probably say then what are the things that you've learned? Just anything you can control, you should try and control it. But there's a lot of things beyond our control. And sometimes that's the thing like the chocolate bar on the doorstep in Texas. I can't do anything about that. If someone's not in, they're not in. But the thing is there and that's interesting. That product was ruined and then it's my fault somehow. I can't do anything about that. so sometimes you have to be careful the battles that you fight because you're not going to win that one yeah yeah no no for sure um i want to go back to just richard branson so like the simplifying stuff i think that's really interesting anything else you picked up from him and i think there's there's like two types of learnings again i get this from from guests right so it'll be hit record um um but the osmosis learnings are like stuff that you pick up like from an osmosis by kind of just watching someone versus what they actually do so i suppose with you mate what up today you're training your fucking tits off grinding grinding out we've got a weight you know set up i hadn't trained all week and you know i'm fucking going for it you know i'm trying to be a little bit more selfish because you were about nine hours early but i but i love the fact you've got you've gone to a lot of trouble to come here so thanks for that um and also i'd much rather you're early than late but i thought it would have been easy to just not finish what i was doing and then started this early and again disrupt my day.

1:20:47But I'm just, I'm training again for me is really one of my non-negotiables. All week I've been doing that. Oh, I need to train, but I need to do this. I should train, but I need to do that. And I've been doing it for the last five or six days. Do you know what? I've got, and I thought I'd got an hour and a half to probably, or nearly two hours to train this morning. Yeah, but that's what I'm saying. Yeah, and the gateway to the little bollocks, Dan's here. Yeah, no, no, no. Do you know what? I'll just finish, but I'm really glad I did because that's kind of done now there thinking bastard interrupted by workout oh no exactly yeah i'm said on the email but we'll be there but there's osmosis learnings you know and i picked again julian metcoff it's who's like what i took from so what i took from you is sort of you know self-discipline and with julian it was um i mean this guy like before i'm on you know we're setting up like we're setting up now he's on the blower to someone about this fucking one obscure ingredient to go into his seaweed snacks and he's relentless about it.

1:21:43As soon as the interview's done, straight away on the blower to someone in Korea, then he's on a plane to Korea to go and find this. It's like this just total, total, total obsession. Hello, Julian. Founders always talk to other founders because we're all unemployable. And ultimately, and you won't get on with all of them, but for the most part, you just have these immediate fantastic relationships and bonds with other founders because we just know stuff that other people don't know. and you know I I've never met June I spoke to him a few times about aviation actually he was asking my thoughts on um on the helicopter I fly and I was chatting to him and um it's like the first conversation we ever had you just feel like I could have known this guy for years because all the things he does he doesn't need to tell me that stuff because I know what he's done I know what he's built I know what's going through his mind and I know when he's chatting to me should be there should be 10 other people he should be chatting to as well so I know that anywhere an entrepreneur is they've always got to be somewhere else so i understand all that whereas most people they're sure an entrepreneur they just don't get that yeah and so on the osmosis learnings what did you sort of what else could you take from richard just by hanging out with him uh i mean i think and actually some not so much well i again you have learned this from richard but i did i knew this one but i think it reaffirmed what i already knew um how he just he's got this amazing energy how he just treats the people around him and interacts with the people around him it's quite incredible any examples of that well just the staff that he's got you know that they um he's it's very very they've got the utmost respect for him and he has for them um he's got this incredible energy he's unbelievably kind um and and and selfless he really cares about people um and you don't see it that often i don't think he's incredibly humble um and he loves his training and again, you know, he adores his family and his businesses and his staff.

1:23:38You know, he's just one of the nicest people you could ever want to meet. He really is. And you can see why he's done so well. Is it because he's the hardest working or the cleverest or whatever? No, he's just, you know, he's just Richard. And, you know, the team around him as well, they just want to do a good job for him and work hard for him. And again, you know, he's just got this incredible presence. And I say that I knew this before. I used to train when I was 16, 17 years old. I was working in my local gym for minimum wage. I used to train a guy called Stuart Sapcutt. And he had four Ferraris.

1:24:16He was running Sapcutt, the builders. And he was my first and last ever personal training client. And I was earning two pounds an hour at the gym. And Stuart used to pay me 10 pounds for the hour to train. And he used to come twice a week. And I was just, he must have got sick of the questions I was asking him. Because I just literally, I was like a sponge. And again, he treated me differently than other people. He was always really kind. He gave me time. He was always very generous. And I learned then actually, because I think there was this myth that really successful wealthy people weren't nice people.

1:24:56And he was the first probably really wealthy person I ever met. And he was just so unbelievably kind. so it just it just and gracious and again he'd start training he'd turn his phone off and his phone wouldn't get turned back on again until we finished and i had you know i was i was earning 70 pounds a week in the gym and i had an hour of this guy's time and i obviously wanted to him to get the most out of his workout and do what i could in the time that we had and you know stewart's like six foot one six foot two was kind of quite thin never used to eat that much you know running around very busy he was never going to be a you know a a big guy but But I used to really look forward to those sessions because, again, I was learning a lot.

1:25:34And, you know, when I was 21, he gave me£210 for my birthday, which, remember, was three times my salary at the time. And I just said, like, I can't accept that. It's too generous. He insisted I had it. And I spent them on a car alarm, actually. I was into my cars at the time, and it paid for my car alarm. um and i remember what i learned from that again it was very generous i mentioned it to someone else in the gym and i said oh stewart gave me some some money for my 21st and um they said oh how much so it was 210 quid like 10 pounds for each year and you know what their response was can you have a guess have a guess what their response was when i told him that this man had given me 210 pounds for my birthday this was in the 90s this was what that would have been with adjusted for sort of inflation that's what like two grand three grand no it wouldn't it wouldn't have been um it wouldn't have been that level but what they actually said was they thought how mean it was that he hadn't given me more because he was so wealthy oh what the fuck and that was their response and i just thought what was he supposed to give me like you know 210 million i mean i was just you know it's just and i when i learned so i learned something from him i learned more from someone else's response where i think he'd been very generous but the perception was he'd been mean god and i just thought what is wrong with people yeah yeah yeah i mean it's just so you this is um this is another thing i want to talk to you about so you got to be very careful because because in terms of actually making money it um it definitely creates a lot more problems than it solves i'll just say that really what are those problems yeah because you can't win because the thing is then if you take someone for dinner and then you don't pay you're tight oh god and if you do you flash yeah yeah so what do you do sort of um what are some things that some beliefs you had before you made money that when you made money were actually kind of wrong or you sort of change your mind about i guess the probably when when you and i i was you know i had grew up in quite a poor family so i used to have free school meals so i used to get free school dinners.

1:27:47I think I was the only person in my year that had that green ticket who had free school dinners. And I never got bullied at school, but I probably could have been bullied at school. I was quite conscious of the fact that my friends were going and paying for their school dinner and my parents didn't earn enough to be able to pay for mine. So I decided to just go home for meals at lunchtime and not be in school. I hated school anyway. I I couldn't bear to spend a minute longer than I needed to be there. So I used to literally walk a mile home, spend 10 minutes in the house and walk a mile back again.

1:28:20It broke the day up and I didn't have to stand there with that sort of green ticket. So I think to answer your question, I used to think that having money would solve all these things and solve problems. I remember my parents arguing a lot about money when I was a kid. You know, my mom didn't work. She had osteoporosis. She then did go and get a job. She had to retire early through ill health. And then my dad was a heavy goods vehicle mechanic. and again just worked six seven days a week for just literally no money um so they i just remember thinking like the money was always the the root of the arguments and i just remember thinking that you know i could if i was if i was wealthy if i had money it would solve all these things and yes it does you know you don't worry about paying your electric bill but it does cause potential issues with other people you have to be very careful you surround yourself what problems do you still have that money will never be able to solve um i think no matter what you do for people sometimes it's never enough because you know if i went and gave a million pounds to a charity for instance they come back next year and they're asking for two million so it's like you just i think enough is never enough sometimes like you have to be careful with that so i believe again that you have to give with a really good heart so anything i've given away um you know the past and i've i won't go into it quite a lot in terms of charity and um what about personally or mentally like because this is one thing who was it who said this he goes i think it's chris williamson he says the best advice you know some one of the common questions is like what's advice you'd give yourself 20 years ago and what chris says he goes i hate that question what chris a fucking shit question but then where what chris adds is this beautiful nuance he goes mate it's the same thing today yeah that's actually the way yeah that's you have just realized that that is the answer yeah exactly the same that's the beauty of it it's like you don't people think you've gone this massive journey you may have this you've got this wonderful house in cornwall like what is the stuff that you it's just so you're the problems that are baked into you and i asked this i've got i mean i'm all over the shop in terms of my mental like health can go fucking helter-skelter crazy so and i think it's just good for people to see the human side like yeah how are you a bit nuts oh god i mean i'm pretty eccentric um i guess so the whips outside I would suggest.

1:30:34Yeah, I'm so, and I think, you know, I like cars and things, but I don't like all the sort of, I've had Lamborghinis and stuff and they're great, but I like stuff that's more unusual. So I think, you know, if you go and win the lottery and people go and buy a red Ferrari, brilliant, but I just, I don't know, it just feels like such an obvious car to go and buy. And I think when I was training Stuart years ago, he had four red Ferraris and I never wanted one. I drove a Fiat Panda because he had loads of problems with the cars and I didn't want the problem. So I've never, ever bought a Ferrari because of what I saw him over 30 years ago it's interesting isn't it so um i think i guess you know to answer your question what would you tell yourself for 20 years ago i knew i knew i had to work hard i've always done that so you know i knew that um enjoy the journey probably be more aware of the job not yeah not enjoy the journey because i have enjoyed the journey be more aware of the journey and try and live in the moment a bit more, I think, for the next few months.

1:31:32Yeah, you can't smell the roses from a galloping horse, can you? Well, there are some things I've missed that... What did you miss? Well, when I... For instance, I bought a plane in... I passed my... I was in a plane crash years ago. And after I was in a plane crash with a friend of mine flying, I thought I really should go and learn to fly a plane. So I did that about a year or two later when I could afford to do it. That's mental. That says so much about your mindset. Like, mostly... Well, it was either I'll attack things head on. so it was either you're never going to fly again or you're going to learn to fly a plane so i think maybe that's the stuff that's mental a lot of people in my position just want to be sat in the back of an aircraft or sat in the the back of something or the back of a helicopter that's not enough for me i want to be flying it so mate um yeah there's a there's a yeah sorry carry on yeah so i i so i went and did my private pilot's license i passed in the bare minimum amount of time which was 45 hours back in the day so i couldn't have done it any quicker it comes back to this thing holding myself to a high standard so i passed my pilot's test and then i think i did it for the wrong reasons because i did it because i'd been in a plane crash felt like a good thing to do and when i passed it i was bored of it so i flew for a bit and took my girlfriend flying and my mom flying and that and then i was kind of hadn't really got any reason to do it and i went on to do something else so years late but i always regretted then letting that pilot's license lapse because it's quite a special thing to get because the vast majority of people can't fly a plane yeah so i um when i but then i also hadn't uh i'd got time and no money and then years later i'd probably got money and no time wow so flying again privately became a way to save some time and i i revalidated my license in sort of 2016 bought a plane in 2017 and the plane was delivered and when my plane was delivered to me at the airfield um i wasn't there i was in a meeting at grenade and i remember the fact i didn't see the plane being delivered i was disappointed because it had been like a 20-year journey to that point to buy and own a plane and just i don't know i'd have liked to have been an hour earlier and just sort of seen it land sounds silly but it would have been important to me at the time and the fact that eight years later i still remember that obviously you know i i shouldn't have been somewhere else and i think this was james watts post yesterday the things that he's missed it made me think about the things i've missed and yeah put it this way i'd i'd have i'd have not done that meeting i can't even remember what the meeting was so it can't have been that important but the problem is when you've got a business everything's important and i think you know to answer the question of what would you tell yourself learn what is and isn't important it's hard to tell at the time because a conversation that for you well a conversation i think it comes back to this enjoying the journey and patting yourself on the back for certain achievements and certain milestones um because the running a building a business is like climbing a mountain yeah and it's a long way at the mountain but you only get a very temporary view from the top and after you've had that temporary view from the top mountain you while you're looking at the next mountain you're also coming back down that mountain so you know the every every step of that journey is is more important than just that temporary view from the top yeah so um i think yeah i'd i'd want to try and make sure i have time to sort of save the the moments um that you know that come and go through the life of an entrepreneur um and just live in the moments a little bit more as opposed to thinking i've done that now on to the next thing you know and racing on but it's a really fine balance between between, you know, just being a workaholic, which most entrepreneurs are.

1:35:07And then I'm actually inherently quite lazy. So if I'm not careful, if I'm not working flat out, I could really easily go the other way. You know, I live in Cornwall at the moment, only until the end of this year. And I love it down here. It's super chilled and super laid back. The problem is your world can get very small. You're leaving in Cornwall. I'm still keeping this house, but I've bought an estate in the Cotswolds. And actually your point about, you know, the neighbours and who you surround yourself with and always wanted to be somewhere else. You know, one of my neighbours in the Cotswolds is Rupert Murdoch, you know.

1:35:37So it's, you've got to be careful who you look at because you can actually, you can look at someone potentially and just therefore retrospectively think that you're a complete failure because of my failure compared to Rupert Murdoch. So you have to be very careful with the people that you surround yourself with. Yeah, that's a really interesting point. It's like you're always looking at who's ahead of you never who's behind you because there's always there's always someone behind you would be looking at you thinking wow you're doing so well this is the mistake that people make with social media i don't follow anyone on social media that i don't know personally yeah because otherwise i'm just following a completely random stranger and i'm seeing their show reel that they want me to see yeah i don't know that person i just don't think that that's that's good so i think you're comparing their show reel to your bloopers reel that's right yeah yeah and i think the the advice i'd give to anyone watching this in terms of social media is try following people who again you know or have less than you because everyone does it they follow people have got more than them how do you think that makes you feel yeah that's why most people you know enter this doom loop of like doom scrolling and whatever and social media isn't actually quite bad for them and i think social media in future is going to become like smoking yeah i don't think you'll want to look at it because you won't want to look at someone else's highlight reel and like you said compare it to your bloopers reel yeah i mean it's i mean i'm the worst at that and it's in everyone does it everyone does it yeah one thing i want to talk about sorry that's actually there's actually a tip for that to be fair as well which i've sort of follow i can't remember who told me this i think it was alfie days told me this he's got quite a big following on social media and he said put your social media apps in a folder on the very last page of your phone yeah so you have to go looking for them everyone's got them on the home screen every time you pick your phone up you see it and the minute you see you click on it and that's what social media companies love so basically put it somewhere obscure by the time you've thought about going looking for it you've got the time to go i actually don't need to look at that and it stops you doing it it does one thing i love like um the parallels of things and one thing i'll talk about is like training and also like sort of marketing the big things that move like obviously got compound movements which are the big fuckers that that really really get you tonk essentially or like they're the most bang for your buck right but then you've also got a load of superfluous bollocks like you know when you see someone doing that on like one of those balls with like a kettlebell hanging off their schlong or something like that maybe not i've never actually seen that never seen that one that's why i'm not big enough I've not got a small enough kettlebell, to be honest.

1:38:18But you know what I mean? It's like, I see it all the time in the gym, and it's like, yeah, but then you just do a fucking, like, deadlift, and that actually moves and gets everything working. What would you say, in terms of brand building, is, like, the deadlift or the squat? Like, what's the big thing that have really moved the needle? And then what is the superfluous, yeah, kind of band, that one, whatever that is, that I think a lot of people, it looks really sexy. The nice-to-haves. The nice-to-haves. but sometimes like the they look really sexy but they don't actually work you know okay so i think start with the compound i guess yeah so i guess the the most important thing has got to be your product brand or service that's got to be world class that's you know that just has to be that's got to be the most important thing in your business that's got to be your compound movement um and i think then very very closely followed by obviously you know most businesses start off with you know one or two founders potentially i think then the next thing is again you believing in your journey finding other people who are mad enough to believe in your journey as well so the team that you put around you just makes or breaks you so i think incredible product incredible team you can get through a lot with that you can make a lot of mistakes if you have those two things um is this answering the question the way i'm just thinking about like what i'm gonna do with my team now i've got a team you know it's like because i love i'll go to fucking war with these for these guys yeah well that's that's important so most importantly and i think because we could we could digress on this but don't employ friends um employing your mates very rarely do they turn into competent professionals but if you employ competent professionals you become really good mates so you know in terms of hiring people but it's great because I did the same, I'd go to war for any one on my team.

1:40:09And I think that's really important. And I think they would for me too, I hope. So I think that's really important because, you know, this is a marathon, not a sprint. I think those are going to be the two biggest game-changing factors. There's tons and tons of other stuff, obviously. You've got to work unbelievably hard. What's your side raise or like the one that's not as obvious but it's still pretty decent? I mean, at the moment, I can still only think of stuff that's critically important. Because the thing is, all this is linked through consistency. You see, again, you could say, you know, I think the anomaly might be here, maybe hard work.

1:40:53Obviously, you have to work hard. But there's working hard and there's working smart. And I think as you get older, you get better at working smarter. You get better at managing you down a point you can achieve more by doing less. so talk me here because that's the only question i was going to ask you is like it's not just about working hard and like no no no as you said yeah it's critically important your old man worked really hard but didn't you can actually work too hard and become really ineffective so what how have you got that dance right that's just something you learn as you get older to be perfectly honest and i think again as you employ more people and you realize remember when you start a business you do everything yeah whether you're good or bad at it the trick is finding people who are better at these jobs than you and actually i had this conversation with um with richard we were hiking in um in france in 2018 and um i used the phrase which i actually stole from stuart sapkut uh i used the phrase um i conduct the orchestra but i don't run around playing all the instruments and he said i love that i'm going to steal that i've actually not seen him steal it yet but if he does i'm going to message him and say yeah you need to quote me on that but um yeah so you do get better at that as you get older for sure and as you employ better people and you can have not necessarily afford better people but i don't think what you pay for people necessarily has any bearing on their ability to be honest um and yeah you get better at recognizing what you're bad at now again when jules and i founded the business we were quite fortunate we found our swim lanes quite quickly so my thing was kind of product development and sales and jules did everything else um so we quite quickly found our swim lanes and what i was good actually was bad at and vice versa so that was really powerful having that co-founder um role i'm still trying to think of stuff that's probably overrated in business but but still you know you still have to do i mean to be fair i still think social media probably is overrated in in business potentially um i think there's too many businesses that just utterly completely overly reliant on it and I can see it changing so much in the point in the future.

1:42:58Yeah, it's interesting. You have too many eggs in that basket. Yeah, because it's really also why I find this conversation so fascinating because I was 18 in 2011, right? So this is all the influence of Jim Stark's stuff, your stuff starting. And I do talk about this a lot on the podcast, but when I was leaving school, because of, you know, Wolf of Wall Street, the high status thing to do was to go into the city and get a corporate job. Being a founder for a food and drink brand or FMCG brand wasn't a thing now with social media it's like the cool thing to fucking do but it means people are probably forgetting about they may have an amazing instagram feed or amazing tiktok but that's that's your your superfluous exercise but you haven't got a great product and you haven't got you know you haven't got your compound exercises then you're just kind of so going back to when we started grenade one of the reasons that we started grenade was because i'd been a distributor of other people's products and i'd noticed that there were a lot of um good products out there that were badly marketed um and there were a lot of bad products that were brilliantly marketed and i remember thinking why can't you do both why can't have a really good product and market it and market it really well the answer is marketing is really expensive and when you've got a really good product and you're paying a premium for your product there's generally no money left for marketing we just kind of made it as in the sense that we made that money by not paying ourselves anything and we managed to in fact i've just i've just thought of a yeah i've thought of an answer to your previous question as what's not as important as as you think what's the side lateral raise and that's actually yeah burning money on marketing um i think burning money on marketing's quite overrated potentially because well what a common way well so we we built we built our business with very little money because we didn't have any and i think that cash is the killer of creativity and i think a lot of the time if i give you a budget five million pounds you'll go and spend five million pounds but you won't get five million pounds of marketing if i give you 500 quid you'll get 500 quids worth of marketing to the difference so i think they're having money there and i think that's why a lot of brands don't need investment they think they need investment but i think they probably don't they need to be more creative so i've not forgotten the question was actually answering.

1:45:12Yeah, we'd jump around, but as in just basically superfluous exercises, like exercises you waste time on basically, which is they look really good. It's like, I don't know, I saw someone in the gym the other day. I saw someone in the gym the other day. I was like, mate, what are you doing? They had like a band around them and they were doing that as a bench press. But remember as well, and I can't think of any specific analogies then necessarily within business, because if it moves your business by 1%, a bit like that random exercise that brings your physique forward 1%, it's probably worth doing.

1:45:39If that 1 % takes you most of the week to do it, It's not worth doing because you're missing the 99. But there comes a point where if all the other aspects of your business are working well and correct, the fine-tuning... That's a really good point. The fine-tuning... That's a really good point. Having a really good lawyer, having a really good trademark lawyer, are your trademarks up to date? These are all things that... What other little 1 % things that you probably didn't think about that actually, once you're ready, once you've got your compounds, your squat, your bench, your deadlift down, what would you say are really...

1:46:08But another 1 % might be, you know, trying to get some time off to spend time with your family and whatever, so you actually spend time away from the business because when you're in the business, it's really hard to work on the business. Yeah. So, you know, that's... How have you, again, asking this selfishly because I can't rest or very struggled to rest, really struggled to rest, I should say. Like, great podcaster Theo Vaughn talks about rest is work for like for type A fucking ambitious people. Yeah. and I thought oh shit like that's actually quite a good way of rest is work like how have you learned to rest or like what's can you do it because I don't think I can honestly no I haven't I'm not I'm not entirely sure entrepreneurs can do it um the only thing I can do is to to try and again if I if I'm if I'm out running or training I'm generally thinking about work or business because I sort of enjoy it I think business more than than work say because I don't necessarily think of this as work really it's just something I do yeah I think like I think you know work is something you do not somewhere you go if that makes sense oh yeah so that's what michelle roux was basically saying to me actually yeah so i think but if i go flying for instance and i'm flying a helicopter or a plane or whatever and it's you know there's bad weather i'm trying to get somewhere i'm not thinking about work you know so i think you have to distract yourself and that's why i like flying yeah that's that's that's obviously it's like your your chopper or whatever it is is there like it's it looks very wonderful piece of kit um but let's talk about flying and um yeah like what that does for you because and like also like the difference between a plane and a helicopter like why did you make the switch um so because just for context you got rid of your plane now i've got i've sold the plane yeah there was a time actually i had two planes and a helicopter to be fair as you do but um you always end up having lots of aircraft or no aircraft they're not the easiest things necessarily to buy and sell but um yeah i i was really loving the plane journey that i had a cirrus which was fantastic um and then i moved i moved house fairly short notice because in a true entrepreneurial fashion i sold my house at three weeks notice um because somebody wanted to buy it so um i just moved down to my holiday home where we are now and then i'm moving um back to the cotswolds later this year but i so i'd got a I was living in Stratford-upon-Avon, close to Grenade HQ, and I had a plane at Gloucester, and then I've got a house in Cornwall, and I'd have like an hour's drive to the plane to then jump in the plane to fly 50 minutes to Cornwall to land at Newquay to jump in a car to have a 20-minute drive.

1:48:38So I love flying, but the journey didn't really make sense for a plane. And then as such now with having multiple houses in the UK, it's quite nice to just have a helicopter at the house, jump in it, fly and land at the next house, and you cut out all the driving and all the airports in between. What does it feel like being like a bird? Like, what's that feeling like? I'm not one of these people, funnily enough, that's an absolute, you know, absolutely diehard into aviation, funnily enough. I sort of, I'm interested in it. For a common sensical reason. Yeah, I kind of do it to get places quickly, really.

1:49:13And again, it's still, and it's a real privilege to be able to fly something and to be able to afford to, you know, own one. But it's, and it is one of my top five or six things I like doing. but you know one day i'll probably stop flying and i'll just go and do something else because there's lots of things i like doing i like boating i like shooting i like training and traveling and stuff and again you haven't got time for all of it so um they're all just parts of the you know parts of the journey but you know i think i'll probably train for the next 30 years i don't think i'll be flying for the next 30 years wow yeah i also got like that again i think how we talking about reinventing the business or disrupting is the exact word you used out but like um you can disrupt yourself and i think you know i've got a mate at the minute who's struggling and i'm like mate you're fucking 30 he's basically doing a job he doesn't like he's his own business but he doesn't like he's like in recruitment i'm like mate you're 30 like you can just fucking reinvent yourself whenever and i think people get so stuck in their own like malaise of or inertia you know well because you need time to recover so i was 32 when i invented grenade but i'd been in the sports nutrition industry for sort of 20 years before that so I understood quite a lot about supplements so I started the brand with you know with quite a high level of knowledge and I think you should stick to what you know as well so you know I knew the sports nutrition industry sort of pretty well but as you get older and again you know the worst thing you can do is fail you're not dead so you'll just learn and you'll go and do something else that's great when you're young because you've got time to recover you know would i get would i say to people to take risks you know in their teens and 20s and 30s absolutely manage the downside obviously would i tell people to take risks in their 80s with a business probably not because you haven't got time to recover so it's all it's all relative really to where you are in the journey yeah there's um a quote i love which is by the nike guy shoe dog which is business is war without bullets i love that um i'd love to sort of know and i think that i love sort of i love strategy and um and i'd love to sort of um go into i love church as well i've read a lot about him and like the way he he got us out of the war like some of his fucking quotes are like it was just amazing i've i really actually read his book with every single one of his speeches from when he was a kid to until he died i've got so i've just thought of my favorite churchill quote which probably isn't that well known but you know he was obviously used to drink quite a lot yeah yeah and um and i think my favorite quote from him which you probably won't read anywhere was i think he's secretary or pa um she'd said to him like you have you heard this one said you're drunk she said you're drunk yeah and he said and you're ugly but at least i'll be sober in the morning there's a historian who he goes he uh i think another one which he drunk too much to be an alcoholic which i thought probably brilliant but yeah he's got loads i mean he's like you know um success is moving from failure to failure without losing um not motivation uh enthusiasm which is just yes it's just genius but um yeah so let's go into sort of the church or war room or the bunker room like what's been the the moment when you're sort of backwards against the wall you know it could be competitive landscape like you feel like fucking almost like blitzkrieg like everything's crashing around you and you you're trying to be cunning and you're trying to strategically get your way out of that situation because i think a lot of i know we've talked about some like i would love to get into what that was that real moment when your bat was against the war and how you sort of managed to get out of it you know it felt like war you know it felt like a place yeah i mean i suppose potentially i guess because again because i because i learned from these situations I never think of them as failures.

1:53:00I think, I mean, there were times when we were doing deals, you know, that were tens or hundreds of millions of pounds. And, you know, it looked like the deal had fallen apart. And I guess, you know, that specific point in time, it felt like an absolute catastrophe. but then looking at it logically you know let's say if you're doing a deal for 200 million and it fell apart well you haven't lost anything because you didn't have the 200 million anyway so you end up back where you were you know before but that's where you learn what went wrong and you and you you pick yourself up from there um these some of these things what i think you're probably alluding to feel worse at the time and then the next day probably don't seem seem so bad um i can't think of a situation you know in business with grenade where things were just so catastrophically you know um bad i guess to be fair around about 2013 i guess the lowest point i could think of was again probably we were doing the grove point deal and we were we were getting broken into with our warehouse in Coventry and we were being specifically targeted by people who were sort of stealing our stuff because it was so desirable.

1:54:20And our stuff was so desirable, I'm talking about our fat burner products that we had. You get like a thousand of these on a pallet and they were sort of worth 50 pounds each. So you can imagine, you know, potentially 50 grand's worth at retail of stuff on one pallet. You know, you're not getting 50 grand if you rob a bank. so uh we were getting targeted for those um and they were so desirable they were breaking into other businesses to steal the tools to break into our unit um which actually makes it a conspiracy and we got you know that was pretty bad at the time because you thought we were going to lose the grove point deal which was one thing you know our sort of 35 million pound deal but also you know it felt like jules and i versus the world we you know we were we couldn't sort of go home and relax bear in mind we were exhausted anyway because we thought you know we got broken into three times in three weeks that's mental so it feels incredibly personal you know we were sleeping in the warehouse that would have been the lowest point to be fair you know again over probably 12 years ago now so i've probably struggled to recall it but yeah coming back that was kind of pretty bad not for the because the deal fell apart or could have fallen apart but i think just because the fact you're just being targeted by people that just want something that you've worked hard for um and actually the the police at the time were brilliant they put what's called a sig marker on the building i believe and um basically it means that if the if our alarm goes off they treat it like a murder they flood the whole area of police and the police helicopter goes up but it became like i said you know we were just being broken into repeatedly there were remarked cars driving up and down past our building um and um yeah it's probably one for another podcast in terms of the whole story there but luckily through some contacts either i've got in the gym industry i actually found out who it was oh really and um yeah and then they didn't come back put it that way really that's mad the what let's go back into the sort of the the cadbury deal because i really want to get into the granularity of that before we do can you hold that question can i go for a way because i'm bursting yeah absolutely yeah yeah yeah go for it mate yeah yeah i've drunk like three liters of water that's the problem doing it after i've trained because you drink loads of water and then all of a sudden it's like it all comes back yeah this gym's absolutely mad that's good isn't it yeah yeah yeah yeah this is the bare minimum of stuff i could get away with actually putting in i've thought of a few more bits i'd quite what else would you get um oh i mean i'm being really specific now but i probably have like a standing car talks about a lot isn't it i don't know if you listen but is that the thing the inversion table yeah up side down yeah and that basically just stretches out everything yeah yeah bro I've been doing that for years they're brilliant really that's what you and Storm need mate yeah yeah really good yeah do you know as well they're probably about 300 or 400 quid it'd be the best few hundred quid you'd spend really really good you need some space for it but it's really effective and you basically just whack yourself in and then 10 minutes a week it's yeah it's as good as I go to a chiropractor as well yeah honestly those over the years are brilliant really interesting right question yeah sorry Cadbury's yeah so take me to the apex of that deal like how how do these these massive exit deals work and like when they keep you on board how does your role change um yes so i mean one of the things that they do when you know depending on the deal but when someone invests to that level of magnitude they want to make sure you're going to stay around for a few years how much do they invest um if you're allowed to say well so i mean that you know with cadbury they they bought a grenade for 200 million yeah um but then you know you get like um what's called an earn out generally and it just means then that you know you you you get paid in the valuation but then if all these deals different but you know in our case if you hit numbers over the next x amount of years there's you know there's another bite of the cherry potentially you know three years or whenever it may be um based on x amount of valuation if you're delivering x amount of of a return um i mean you know all these founder deals are different i mean looking at say prince for instance um palmer lucky who invented oculus and sold it to facebook I think he got sacked out of his earn out.

1:58:30So you then, I guess the biggest change, you go from being a founder and owner of a business to potentially being an employee. Yeah. It's the biggest change, which most founders... But then you've got enough to go in the bank, so it's kind of cool, or is it... Yeah, but it does. But again, you still then, you probably feel like you've sold your kids. Really? So I don't know if you've got children, but I don't, but if you sell your business, it is very much, I'd imagine, like you know sort of parting with a with a with a with a child it's something that you've invented and grown up to love and worked on developed and then you know one minute yours the next minute it's not so you know yes you you get money in the bank but you can feel like you've lost an arm so i've done you know a lot of deals with with grenades so i think i'm probably fairly versed in you know how you feel but it really is to feel quite flat um when you've you know done a deal for millions of pounds because millions of pounds don't replace what you know the love you have for your business or your brand because a brand brands are extensions of their founders so it's interesting i interviewed the riverford founder and he said don't be careful not to swap your purpose for prozac which i thought was a really good way of putting it yeah no that's a good yeah i know what it means by that but i think look that's the thing you know having a sense of purpose is critical i I think a lot of people put the sense of purpose into their brand.

1:59:49And then, you know, if you exit a business, you have to think about having a different sense of purpose. So I think for me now, because I've stepped down as CEO, but that was always a very carefully thought out, well-planned transition. And I'm still now, I'm in a founder role. So, you know, Richard does a founder role at Virgin. He's not CEO of Virgin. So you can still be involved in the business and the brand, but at different levels. the difference as well being that you know richard's got kids and grandkids and i don't so there didn't seem a lot of point in necessarily building a billion dollar business and then just you know one day i just die and it just goes to the government um you know they get enough tax so you know for me i wanted to build something build a legacy you know in terms of not having a child build a legacy and then something i can be proud of that lives on after me but also then that enables me to um have the freedom and you know time and money to go and do other things i enjoy i've mentioned some of those things so um but yeah center purpose we could do a whole podcast on on that because that's critically important because i know a lot of people who sell businesses um they get really bored get really fed up get really lonely um and they end up just doing it again yeah um and you know i i wouldn't want to build a sports nutrition business again i don't think I would in terms of, you know, but for the wrong reasons, potentially.

2:01:12And then so what? Because, again, all the time you're doing that, you're not doing something else. What did, so with the Mondelez deal specifically, get like, what were they asking? You know, we said at the beginning there was all this due diligence. Like, how did that deal? Because I think everyone wants to get to the Eldorado, the exit Eldorado, right? A lot of people listen to this. Most people just won't get there. I can tell you that now. Yeah, but you have got there. You have got there. But like, so what, talk me through what they're looking for. How did you get that deal over the line? Well, so for instance, you know, trademark wise, so they're looking at Mondelez bought Grenade.

2:01:44They're a global business. They want to be able to sell it globally. Have you got it trademarked all around the world? Yes. You know, we did. Vast majority of businesses wouldn't have that, you know. So rather than paying ourselves salaries, we were buying trademarks. Yeah. You know, that's one of those. Now, again, is that one of your things that's 1 % nice to have? Because I'd say it's more than 1%. You know, if you don't own the trademark in America. Well, it's worthless. Path to exit. Yeah, absolutely. So what else is on that that you think on the way to get you to the path? I mean, in terms of sort of trademarks and design marks.

2:02:16Or just how these fucking brands are going to actually get this big exit. Because a lot of people listening to this are wanting to do what you've done. And as you say, I agree a lot of them won't get there, but I still think we should give people hope that they can. Oh, yeah, I'm not being defeated with that. I just think, you know, again, if we go back, and I feel like I'm repeating myself, but if we go back and say, right, you've got a world-class product, brand, or service, you've got an incredible team, You've got to be making money. You've got to have a business that's scalable. Potentially, in our case, you want someone big to come in and buy you.

2:02:45You know, big in what respect? You know, if you're a UK business, you know, do you just sell to another UK business? What about Europe and the rest of the world? You know, we wanted to do something that we could sell all over the world and be scaled all over the world. So, you know, if you want to sell it all over the world, you've got to have products that are compliant all around the world. so you could spend you know a decade on different formulas um you know do you own the supply chain during the tooling the molding you know do you own um you know do you own all the ip to the point that no one can come in and just uh copy it you know we got trademarks on formula name and the bottle that it came in um you know for instance it just goes on and on and on um it's just like a yeah just a completely you know exhaustive list um i mean having you know having it trademarked around the world like i said we've got over 200 trademarks and design marks you know just what countries are you in right now uh we're in about 80 countries probably used to say well we're not really um fucking hell so what what some of the uh big markets outside the uk um i mean you know we're going back into the us but um canada you know western europe um we've just launched in australia you know we've i mean we're in the hardest country to launch in i'd say america's probably the hardest because it's the most competitive and i think we think that we speak a common language but we don't it's just night and day i always say it's like the a lot of states in america you really don't want to sell in yeah so if you could just pick america's not new york no if you could if you could just pick the top 10 states you probably wouldn't bother with the rest but as it is then you've got to sort of sell in all of them and again anytime you sell in california you're going to get sued.

2:04:28Really? So I won't even go into it. It'll take me too long to explain. But most of the law, 90 % of lawsuits come out of California. So it's just a very, very litigious state. But these are all the things that, I mean, it goes, but there were probably some fairly low points in terms of various lawsuits. Because people just sue you for no reason and you have to defend it. We had someone who bought one of our products once or says he bought one of our products. There was no proof. he never had to prove buying the product at all but says he bought one of our products from gnc and says it made him really ill um and he also said that um yes it said it made him really ill and he was like he was paranoid and he was getting headaches and felt sick and whatever he was a registered drug addict but basically then it was he just said it was our fault and we had to settle out of court for that and it's just like you just think really yeah you know but that's you know welcome to america yeah so um you know that food products are incredibly difficult because it's stuff that people put in their body so um yeah selling making and selling something people ingest is kind of yeah it's difficult it's not like say selling clothing yeah no one probably sues you for clothing saying your clothes made the meal yeah i mean no as well it's just not true um but you know that's just that's just america yeah what's one truth you believe that most people would disagree with you on oh i'll have to think about that one i don't know i haven't got a ready-made answer for that here's what i made earlier get like an m &s ready meal stuck in no it's interesting because i think like one thing i've been picking up from you is this ability just to have this um common sense it's like a theme that i've picked up i always pick up like kind of one thing okay yeah but it's like it's just this um like common sense and but what kind of added with that is this wild ambition you know because i think people think of wild ambition as like oh this it's this big like they've got this crazy vision it's like yeah that is one part of it but the other part of it is like well just ask a common sense called question which is you know why hasn't chocolate been disrupted why why you know yeah i mean people have done it with drinks if i think of like fever tree and like tonics and stuff i think the drinks market's been a lot more disruptive but i think as well with you know with with confectionery it's got such a good foothold you know again hundreds of years in the uk for instance like you know with cadbury in every location you can think of um it's a difficult industry to disrupt hitting it head on so i call it the little big horn you know you have to the little big horn well you just you don't attack attack people where they're strongest you're attacking where they're weakest and generally you know if you have to be something that they're not um so you know in our case like i said you know we we went for some we went high protein because everyone else was low protein and we were low sugar and now high sugar so we just we just attacked them you know where we were strongest in that respect um so but but yeah and i think as well they're all owned by enormous companies who've got deep pockets and money to burn i think then probably you the question you just asked me about you know what's the truth i what's how did you phrase it the truth one truth i um you believe most people disagree with you on i'll ask it so yeah so i i don't think you need then you don't need a lot of money to build a disruptive business it doesn't have to be expensive it just has to be disruptive to the point that i think that people think that let's say if you were going to attack a big food company head on you need more money than them well and that's where they look for investment well you're not going to outspend a you know a company that's worth hundreds of billions you just have to do something better than they do um and i think that's where potentially you know we were very good at hyper targeting and hyper focusing my favorite you know again we focused on protein bars but my favorite example actually is how under armor became a significant competitor to nike because they how did they how did they do that they they took a an end they took a category of compression which nike as in t-shirt uh you know the the um as real yeah just as in um compression as in with american football where they were wearing like compression clothing so it was helping and aiding in terms of blood flow it was such a niche part of clothing that Nike obviously were aware of it and it wasn't worth them investing in because it just wasn't big enough you know the lemon wasn't worth the squeeze so they say, so I think Under Armour became experts at compression and then they absolutely owned it yeah like the really sort of tight stuff that American footballers are wearing and before you know it then they've got a deal in American football because they make the best compression stuff because no one else made it but it's a bit like some protein bars if you know if you were a ferrera or cadbury and you're looking at protein bars and you're selling hundreds of billions in in chocolate what would you bother with protein bars it's just a distraction it's but it's i'm saying it's i mean the way you say this is so it's so fucking simple and and common sensical in order to become a big business and and have the all the authenticity and authority to be able to um playing different categories you've got to be really good at something you have to own something and you know we own protein bars how did you sorry go on well i think a lot of um brands they don't actually own something um and i'm actually using an analogy i mentioned earlier when i was saying about my my rules for investing and i said i'll i'll say another brand i've invested in that tick all these boxes and i didn't mention the brand um it's actually through dark the clothing company military clothing company because it's great product great founders i was buying it i love the mission sense of purpose doesn't need too much time um and i think you know and again they can really own that performance outdoor clothing and i said the same question actually to their founders um stas and louis i said if you could own one thing you know what what would it be um and actually one of the answers i got was quite interesting because they mentioned summit suits um for everest so um okay yeah so stasi's doing a world record attempt um 15th of may i believe um so when this goes out he might have already done it but they're doing a world record attempt to um do london to everest back to london in seven days wait so i think london london to everest climbing everest back down back to london within seven days that's wild so logistics so they've been um uh acclimatizing in um an oxygen tent um because obviously it's uh normally you have time to acclimatize the mountain there isn't time to do that so they've got a you know there's like a speed ascent um but a summit suit is what you'll wear to go to the top of everest so if you can make an incredible summit suit imagine what they'll look which they have fifth generation one i think now but imagine what they've learned in terms of that outer performance clothing to keep you alive at 30 000 feet they're not going to sell many summit suits obviously you know if they sold probably 10 a year they've done well so it doesn't build a big business but it tells people you're fucking good at what you do because yeah it's a brand status almost well as they've said it's a bit like working in cars and formula one you know if you win on sunday you sell on monday so wait i don't understand what that means yeah so if you win a race on sunday you'll sell more cars on monday so friday well and grand prix they sell cars the following day because again people don't run out and buy formula one cars it again it tells people you're good at what you do and people like that overkill and that comfort you know i like four by fours some of them are take off road but land rover extremely good at making competent four by fours 99.9 percent of the people take the kids to school with them and just don't take them off road but people like that you know being good at something and what was your sorry one second If we can then, you know, dominate and show expertise in a particular category, like we've done, like say, ThruDark will do with their summit suits, you can then take what you learn from that very, very niche item of clothing in their case, put it into other clothing then that's more mass market that people do appreciate.

2:12:46because people quite like the fact that if they're going hiking up Snowden, for instance, what they're wearing is genetically related to something which one of the founders climbed Everest in. So I think these are all part of the stories that are parts of brands and part of founders' journeys that never underestimate that founder journey and how important that story is to consumers. and you know as as through dark say you know um not just clothes that they stand by but you know they actually stand in so it's um anything they make they they use themselves and it's just a really important part of the journey but sorry for saying no no i'm just thinking about it it's almost like the the halo effect of um this is again something i've sort of spoken to um not to paul ainsworth about but in terms of restaurants is it's like they they he's got number six you know the michelin the one yeah yeah in pasta oyster foam that you'd never go to champagne froth i don't know if they do that i can't i can't do froth in food it's not it's not food i'm sure it's technically very clever but it's lost it's completely wasted on someone like me but but as it's almost a that's his summit suit as in it and it's it's that's a it's like that's their creme de la creme it's like the high-end restaurant i get that yeah but then their other range is the mariners is the cafe rohana where we ate yesterday and it's like the brand halo effect and storytelling which is the summit suit one thing i was going to ask you about is what kind of your halo effect or summit suit was when fulfill barbells and other competitors came in because like you guys were first and a lot of people have talked about this and like to me as friends it's like oh we were first and then suddenly the competitors come in and you can how did you not get brand insecure you know uh but because you know we're us and they're them so i don't know what you know i don't know what i'm doing i do know i'm doing tomorrow but let's say you know as a as a brand if i don't know what my next move is no one else is going to work out my next move and i think you know say that again that's bloody good wait so if you don't know your next move yes if i don't know what my next move is as a brand owner no one else is going to work it out because i don't know where i'm going so you know i have no strategy i make it up as i go along as you can tell but um in terms of like i said i think the competition is a fantastic thing but i think as well a lot of other of other people in this space if you took any of their marketing or any of their branding and you mixed it all up amongst themselves they could all be one and the same whereas i think if you see a tank driving over sydney harbour bridge um you know and me on board or you know or whatever then you'll know it's grenade so i think you know we floated a grenade hot air balloon past glastonbury and again if you think you know look at the stuff that brew dog have done i mean it's just a master class in in marketing you know really being creative thinking on their feet um doing stuff that you know probably only they could think of like we do stuff only we can think of they can't start making anyone they can't stop other people making beer nor would they want to i can't stop other people making protein bars nor do one two but we'll know that anything that we do is just very you know grenade as we always said we do it our way or not at all and i think what is your way like how do you forge that because driving a tank across sydney harbour bridge that's got no relevance whatsoever to selling protein bars but it's just good fun thing to do yeah yeah yeah yeah anything that's just completely irrelevant i mean we've got something coming up called sky climb and we've got sam sheriff who's um an ex-royal marine and uh he's doing the world's highest rope climb um so it's going to be 10 000 feet in the air he's climbing a hundred foot rope he's going to do it suspended from our grenade hot air balloon and we're going to fly around in my helicopter doing the filming because it's too high for a drone um that's got no that's got no he's going to be it's off 10 000 feet in the air 100 foot rope he's going to climb out the balloon climb the 100 foot rope he's got a parachute on because he's got a parachute off at the end that's so mad but it's got no relevant but look at red bull you know when they do this mad red bull stunt it's got no relevance really whatsoever to an energy drink just some of this stuff is just fun to do it's good branding and again you know we always said we wanted to be the red bull of sports nutrition so but with us i think with red bull a lot of their stuff is very much they never do anything that involves um like uh animals or fighting sports so you'll never see them on boxing or mma but animals horse rice we whenever you've ever seen red bull in horse racing what would you guys do with animals yeah nothing but i'm just saying red bull that's their that's their brand value is they just don't do that monster all about doing fight sports fighting sports so again you'll see monster at red mma but you don't see rebel in mma see what i mean about attacking competition where they're weaker where they're stronger yeah don't hit red bull in formula one yeah why would you hit red bull in formula one yeah they're really good at it yeah it's like just picking the kid at school who's three thick taller than you and massive and going to pick in a fight you're not going to win don't aim for their heart aim for their ankles yeah yeah so as ankle biters as we were called once by another confectionery brand yeah so um we i forgot where i was going with this now um we we've got a yeah sky climb um coming up but yeah so with red bull they know their brand parameters what they do and don't do i know what my brand parameters would be in things again i i don't want to do like again we don't really do anything with um fighting sports or anything either just because i'm not really interested in boxing so um it doesn't feel like whereas i do more stuff with the military because i like military stuff you know we'll call grenades so yeah why what pulled you to the military stuff um we probably haven't got time to go into it now yeah what are we on i've just always been interested in the military what are we on for time by the way I've even looked I've got 12 minutes but um so we're saying about we've digressed now we were saying about I think we'll begin to wrap this up but the point about picking your strengths and their weaknesses and going for their weaknesses not their strengths is just so so valuable and I think it feels obvious to me but I'm not sure it's obvious to probably um it's not this one said as i said to you what i've got from you is is is um just your common sense plus massive ambition and it's something i've never spoken but as i said you get something from each guest right but with you mate it's like this common sense but then it just it's so obvious that it's almost so obvious it's unobvious that makes if that's the right way of saying it i think so yeah yeah yeah um but no i think we were just talking about some of the stunts that we do and i think people will see some of our stunts and know it's us but i think the point i was going to make was um that i think a lot of what red bull do that it's incredible um stunts yes there's a real human element in that like you know felix baumgartner jumping from space but i think they've got a lot of technology as well that probably help them again with regard to formula one and you know again if they're doing stuff with stunt planes obviously huge amounts of human skill in these things.

2:20:01But I think for us as well, anything where there's real human endurance, where the human, the individual, is doing a lot of the work, like Stas running up Everest or Sam doing Sky Climb, something where nutrition can play a really important part that's not obvious, just like football. Grenades should be there um so i think you know and a lot of it just comes down to i think as you know i said about brands being extensions of their founders um you know i'm not interested in formula one so i'm not interested in football or rugby or cricket so there were never obvious places for me to go and put my brand because i i don't really find it that interesting um you know to be fair and again how do you find that your competitors weaknesses because i think again that's something that probably comes naturally to you but i think a lot of people will be looking at competitors which happens yeah and that's how you get if the the blandemic happens where every brand looks the same you know and it's a cool maybe that's the weakness if they just look the same again if i look at something i think we could make a better one or again if they're very very entrenched in say football for instance um you know or mma or something that you know that we're less interested in i mean don't get me wrong we now grenade at the stage where you know it's a it's a product that any sport, it's appropriate for, but that wasn't where we started.

2:21:28We started with bodybuilding, essentially, and the military. You mentioned Jamie Alderton, but if you're not careful as a brand, you can really get pigeonholed somewhere. And I know certain brands that were just pigeonholed in rugby or golf or football, and they just couldn't break out of them. And the problem with some of these sports as well, there's just not enough people that do it sometimes. So you end up, you know, alienating an entire category of people because, and we very nearly did it ourselves. You know, we focused on the military because I was interested in it. I've got friends in the military and no one was making product for soldiers.

2:22:05Why not? You know, soldiers, again, train hard. They put their lives on the line. It's a very physical job. Why is a soldier less important than a footballer? Just because people like football. How did you get out of that niche, so break out of the niche? Well, you just don't get pigeonholed somewhere for too long. Because if you're not careful, you can just get stuck somewhere and then the brand can never be associated with anything else. And we wanted our brand to be associated with anyone, really, who was in training and looking after themselves. But what were some of the moves you... Because on the other side of that, you haven't lost your brand soul because you're just trying to attack a vicinity.

2:22:40Yes, you've got to keep the DNA. But then what were some of the... We'll finish literally off this. Just quickly, what were some of the things you did to get out of that pond of military? because it's i think there's a lot well so we you know like taking tanks into shows and i still do um and i think what was two things were happening actually the military stuff tends to be quite green and quite black it tends to be quite military colors and through dark i've got this at the moment where the stuff they make again is generally i'm wearing a white top um is generally quite dark colors so but as we were going into retail dark colors don't look good on retailer shelves so we needed to think and this is why we did the bar as well we need to think of a way that we could you know if we were an ice cream brand we'd be ben and jerry's you know we wouldn't be hargen dars or walls um you know so uh more creative more playful um and again we wanted to think about how we could get cheaper products onto more shelves i say cheaper as in more people could afford two pounds fifty not sixty pounds but also how we could have brighter colors how we can incorporate that and that's really difficult when you're associated with the military because the military don't wear bright colors and we're called grenade so that was something we had to solve but um also i'd got people come up to me at shows and saying i really love your products i wish i could use them and i'd say well why can't you use them and they'd say because i'm not in the military and it was like shit okay so we were doing a lot with the military but then it was a you know a fairly fairly carefully thought out plan of over the years how we not soften the brand but how we start to incorporate more color so our team um and specifically go i got alex dickens who's our head of brand at grenade and was our graphic designer at the time you know every iteration of label that that you know he'd done just incorporated more color changing the fonts less clutter less about the science and sports nutrition you know more about the benefit you just a brand is never finished you know as mark zuckerberg would say about facebook so you know grenade will never be finished you have to keep on um evolving the brand keeping it relevant keeping the dna which is again why i'm still involved um you have to do all this slowly but with pace if that makes sense you've got to you've got to keep doing it over time um and and you know stay stay true to the brand so then we started doing you know more food shows you know the bars came in more color with the bars came more color um you know more color meant more retail and we could just slowly obviously still we do still just as much of the military as we ever did but we've gained everyone else as well disrupting keep disrupting mate let's wrap that up absolute joy i love 97 hours later yeah sorry i've uh no that was that was absolutely

2:25:33thank you so so much for listening to the podcast i really really do appreciate it if you liked 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 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