Espresso: PerfectTed's One Secret To Building an INSANE Creative Culture to unlock Tesco, Waitrose, Ocado, Sainsbury's in ONE Year

0:06Any founder that comes on here and is like it's been easy and this is what we did and this is the strategy we pursued Honestly, there are days now When I come into the office and I'm like What the fuck are we doing? And how do you I want to talk about A post, a thing you wrote, mate I think this is the perfect time to bring this in Let me try and find this You were talking about Vulnerability cultures Equals creative cultures That's what I took I used to tell you about this I used to think that strong leadership Men you always had to put on a brave face but Brené Brown, I might have copied and pasted this wrong, her work on courage and innovation dispels that myth.

0:53She argues vulnerability is actually essential to innovation. I was like, wow. Since innovation by definition is idea iteration, failure iteration, failure iteration, and some companies that inspire high tolerance for vulnerability and courage will be the most innovative. Vulnerability is not weakness, and leaders who promote cultures that suggest otherwise will reduce their team's willingness to take leaps of faith that are critical to innovation. I was like, that's amazing. So how do you, there's something in that, right, to set the scene for this part of the conversation in that you need to show a degree of vulnerability to make it feel like, guys, I want you to try something and if it fails, it's sweet.

1:35But then equally, you're the positive, perfect teddy. Do you know what I mean? And it's like, so how do you navigate that paradox? Do you know what I mean? I think it can be, the numbness I was talking about before, I think you can be vulnerable, but professional. I don't think they're mutually exclusive. I think when people think about vulnerability, they're like, oh my God, are you crying in the office in front of your team? I think there are probably certain situations, like my dog died this week, where it probably would have been appropriate to cry in the office. And there are situations where, you know what, if there is a business challenge that is particularly frustrating and I should probably go and take a walk because me crying in the office is not helpful to the team's morale and not helpful to other people working and focusing on their own role.

2:19When I think about vulnerability and its impact on innovation, if you're not willing to fail, you're not willing then to try new things that are potentially risky. Ultimately, starting a business is inherently risky in itself. So you are being vulnerable if you've made that decision to start a business. There are so many people that start a business on the side because they're not yes they may frame it as they're not willing to be they're not willing to take that risk or they can't take that risk but I think a lot of it is ego and an unwillingness to be vulnerable being vulnerable is putting yourself out there and regardless of whether it works out or not you being totally okay with that outcome and as we think about launching new products for example we put samples in front of Holland and Barrett today but I was like you know what the taste isn't there and I knew the taste wasn't there so I asked him okay well what how can we improve on the taste and we got great feedback you know what we'll go and implement that that wasn't failure that wasn't the buyer turning around and be like the product shit my favorite quote is one that my dad reminds me and it's i i try and come back to it whenever i'm stressed or anxious is fear knocked faith opened and no one was there i'll repeat that fear knocked faith opened and no one was there there are so many situations that we you know we end up killing ourselves with anxiety and truthfully nothing no risk or no anxiety ever materializes i also think that by creating a professionally vulnerable culture you're kind of you don't have to have a face on in the office um if you work here um i think it might be different for us because obviously we want to maintain this level of forward movement and um again professionalism But I think that by allowing the team to feel that they can be vulnerable, you're actually creating the headspace for more creativity.

4:15Because when you're experiencing negative emotions, and negative emotions might be feelings of self-consciousness or feelings of hiding something, then you can't actually experience the full range of positive emotion and thus allowing your mind to expand. And so for us, it's so integral to continually be creative and innovate that we're all experiencing positive emotion.

5:01where your stock is don't miss availability look your favorite brands literally use unleashed as their backbone candy kins tiny rebel trip always religiously look there's a link in the show notes please feel free to book a call with josh and his wonderful sales team at unleashed they're amazing even nothing comes of it and even better news you'll get your first month free if you reference hungry thank you it but also the vulnerability takes the i think in so many cultures people are afraid to ask dumb questions as an ego one I think scared of getting berated by bosses for crap ideas two what vulnerability and I love the word what you said there was a professional vulnerability because professional is a big caveat but what that allows us to do is it takes the kind of the edges off and when the edges are off it gives you the permission to fail there's a quote by I was putting a lot of quotes out the perfect head must be working but Ernest Hemingway obviously one of the best writers of all time his quote that loads of comedians in the States have on their laptop the first draft of everything is shit and basically what it means is that's okay that gives you the permission for the first draft to be shit, you're going to make it better the third draft, and it's something I adhere to massively and this is what you're doing with the match with Holman Barrett today, I'm not saying it was shit but it gives you the permission to take something to Holman Barrett which may not be perfect but get feedback, whereas I think if you say the first draft is perfect that meeting with holland barrett doesn't happen today you know what i mean and it's just fascinating just getting into when that pro launches they will feel like they had developed it with us and they and they had you know it was a guy called morgan housel who um wrote the psychology of money i think is the book he had a quote or he went down a line of thinking that i thought was particularly interesting and i think it relates to founders is he said the best state in the world or the best position you can be in as a person is to be unknown and rich because there's no expectation there's no social debt is what he calls interesting um and you've got all the benefits of having wealth whether you define that in terms of having a happy family or monetary it doesn't matter the worst situation to be in is to be famous and poor and that's because you have this expectation that you need to live lead a life in a certain way or a certain fashion or to a certain level whether that's going to nice restaurants wearing nice clothes having a nice car but you don't have the money to be able to afford it so there's such a disparity between the expectation of the life that you should live and the life that you can actually live and i think founder-led brands run that risk and we've had that risk is you know when you're bootstrapping a business and i'm eating tesco noodles every day everyone's like oh my god listing after listing after listing what they don't see is a company that is, you know, every single month, just like scathing past payroll in terms of just fighting for survival.

7:53And now, fortunately, we're in a position where we don't have to do that. But I think what was, what sort of induced a lot of pressure at the beginning was being definitely not famous, but after Dragon's Den, being at least known. I mean, in the street today, someone came up to me and said, hey, you're perfect Ted, which is great and super nice. But when you're having a shit day, you almost just want to be unknown, right? so it's how do you and I was speaking to Ron upstairs about this and it's fascinating is how to balance the fun and this is I'm talking about on social now you've done some hilarious things both of you guys I was so joking with and Ron was saying but moving the pendulum slightly more to this is match this is the value of it that piece and I think I interviewed the founder of Who Gives a Crap and he was saying you know the toilet paper yeah and he was saying something so interesting he goes too much purpose makes a brand boring and it's like you know then he gave the analogy of a dinner party you've got a dinner party and there's a person who just talks about the environment as much as it's great you can't do a full evening and he was basically saying we've discussed this a lot about texture texture in humans texture and brands and he was saying with who gives a crap it's like we give away 40 of our profits to build toilets around the world but we're called who gives a crap and I think it's interesting how do you balance move the pendulum from fun to to serious brand like how are you navigating that thank you so so much for listening it honestly means the world to me I hope you enjoyed your morning coffee and go and have an amazing day let's be having ya if you want the full episode it will be in the show notes and it will be in the show notes the full episode thank you so much please leave friends as well means the world to me

9:42Thank you.