Craft Gin Club founder: Building a £27 Million DTC Empire with + 450,000 Monthly Subscribers, Spotting Fads vs. Trends, Converting Storytelling into Sales, Turning Cash Constraints into Innovation Cages

42:02And we were lucky because of that. And we lent into that and we built an audience of millions of social media followers intentionally, but also enabled by our suppliers rather than us talking about ourselves. Delighted to announce the extension of our partnership with the wonderful Billy and Paul from Mackenzie Jones, but even more exciting. They have just launched a brand new brand as part of Mackenzie Jones called MKJ Ignite. MKJ Ignite is a recruitment firm which specializes full shebang focus entirely on challenge brand space. They work with some incredible brands, Lucky Saint, Good Race, Purdy and Fig, Hunt and Gather and Real Superfoods.

42:49They can support with your hiring needs across all levels, top to bottom, junior entry level jobs all the way up to MD and CEO level. so if you're looking for a field sales stomper a sales wizard an ops guru a supply chain sensei uh you name it mkj ignite can help you out and look if you're looking to wet your whistle ignite your curiosity then check out the poddy we recorded with them back in july laden with wisdom all about like do's and don'ts of hiring and like how to create the perfect job description you will love it how did you get those stories to actually link to to sales because i think that's another another interesting point as a brand you've got you've got to you've got to hop across yeah how did you do that good question uh and and something we still wrestle with now is is what's the right degree of you know out now traditional if you like that's the right word direct response marketing where here's an offer come and buy our product and how much of the sort of softer supportive marketing we should we should put around that and i don't think we've ever we've ever known the answer but in the early days there was a belief of you know if you build it they will come and trying to build a like-minded community of of gin enthusiasts was the first thing we set out to do and actually before we even had a box to sell we had a facebook page and we were generating content and we were understanding if we could get people to i guess you know like and follow what are the the basic social media maneuvers of the day were and and what we quickly learned was that we could and i think you think about who's as a category it it's something that people like to talk about something that people like to laugh about something that people like to share anecdotes of their own life about you know if people have a great bottle of wine certainly back then people were posting pictures almost every bottle of wine they ever opened but even now you know if someone has a great bottle of wine or they're celebrating something special they'll post a picture of it equally if somebody goes out and has too many bottles of wine the night before they'll post a picture about it the next day it's just a it's a subject area that's rich for social media dialogue so for us to tell stories but also for us to engage a conversation and build an audience and a community around topic and we did that in the belief that if we could position ourselves as an authority in the space and if we could offer people platform and content, they would reward us eventually with their custom.

45:37And that was a kind of a basic tenant of what we set out to do. We didn't know that that would be the case, but quite quickly we saw that we were able to build a customer base without spending any money on marketing. And I can remember that I think the first proof of life moment was January and we hadn't even incorporated the business yet. So we were still very much trading. It was a bit of a side project. And John, my co-founder at the time, was responsible for creating a lot of our content, put together a tongue-in-cheek blog article about how gin makes for the perfect year's detox. Okay, probably against some kind of advertising rules that we wouldn't be allowed to get away with now.

46:27But back then, we didn't really care. It was a bit of fun. And that blog post, the sort of listicle blog post of the time, went viral on Facebook. People were really engaging with this silly idea of having a January detox using the botanicals that you can find in gin and how each of those botanicals were good for different things. And it was seen by millions of people in the UK, and we 10xed the size of our subscriber base overnight on the back of that one article because we were bringing people into our ecosphere, if you like, and bringing those people on that journey and converting them into customers, some straightaway, some too longer.

47:07That was a real moment of, okay, we've got some kind of product market fit. We have a market where the wind is in our sails, but also now we have a route into that market. And that route to market was social media, was content, was storytelling, was engaging with people, having fun. um and and yeah we were able to build the business on the back of that kind of organic reach that that doesn't exist anymore it's gone away but but we benefited from it at the time it's it's well that is that is that that you know new year's day or like the best best thing to drink in january gin is that big wave coming that's the wind in your sails and i think it goes back to one of the central themes i'm picking up from you john is like being in the water uh or you know catching the wind and i think you know now content hiring your first three hires i think did you say was like three content um marketers but now that's kind of back then that's most people like why would you do that it's kind of that wouldn't make sense you know what i mean back then i think whereas now most people probably have taken note from what you've done and like oh yeah that is the obvious obvious thing to do um but back then it was probably not the obvious hire which is kind of fascinating um what did it feel like when you got your first customer i can remember the moment well um it first of all felt surprising i think that was definitely the first the first feeling uh the sort of you know the peak came in to my inbox with a new subscription created alert uh and yeah the first feeling was total surprises you know oh my god uh having come up with the sort of general concept and then begun to test our ability to you know build audience and build engagement and then actually see that turn into a customer the first time was surprising but then very exciting uh and almost i think we attached far more importance to that first customer than was warranted uh but it became it became almost totem like for us uh and and uh he he remained a customer for for many many many years i still think he is uh which which is great uh but we realized very quickly that he the the customer in question was based in northern island uh which we hadn't quite figured out that we should ship to uh or how to ship to but we quickly had to then figure that out so uh overnight we expanded our footprint because 100 % of our customers were based in northern island uh but it was good it was surprising it was exciting uh it was a little bit pinch yourself um but then it was it was we were on and we were into christmas uh and and then sales started to pick up quite quickly from there uh so he wasn't the only custom for long thankfully where where were you when that first order came in was it like what and what time period was that was it in the run-up to christmas or i was sat it was in the run-up to christmas and i was sat having a drink with my wife and a couple of friends and or our newborn no baby wasn't born and my wife was pregnant um and i remember sort of telling people that i'd been you know fiddling around with this this gin idea and that first first email came in then and i'm sort of you know showing my phone off and doing a little jig and dancing and acting like a giddy school boy i'm sure uh it was good it was good moment those i think like a lot of these these podcasts i do i try to understand like the the go how you go through the dark days but equally like the the buzz of getting new business is just you can't beat that buzz it's it's insane um what would you i think we're maybe eight years down the line yeah 2023 what advice would you give to the john who looked on his phone when he was having the drink and he saw that first order come in with everything you know now like what's one piece of wisdom you'd say to yourself back then with everything you've been through, COVID, et cetera?

51:27I think that John didn't appreciate how all-encompassing the challenge ahead would be. And I think sitting myself down and giving me a good stern talking to and making sure that John understands sacrifices that are ahead, the work that will need to be put in. I think without putting that John off the journey, I guess, I think at times we've been reluctant to perhaps ask for help or we've been late to raise money on the journey. And I think perhaps we've been guilty of underestimating the challenge that's been in front of us and thinking that we can always solve everything myself, solve everything ourselves but sometimes actually because the challenge is so big the only way to disamount that challenge is to is to bring in other people other resource whether that's investors whether that's uh you know we we hired a cfo for the first time uh so 18 months ago you know it's changed my life uh and in retrospect that that should have been something we did a long time ago but i think the natural response of that first john was always to think about how we could do things efficiently uh and by efficiently i mean by not spending money and i think actually spending money is spending too much money is bad but not spending enough money is also bad so so learning to to lean into lean into the opportunity early and bring on help early, I think, in retrospect, would have been good advice.

53:22And to be fair, it was advice that I was given by, for example, some of our non-execs, but I didn't intend to listen to them. So getting that balance right is really, really important, that balance between not trying to scale too early, because I don't think anything good can come from spending money before you really know where you need to spend money, but not spending money fast enough or quick enough when you're able to scale can also hinder the business and, you know, in hindsight, hinder the quality of life for the people trying to build the business. So getting that balance right is crucial, you know, how hard to press on the pedal.

54:04Yeah, it's like I've never thought of it like that. It's like the kind of the narrative is don't spend your money or be frugal yet forceful. I think is the kind of the narrative for founders. But what you've said there is, is it's a dance between knowing when to not spend and knowing when to, to hit the pedal on, on, on the cash to grow far, to go faster. If you were, if we were to go back to, back to the John in the pub and we were to give you some cash or you did have resource, like what are the one or two pedals you'd absolutely hit that you think had like a, a kind of huge uptick in the business?

54:47uh there's there's there's so many i think i think for me it's about it it was about filling in you have to fill in the holes around you first right so so as a an entrepreneur or a founder you know with a technology background we were deliberately late to invest in in technology because that was a field that i could you know kind of handle myself i could build a website i I could keep a website up and running. I could configure, you know, digital marketing tools, that kind of stuff I could do myself. But there's holes around the business that I couldn't do myself. And those are the ones that are important to fill in first, I think, and perhaps we could have filled in sooner.

55:30And I'll give you an example. Having hired a COO for the first time, you know, a couple of years ago, having someone come in with deep knowledge and understanding of supply chain and logistics. meant that everything we did in the spot supply chain logistics point of view or better and that higher more than it paid more than as expensive as hiring someone in that that kind of capacity is more than paid for itself quite quickly so when i think about the perhaps the years that didn't have that person in role because i was worried about cost of salary in hindsight having that person in role would have made business better would have made my life better and would have been actually P &L positive, given the sort of savings that we were able to garner through supply chain optimization.

56:30So I think filling the holes in around you is important. Do that first. Understand that, you know, getting the right, don't always see those people as costs because, you know, it comes with additional benefits. I think it's important to consider. It's very easy to think from a sales perspective, okay, I'm a salesman, I'm a marketing person, and how someone's going to manage that channel, you can see the return quite quickly. But in other parts of the business, it's less obvious, but it's there all the same, whether it's a COO or a CFO, whatever it might be in those more support-level functions.

57:06And then let go of the bits that you've got most control over last, but don't leave that too long either. So I think finally, thankfully, we now have a technology director. I don't have to get my hands too dirty with things tech, but still there if I need to, I guess. What we talked about at the beginning of having the MBA, one of the values of the MBA is being able to see the business as its whole sum versus its individual parts. And I think even as you've scaled, one of the things I'm picking up from you, John, is you can still have those conversations in those different departments to see how the thing, the beast kind of amalgamates together.

57:55I want to talk about Stoke and Sarah William, because I know you're both from Stoke. We are. How did growing up in Stoke make you a more formidable founder, do you think? How did growing up in Stoke make me a more formidable founder? I love Stoke. It's home. It's my hometown. I think what growing up in Stoke gave me was a sense of ambitious adventure, I guess. So as much as I love Stoke, I was always quite keen to get out and experience the world or the rest of the country. And that's perhaps driven by Stoke isn't an area that's blessed with opportunity. It's obviously sort of post-industrial.

58:46So it gave me great grounding in life. You grow up in a very real working town, working city, but it's not somewhere I wanted to spend the rest of my life. It's home, always will be home, but it was a place that I think by its nature led you to want to explore what was around the corner. and I think that sense of wanting to know what's around the corner and the sense of wanting to try new things, that sort of adventurous ambition comes from growing up in that environment and that's something I take into business every day and I think I have a good tolerance for risk because of that as well. So I think to be successful in business, you need to understand risk and have a tolerance of risk and be prepared to you know take one step backwards to take two steps forwards and i think growing up in in an environment like like stoke helps you understand that no matter how bad things get they can't ever be that bad right because all you really need is is the people around you uh most of my family still live there and i love it yeah we used there used to be a i used to work for peanut butter brand called i think we've done stuff with you guys actually manny life back this was years ago yeah we have yeah yeah yeah yeah but we used i used to go up in stoke um for um there's a wholesaler that's now ceases to exist unfortunately called tree of life so i used to go up there probably twice twice a year and there's definitely sort of a humbleness about as sarah says stokey's i think which is which is very endearing oh my god i am so so so excited it feels like Hungary is finally swimming in the big leagues.

1:00:37I can't believe this. It's absolutely mental. But delighted to announce that Big Fish, yes, Big Fish, are partnering with the podcast. Perry's been on the podcast three times. Listeners absolutely love it. Some of our most downloaded and cherished episodes of all time. But Big Fish are behind literally so many brands in your cupboard, in your weekly shop. Charlie Bigham, Leo Valley, Tyrells, Clippity, Goo, Rana. I mean make the list longer than the River Nile But they also share risk and invest In brands that they really believe are a force for good They're brands that they believe are going to be the next big thing Like Howda, the snack that gives back But even more exciting news Big Fish want to speak to the next wave of small Challenger food and drink brands that are destined for big things The Raconteurs, the Movers, Shakers, Buccaneering, Visionaries so look if you want to speak to big fish and just have a chat get your plan in front of them then drop me a message my mate louis from local beer amazing beer was in their office aka la fish bowl uh last week chatting to perry freddie and the big fish crew so drop me a message if you would like to speak to them so you met you met sarah on on dragon's den i'd love to know what's one or two like insane pieces of advice she's she's taught you that you apply daily um at craft gym club so uh i think so so we work with sarah now for several years uh post investment on dragon's down and she's been great you know she's a great mentor great person to have on our advisory board a great friend as well uh and i think she's taught me a couple of really important lessons along the way as well as countless pieces of sort of tactical and and day-to-day advice you know she's always on the end of a phone or whatsapp we still meet you know every month uh formally as part of our our governance but she would tell me that it's all about the people i think the phrase that would come out of their mouth.

1:02:53And I think that's true. And coming from a, as an engineer, software engineer, it's arguably not all about the people in what I perhaps did in my first career. But once you get into the world of startups and trying to build a company, it is all about the people. And it's about hiring the right people, not necessarily people with the right skills, but people with the right attitude and the right approach to work. It's about not, pardon the French, not hiring dicks. So finding people that you get along with and can get along with outside of work or just because you sat on a desk next to them for 12 hours.

1:03:37But it's then having found good people, it's about making sure that you look after those people and you treat those people as well as you can within a startup environment and recognize that everyone's almost without exception, trying their best to do a good job and being cognizant of that and being aware of making sure that people feel appreciated because they are appreciated, but sometimes you forget to let people know. And I think that's really important as well. So seeing the sort of human side of Sarah in action, she's a great person to be around. She's a great leader. she's a great helper and understands the sort of balance to strike of you know I never feel like she's interfering I always feel like she's helping and that that that's a skill to learn so so people it's all about people it's something she would definitely say and then And she would also talk a lot about the importance of time and the importance of time for us as founders or for me as an entrepreneur and chief exec and making sure that you're able to create a working balance that allows me as an individual to take enough time away from work.

1:05:06And that's something I've learned over the years, I think, from observing the way Sarah conducts herself. She's very good at managing her time and her calendar, and she'll tell you as much as that's her most precious resource is time. And I think understanding that what's good for Sarah is good for me and good for other people like me, really, is that time is super precious and super important and that we should be protective of it. because there's not a lot of it to go around she she she did this with me on the podcast she's been on twice but she sort of did this this pie chart of life yeah and how she splits up her time and i thought it was fascinating and it's like you know she if she's been overworked in london one day she'll go to the south downs and just walk for like eight hours i was like that's so good how but i suppose the other side of that is how how do you when you're trying to take time off off the business yeah how do you deal with that kind of uh at least i feel this i'm sure people listening feel this i often feel a huge sense of guilt when i'm not working i kind of think oh god there's some fucker out there who's working harder than me he's going to get further ahead i need to be working and it's quite pathological if i'm being totally honest like how do you deal with the guilt of of taking time off if that's right with saying it or do you have that guilt yeah i mean less so now and i think that that's that's part of the learnings that generated over the years but in the early days absolutely right there was there was never any holidays and even when there was a holiday it would be spent working and then you feel guilty because you're not spending time with your family or you feel guilty because you're not working on the business there's a lot of a lot of guilt is a really good word i think you carry around and or I certainly carried around in the early days.

1:06:55And understanding Sarah is very good at helping me understand this and you've touched on some of the tools that she brings to bear to make it happen in her own life. But understanding that actually for me to be a good boss or a good leader in the business or for me to be a good dad or a good husband at home, the things that you're feeling guilty about, actually you need to take that time for yourself, even if it's just an hour here or two hours here, to go for that walk, clear ahead, spend some time on something that interests you or your own hobbies or even just catching up with friends is really important for you to then be effective in those other roles.

1:07:38And I can think of times when business has been very stressful, when things have been going wrong or things have been really busy, when you don't allow yourself that time. And looking back, you can see that wellness or whatever we want to talk about it, for me as a person is really important for me to be effective in those other important jobs that I've got in life, which is being a boss, being a leader, and being a husband and father. So loads of guilt, but I think understanding that that, overcoming that guilt by understanding that you need that time for yourself to be effective is a really important lesson that i've learned along the way yeah it's almost seeing seeing taking the time off as as actually being super productive for the business is quite a good reframe that i should probably apply to myself but yeah it's probably easier said than done um i mean the best ideas come come come on holiday right when you've got that time away where the brains start sparking those ideas those pieces of insight you've been wrestling with a problem for a long time uh the solution you know tends to come to you when you're when you're taking time away from the other things that that and blue drinks you can get a blue drink in your hand then that always helps a blue drink yeah a blue drink blue drink you get blue drinks on holiday right the only time yeah yeah yeah so i hadn't thought of that yeah that's no jokes um no completely no i think um there's a thing by john lennon which i've interviewed a guy called rory sutherland he basically says like you need i don't know what the exact quote is but like by doing being idle is when all the ideas come like idle equals ideas and i think it's it's so true um one question i asked sarah john is and i asked us to all guests is uh what is one seemingly insurmountable obstacle that retrospectively paved the way forward and this comes from a book that i love and apply daily to my life which is called the obstacle is the way um yeah i'd love i'd love to explore that with you mate i think in the early days the the biggest obstacle and it kind of perhaps has always been and still remains the biggest obstacle is cash.

1:10:06So we're in a business that is relatively cash-hungry, right? So it's DTC, it's online. Paying today to acquire a customer that you hope will pay back over a year or two years or whatever it might be. Every business has its own set of metrics. But that in and of itself is quite cash-hungry. And we started the business without any cash. and I think we've always been rightly or wrongly cautious about raising cash. We've never done big VC or things like that. We've had term sheets, but we've never decided to go down that path. But that lack of cash is, along the way, helped us form, I guess, very tight innovation cages, we call them.

1:10:54It's about not asking what you can do. It's about asking what you can't do. and once you take options away and nothing takes options away like a lack of cash, it really helps you refine and focus your overall business strategy aligned with that. So maybe that's your point about the obstacle being away. I mean, we think of it as this idea of this sort of innovation cage or these walls that you're able to build around yourselves when the things that you don't have or seem insurmountable helps you frame the challenge and helps you direct your energies in a direction that you can succeed. So understanding what you can't do, not seeing that as a limiting factor, seeing it as a guiding factor, making sure that you're spending your energy in directions that you can see a return or can see a result is good.

1:11:59And we've always been cognizant of cash all the way along our journey and making sure that we're generating cash on the one hand before we're spending it. On the other hand, that seems obvious, but that manifests itself in things like making sure that we're focusing really hard at Christmas on the early days of the business of selling gift memberships. because gift memberships are 12 months prepaid, and that would give us cash to help fund the business in Q1.

1:12:32We launched the world's first gin bond, right? So we were the first, I think, pretty sure, the only financial product that exists today that you can get your interest paid in gin. So how do we get more cash when we need more cash? the people that we chose to invest in our business was our customers. And I think that was a brilliant moment for our business because it, first of all, you don't appreciate your customers as much as we do now until you've gotten into that kind of relationship with them where they're actually funding your business. And I think that also turns customers into advocates when they're investors in the business as well.

1:13:21So cash challenge, what do we have? Customers, great community, great relationships. Out of that came the idea for funding the business from our customers, using gin and being paid interest in gin as the hook or the angle. And that worked really well. So we launched our first gin bond in 2018. We launched our second gin bond last year, and it's still been an important part of our funding mix today. So, you know, that's a good example of cash, building a business and a model that didn't need cash to grow. And then when eventually we did need cash, you know, going out to those customers and those relationships that we built was good.

1:14:08It's good. A lot of fun. It's what you've said there, mate, is so fascinating in that there's almost two type, two fields for creativity. one is idleness equals ideas but the other one is this constraint or as you said i've made a huge note this underlined it is innovation cages like when you're constrained i you're obviously you come up with these delicious creative ideas in terms of the um the gin bond is i find it it really interesting how you create diehard fans and evangelists and i think i think there's a paul graham coaches i'd rather have a hundred people who love my brand than a million people who quite like it i think is the quote and i think it's really fascinating how did you turn turn these these customers into like your word of mouth machines and these people who shout about you from the rooftops yeah uh i think it's something we've always been it's always been core to our mission is to create those those super fans if you like um how have we done that over the years?

1:15:14I think a few levers that we've pulled on. One was being obsessive about customer service and customer experience. In the early days of the business, John and I, those two founders, we still did customer service tickets, and we did customer service tickets for probably a good couple of years after the point where we probably didn't need to. And I think talking to the customers and understanding the customers' needs and pain points when things go wrong, which is generally when people get in touch with customer service, was super useful, super important. So understanding the customer, talking to the customer, but then going above and beyond when something goes wrong.

1:15:55I think recognizing that in a continuity business like ours, it's quite hard to win a customer in the first place. having run that customer. You better do everything in your power, not to lose them. So great customer service has always been important, and we see that, still get that feedback today. In terms of word of mouth, a good customer experience can generate great chat online. People talk about, this went wrong, but then this happened, and that was amazing. I think making sure that that conversation with customers that happens on a customer service channel happens more broadly online was really, really important.

1:16:39And so making sure that the brand had an authentic voice, that people understood that behind the name Craft Gin Club, there was real people and a real business that cared about customers, but also cared about the suppliers and distillers that were coming onto our platform. So being real in the early days as people, not just Craft Gin Club, but there'd be John and John, and we would go out and we would take pictures We would share pictures and we would allow people to look behind the curtain, if you like, of the journey we were going on, how people feel like that they were part of that journey long before they formally invested in the business.

1:17:22But also then enabling those same customers that we were speaking to on customer service channels that we were having a relationship with through content and through social media and being authentic, not being ourselves, but then allowing them to talk to each other is also a really important part of the community that we've built. So something like our Facebook group, 40 ,000 of our customers in that group that talk about nothing but gin and craft gin club. And I think that there's almost safety in numbers, if you like, rather than you as a customer having a relationship with a brand, you've got a relationship with a brand, but also a relationship with all these other people that like or love that brand.

1:18:09And I think that allows people to move from that, I guess, more transactional relationship to something that lends itself to sort of almost like being a fan. Authentic and caring about customer experience and building a platform for people to share that experience together was really important. And how much did you raise from the gin bond? Oh, I think the first one we did about, I remember right, it was about 1.6 million. And then the second one was a little over three.

1:18:49By far, the majority of funding that's gone into the business has come from our customers. And then do you pay them, how does it work? Do they get like a bottle of gin a month? You can choose to take your interest. So it's a debt-based product. So you can choose to say you're interested in cash or gin or a mixture of both. And people do. Roughly 50 % of interest we pay is in gin and roughly 50 % is in cash. So it's a nice way for the business to fund itself, but it's also a nice way for our customers to get closer to us as a brand and actually get a good return on their money too. bohemi our beloved sponsor are helping build the fastest growing challenger food and drink brands look if you're a small brand just starting out and need your first indie stockist your first hundred stockist to wholesale bohemi are the platform to categorically speed that up but if you're a big brand wanting to get bigger bohemi are also insane they make field sales marble smooth silky slick they're just epic ollie's ollie's been on this podcast twice actually they saw a 29 percent uplift in sales when using boemy to check major malt listings availability insane 29 percent uplift by downloading an app insane lucky saying my boy aaron duff is coming to podcast in a couple of weeks he uses it to manage a team of 30 people and they've lucky to have unlocked 500 draft listings by using boemy look you've got to get involved with this stuff it's absolutely insane and it will categorically change your life it's just the sickest platform i use it all the time Ireland.

1:20:26Hi guys, super super quick one, so so excited. Look, for years I've been badgering on about Hungary the podcast, you're probably bored to death, thanks for putting up with me, but Hungary is also an agency and we look after one amazing brand called Ireland's Chocolate, we've had a great time over the year, we've won listings at a load of wholesalers, we've won Milk and More, we've got our first grocery listing coming very soon which is very very sick, but what I'm thrilled to announce is hungary's merging with hc consulting um my boy harry clark and his wonderful team he's an absolute g they do brand strategy new business business and account management but why i really love working with harry and why we've got on so well over the last couple of months is harry was actually the founder of the boozy isolate brand pops he's been in the trenches he's grafted his face off he's had the sleepless nights he's had the turmoil he's had the triumph He knows what it is to be a founder.

1:21:17He is a founder. And he's got a proven track record in grocery and out of home. Holy moly dips, the gut stuff, Savile drinks, Romeo gelato. So if you're a brand and you're stuck, you're looking for new business help, you're looking to scale, drop us a message. We'd love to chat. Thank you so much. Back to the old episode. I want to talk about focus because I've got like a very scatty brain. So kind of asking for a mate here. but I know you guys, again, from another article you wrote, because I think you'd created something called the Bubble Club at one point, which was a, if I'm right, I'm saying like a wine.

1:21:57Yeah, may she rest in peace. And if I'm right in saying, so what you said is focus is crucial. Early in the company, we launched a second club for sparkling wine lovers called Bubble Club. Internally realized the start is an entirely new company we had the same resources but long story longer is it was a distraction now and i watched i think the article was like 2016 now uh am i right in saying you're moving into rum like there's a rum yeah yeah yeah so circle yeah yeah so what i find interesting fascinating is right is focus is a really interesting thing because if at some point you need to be super super laser focused otherwise you're just going to you're going to run around like a headless chicken part one part two is if you if you stay too focused you eventually become you don't reinvent or you don't find those new waves or those new waters and the fact that you've had the bubble club which as you said may she rest in peace and then you now have the rum club which is is that is that up and running now or soon uh we we just shipping our second run box as we oh yeah it's it's it's out there uh amazing so so i almost think that focus is focus is like being on in cycling in the velodrome you've got the guy but the slipstream i think focus when you're super super focused it's like going around that person and then at some point you need to pull your head out and like create something new and go past but i i'd love to know like what is what is your definition of of focus first and then second like how do you say no to to opportunities that are like to mouth-watering opportunities yeah i mean focus is is the kind of crux of good good strategy isn't it so making sure that you focusing or concentrating your limited resources as a startup on the one or two single biggest opportunities or challenges that are solvable is really, I think, core to how we think about growth and strategy here at Craft Gin Club.

1:24:19So when we started the business, we envisaged a broader church, frankly, having launched continuity products, a subscription product in gin, we envisaged that we would launch similar products or clubs in similar verticals. So we started with gin. The next one we tried was Bubble Club, which is great. Two bottles of sparkling wine. You know, a magazine told you all about the wines, where they're from, who made them, interesting snacks, all that kind of fun stuff. but what we quickly found was that the opportunity in gin was was you know bigger than perhaps we thought and anticipated so making sure that we could concentrate what was still a really small business on that that big opportunity was was the right decision it was a tough decision because we had to kill something that would we'd sort of spend time inventing and coming up with a brand and building customers and audience and all that kind of stuff that we've done for bubble club but it was the right decision for the business at the time.

1:25:24And I think demonstrates perhaps something else that I think we've always tried to do as we've built our business out is to not be afraid to make mistakes and not be afraid to change our mind and not get overly attached to a way of doing things just because that's what we've been doing, being wrong and changing your mind and throwing back on decisions is an important part of the job, actually. So, Bubble Club went into the bin. But then alongside that, I think what happened next was that we were right. The gin train really began to take off. And then lockdown came along, which was, you know, I had to say a good time to be in direct consumer booze because the whole country was locked up at home.

1:26:18and looking to replace their nights out with elevated nights in, and we were there to do that. So having gone through a few months of worry, will the supply chains hold up, will we be able to get product out to customers, all that stuff? And we quickly realized that, well, so it was difficult for the country, but for our business, lockdown was a huge tailwind. What we didn't quite appreciate at the time is that it also led us into a bit of a full sense of security. So we were seeing lots and lots and lots of demand, and all we could do was keep up with the growth of our core proposition. It probably meant having that kind of diversification piece to bed for a while when we closed Bubble Club.

1:27:02We were then too late to revisit. We were too late. You're never too late. We were late and perhaps would have been ideal to revisit that. Okay, what comes next? question, which following lockdown, we're now addressing and we're super excited to, I guess, take our concepts and our brand into new directions. New categories is one and rum. It's something we've been testing over the summer, but we've also got tests in vodka. We're doing something in whiskey that's coming out. Soon, together with Whiskey Magazine, we've got a test in cocktail box test looking at running a non-alcoholic box test in january so so lots of experimentation uh at the very sort of front of our our innovation funnel if you like around category also looking at channel and we've now got a small team that that looks at how we bring the brand to life in non-direct consumer channel so retail so we've recently won a listing with uh oliver bonas with john lewis uh with harvey nicks actually came in today which is amazing all this thing so so this this idea of you know having built a brand that has authority in the space how do we then use that that brand and that authority to bring products to life in in retail type channels so that's exciting but also then looking at how we can access markets beyond the UK as well.

1:28:38And we've got a test going live, I think, in the next couple of weeks, where our advent calendar, which is our kind of hero non-subscription product, if you like, will be going out and available in European markets as a sort of test of that avenue of expansion as well. So having done a really good job of focusing, we probably then spent too long focusing and we're a bit too late. the thing I would have liked in hindsight to that what comes next question. And that's always the challenge, right? It's finding that balance of you're small, you're a startup, you have limited resources, you have to focus.

1:29:17And focusing all of your energy on the one most profitable opportunities, I think how you create value, but then making sure that if that works and you grow, you're cognizant of what comes next because most of those opportunities will be limited in nature to some degree. So, you know, there's only so much you can do in gin with one SKU in one market. So, yeah, it's exciting. It's perhaps the most excited I've been about the business in a long, long time, actually, just because we're now getting to play in new products, new categories, new markets, all of which is new to us so we're learning again and that's the fun part of business actually I think where you're sort of getting out there, you're trying to devise experiments, you're coming up with tests, you're getting some results, you're changing your mind quickly and hopefully successfully before landing on some kind of product market fit in something that sits outside of but alongside what we've built in Gin.

1:30:26yeah it's it's fascinating your answer john it's almost like you you need such a relentless focus to get the business model of subscription working and once you've got that working then you can apply it to different categories and that's where the uh it's almost what you're doing as and it's kind of what we've been talking about the whole conversation is is you've caught the wind in in one in one on one boat it's like can you catch it in other boats and slash where is that wind i'd love to know you said craft is purpose like or a part of craft is purpose i'd love to know what is your purpose if we were to like no i don't mean it's a weird way but like go into your into your soul good like what what what gets you out of bed like what pushes you through the headwinds we've talked a lot about tailwinds but there's a lot of headwind in business like what is your why yeah personally yeah personally i think i think what has always excited me throughout my career also before my career is is is building things um you know whether that as a kid and being obsessed with playing with lego or then more latterly learning to write software and build software and turning that into an engineering career and then a technology career it was always the idea of building something that excited me but also understanding how things are built so as an example I love to cook I love to be in the kitchen because I really like to understand the process of how yummy things are made, right?

1:32:12It's great to sit down and have a delicious meal, but actually understanding what makes it delicious is what really excites me. So it's building things, but also understanding how things should be built and bringing those two, I guess, passions together into the field of entrepreneurship is great because that's what entrepreneurship is all about, really. It's about building something, even though you don't know what it is you're building, and you kind of learn along the way. So what excites me is how do we, every day, build the next story of our house, which is this craft gin club, whether that's people, whether that's process, whether that's product, all of that works together, help build the next rung to the ladder or the next level to the house.

1:33:02And I think that ties back to, I think, what I wanted to achieve out of an entrepreneurial career, as well as, you know, that sense of independence and freedom is having built something that will exist beyond my involvement and beyond my time in the business long after I've retired. you can sit there and say, yeah, we built that. And that I think would be a nice place to be when I'm in that rocking chair in the retirement home a few years down the line, having looked back with a sense of accomplishment on a career, which to me means having built something real and tangible. It's created jobs, it creates opportunity, it's created fun and enjoyment for customers, all that good stuff.

1:33:45But it's that sense of building. Building. it's i i think almost kind of in parallel to to the the genesis of of the of the jinn revolution in like 2009 2011 was this kind of fascination with with the word entrepreneur and like being a founder became suddenly very romantic and uh you know pre that well when i when i was at university ever it was like go and work in investment banking and that would be like the best job go in the city you know wolf of wall street all that shit but the you know then then now the kind of the thing is founder and and what i spoke with william chase is the founder of of tyrell's crisps and and um chase distillery you know the gin uh yeah and um he he's a super interesting guy and he taught me something and you've what you've said here jordan completely builds onto this it's like if you actually take away the word entrepreneur and say you've got to be a builder suddenly not every not everyone in the university hall is going to put their hand up and say i want to be a builder because that's what it is it's big brick by brick day by day and you're actually building something it's not this sort of romantic thing and i think there's there's something in that about about uh about being a builder and and yeah i don't know i don't know exactly what it is but there's a lot in that um a few more things i want to explore then we'll wrap this up but absolutely loving this man yeah learning so so much hi there guys thank you so much for listening as always means the absolute world to me before we jump into this episode i need a really big big big big favor i have pitched us some massive guests humongous guests and unfortunately they've said no because my subscriber count isn't big enough please please please just hit the subscribe button on apple or spotify or follow ultimately it helps all of us bigger guests equals better conversations equals hopefully better insights for you which means you can scale hopefully faster with a little less stress as well so please hit that subscribe button and yeah enjoy this episode so we we've talked a lot about the kind of the like the hard days this tailwind and stuff i'd love to dig into into subscription d2c businesses because i don't know bugger all about it and i know a lot of our a lot of uh brands listen to this we're actually coming it from the other way they start in retail then want to build out d2c what i know there's like cac and ltv and all this stuff but what are some of the absolute must do's when trying to build a successful subscription business would you say i think i think it starts with the product uh and i think understanding what makes a product in subscription work uh i think subscription requires a, obviously, a deeper commitment from the consumer when they're signing up for a continuity product, even though in our case, we don't tie people into any minimum periods, it's very easy to cancel your subscription.

1:36:50It's still more of a considered purchase than just buying boxes of gin. So there's got to be something that you offer in exchange for that that deeper level of commitment uh and as you know ticking as many boxes as you can is obviously good but but things that we've always thought about was okay value for money and do people get more for their money because they buy from us on subscription than if they were to go out and spend that money piecemeal online or in the stores so so our product has a retail price point,£45. Value of goods in the box, retail equivalent is often£70,£75. It's really good value for money.

1:37:34I think that's important. I think giving people access to something that they otherwise couldn't get access to is another good reason to subscribe. So Netflix, for example, get you to subscribe because that's the only way you can watch one or two of their big hit shows. For us, a lot of the gins that we bring into the UK market, you can't get anywhere else, right? So, I mean, this month's gin is from Mexico. Contessa, amazing gin, not in the UK market. We've gone to Mexico, we've sourced it, we brought that over for members. The only way you can get that gin as a UK gin drinker is by being a member of Craft Gin Club.

1:38:14So that idea of access is also super important. I think the idea of curation and understanding what customer pain you might take away there is also important. So in our world, we're being that gateway of quality, right? So for a lot of customers, and I think for myself, right, I love cheese. I find cheese shops overwhelming. I find a subscription box from the Cheese Society amazing. Why? Because they send me half a dozen cheeses, the right size, with the information that I need to bring that tasting experience to life. But they've done the hard work of choosing them, curating them, putting them together in a package that makes sense.

1:39:03And that's what we do with our box. We've got that gateway of quality, which is really important. And then the fourth element for subscription that we rely on that I think is perhaps underappreciated by people that don't know our business is the element of surprise and self-gifting. So it's a very different, I think, psychological process to go through. You walk into a shop, choose a bottle of gin for yourself and take it home as it is to sit at home, wait for a parcel to arrive. You don't know what's in there and all of our members get their parcels over the same day or two. So when these boxes arrive, it's a big event in the ginosphere online.

1:39:48people get super excited and the the positive feedback that we hear the most from our customers is that it feels like christmas 12 times a year and that that concept of excitement of surprise you know as adults how often do we get gifts this day and age outside of christmas and birthdays rarely right so you've got this this almost gift to yourself or that someone's bought for you coming every month you don't know what's in there. It's super excited. You know, broadly, you're going to like it because it's going to be gin, but you have no idea what gin, what cocktail we're making, what snacks are in there, what country it's from, what makes it unique.

1:40:25And then it lands on your doorstep and you get to sort of that unboxing moment that people really love. And then that sharing moment online that people really love. And, you know, you can't buy that. You literally can't buy that, right? You can't go into the shop and pick that up off the shelf. And we deliver that through crafting club experience so being good value for money being that that gateway of quality providing access to things that you can't get anywhere else and adding that sort of moment of magic in the month uh through surprise and delight is i think what makes not just our subscription model but but almost any successful subscription model will have some of those elements to them what is the the the process of sourcing the gins to stay ahead of the curve like that to me sounds bamboozling bamboozling right because you said you got 12 boxes a year like that's a lot of new gins to keep it fresh i know you could probably you know rinse not rinse and repeat but you could get have a cycle but i'd love to kind of how are you getting these gins and how are you finding these amazing gins with stories etc it's a tough part of the job it is actually a tough part of the job but but it's an enjoyable part of the job so we probably taste uh i would say 400 gins a year uh come through crafting club offices from all over the world and there's you know there's hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of distilleries just in the UK alone.

1:41:59So there's not a shortage of producers out there. Our job is to, I think, gather those gins into one place. We then taste those gins as a group, and everybody in the business is responsible for joining a gin tasting team and taking their turn on our gin tasting panel. We taste those gins blind so that we don't know what the gin is of where it's from liquid and then we reveal gin and the brand and when we judd a gin based on quality of the liquid but also the quality of you know the story that sits behind it right we want to find gins that are interesting that are made by real people with real passions rather than you know the more sort of faceless brands that that can be out there in the booze industry.

1:42:52That's nothing wrong with those, but that's not what we're looking for. We're looking for great gin, hopefully with good or interesting branding, but with real interesting stories behind them. So everybody tastes that. There's then the whole second filter process that I get more closely involved with, because it's important not only to choose good gins, but also to choose a good year of gins you know we have six months of gins six gins a year from the uk six gins a year from the rest of the world we want a nice spread of countries of styles stories uh that help weave a you know a really interesting tapestry of of drinking experiences throughout the year uh and that's something you know we think about a lot so it's not just choosing great gin And it's choosing a great calendar of gins that makes experience of being a craft gin club member interesting and varied and fun.

1:43:56Where else is gin massive? Is the gin movement ubiquitous around the globe or is it in, is the UK leading the, like if you were to go to, I don't know, Germany or Poland? Yeah. So I think the biggest gin drinking market in the world, correct me if I'm wrong, someone might, by volume anyway, is the Philippines. Really? They do, yeah. They've got a portion for a particular brand of gin that's not the best, but they drink a lot of it. But in terms of the kind of craft gin boom, if you like, that we've seen in the UK, then we have seen similar in Spain. We're now seeing similar interest in Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, Holland, Belgium, Denmark.

1:44:50These are all places where lookalike businesses have sprung up. So, you know, Krafting Club in Germany will be under a different name. Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, copycat businesses have sprung up. And America is also catching on to the gin trend. So I think whilst a lot of the growth has happened in the UK market now, there's still lots of growth left for gin as a category globally, which I think is excited. And in a lot of those countries, it's been fueled by the same thing that fueled the growth in the UK. that is local producers bringing local products to market that people appreciate first and foremost locally.

1:45:37And that is then lending itself to a sort of springboard effect, really, as people then get into gin more broadly and look to broaden their horizons and taste experiences. So, yeah, it's great. It's a great time to be in gin. and will be for a number of years yet. And how we access that enthusiasm in overseas markets is a super interesting business challenge, but also a big opportunity, right? A couple more things, John. And this is just kind of completely following my own curiosity. I know you said you love food. And I mean, food is kind of, I live to eat. It's my favorite thing in the world.

1:46:23what are some of your favorite sort of restaurants in in london and and what you said about these little surprises i thought was was delicious because i think some of the best restaurants they provide you with little surprises that you don't expect and it just makes the whole experience better there's paul ainsworth down in cornwall at the end of the meal he gives you like a a selection of chocolate and coffee i was like it's those little things i'd love to know like what's some of your favorite like restaurants so i guess i'd like different styles of eating experiences uh so we recently moved offices so we've just moved into a new office over in in clarkham well uh and there's a there's a street a couple street service at white cross street there must be 50 food stalls and sort of street food stalls either side you know i can spend a a happy hour just wandering around there before even buying anything.

1:47:19And I love that kind of eating experience where it's, you know, you're discovering new dishes and weird and wonderful things that you wouldn't necessarily eat. But I'm also a sucker on the other side of that same coin for sort of, you know, tradition. And I love a trolley, right? So, you know, I love a restaurant where there's a cheese trolley or a dessert trolley or that whole kind of, you know, almost formal dining experience where you're really taking your time over a meal, uh, and, and you're sort of going through the gears and going through the courses, uh, can be a lot of fun as well. So I like both, uh, both ends of the scale.

1:48:02I enjoy, I think in London we're blessed because there's just so much good food around, right? And there's so many good places to go, go and eat, whether you're eating sort of Korean or Japanese or French or Argentinian or you name it, it's there. And there's a variety of styles of restaurant to access those cuisines as well. So, you know, you can spend a fortune or you can spend a little. So it's a good place to eat. But yeah, if you take me somewhere with a trolley, I'll be happy. Trolley and you'll be happy. Final, well, I've just got two more questions. So ask this to all guests, but what is one truth that you believe that most people would probably disagree with you on?

1:48:49So do we lose each other then? I lost you there, Dan, for a second. Oh, sorry. Yeah, what is one truth that you believe that most people would disagree with you on? People don't change. Because? I think one of the things that people disagree with me a lot on, I think you can change people's skills and help people become better at their job. I've very rarely seen or been able to see people change their fundamental nature or personality. So sometimes, I'll give you an example, if someone's not ripe for a job or a role or for a position in the team, not because of their skill set, but something about either their personality or the way that personality works with somebody else in the team, it's not necessarily a case that there's anything wrong with either personality.

1:49:50It's just that personalities don't go together. I think quite often the received wisdom from people around me is that, you know, that we can somehow affect changing that person or changing that behavior. And that is probably perceived wisdom, but I don't tend to agree with it. I think people are people and it's much more important to find a role or a function or an area that people can succeed in as themselves rather than to try and put people into a place where to succeed they need to change who they are. I've never thought of that ever. I think you're right. It's like the narrative is how do we upskill this person and try and fit a square into a circle?

1:50:43Yeah, I mean, you can teach someone Excel. You can teach someone sales skills, but you can't choose a negative. uh example you know if someone's lazy you can't make them unlazy uh and you know that doesn't it doesn't mean that a lazy person can't be good in business or good in a job they can be right some of the best software engineers i've ever worked with were great because they were lazy right they they solved things quickly they used automation uh so that things were done for them so they didn't have to do things. There's places for all kinds of people within teams and within businesses, but understanding that I think getting people into a position or a role or an area where they can thrive as themselves is much better than the alternative of trying to sort of fit people into a role that perhaps they're not suited for.

1:51:44I think, doesn't Bill Gates have a quote, which is like if i need something done i'll ask the laziest person i think it's something like that um final question john yeah yeah i think i think that is i think that's a bill gates um thing it's like just yeah they'll find the fastest way to get there if they're the laziest what's the best gin most memorable gin and tonic you've ever had like what's your favorite gin tonic not supposed to have favorites it's like like asking me what what my favorite child is but But I often tell people I've got a favorite gin for every hour of the day. You tell me a time, I'll give you a gin.

1:52:20But I'm going to give you an answer. This is one gin that I think stands out in my memory. Because of the gin we served on Dragon's Den. So we served a gin called Blue Bottle from Guernsey, which is a lovely gin. Really spicy. Lots of cubic pepper and cardamom. but also bottled quite strong. I think it's bottled at 47 % or something. So it makes a real punchy gin and tonic that really stands up to not only tonic, but also dilution, right? So we're conscious of, we're going to go into, we probably overthought this a little bit. We're going to go into the den. We're going to have gin and tonics on a little trolley.

1:53:02They're probably going to melt, right? They're going to be out there in the lights for however long before they get to taste them. So we wanted a gin that would stand up to that dilution. and still carry the wow factor. And it did. They loved it. It went down very well. We were last on. So it was the end of the day's filming for the Dragons. They were grateful that we came in with a gin and tonic more than being a coffee subscription. And just quickly, why did you pick that gin versus any other? I think because it had a really strong flavor profile, really strong ABV. We knew it would work well under light, so to speak.

1:53:40uh is also just a favorite of ours no and a member's favorite well john like i've absolutely loved that i've just yeah bamboozled with with new wisdom i think i think the central learning from you is is this ability to kind of use data on what's going on around you married with your intuition to see where the wind's going and kind of move with that and i think it will help uh so many listeners so yeah thank you so much mate really appreciate it good my absolute pleasure good to chat thank you so so much for listening to the podcast i really really do appreciate it if you like that episode only if you liked it please do give it five stars subscribe tell all your friends families foes next door but one cat dog whatever please tell everyone about this podcast it means the world to me and i really want to understand what your pain points are as the new wave of 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

1:55:03Thank you.