I Sold Innocent Juices to CocaCola for Millions - Here’s The Truth

0:00Hello, hello. I hope you are wonderful wherever you are in the world listening to this. so grateful you're tuning in. This episode is so special. When I started the podcast about four years ago in the grips of lockdown, I wrote a list on a piece of paper of all the brands I'd love to interview. At the top of that list, Innocent has been stuck there and I've always wanted to speak to Innocent. Innocent are the OG challenger brand. They are the dons of challenger food and drink and they've inspired so many people I've listened to. and I got introduced to Adam it was kind of a funny story actually like got introduced to him on email then he was like look I'll give you 10 minutes on kind of FaceTime to kind of pitch me the podcast so I spent hours and hours kind of prepping the questions was absolutely cacking my pants got on to FaceTime with Adam kind of gave him the rundown this what I would love to talk about I was a bit cheeky asked for two hours of his time he said don't have that don't have that so then I went for 90 minutes but we got an hour and I'm so grateful for just an hour of this absolute legend and he taught me so much 17 principles about brand building how innocent became the OG brand we go into kind of nascent labs anti-fragile brands how do you build brands that come out of stress and become post-traumatic growth brands so good um we talk about how things went wrong like everyone sees the glory days of innocent in 2008 things were tanking a monster was attacking fruit towers and it was going pete tong um different and better the whole people always say be different not better i've done that i didn't fucking talk about that uh he goes into how you have to be different and better and we go right into that we go into the five levels of how to be a household brand um how innocent hired along the curve as you come from from small niche to household brand he's got a beautiful way of culture um this kind of blackpool candy stick philosophy which is amazing and hilarious but so pithy and succinct and it just like made total sense the internal versus external it's got a quote i love i'd rather have a hole than an arsehole so good so so good um we talk about how brands get sunk by actually saying yes to supermarkets why you just got to avoid that the golden question i mean i never even thought of this he has literally four words a golden question which is like mitch basically makes every brand work yeah if you answer this question correctly your brand works uh how innocent finally cracked europe like that was a headache wrapped in a flu cuddled in an enigma it was an absolute nightmare but adam managed to get it work how to get your board on side with your brand so many people have investors and and board members but how do you actually get them bought into the journey with you um there's just so much in this uh culture is finding me and we i absolutely loved it uh i hope you're going to love it too uh i'd be so grateful if you could please leave a five-star review preferably obviously um and yeah share the podcast on linkedin share it wherever you can it really really helps uh and yeah i hope you enjoy this episode with the og challenger brand innocent thank you thank you for doing this we're incredibly grateful pleasure no it's um pleasure to be here and yeah i think that's one of the things we did best at innocent was actually hiring some amazing people um and they've gone on to do some incredible things giles emma and many others besides um so you know i think that's one of the one of the legacies i feel most proud of but we're definitely gonna get on to that i think what i'd like to start with is i was doing like a jumble of research online and i found a book on the jam jar instagram which was the black swan oh yeah by nasim taleb and um i want to kind of use that as our kind of opening gambit sure and And he's got two books.

3:46He's got Black Swan and Anti-Fragile. So Anti-Fragile is the whole premise of that book is things gain from disorder. So it's like post-traumatic growth versus post-traumatic stress. And I think people I always saw the innocent journey as this kind of going upwards that you kind of built the rocket ship. It was it was soaring upwards. And I'd love to kind of parachute into 2007, 2008. and kind of the Black Swan event or the Black Swan was the financial crash. It was almost like a monstrous beast that was kind of attacking through towers, if you want to put it in those terms. And I'd love to go into what was the, yeah, as you say, you've built this rocket ship, it's going, it begins to tank.

4:31What was the hardest day in that period? What were the sleepless nights? What was the feelings? Yeah. I think probably, so just to set the context, the business had grown, you know, from nothing to about 100 million, nine years, sort of broadly, everything had been going right. Tailwinds had been with us, the trends were with us, the economy was good. and I think we wrote the budget for 2008 which was to do I think 140 million of turnover which would 30 % growth and make I can't remember what it was but you know 10-15 million bottom line expand across Europe everything was going well and we wrote this thing and the first signs that things were going wrong was to beginning of 2008 January we normally have a big January the big January wasn't quite as big as it normally was, as we expected.

5:28And then things started to, you know, February didn't get much better. And then March got a bit worse. And then by the time we got to the summer, things were really tanking. And we were actually losing sales, losing money. And we went from a fast growing profitable business to one that was losing money and actually running out of cash. And I remember all of us sat around and said, okay, so we we need a new plan here and the thing that we'd said was we're not going to take any external money we will do this independently um and let's write the plan that gets us through and we wrote that plan and it was the most depressing plan you've ever seen i remember sitting in the room where where we sort of shared it and it was just like we're going to have to close all the international offices fire a load of people step back from our ambition of being europe's favorite little juice company and we sort of looked at each other and we're just like oh god that's so depressing that's just not what we're not what we're about um so we thought well look the constraint here was about raising money so if we raise that you know loosen that constraint and say we will raise money what could the plan look like and from that low point actually things started to get better um not not directly but that decision was a really good one it was like you know what let's raise some money and let's continue our mission to be europe's favorite juice company And whilst we did have to trim and cut back, it wasn't the wholesale complete about turn that we would have had to do if we were unfunded.

6:48And so that was probably the most depressing day when we looked at that plan and just went, oh, God. What was on the plan specifically? Because I think this could help. We're going through, so many people say to me that this is one of the hardest times right now. And where I suppose I'm trying to get from is Black Swan to building anti-fragile brands for today. yeah like what was on that plan back then and what do you think people should be putting on their plans to survive kind of this tumultuous well I suppose but just pulling back a bit I think we what happened in 2008 was sort of everything that could go wrong went wrong at the same time and I think that's you know that's sometimes life is like that actually in black swan events actually are a bit more frequent than you sort of realize because there was that and then obviously the pandemic and so so actually that's you know thinking forward it's realizing actually when things go wrong often they go wrong in twos threes fours fives um and that's exactly what happened for us in 08 so um obviously the recession hit people stopped spending on on what they saw as needless luxuries and innocent for some people was seen as that um Tropicana launched a smoothie and started getting really aggressive on price um Sterling collapsed because the recession and all our input prices are in euros so um you know our input prices went up um the mango crop the apple crop the banana crop were all bad normally they balanced each other out one was good one was bad that year for some reason they were all bad so we were hit by this sort of massive like bang bang bang bang and we just started on a big international expansion which meant we had put in loads of cost into the business opening up offices and hiring people abroad and so suddenly it went from being massively profitable to to losing money really quickly it was you know in the space of three or four months um so that was the context um and i suppose to answer your question on the plan um the plan that we didn't follow was basically a slash and burn cut everything right back you know basically we've closed all the offices outside of london um uh you know we had to would have had to let a load of people go cut all mpd or marketing and it was just like oh that's too depressing.

8:53And we're fortunate, we hadn't diluted much, we hadn't raised a lot of money beforehand. So we had the capacity to raise money, which is what we went and did. And that allowed us to basically invest through the tough time, the recession, where many other people didn't. And that helped actually form the foundation of the next growth of the business. and what would you say in in that period of time this as you say this this stress stress period and you guys have come out you know post-traumatic growth is what you're saying yeah how do you personally like when you go back to home to notting hill how do you deal with that pressure because i'm kind of asking this selfishly as well because i feel a lot yeah and i think look i think i think actually it was always from the setup of the business with three of us running it and three of us equal partners that made sharing the burden so much easier because you didn't have to carry around in your own head i'm in awe of people who set up businesses on their own or even with just two of you actually three allows you to share the burden much much more and that was hugely useful but then by the by the 2007-8 we actually had a you know a great top team so it was the whole the whole board team and we were just very transparent so there was so whilst we all felt it personally we we could at least sort of share the feelings between us and i think that was hugely important and one of the things we learned was not only share it with the top team but actually share it with everybody in the business because the rumors were starting to fly around the business it was like some people like oh there's no problem at all we're absolutely fine other people's like we're going bus tomorrow and every attitude you know every belief in between so we had to share very clearly what was happening with this what the numbers were what this meant and by being transparent it meant that really killed the rumors and basically get people sort of focus on the day job and then you with jam jar you work and invest in so many amazing brands i think lucky saint um have been on this podcast who gives a crap i've been on this podcast yeah um what would you say are the principles and like the absolute bare minimum requirements for brands to have whether that's like um yeah for brands to have to remain anti-fragile in today's climate yeah i think um that brands have got to stand for something that consumers care about and I suppose always deliver on that trust.

11:14And I think that's the sort of outward bit, but the inward bit is just as important. They've got to be built on a foundation and culture of people who share a common mission and give a damn about what they're doing and will work really hard for each other. And so it's the combination of the consumer sort of pull and that internal sort of belief that I think gets brands through and that's certainly what got innocent through the tough times yeah because I've heard you talk Libby talks about this this better versus different proposition as kind of a kind of a common thread through most of the brands you you invest and I'd love to kind of tease that out and then we can talk about this internal versus external yeah so I think first um because there's a lot of people I've spoken to it's like the and I even did like a little talk about this which is be different not better yeah it's almost like everyone says they're better yeah we're more prebiotic we're more probiotic yeah blah blah blah blah blah yeah be different and you kind of create a category of one right yeah but what you've said is the be the be different and better so i think just setting the the scene like what is defined different and then defined better please oh um so so in terms of different you've just got to you've got to stand out you've got to actually find a way of not only not doing exactly what everyone else does, but communicating that as well.

12:33And for Innocent, it was really clear. It was like everyone was all about multicolors, really garish and bright branding. And with Innocent, we went completely pared back, very simple. And that was just different. It just looked different. And, you know, different can be on the aesthetics like that. It can be in the taste. it can be on the tone and attitude, it can be on many different things. But I think being different has to be across a number of different directions or parameters, basically. So I think being different is important to be different across the board, across everything that matters to consumers, be it the design, the look, the feel, the taste, the tone and what you stand for.

13:20And I think that's what we managed to do well at Innocent. We were really quite distinctive versus all the other drinks competition. And then being better, well, for us actually, we tasted a lot better than what was out there. And that's subjective, obviously. But actually, that's what people fundamentally care about in a food product. And all the stuff around the way we talk, the pictures we drew, the silly jokes, that was all secondary to the fact the products were great um and obviously better didn't mean everybody found them delicious but on average people would definitely prefer ours to pretty much anything else out there and and we spent all our efforts on doing that and then the funny little sort of marketing bits were were the add-ons so it was absolute focus on the product that was the heart of all the marketing that we ever did so almost the best is the product angle and the difference the culture the would you yeah and the branding yeah obviously if they're yeah yes exactly so um you know if you are better if you're better you are different to some extent but um but you need more than just being sort of tasting better if we would just tasted better but had exactly the same packaging exactly the same look tone and feel as everyone else I don't think the business would have worked you kind of need to do both at the same time um what would you say is more important different or better i think you've got to do both i think you've got to do both i think that's the i think that's the point you've just got to do you've got to do both um because you otherwise just don't you know if you're better but it's the same no one notices you it's very different you grow very slowly if at all if you're different but not better you get noticed and no one then uses you comes back so you kind of need both and that's that's the thing with business business is hard right starting the business is hard you need to get everything lined up you can get nine out of ten things right and if that tenth thing is a key thing business may not work so that's why it's it's it's a rare thing for businesses to work and um and anyone who's doing it is is it's it's a bloody hard work and a challenge right but the rewards are great when you get it right um i want to i want to go into this i think i talked about you with you this and callmate which was this this five wise um like framework and i find it really interesting is we're kind of combining the be different and better with the five wires.

15:44Basically, five wires allows you to get deeper and deeper and deeper into the root cause of things. And I almost think we've almost, people listen to this, you've got level one brands, which would be something like a, you know, the food market in Barnes. That's level one. Level two would be a Whole Foods Planet Organic. Level three would be someone like in a Sainsbury's or a co-op store. Level four, blah, blah. Level five would be an innocent, a Tony's, a Vita Coco, an urban legend, fill in the blank. I'd love to know, and I asked Giles this question, and I was like, how did you find that extra gear to almost go down into that?

16:22And you've seen some work with so many brands. How do you go from a level three, which would probably be that four million mark, four to five million mark where people get stuck? What's the extra things you've got to do to kick on, to build an innocent, to build a Vita Coco? go i think i think there's an obsessiveness that you you need to really want to improve everything all the time and i think that that obsessiveness was definitely there at instant be it make the packaging slightly more um eco make the packaging slightly funnier make it slightly cheaper make it slightly more appealing same with the product same with um the deals we do with our distributors the constant you know john always talked about kaizen the japanese um self self and continual self improvement on manufacturing and that was definitely a sort of a culture that we we we imbued throughout innocent which is not being uh happy with the status quo always trying restlessly trying to improve things um and that's difficult because you know you've pulled in constant different directions as a business but actually you just can't stand still you can't say i've got a product right i'm going to go and sell it now it's like that product will get caught up other people do it and it won't you know it won't be different or better um if you don't move forward in in six months so so you know I think that that's one of the things we did really well actually is constantly restlessly wanted to make things better so that's that's almost like a kind of a top line uh yeah almost like a cultural thing really yeah like a country yeah yeah relentless pursuit of better yeah yeah myriad of different ways to say it and then I suppose and again this is all case by case yeah but what would you say are some of the hires you need to go from say a four million level three brand to like a we're going to start building into a into a real big household brand yeah um i think one of the things that we realized early on was actually uh we hired a people person well before businesses of our size would normally hire a people person because actually we realized that people was the heart of what the business was about um so uh And that actually was a really important hire so that often the people side sort of gets left behind.

18:30And you talk about the revenue, the gross margin, the profit. And, oh, yeah, we've got to make sure people are happy. And that was not the way we thought about it. It was like if you've got a really highly functioning team with great people in that are stretched and motivated and well trained, that will then deliver the results. And so it was turning it the other way around, really putting the people side first. And I think that was one of the lasting legacies of the business. And then was there anything you did? I know. I'm sorry, sorry. Just to finish off on that, because you sort of asked about hires.

19:06I think at first we sort of hired generally sort of bright generalists to do the job. And that's kind of right, because we didn't really know what the jobs were. And you sort of needed to do that. But then there needed to be a change at some point where we needed to get some expertise in. And I was sort of running the commercial sales bit and I'd never really done it. And I remember hiring the first key account manager who really knew stuff in terms of, you know, supermarkets. And it was like, oh, my gosh, right, that's how you do it. And it was like, oh, OK, real expertise, that's going to improve our business.

19:40And so it was then blending proper deep expertise with sort of general smarts. And that made for a powerful combination, not just saying how and from outside, not just hiring internally, but actually blending the two made, you know, made the business really well. And we've talked a lot about that. And we're going to get on to the Illumina almost. Specifically in the interview process, what were you doing to sort of what were you specifically not necessarily? What were you specifically asking to be like, this is the right person, both in terms of like attitude and aptitude? I think you said something which I thought was amazing, which is I'd rather have a hole than an arsehole.

20:21I think we can nick that from Apple or something. Yeah, but still, we'll explore that. But yeah, what were you doing in the interview process to make sure you weren't getting arseholes in? Yeah. So I think early on, we codified what the values of Innocent were. And sort of everyone does this now, and it's not that groundbreaking. groundbreaking but I think at the time it was really it was relatively uncommon and and we put those values up on the backs of the toilet doors and the start of every presentation and you know in the induction and up on in the kitchen above the toaster and so it was just it was inculcated into the business and the first interview with anyone was around those values and it was always making sure that someone was on values before worrying about the skill levels that they had and whether they could do the job.

21:11And that was really important to making sure tonally and culturally the people that brought in fitted and weren't assholes and were quite the opposite, were people who added to the great genetic mix of innocent. And I think that was probably the most important thing to do. And then, of course, you need to check that someone can do the job. So you've got to know what the job is. And that was a bit of discipline about writing it down and saying, okay, these are the responsibilities. And then testing people, you know, doing case studies and not being a bit lazy in the interview of just sort of, oh, I'll get on with them, let's hire them.

21:48It was actually, let's check they can do the job they say they can do. And that takes time and effort. You know, if you're hiring for a salesperson, giving them a load of data or maybe in a situation that you're trying to sell into a customer with and, you know, giving them enough to get their teeth stuck into so that they can actually show what they can do with the information and the sell that you've given them. And that takes them a lot of energy and takes you a lot of energy to put it together. But it means you start hiring really great people. Because I know what you said, as you say, it's kind of like commonplace now.

22:20A lot of times brands codify values, put it on the wall. One thing that kind of fascinates me, and I've seen it happen, and I've interviewed people, they've said this, It's like you put the values on the wall, but it doesn't necessarily translate to the actual behaviors day to day. Yeah. From, again, everyone venerates their time at innocent. They genuinely said like this, the culture is what you say outside and inside. It's like they link together. Yeah. Because I think sometimes what you can see on a company website or on a toilet wall is like, well, hang on, mate, this doesn't line up. Yeah.

22:54Yeah. We used to talk about a stick of rock test. So like a stick of rock just has that word all the way through and it's consistent. and so wherever you cut it stick of rock like literally the old candy that you get uh you know it was kind of had the words written in like you know yes yes i love blackpool or something like that and it said i love blackpool consistently all the way through wherever you cut it and that was exactly the sort of thinking it's like wherever you cut innocent you you should feel and touch the same culture so wherever you interact with us whether it's you know be a supermarket buyer or a consumer at shelf or you know uh someone cleaning out the bins and you know it basically feels innocence all the way through yes maybe how would you do that like how would you treat the the cleaner in the office they're not you specifically like that i think that could be an interesting lens to explore this yeah i mean i i you know i think i think you really clear on the values and then the bit i suppose i didn't say and you alluded to is on behaviors it's like okay so what does that mean if you're living up to the values these are the these are the sorts of ways you behave and so making it actually sort of obvious for people what the values values mean in behavior terms and I think um uh calling out people who've lived by the values and there was I think um there was a sort of I don't know what I can't remember what we called it at the time but it was essentially employee of the month and that was sort of voted on by other people people who've gone over above and beyond and really demonstrated the values and so every month we'd call that out and it was a bit of fun someone got you know 100 quid to go and eat in a restaurant or something and it was it it was just with with with anything you've just got to keep communicating the same thing the same thing the same thing the same thing and then then it gets through and that and and we were really consistent on that you know on the values the values we wrote four years into the business three or four years in were the values that are still still up on the toilet doors now so you know they haven't changed the behaviors underpinning them haven't changed and I think everyone knew what was expected of them and I think that's that's really important how do you spot uh like an asshole uh when people are like wearing masks yeah it's part of life's dance is people wear masks and I think um I'm obviously I have to go into specifics about like a asshole but you've worked with so many businesses you've must kind of understand like how do you spot that I mean I suppose you get it you've got to have a proper conversation you you've got to be looking for it looking for the inconsistencies um and of course you're going to get it wrong sometimes and the trick is once you realize you've got it wrong and you've hired the wrong person you've got to get them out of the business really quite quickly.

25:25And no one ever, if you find there isn't a fit, there's always a sort of like, oh, I'll just give it a couple more months because it's a bit tough to go, you know, it's a bit awkward conversation and I don't really want to start the whole hiring process again. And you can make up all these excuses to yourself and I've done it many times of like, oh no, I won't do it now. And it's always the wrong decision. And it's for you and for the individual because if they don't fit, they don't fit. And you're doing no one any favours by keeping them in the business. So actually being honest to yourself, your values, and what the business stands for by actually having an awkward conversation saying it's not working out, let's go our separate ways as quickly as possible is something I learned over time, got better at over time, but is really important.

26:08Otherwise, you just store up problems. And how do you – is there any advice you give for people who are going through that problem now? They've got – they've brought in the sales director. They've brought in the finance director. They know it's not working. that it's just bubbling away in them like what's the art of the conversation as quickly as possible be be honest be transparent be you know uh you know generous in terms of severance all those sorts of things but don't don't find excuses for keeping people that don't fit in the business in the business and then when you say you'd rather have a whole how do you survive or not survive How do you, from the leadership perspective, bring people together and where's that hole in and keep trudging forward?

26:51Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Well, I think that's where, once again, you go back to the values of generosity and being generous with your time. So everyone's got to give a bit more time to help fill in the hole until we find someone. And I think that's, you know, you're pulling for each other. You're helping each other out because there's a gap and there's work that needs doing. So I think it sort of goes back to the values again. And, you know, there's also leading by example. If you're asking more of your team, but you're scooching out the office at four o 'clock all the time, it's kind of like, you know, that's going to, at some point, come unstuck.

27:31And, you know, we worked our nuts off it. And people saw that. So that sets the tone. Yeah, that's exactly what Giles said. One of the questions I asked him is how do you, you know, going down that level three to level six is like the fountain sets the pace of the brand. And I think I find that, yeah, what you've said there. But we were, you know, also we made a decision between us that we were saying, look, we're going to work incredibly hard during the week. And we're going to basically take weekends off. We're really going to do our absolute utmost. Now, sometimes there are necessities. You basically had to do a bit of work at the weekends.

28:07But I think you've also got to be careful not to burn out because actually it's not a sprint. It's going to be 10 years. It's going to be 15 years before you get to a scale that makes it really interesting. And so the reality is you've got to find a pace of life and work that you can keep up. And working every weekend is not that. And so we took holidays, but we worked bloody hard and we didn't try not to work weekends. And that made a big difference. Yeah, I think there's definitely this hustle kind of culture thing. I want to talk, I've found some kind of random things I like to link onto. I want to talk about your ski trips with Heston Blumenthal.

28:49I find him, in terms of, I know we talked before we recorded the food thing, I think what he's done is just insane, like just as a human being for food. Yeah, totally. I interviewed Oshin Rogers, who's the founder of the Devonshire. Okay, yeah. and so obviously Ashley Palmer Walters who was the head chef of the fat duck is there yeah and um we were talking about his like suet pie that he made and I've been to like the Heinz head and I think it's one of the most insane kind of uh restaurants and just the way they've done it is amazing but you talked I think it was in I don't know the article but you talked about these ski trips you had with him and like these rabbit holes he takes you down yeah what's the one of the kind of craziest rabbit holes he's maybe taken you down and what did you uh maybe learn down there if you can remember i can't i mean i to be honest specifics i can't remember but just he he is the absolute sort of crazy genius inventor you know he is he is absolutely he's sort of totally brilliant but completely nuts and i love it and and i think it comes across in his public persona because he he just he gets really passionate about something and will just follow it and i think the last thing i talked to him about was you know he was talking about um the gut biome like 10 15 years ago before you know people were really clonking onto and he was saying it's so important for mental well-being all this and you know he'd go off on one on this and lo and behold he's completely right you know it's like everyone has caught up he's he's well ahead of the curve on these things um and oh and always has been and was like that with with his food um so it's just it's it's it's great being around people like that because you just sort of you're you're trying to catch up you're just trying to understand really what it is they're saying and often you don't realize until five years later it's like oh that's what he was talking about i see and also also it's almost like his relentless obsession with improving everything absolutely is there anything else you think um he may have just by kind of osmosis and being privy to him hanging out that you think has changed the way you view things or because because some of the stuff he's i remember watching the programs as a kid when he's like going back in time and doing those um you know like a the feast of yes of the pie i remember that program and i was like that's this is just and i must have been 14 when i was watching yeah yeah yeah but yeah like is there anything else he's kind of like maybe changed where you've seen things or i mean you know heston sort of you you i i think it's that it's that sort of restless desire to just make things completely better and just improve them the whole time and he just you know we said we did that at innocent boy he did that in spades with the fat duck and anything he touches right and so it was kind of inspirational to be around him and just go okay we need to stick with this we're maybe never going to do it quite the extent that he does but you know what it's worth doing because only there do you start doing extraordinary things like he's achieved what would you say about again in is was there any like one or two improvements that at innocent that you when you kind of pushed on that door kind of was um i've there's i don't know if you perry hayden taylor did a lot of big he did big fish he's been on the podcast and he talks about this slipstream thing sometimes you press on a lot of doors yeah like this continuous improvement yeah and nothing's really happening there boom you open that door yeah was was there anything like that?

32:12Well, I think one of the big changes, for instance, we'd made it innocent was, you know, when we first started, we were, we never owned our own factories. And we're working with manufacturers to help us make smoothies, and they were buying all the fruit. And we, you know, we respect what we wanted, and they blended up, and you'd end up with, you know, a good product. but we sort of realized actually the thing that really matters is the quality of the fruit and what we're putting in um and so if we really want to get great at this we need to own that bit so we built the whole fruit sourcing the man from del monte sort of function which is literally going out to the farmers working out what we what it is we wanted and buying stuff ourselves and then getting that delivered to the manufacturers and that was like a huge undertaking because it was a whole new leg of the business that we'd never had before you know it was quite you know we were doing pretty well without it and there didn't wasn't a pressing reason to do it but if we wanted to make the very best smoothies we needed to really understand the fruit much more deeply and than we did by buying through other people um and by doing that i think actually that completely changed the business because actually you ended up with much better quality at lower prices more consistently with more knowledge of what was going on and ability to swap into different supplies when problems happen so it fundamentally transformed the supply chain of the business and then the products that people were drinking um and so that and that was difficult that was a whole new thing to do and none of us knew really anything about growing fruit or the way the way strawberries are pressed and you know bananas appeal all that stuff we had to learn and um but it transformed the business yeah you said it was difficult and one thing and in the kind of prep I've done for this is is I want to get any talked about the beginning but about between you yourself Richard and John there's like a there's a there's three of us in the room yeah but what I want what I find fascinating is how I think I can't remember you said it was on a podcast or on an article you said same problem three different angles I want to explore kind of the symphony of your problem solving abilities yeah um because I think it could help people in co-founded partnerships.

34:30How are you guys similar and different? And then first question, second question is like, is there an example where you faced a really insurmountable problem? And then I'd love to get into kind of the zing and zang of how you solve that. So I think going back to the theme of this, we're really similar on values. We care about the same thing. We had the same vision for where we wanted to take the business. And that similarity was really important because There was never any debate about sort of the direction to take the business in. How we get there definitely vary depending on our personalities, skills and experience.

35:07And that was where I think we always got to better answers. I suppose the roles that we did. So Richard did people and brand. John did manufacturing and systems. And I did commercial and deals and expansion. So sort of those three things sort of defined the way we looked at problems. You know, John was super logical, very, very sort of, I processed the wrong word, but just super logical, I suppose is the easiest way of saying it. Richard, very instinctive, very good at cutting through what's not important and what really matters, both to consumers and to the team. And I was always trying to find a way to make sure actually commercially it all made sense.

35:54we made some money from it, customers made some money from it, and actually it was sustainable sort of on a financial basis. And so those, and that archetype wasn't always the way we argued, but that broadly sort of was the angles that we came from. And I think that synthesis helped us get to much better answers. It sometimes meant it took longer, you know, people had to wait for an answer, but it meant that actually, I think on balance, we got more decisions right than we would have done certainly making those individually interesting again Oshin Rogers said this the day he goes I'm the chaos Ashley's the perfection and Charlie Carroll who did um Flatiron is the um what do you say chaos he's all chaos order perfection yeah and I think your symphony is really interesting as well yeah is there an example that kind of like brings that to life of where you were facing like at the time an insurmountable obstacle and yeah I'm trying to get into the art of how you those three things dance together i'm trying to i'd have to uh let me have a little thing to come back to it maybe um yeah i had to go to specifics i need to we'll go on a bit a bit easier but i read somewhere that you like racing cars yes yes what is do you do you race cars yeah yeah yeah describe the parallels of racing cars and uh and and running a building an innocent i love i love finding things at the cross section of different yeah i think you learn the most there yeah so i mean motor racing is sort of you know there's a sort of balls out bravery that everyone associates with it but then there's the real detail uh analysis of data and understanding exactly what you're doing at each point you're in the corner which which is really which i sort of love the combination of the the two things so because you a huge amount of so you're doing the ones that is the is it like rally racing no no no it's track racing track racing yeah okay yeah yeah so track racing so so these days in cars you've got a huge amount of data so you've got your video video videoing everything you do you've got all your pedal inputs your g-force um lateral longitudinal you've got this you know what the suspension is doing so so your driver coach can absolutely see what you've done going into a corner and can trace versus what you've done versus what they as a pro have done and you know so you can be deluding yourself that you're braking late enough or or that you're you know you're getting on the accelerator nice and early whereas actually the data says something quite different because in in the sort of the the sort of intensity and speed your brain starts playing tricks on you and you think you're doing something and you're not and the data really shows you that and so I love the sort of the the sort of combination of the sort of data side and the just the sort of the balls that bravery bit that you need um yeah i never i've never put i because i just i just think right fuck it just go around the track as fast as you can yeah yeah and i never thought there's data in that i suppose there is there's an art of art of you know data and ball bus courage in in brandville yeah yeah yeah yeah um and i think if you're too too much this way you lack the the courage to go right let's actually just make it and go for it yeah um but then if your two gangbusters going around the track without any data you just you're gonna hit them you're gonna hit the ball yeah exactly so i think it is that there is a parallel i'd never really thought about it myself either but i it's that it's that yin and yang combination that i really like and then of course there's a camaraderie um the the relationship you build with the team and your your pro all that stuff which is very teamwork so so i've done various different things i started with caterums little open um for uh things did sort of quite a few years racing those they're all identical they're really not that fast so you know it's not that risky um in comparison to some of the the bigger stuff but it's unbelievably close racing and and it's just great fun what's the um what's the feat like to describe the feelings i mean i've only done bloody go-kart yeah yeah yeah yeah like what's what's well i don't think i've ever been as scared as the first the sitting on the grid for my very first race so i just got my license i it It was like, went in for my first race.

40:09It was Brands Hatch in a catering. And I'm somewhere, you know, 20th on a grid of 24 or something like that. And waiting for the lights to go green. And it's like, I mean, my heart must have been doing 150. Like, I was just sat there doing nothing but waiting in anticipation. And then you go and then it's the melee of the first corner. And it's just great fun. Your brain, you realize actually you start running out of mental capacity to do stuff. Because you're so focused in the moment. then you make a mistake and you miss a gear or something like that. And there's nothing quite as intense in that in the workplace environment, I've found.

40:45That kind of absolute mental and physical overload all at the same time. Yeah, I think you can, and I was not planning for this link together, but it is. But I think you can get that kind, not known as intense, right, but as that three to one. You can get a real buzz and intensity on an intense negotiation. Definitely. yeah i'd love to know and i said on the i think it was on the jam drum website they called you you know mystic commercial your title i'd love to go almost parachute into what's the kind of the the most intense negotiation or one of that that felt like you're at brown's hat you've got the green light three two one zoom because because you know i think everyone has got to negotiate yes um and that's you know that's negotiating getting your kids off swimming class But, you know, I'd love to know.

41:33And I think, yeah, I'd really love to understand the way you approach negotiations. But, yeah, I'd love to, I think the best way to kind of jump into this is, yeah, is to parachute into what was the most intense negotiations where you felt like you were at Brown's Hatch. Let me think, let me think. What was it? I mean actually it was pretty um I think probably some of the most intense stuff was our first trying to get our first listing at Tesco you know we'd got listings at Waitrose and Sainsbury's um they were really pro the brand the brand did when we did really well there but Tesco was still uh holdouts not really believing in the brand or the category actually because they'd had a slightly bad experience with the previous brand and it hadn't worked that well and they didn't really believe uh innocent was going to change things that much um and but they were critical yeah 30 percent market they're critical to getting the business to really work um and i remember them being very very fixed on okay if the only way we're going to do this is um by you promising to do a half price promotion uh around launch time and we'd never done anything like that we couldn't make money at half price it was it was like no way that's not the way we do it's devaluing the brand all this sort of thing um and and that's just to set the context how big was the business at this size so we were probably about 10 million turnover so we were decent scale yeah um but we hadn't gone everywhere and we were still mostly little bottles uh rather than the cartons and um the cartons as they were there and um we i think it was a sort of it was interesting because we were like no we're not doing that we're really principled we're not going to do the half price we're not going to do this thing and tesco were very like no well you're not you're not getting the listing then sort of thing and uh it was trying to work out whether there was a way through that or whether we had to take what they were saying and try and turn it into a positive and i think actually that was the realization that actually they may be right that really the way to get notice was to do those half price promotions but at the same if we were going to do that we then needed to make sure that we were building brand at the same time so actually we needed to be advertising at the same time and we looked at what other sort of FMGG brands had done and I think Actimel had done very similar sort of strategies we looked at what Danone did and that was half price promotions with TV and you know this is going back 20 years so it might not be relevant now but um but we were like well okay maybe maybe we can go you know accept their demands on that if we do the tv and build the brand at the same time and and actually that strategy then completely worked and we rolled that out through it through other people and by changing our in going thought based on what they were demanding actually it made it better we we ended up that was the strategy that really grew the business for the next three or four years by getting noticed on price, but also getting the brand story out there.

44:42And, you know, that was pretty intense because, you know, we went from a position where it was like, God, we're not going to get this listing. It's not going to happen through to actually, yeah, we've got a deal that we're not sure is going to work. And then when it actually started working, it's like, oh God, this strategy is working. It's great. And so it was definite. Hi, I'm Kieran, co-founder of Northstar. accelerator lab is where data insights and deep commercial experience collide to create real action there's two real areas that are making a real difference the first is helping you really craft that retail selling story how do we bring that category element up front if the buyer doesn't care about your brand but does care about the category how do we help you nail down that category first approach the second thing is with range reviews so for your product to go in something has to come out you can either leave that to chance and let the buyer work it out or you can walk into that meeting having really done your homework we believe real change in retail comes from the challengers and we're all in to help them win making world-class insight and commercial firepower affordable accessible and downright effective lee it was definitely a journey that we went on and how do you for people who are going into negotiations with either retailers or investors what would you say is some of the kind of with every negotiation you've sat in, what are some of the one to three principles that you think could really help people listening to this?

46:05So I think you need to be very clear about what you're trying to achieve. And in that example, previously, we sort of had to change what we were trying to achieve from the new information that came in that actually, that the promotional strategy was the right way to go. But be very clear, because I think it's quite easy to go into things um without that clarity be very clear what you're prepared to trade away um so there's there's plenty of courses on how you negotiate and that was one of the key things that we did at innocent was taught everyone negotiation um techniques and i think um so do your preparation um i think that that's key be flexible in in the moment because sometimes there's a deal to be done at the time and rob and going away and kind of analyzing or actually say yes um that can be that can be hugely useful um it is just sort of seize the day um but also uh the flip side is like be prepared be prepared to walk away and you know say you know what this isn't going to happen because sometimes you know things will the things will change on the other side and they'll come back to you so it's it's that reading reading the room um is that the bit you said there about the flexibility of the being able to actually accept a deal versus is there an example where you've where you've, I suppose Tesco is the example, but I suppose maybe the other side of that is when you've had to walk away.

47:30Because, so one of the things I write about in my newsletter is early stage founders get blinded by the listing lights, whereby they're like, oh my God, you know, they don't, the deal may not work. They're like, I just want 320 Holland Barrett stores or Tesco stores. And then suddenly they've done a deal. They're not making money when they promote. Absolutely. It's just a nightmare. And then suddenly, if you've said yes to that, trying to unpick it. Unpick it. It's just a nightmare. I completely agree. More businesses get sunk on getting listings with the wrong terms or the wrong people or the wrong distribution than they do because they haven't got the listings.

48:11Yes. So it is, because for all those reasons you say, it's exciting. Oh, I've got a startup business. I'm getting a huge listing. I'm going to go to all these stores. It's like you just sort of end up not analyzing whether it's really the right thing to do and you can easily get carried away with yourself and say, yeah, I'll make it work. Because actually you can't make it work. And it's the wrong thing to go to too many stores sometimes. We'll get on to what you think are the requirements for kind of building an anti-fragile brand in grocery as well. But first, like, you guys went into 10 Waitrose stores.

48:47Yeah, two Waitrose stores at the very beginning, actually. This is the other thing. I don't understand why retailers put brands in way too many stores. I always say it's analogous to throwing a toddler into a deep end without swimming bands. Totally. They need to go in slowly. A challenge of brands, a toddler needs to learn how to put the armbands on, give them 10 stores. Why do you think, how did you get 10 stores? Was that because there wasn't really a challenge of brands then? I mean, it was definitely a different retail environment, so I think they're probably tougher these days. But I think it was, we did literally direct-to-store distribution for two Waitrose stores because they couldn't really believe whether it was going to, they were like, they sort of thought this might work, but didn't really believe it would.

49:29So weren't prepared to give us a listing. But we were like, well, look, we really believe it will work. So we'll show you and we'll go to all the hassle of doing direct-to-store distribution for those two stores. And it flew. You know, the Richmond store, I think, was just absolutely, you know, there was a whole end. and it was just like stacked and the manager loved it he was like no honestly this is flying this is flying and of course that then builds the confidence to get the 50 store listing and then we had to work hard to make that listing work and then it was like then you roll out to 100 stores and it was very very incremental we never it was it was hugely helpful in a way that we had a short shelf life because it was completely obvious you can't go to too many stores because if you've got short shelf life and you're too many stores you're waste right so we it was just a fun It was a function of our, it was completely the right strategy, irrespective of whether you've got a long shelf life or a short shelf life, to go to the right number of stores and support them and then move to the next long.

50:22It's far too easy to try and roll out to 1 ,000 stores and then not be able to get the rate of sale, the rotation. Our short shelf life meant we didn't really have an option in that strategy. It wasn't us being particularly smart. It was like, it would have been evident madness to go into 1 ,000 stores. Not that we'd have got that listing at the beginning. but um but it is it's it's so important what really matters is whether you're selling fast your excel and whether you're adding to the category you know if you're doing those two things the supermarket's gonna be happy right yeah um and so and so you just and just a bit of patience to make sure that each step of the distribution is working really well is is key and that's what we we look for in the brands we work with at jam jar it's what we what we did at innocent and I just think it's the way you build a brand.

51:08It's only the big multinationals who've already got huge established relationships can go, right, let's bang it out to every store, see what happens, and if it doesn't work, we'll launch something else. Yeah, it's kind of, yeah, putting too many brands in too many stores too early, as I say, it's like throwing a toddler in three people. It's the death knell of too many brands or it makes life so much harder than it would otherwise be. You said something that really kind of set my curiosity going at it in terms of more brands kind of sync, I think was the word you used, with listings that are going with the wrong terms.