Josh White, CanO Water: 9 Totally New Ways to Build a Brand by Acting like a Fashion Brand, Securing Investment from Ricky Gervais, The Accidental Entrepreneur, The Difference between “Closed” and “Open” Distribution

0:00Koyako is a Japanese noodle bar located in Hackney London offering a fast paced dining experience inspired by Japan's train station eateries It specializes in freshly made udon noodles and rich dashi broths. The menu is insane. A rich variety of hot and cold udon dishes, donburi rice bowls and Japanese small plates like karas chicken. I hope I've said that right. Also some banging seasonal vegetable tempura. Koyeko brings authentic Japanese comfort food right to the heart of East London. They've got two locations, one in Hackney, one in Soho in the city. And look, if you want to get your mitts on this absolutely insane grub, use this promo code on your Uber Eats app, Koyoko40.

0:45The details are as follows. You're going to get 40 % off, up to 15 quid off, when you've got a minimum basket of£20. This offer, this wonderful offer, expires on the 28th of July. Get your mitts on Koyoko. Thank you so much. how to get your challenger brand into more supermarkets and increase your current distribution in half the time range reviews are happening right now right this millisecond sainsbury's waitrose tesco ocado co-op all looking for new banging challenger brands don't miss this range review and have to wait another six months it's long don't lose precious self-space your competitors don't let your buyer pick another brand just because you didn't have a grand slam deck.

1:27Northstar Category Management help you create banging supermarket pitch decks so good that buyers find it impossible to say no to. Challenge your brands like Perfect Ted, Trip, Bulbinko, Dash all love Northstar. Look, I am so confident in Northstar transforming your brand. We've got an exclusive Hungry offer. Your first month for free. Yes, free. Plus, we're going to give you a free 30-minute consultancy session to see how your brand is currently performing in category. Click the link in the show notes to book your consultancy session and thank me later.

2:02Buongiorno, buongiorno. This episode with Josh from Cano Water is insane. I mean, Josh is just such a legend. He's such an open, honest, affable, nice guy. And he's just been through so much through addiction, trauma, ADHD. He had these idea back in like 2016, 2017 to start this water canned water brand i remember everyone thinking this is just a crazy idea is this going to work they have been a literal punching bag all the buyers all the retailers say no this is never going to work never going to work and it has through dogged die hard persistence there's just so much in this we talk about how to build a brand you've got to think actually more like a fashion brand this is really nuanced and interesting i've never talked about this before we go deep into open versus closed distribution and how to kind of position your brand in open and closed distribution how to build a business in wholesale you can still build a massive business in wholesale it doesn't need um you know it doesn't need grocery you've got loads and loads of how the how the fuck have they got their brand in front of the f1 in front of all these celebrities ed sheeran how they got investment from ricky gervais there's tons in this um as always please subscribe i'd be super grateful please share it all these little things help grow the podcast um i'd be so grateful and yeah thank you so much i hope you enjoy this

3:23Hello there, people and listeners of The Hungry Podcast. Today, I'm absolutely thrilled to welcome Josh White onto the podcast. Josh is the founder of a brand I absolutely love, Cano Water. And we're currently sat in your very, very on brand, as they say, offices. You've got to be. You've got to be, mate. And yeah, I'm super excited for this. As I said, I remember back in 2016 when I was doing a sampling session in Bailey and Sage in Wimbledon Village. And I remember seeing the can of water. And I was like, look, the black and the white, the yin and the yang. That's sick. But I was like, I couldn't open it, to be honest.

4:01People struggling. Yeah, but then now, six, seven, eight years on, it's a huge brand. And yeah, mate, I've wanted to do this for a while. I'm so glad we could finally make it happen. Thanks for asking me. no worries um so where i want to start i always start in quite weird places yeah i want to start with boris johnson and djing so you are a dj i am you're a hip-hop dj i want to talk about hip-hop as well yeah but i really believe there's huge parallels between being a d not that i've ever been a fucking dj but like yeah yeah no no like the local cricket club djing like playing a atomic but kittens you know i mean to the old boys um but i think there's a lot of parallels there's the obviously the hustle the graft the grit to get to the top yeah um you've got mates route 94 second city absolute bangers um there's also the kind of a bit like how a brand has has an identity your music has has an identity feeling the audience like that connection between the music in the audience again that's very similar with building a brand what would you say are the learnings you've taken from DJing that you've applied to building Cano Water it's funny because I've been a DJ since I was 11 years old so as a kid I was a bit of a crazy kid and my dad I couldn't concentrate on anything but I was completely obsessed with music right just completely in love of music um my dad bought me my first decks when I was 11 and I just became completely and utterly obsessed with uh mixing music and um when I did my first gig when I was sort of like 15 16 there was something that I absolutely loved about you know making a crowd go crazy yeah um also around that time I was in events and one of the things that I used to do I used to stand outside of nightclubs at like four or five in the morning just handing out flyers and uh that was the first like time where it was like hustle like proper and people look at me being like what the fuck are you doing standing outside at four or five o 'clock in the morning hanging out flyers and it was like it's this hustle of introducing who you are um and um that was my first sort of sense of building and and it is similar it's very very similar with like especially in the early days of cano like standing outside of tube stations handing out cans to people and it's like it's this hustle a brand building hustle getting known brand awareness it really really isn't easy we spoke about this before it's actually really really hard and djing is very very similar it's funny i actually get embarrassed to tell people i'm a dj these days because every single person is a dj so have you seen that meme where it's like um there's a it's like a meme of a guy on the floor and it's like are you a doctor are you a doctor are you a doctor the last guy's like don't worry i'm a dj that's literally how i feel and i used to be so uh like so obsessed with being a dj because it was like no one was a dj when i started djing and i was djing on vinyl and it was in that early period i was very very fortunate to be in that early period before any sort of virtual dj and it was sort of like really really listening with your ears um and beat matching not with your eyes but with your ears the world's changed now and it's obviously gone into a digital period and it's completely you know with with ai and everything it's changed but i was and still am obsessed with seeing people's reactions with things hence with you know with cano with a lot of like the hijacking and disruption that we do i love putting my like we love putting our fingers on the pulse and sort of doing different shit and i always talk about this it's something it's really interesting it'd be good to hear your take on it is i believe that in the world there are innovators and then there are copycats and the innovators the people that they just want to be the first people to do anything so they want to and this is me with djing it's like i want to do a mix that no one's ever done before and i want to shock people and i want to hit and see how far i can go to get people to go wow i've never heard anything like that before mixing old genres and new genres and sort of not just doing the same old shit where it's just like house music through and through or hip-hop through and through something very very different um and innovators are the ones that they're the pioneers they're the first to everything and they're always constantly thinking and at times their mind is so fucking all over the place because they're constantly thinking of the next thing and then you've got the copycats the ones that just copy everyone that come in and they they sort of they they wait for the innovators to move and i think my whole life has been like that i've always tried to be an innovator and the copycats are always sort of coming in and trying to take the things that the innovator has done and i've seen that happen throughout my whole career whether it be in djing and in uh the fmcg world i think what you've said there's so many interesting parallels as you said between to the founder and the DJ, right?

9:09I think one of the things that you said is really interesting is the ability to listen, to listen, and that's listening, you know, leadership is listening, listening to what's going on in the zeitgeist, like listening, you guys, I mean, come on to the beginning of the journey and stuff. You guys listened so intently when you're on that beach in Thailand that there was a movement coming. You guys were so early. There's that ability to listen, listening to where the wind's blowing. You know, Oatly listened carefully with oat milk. yeah um i i think also the disruption and uh the kind of combining the things differently you know i'm looking at this now the the wall behind you which is kind of graffiti-esque kind of water like that could look like a we're in a recording studio right now but i love that that's sick that's sick um and what were some of the early um tunes you were kind of what kind of hip were you well yeah what kind of music first question and then i'm i'm like uh eminem 50 cent sort of like that vibe through and through yeah big sort of i'm actually like a big sort of drake new hip-hop uh fan as well a lot of r &b early times like i to be honest for me i just am obsessed with music in general it doesn't matter what it is i'm obsessed with like uh with creation with innovation and things that like i never i've never heard before like it's very very strange like in my childhood uh there was a big uh dubstep era i don't listen to how do you know i'm 33 yeah i'm scared yeah because i remember that screaming bengar like at the house parties i was thinking fuck me what's this when i first heard that as a kid i was like wow yes like wow i've never heard anything like that and i'm one of these i'm probably the most annoying person to be in the car with um because i don't like playing music that everyone knows i like finding new stuff i'm obsessed with new stuff so part of my adhd is like i'm obsessed with like what's what's trending and what's next and i think you know you go to um like you know my can of water and also with my two business partners ariel and perry as well like we're very very similar like hence why and when we'll go into like why we even started a canned water company where i think 90 of people who had thought of the idea would have just thought it was stupid and just not even done it but when I look at the three of us and our characters it needed three of us to create something like Cano Water because the people that we are and when I talk about music versus my life with Cano and even everything outside of Cano I am just completely and utterly obsessed with like new new sounds what's next what's the future it's funny like i am not you know that that typical thing where like your dad is like oh turn this shit off i hate it i'm will probably be the complete opposite with my kids i just want to know new new new new and really get a sense of understanding of why people are loving that type of thing because it's all good saying oh this is shit but then you know my dad would say that about Eminem but Eminem is one of the biggest artists of all time and it's funny because my dad now will say to me like I used to tell you to turn that shit off but actually I really rate Eminem now and it's like that is very synonymous to can of water and I explain it to a lot of people we all had a Blackberry phone yeah we're obsessed with our Blackberry we're handing our pin out left right and center and we thought this is it i'm never i'm never getting away from this probably the same with myspace you know like this is me and then one day some person at school got an iphone and you were like what on earth is that i'm not gonna get an iphone um and uh over time more and more people start getting an iphone yeah and then you end up becoming the uh you know the person that that hasn't moved forward and i would have been the iphone guy you know i would have been that guy that probably got the iphone because i like new innovation and new things and i think that that is with music with brand is something that is very synonymous with the three of us boys um and funny enough we came together through interests of music fashion you know uh brand that's what we love so behind cano you've got a drinks company here but behind cano there's so much more of just common interests let's so i always think there's this the iceberg analogy not in terms of the hard work that's that's a you know the iceberg thing you see the tip so let's say we see the tip that sounds a bit dodgy but let's say that to the top of uh cano water which is this you know glorious brand um you talked about your co-founders uh perry and ariel ariel let's go into that kind of iceberg bit you've talked about common interests what are these how are you guys similar and how are you guys different and how are these the kind of the the iceberg and the foundations of the brand like let's talk about that 100 so when we started the brand we couldn't we could be more different in our uh business side of things you know which is a positive i believe you know ariel was very sort of sales centric i was a bit more marketing brand and perry is uh more sort of brand slash creative one of the most talented designers uh well probably the most talented designer i've personally ever met you know hence the the cans i think that underneath all of that is interest in music where as kids we would love like the same stuff brands as well you know you mentioned Oatly you know I'm a big Oatly fan just on mainly what they accomplished in such a short amount of time especially obviously they were doing a lot beforehand and pushing and pushing and pushing but it's very very similar to Cano like told no just so much like sort of like resilience and pushing and just just sort of like uh you know i can imagine it being a very very similar journey being told no so many times but just carrying on moving and going and as the world moves with you luckily your brand sort of rises up from the ashes which has been very much our journey but we are just uh we're very very similar in our in our common interests which as i said sits behind So the brand of Cano is very much the three of us.

16:05Because you could just, for water, okay, perfect example. Water is not black or white. Water is blue or clear. And you think of mountains and you think of this and you think of that. If anyone from AB InBev or another big corporate was to start a canned water, they probably would put like waves or blue water on it or the it would be blue or that's the reality of what would happen we actually were the first people in the world to put water as black and white why was that i don't know mainly from perry's mind of like the monochrome side of things but we were there was no one doing it it was like blue cap or or another cap on glass bottles but no one had ever done black and white now if you look at liquid death or if you look at path water in the us it's all black and white we started that sure yeah you know we started the black and white movement i remember we were sitting together um listen we didn't invent black and white but we were sitting together i remember in 2015 uh and we were we were coming up with the with the can of water brand and uh and all the sort of the material because we'll go into how um laborious the process was of actually creating the brand without even having a product because no one had ever put water in a can before um but we were sitting there and like one of the main things is you walk into a supermarket it's just full of color there's no black and white there's no there's nothing on the shelf so how do you stand out if you go to the us and you go to whole foods it's actually like it's impossible to stand out because it's just full of color um so our main thing was well let's just do the opposite of that and i think that that was perry's vision um from a design perspective and you know it's funny my adhd mind is so fucking crazy that inside my head it's like a rubbish dump of just an or a washing machine of madness um that this brand is the complete opposite to what's going on in my mind but it's what i've what visually appeals to me if that makes sense yeah it's like the the it's like the other side of like i have a crazy side which is not organized at all and it's just complete chaos which is where my creativity comes from and then have another side where it's like this just peaceful side which where is where canada water sits so as soon as perry sent over the design i think most creators would be like no you have to have this on it or that on it and we were just like no this is it this is perfect less is more there's uh so i was thinking about it so so a couple of things on this so um David Hegarty who's the big advertising guy he writes a lot on he was a co-founder of Saatchi Saatchi yeah and one of his rules is juxtaposition so two things that you shouldn't put together always works in terms of stand out 100 % so in terms of you actually see this a lot in books book titles so the subtle art of not giving a fuck that book juxtaposition 100 % it's something in it and I was thinking about this I've got a fucking brain like you mate where I just overthink everything but i generally believe overthinking when used negatively is overthinking yeah overthinking when used positive is creativity overthinking you know i always talk about the beatles like them them sat there playing hey jude yeah them overthinking it and getting it better getting it better tweaking tweaking is creativity yeah but then john lennon when he's using it negatively his him and i don't mean it's probably fucking taking smack do you know i mean like so it's You need both.

19:58It's the yin and the yang. And that's why also ADHD and addiction are so close to each other. Yeah, we will talk about that because I've got a very hugely addictive personality and I'm just trying to put it into this. Because otherwise it's like, I'm just, yeah. Anyway, but I think you're so right. It's the juxtaposition of the black and the white. It stands out. It's almost, I remember when I saw it, I was like, this just stands out. I think at the time I was like, this is almost like the Apple and the iPhone. To a drinks category. I was like, that's wild. But then also, on a much deeper level, I think the reason humans love juxtaposition so much and it captures our eyes is because life is ultimately yin and yang.

20:39It's the flow of light and dark, happiness, sadness, creativity, overthinking. On a much deeper level, I think it speaks to that. I agree. In terms of, so you kind of talked about your mind as a washing machine of madness, which is reassuring for me, mate, because I have a similar sort of thing. So you talked about, you know, kind of, you've got this relentless focus on DJing, brand building. You said you're a bit of a rascal as a kid. like how was you being talk to me about that and how was that manifested as superpower now you're kind of 33 yeah so it's taken a long time to see it as a superpower um at a young age i was um i was never a bad person i was always a sort of like just um unheard or on sort of um what's the word like I was always confused okay at what my purpose was I was not an academic at all I found it incredibly hard to concentrate I got diagnosed at the age of 11 with ADHD at a time where no one was talking about ADHD ADHD was like a if you have ADHD you're a problem child okay so I was put in a category of like a bit hopeless to be completely honest with you like he's done for don't concentrate on him because he's got ADHD.

22:11Whereas now we're in an incredible time where there's, you know, ADHD is actually a bit celebrated because it is a superpower. But at that time, I only saw it as negatives. So it sort of propelled me into a world of, um, of anger. And I do have a very creative mind, but when you are thinking negatively, you can, And your mind is clouded with negativity and anxiety. And, you know, we'll talk about burnout as well, which clouds it enormously. And people talk about this brain fog that we have. I'm hearing the guy drilling. That sometimes feels up my mind. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Some fucking drilling into it.

22:51Literally. And to be completely honest with you, like, it isn't easy at all to have ADHD. but I think that and it took me a long time to to sort of to cut to come out of that but what it did is it propelled me into uh into the world of addiction at a young age where I just wanted to shut the noise up and alcohol filled a void and shut the noise up um I didn't have a purpose so as a uh as a as as a an addict and someone with ADHD with purpose you are a force to be reckoned with like as a dj i started djing as a bit of a bit of a bit of a hobby a mate of mine was like why don't we just dj next minute i'm djing at ministry and sat of sound or in miami or you know like uh as we said boris johnson's wedding which is which is which is taking me to the mad so when i'm interested in something i will put a thousand percent into it and no one is overtaking me but if i'm not interested in it like at school whether it be maths or english i find it impossible so my mind would go into art so i would draw uh and and i still do it now like i'm obsessed with art i was obsessed with like banksy as a kid and and and and you know graffiti and that's it that me and perry uh became sort of best friends through a common interest of art um but with that i need this dopamine hit okay and as a kid i didn't know any of this i didn't know what dopamine hit was so now i'll do fucking mad things like an ice bath or i'll go on a run or i will listen to to new music to find this sort of this dopamine hit it's really weird i'm probably the only founder that still is completely and utterly obsessed with standing in um at an event after eight years and handing out cans to people i'll be at taste of london i'll be there from seven in the morning to seven, eight a night and I will not take a break.

24:50I'm obsessed with talking to people and hearing about people's thoughts about Cano Water and why they love it or why they think it's the shittest brand and what we can do better. I love that. There's something about that. Whereas I see a lot of other founders, they'll pass it on. It's probably, it's not even a control thing. it's the fact that I actually love it so I think that these are my superpowers now where I could hone in on things that I love so doing good for the planet is something that I absolutely love now I didn't care about the planet before I started can of water I was part of the problem I'm now part of the solution it's something that I'm now that's that's a purpose so we talk about purpose they're my purposes in life I'm now 14 years clean I have another purpose in life I help uh people addicts who who who find it hard to stop using or they just don't understand their mind and i try and sort of suggest ways of how i got clean or how i've built a business of adhd so with purpose comes superpowers without purpose comes disaster for someone with adhd because they just sit there like well i i i don't i'm not academic or i haven't can't do this or i can't do that and they wallow in self-pity which is it's you know it's it's hard not to with an adhd mind yeah hey guys thank you so much for watching this video honestly means the absolute world to me um i'd be so grateful for a small fame please it is so hard on the youtube channel it's so bloody hard um if you please enjoy these videos just click the subscribe button um more subscribers equals bigger guests bigger guests equals better conversations and hopefully you can learn more as you build your food drink brand.

26:34Thank you so, so much. There's lots of pull out there. I think the first thing is you talked about, we talked about the positive. Basically, this purpose is a thing. And I haven't been diagnosed. I just let the fucking kitchen sink on it. I have because I've got addiction. I'm addicted to this. I'm fucking addicted to this. you know i was i was traveling uh the last two months i mean i'm sober now for like a couple of months yeah i was sober for three months before i went away yeah i there's a quote i love which is moderation absence is easier than moderation yeah as soon as i got there i'm smoking 20 a day 30 a day fucking caning pints yeah and it's like not all day every day yeah i'm not even going to the gym yeah and i come back i'm like ice bath all that stuff sauna all that so it's really interesting so so i think what but when you've got a purpose i think jimmy car talks about this because he went sober he goes as soon as i started comedy out of purpose i went sober 100 percent um in terms of so that's like the north star that can channel these things from negative to positive light to dark i think or sorry dark to light yeah not the other round you you talked about your mind being a washing machine and just being like like a rubbish dumpster yeah describe that because i think this could help a lot of people who are trying to build build brands not necessarily with I just feel like whether you've got ADHD or not, or ADD or not, your brain, just because there's so much in, so much to do, your brain's going to feel like a dumpster truck.

28:06Describe like what that is in your head and describe how that makes you feel here because you talked a lot about, you know, you had anger and I, you know, these things resonate with me. Like I'm just trying to prove someone wrong. A hundred percent. Talk to me about that. Yeah. So it's funny actually. And I like to, I like to sort of, we talked about brain fog and i mentioned brain fog and i think that's something that like it's like something blocking the mind blocking blocking the brain and how do we how do we clear that um if you try and think how am i gonna uh i'll give you a perfect example when i came when i uh came out of rehab when i was a kid okay and i sorry just just interject we so you were you in rehab Was that booze and drugs?

28:55Booze. Just booze. 15 years old. I had a severe alcohol addiction. At 15? At 15. That's wild. From the age of 12 to 15, I just, and I can't tell you why, I have a lot of addiction in my family. Just complete full-blown alcoholic. How much were you drinking a day? Three bottles of 500ml Evian's a day. And it's funny because... Of Evian's? Evian. Ironic, no? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I would take it to school. What, filled with booze? Filled with, yeah, with vodka. Fuck. Yeah, and it was literally just to numb the pain. But what was the pain you were in? I had a lot of family problems.

29:35My mum was an alcoholic. A lot of people in my family got ill, unfortunately. So cancer sort of went through my family. um and the adhd side of things was just wearing me down enormously and a lot of things just weren't going right for me i just didn't have a sense of belief in myself or a purpose um and just yeah just living in constant pain where to be completely honest with you i prefer to have not been here that was that was you know and and many times as a young boy I contemplated suicide because I didn't have a purpose in in life you know and my I always actually say in a lot of podcasts that if I was to write a book my book would be called The Accidental Entrepreneur because I wasn't meant to be where I am I've got to where I am through mistakes funny enough and through learning of what I wanted so it wasn't like go to school go to uni start my business get the family well hey what that wasn't my life my life was you know a lot of pain and suffering you know trouble with the law as a kid a very young age trouble with the sort of like just just sort of like waking up in streets drunk and you know like um a lot of anger and aggression while being drunk and you know part of my part of my main purpose in life is to sort of um you know i've i've righted all of my wrongs you know um my parents i mean it's just the craziest thing ever like at one point in life they didn't think they were gonna have a son you know now the whole world that meets them says that how amazing i am you know it's for me the most important thing is is writing my wrongs and giving back um because i i'm actually a very lucky person that i got clean at such a young age i was gonna say because that's um yeah because i mean i yeah that is young i was gonna say because i was thinking from fifth most people are getting on it and starting getting on it at 19 yeah yeah so so 15 to so describe like that four years and i i i think we all have to have a rock bottom moment i've had had one a couple you know a couple of years ago it was kind of the genesis of this yeah You need to go to that point to propel back upwards.

31:59That wasn't my actual rock bottom. My rock bottom was actually when I was 19 and I had a small relapse on, weirdly enough, on laughing gas. But it was like, it's a progressive thing over the course of a few months. But I just couldn't stop drinking. I needed to stop. I knew that I had a problem. I you know I don't don't usually talk about this a lot but you know for the purpose of this conversation I had a cousin that died of heroin basically so I knew how bad it could get also in rehab I was 15 years old I was with like 30 40 50 60 year olds half of them died or relapsed so I knew what I didn't want to be okay my dad came from nothing so my dad literally grew up in a council estate had nothing somehow built himself a career outside of you know he sort of navigated himself outside of it and built a life for me and my family you know that I always say that my dad isn't the richest man but he is the richest man because of what he's provided for my family not not for even from a money perspective but he's looked after us and given us values and he's my biggest inspiration and i've seen him work harder than anyone i actually wouldn't even be the person i am today with cano without him and seeing his determination while having to navigate my family unfortunately my brother at very at 12 years old got cancer and i witnessed you know i witnessed my dad you know not crumble and actually deal with it i probably behind closed doors he was fucked but he dealt with it and i've learned a lot from that of how to be strong and and you know like that these things these things that um that i've learned earlier in life i've now have sort of made me sort of a bit indestructible later in life to be the person i am especially in business and you know my my resilience and strong sort of nature of being told no and carrying on is something that i've that has helped push cano i believe um but i got properly clean at 19 years old and haven't touched a drink or a drug since.

34:16So 14 years clean. And, you know, just going back to the brain fog thing, I remember going into rehab and then saying like, don't think about the fact that you can never drink again. Because if you think about that, your mind will just go fucking mad. Just think about today. Just think about today. So then transferring that to the conversation about an entrepreneur or a business starter or a brand I think one of the main things is that everyone especially in today's age everyone wants to get rich quick everyone wants to to to just get there get to the end goal fuck that just think about today what are you doing today instead of think about a to z just think about a to b and I think that that's one thing that I try and explain to a lot of young entrepreneurs or whoever people that come to me is like stop trying to take the whole world now just your map should be like just you can't don't skip any steps and that's where your brain fog and your brain starts to actually work in a much better way because it's impossible to think about everything and i think that that's why brain fog is becoming such a big thing at the moment because everyone's so fucking anxious about everything because they look around and I heard something like don't look up look down if you look up you're just going to find you're just going to get depressed you're just going to see that everyone you're going to see all these multi-millionaires of like but if you look down like I look down at like all all the things that I've accomplished and if I look at where I was to now I mean it literally baffles me yeah I think I mean this is probably a different for a whole podcast but I I think the social media thing is interesting.

36:04Is it just, is it, well, I was listening to Joe Rogan. They were talking about the inflection point of the iPhone and then social media and the suicide rates of kids is fucked. 100%. And it's all because, you know, the famous quote is, comparisons of the thief of joy. Never, ever, ever, ever have we been able to compare our lives. The thing is, you're comparing your blooper reel, yeah, to someone's highlight reel. So even that influencer who's gorgeous, yeah, that day I know this is a bit crass they've probably taken a shit that day they're not putting that on Instagram 100 % I mean it's like they may have diarrhea I mean they may have fucking do you know what I'm saying though but it's like you're comparing your highlight reel sorry your blooper is someone's highlight reel so it's not real everyone is on a different journey yeah everyone yeah you know and I think that being in love with your own journey is the is the key to life I get asked a lot of the time like what is the what do you believe is going quite deep now but what do you believe the purpose is and i like the purpose of life is and i don't believe that the purpose of life is just to make hundreds of millions of pounds and buy a yacht and just sail off into the sunset i just don't think that that's it like for me the purpose 200 million pounds exactly damn pope everyone um i i really think the purpose of life is like is adding to life so giving back and being like inspiring and sort of you know in recovery in a.

37:29It's uh it's the 12th step so you come in in step one and you're completely fucked okay this is the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and then the 12th step is giving back to the next person so it goes in like a full circle it's very similar with uh with what I believe like the meaning of life is is like giving back any single person that comes to me and asks for help or advice I always always give always give because I believe that that is the purpose of like not making the mistakes that I've made and helping someone you know be the best version of themselves and I think that that's you know social media is uh is is like a oh look at me look at me rather than a and there are people that help you know and that are big influence and inspirations but i think that you know more of that is needed especially if i never especially in the business world i find the business world can be very very very toxic and very sort of like if i look back at the early days of canna water no one wanted to help us no one wanted to help us um even people that have known me for my whole life a lot of them weren't supportive you know um and and i found it really painful in the early days of like why are you supporting random other people's brands but you want to support your your best mate's brand and i think that's saying that i don't know whether it's an english thing but it's something that i think that we need to do a much better job of as a culture in the uk to to help entrepreneurs because it is a really really fucking hard journey um and it is so lonely it doesn't matter you can have a team of a thousand people but you can be the loneliest person on the planet and i think that we need to come together covid was a really good time for me actually because i was in the worst place that i've been for a long time because i wasn't djing cano was really really suffering um my you know my dad lost his job my mom got ill everything was bad and i was sitting in this flat that i just bought thinking i've just bought something with my own money but proudest thing i've ever done in my life no help myself and i am so fucking depressed and um speaking to other founders about the same things and knowing that i wasn't alone was so fucking important and helped massively helped the so there's a there's an interesting thing to creativity and it's almost this the the lightness of the creativity is the song is the is the thing you produce but there's also an inherent darkness right yeah so the obvious example is the 27 club emmy winehouse uh jimmy hendrix kurt cobain you know all those stars they all died they created lots of lightness yeah some of the best fucking music of all time jimmy hendrix i'm like listen to that i'm like what the hell is that on another level but he dies at 27 yeah you know i'm 30 now three years ago that guy dies um even now you're sober i think people think once you go sober it it clears everything if anything i i've kind of it fires everything up louder to begin with yeah what you talked about being being depressed like what is the uh how do you navigate the i actually think it's a force we're very similar right in this regard so i think it's like this force so when i like do creative things it just it it's turning this force into something really positive yeah if not i'm just like just overthinking fucking everything i'm going to be asking asking for a mate here like how do you when when this kind of the dark side bubbles up how do you how what does that feel like first what are those thoughts and then how do you mitigate it yeah i think i'm not mitigating yeah i think i touched on it before around this purpose like depression comes from i think i think going back to this this this social media thing actually because it's really it's a really good point on here if you if you start looking up at everyone uh or if you start to think that you are not um you know a success and you lose your sense of belief in yourself or things aren't going your way if you can't navigate yourself out of that thought process, it will just get worse and worse and worse and worse and worse.

41:42And I've been a victim of it. My family members, friends, everyone can be a victim of it, of like, what is it that I'm doing wrong in life? Okay. And it really, really isn't easy to just sit there and think, oh, I'll just do this or I'll just do that. That's why for me, tools, okay, like DJing and business and the gym are a really really good outlet but if you don't have those like in COVID like we said it just easily just creeps back in so in a place of lockdown it's very hard to mitigate it it's like virtually impossible I actually felt indestructible before COVID I thought I'm fine I'm absolutely fine um and it's really really sad but a friend of mine who I grew up with who was just one of the loveliest people ever took their life in COVID and um it really really opened my eyes to um like this is someone that if you put a list in front of me of a thousand people you'd never think he would be the last and a lot of people don't talk you know that's it and i think the thing with the 27 club is that creativity creativity and thinking is really really really difficult um because you're constantly thinking of how to innovate and how to be different and how to be new um and i find myself in that place a lot of the time it's just thinking like i don't want to copy anyone i don't want to copy anyone what's the next thing what's the next thing what's the next thing um you know that's what i love about can of water we were the first people in the world to put water in a can I love that I love having that thing that's us and I think that I've been in that place where you're constantly thinking it's like people might not see the work but the thinking is there and toxic and you see it with people like Kanye West they actually lose the plot from being creative re-watching the uh when we're on holiday we went well in costa rica we had like a i went on like a canio west and frank ocean fucking binge basically frank ocean's sick you know that song ivy that song is like i'm just it's like in my head like one of my favorites ever oh he's so good like we're listening to just like the old school ones like swim good i love some nostalgia yeah super rich kids yeah i mean i proposed to my wife with a singer singing godspeed oh sick so like i'm a big big frank fan so so good and um but then the other one was kind of wet so i was going through all his um uh back album like college dropout college dropout but you know i'm trying to think of the songs now but like um is it i wonder yeah i'm not gonna sing for everyone that'll really put everyone off but but i was thinking jesus christ and it's like you go through that back hotel yeah It's like, but then you watch that genius documentary and he's just, it's kind of that.

44:49You know what it is? You actually can see this. And listen, I'm not the biggest fan anymore of him, unfortunately, just because I just think that creative genius, but also just toxic mind. But what you can see is someone that is always trying to innovate, innovate, innovate, and trying to stretch as far, as far, as far, as far, as far. and ends up basically just going mental. His new album is sick. Yeah, sick. But his new album, to talk about that, you know, he's got almost like the... The mask. The mask on, and then the woman looks a bit like Kim Kardashian. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's got a wife now, but he's still catching on to that.

45:28It's like... 100%. I think that album is the best example of this light and dark. Yeah. We're going to come on to the genesis of Cannon Water and go to Thailand. but I'd love to just know on this newness thing because it's kind of an addiction to new like what can I how can I rip it up like I always think how can I rip it up again yeah you know I'm thinking of doing a podcast with this guy who's remained anonymous so I can't say who he is but like he pulls a lot of strings in London nightclubs and he was like I don't want to come on the podcast I don't want people to know he owns those restaurants I was like why don't we do an anonymous one I don't care if anyone likes it which probably no one listened what new things are you obsessed with right now um new things or like new ideas what are you like I think there's the kind of the really clever way of saying what Rory Southern taught me is like stoicistic tinkering you're always just tinkering with things what are you tinkering with do you know what I think health for me is super is one that I'm super obsessed with like not being a health freak and being that gym bro in the gym bro David Lloyd earlier yeah yeah yeah but like gut health is something that I'm very sort of interested in at the moment and just sort of um how we can sort of better ourselves as I said like something music and art and fashion will always be for me like what is like that new in thing i'm a complete sucker for like just i get sucked into instagram ads i'm just gonna put it out there that's me like i i will see something new and i'm i'm i'm that guy who's sort of like i just i look for like the new sort of creativity and certain things i can't even think uh and and pinpoint what new things I'm sort of thinking about.

47:32But I will sort of, I take a lot of inspiration from, you know, from the world of music. It's like funny because water is actually the most boring. It's a really boring world. Okay, water. If you look at like the only thing that if I said to you, what's the only thing that you have thought of in the past 10 years or 15 years of water? you'd probably just say the Evian baby advert of the babies dancing. There's nothing really. This is why I think what you guys have done is totally wild. And we just took it outside of that. We brought in a little bit of fashion, a little bit of art, a bit of music.

48:06You know, Liquid Death have done a really good job of spicing up the category when it comes to like going into that sort of rocky era. And I think that we need more of that to spice up the category because the energy category is fucking mad. I mean it's probably actually hard to innovate in that category because there's so much um wild stuff but also because when you've talked about the music the fashion and the uh kind of the creativity and newness the the the can literally resembles that as you say you're not really it's water yeah now why I'm fascinated to talk to you mate is because everyone I speak to or most people they have a point of difference on the product.

48:50Yeah. Which is, if you've got a point of difference on the product, you taste better, you taste different. Yeah. It kind of, the rest falls into place. Yeah. Why, right, you guys are like, you've taken fucking water. I know it's in a can. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But then, this is where the branding becomes really interesting. But also, because you've had this obsession with music, new, branding, fashion, is, the can is a kind of a totemic resemblance of that. But then also, it allows you to put it in the right places. So, Carlos Sainz drinking at the F1. 100%. fashion branding cool blah blah blah yeah so it like builds this brand brand well that's it by the way that i am so proud of how does that happen are you are you sending out how are you getting these cans in the right places this is the maddest thing and this is something that like i think that a lot of people underestimate i as you walked up the stairs there's a wall of fame okay and we'll have a look at it as we go back down it's a wall of or something yeah yeah and um it's baffled me from the day that we started to now what i am so proud of is that when this product is put somewhere people like holding it because it looks good okay now what you'll find with a lot of other people uh celebrities and brands is that they because they know that the limelight is all on them they don't necessarily want to be holding different products i actually have a funny story when we first launched uh there was a uh a guy that was working for us who was doing a sampling session at whole foods in camden and he called me up and he goes josh you don't understand harry styles has just walked in what do you want me to do i was like well first of all calm down yeah yeah yeah and just offer him a can anyway the next minute i hear him go harry the ceo of canna water's on the phone well first of all i wasn't the ceo at all um and the next minute i'm on the phone to harry styles and i'm talking to him and he's i'm sorry man you know i can't hold the brand because i've got a deal with coco and everyone's watching what i do was that a good good uh it's really good thank you i've been working on it for years yeah yeah he's i'm just really sorry and he basically just told me to piss off basically so i knew it wasn't going to be easy to get cano into the right people's hands because they're always being papped and they're always being shot and um they know how valuable that picture is but we have somehow got into the hands of everyone from bill gates drake um dua lipa you know all the f1 i mean on the new drive to survive episode two and three we are everywhere we're everywhere i'm not the biggest f1 fan but it is mental to see and i think it's because like people water is an impulse buy yeah and people will just go and buy the product that they and it trusts me one of the most difficult things of can of water has been to try and convince people to go from plastic bottles to cans hands down it's something that people have been used to forever we've done an amazing job where we've sold over 50 million cans um but it hasn't been an easy job but what we've done is we've got these innovators who are like celebrities it could be tastemakers innovators who are sort of like i don't just want to hold a plastic bottle i just want to hold something a bit different and i and i'm happy i'm happy to hold something a bit different and it goes in my outfit or it's like or it's a bit cooler or i don't want to be walking around with a plastic bottle it's like what everyone else is doing so we basically created saying where Ed Sheeran's happy to go on stage and wave a can of water about or you know it's been placed somewhere and I don't know whoever it is Dave the rapper's got it in his studio or the Sidemen who perfect example I went on a Sidemen video that overnight got 10 million views I couldn't leave my I couldn't leave my house for two weeks because these guys are so famous okay everywhere I went people were trying to get a picture of me I mean it's just the maddest thing I mean, I'm a nobody, but these guys are huge.

52:48You know, on the episode, they were talking about how they all drink cano. Sick. You know, it's just so nice and so organic. And I think that what I'm most proud of is that we haven't paid a penny, not one penny to get in the hands of these people. So there was no, this is all organic. All organic. So like, for example, so who's on that Fall of Wayne? Fall of Wayne, Fall of Wayne. I might change it, Hall of Fame. Yeah, Hall of Fame. honestly there's probably about there's probably about 40 50 celebrities um on that wall anyone from tyson fury anthony joshua um we'll go down there like sabrina carpenter who's like one of the biggest singers in the u.s like just it's it's it's all about the places that we we are at you know so like the distribution that we've got um but a lot of these places whether it be like global so capital fm heart all of these types of places that have can of water a lot of the big clubs in the uk so we just launched in drum sheds which is like one of the biggest clubs in the country that was the old print works the old print works we we've actually got like a bar there it's like really really cool in there so one of the things that we we haven't touched on but like the the three of us were just wanted to do with this brand is we wanted it to be part of culture we wanted it to be in culture and culture so many different facets you know whether it be um within fashion within like you know music there's so much different culture we we always talk about cool like cool is so subjective but because anyone can be cool in in different areas but there is a there is a can of cool you know and i think that holding a plastic bottle in 2024 just ain't cool i don't believe it is you know um look look at what the world is doing you know it's funny actually because you know who the coolest person is to me david attenborough like he's cool like he all the plastic companies can pay people left right and center to just hush you know there was an article with me the other day in the guardian i don't know if you saw it they've lied the plastic producers have lied for the past 30 years they knew where all the rubbish was going of course they fucking did of course they did you're telling me that the guy at danone didn't go on holiday like we did in thailand and see you know and and i think that you know what i love about david attenborough is he was just like he just just he's an innovator really like he just he's the reason we we even exist to be honest with you no one listens to the three of us boys until david attenborough spoke let's let's go you just talked about kind of thailand let's let's actually go back to that beach from thailand with perry and i'm arielle arielle i'm so bad with names i interviewed a guy yes uh a couple weeks ago from got a brand And I couldn't say the name of the Italian city.

55:50It was like Presendo or some shit. I ended up calling it Brichetta. No, not Brichetta. Prosecco. Prosecco or some shit like that at the end. So you're 20, how old are you? 22 years old. Take me to the day, take me to that first day when something happened in the three of you lads' soul. You walk down that beach. What do you see? Paint the picture. What does it smell like? What does it make you feel? and kind of talked to me about that very early kind of time in Thailand. We thought, right, we have to do something about this. So, lads holiday. Yep. No purpose. Didn't think we were going to come out with a business idea.

56:28Were you sober at this point? Sober, yes. Oh, sick. Okay, cool. 22 years old, sort of. I was not, I didn't actually have, like, I was doing a bit of events and DJing, but I didn't really have a sole purpose at all. but I always wanted a brand was always at the back of my mind because I love brands but on this trip no no expectation of anything and we're in Thailand and um we're in a remote island uh on on PP Island yeah and um have basically just seen just a load of small plastic particles and a lot of plastic bottles basically being washed up on the island basically and um you know you go on these tours we were on one of these tours and they've basically um said you know you can go off and then come back in an hour and we just saw you know shit loads of plastic it was just something we kept on seeing and we were just talking like how is it that brands like coca-cola and danone all these brands that we grew up absolutely loving how is it ending up here you know like it's so it's so confusing we we we speak we've been speaking about recycling for forever like we we didn't why is this happening we didn't see how bad it was at this point we just saw what we saw um when leaving that and and talk and and i think that when leaving the island we were just talking about it constantly um and through doing a few google searches you can fucking see how bad is and what you see is environmentalists who no one's listening to because environment before Greta Thunberg it was just like a 50 year old standing outside of Coca-Cola's head office with a placard saying fuck plastic and blah blah blah but the general public looked to those people as being a bit crazy and I'll never forget and I've said this in a few podcasts I was standing at Whole Foods once always bloody happens at Whole Foods doesn't it Kensington this one uh and And some sort of 60-year-old woman came over to me and asked for my autograph.

58:37And I was like, why? Why did you want my autograph? She goes, because I've been talking about plastic pollution for 30 years. No one's listened to me. I've dedicated my whole life to it. No one's listened to me. But you have been listened to. You've got a product on the shelf. So, you know, that was it. A lot of people were just ignoring these environmentalists. Similar to like the vegan movement. Like, don't talk to me. Like, it's just, don't shove it down my throat. Don't shove it down my throat. and that's what there was a lot of pushback um so when we saw that actually this is a really big thing and actually in the middle of the ocean there is fucking plastic everywhere and it's just the landfill is growing and growing and growing and growing we were like oh my god like no one is listening to these people and these companies are just getting away with it and it made us angry really really really angry of like how is this happening and how are how are they getting away with it and through copious amounts of research into packaging you know you've got glass bottles which is recycled which are recyclable um but they're very heavy they don't stack up very well um on on a truck which is which is can be a problem and also from a carbon footprint perspective and their heaviness is it can be a bit bit difficult but also if you're going to replace a plastic bottle with something it has to be as on the go and convenient we live in a world full of convenience okay unfortunately there are a lot of people out there that don't give a shit about the planet and even if they say they do and they might be walking around the cano they're still buying kirkland bottles for their heart for their home okay like shitty you know that's the reality is that a lot of it is a smoke and mirrors like sort of like behind closed doors sort of thing and we we've seen that and i think one of the main things is how do you make sure that if you're going to replace a plastic bottle that it is as on the go and convenient for the consumer so glass smashes a lot of people don't want to put it in their bag it's banned from a lot of places it is it's impossible to be the the 100 solution tetra pack okay cartons no one really talks about this, but they're worse than plastic bottles.

1:00:50They're fused with aluminium, paper, and plastic. They're an absolute nightmare to recycle. There is a big difference between recyclable and recycled. So just because something is recyclable doesn't mean it is getting recycled. And that's the problem with plastic and tetrapack. It's a nightmare to recycle. So it ain't getting recycled. so even if it's 100 recyclable yeah that's all good it needs to be recycled aluminium is the most recyclable material on the planet so when you recycle a can it will always come back as another can it will be what it was meant to be a can so 75 % of all aluminium produced in the 1800s is just in circulation and it just had such a good story ago i thought with this but you didn't start it you didn't start it because you got to the same hypothesis that everyone else would have got to it's a shit idea but we which i'd like to you know put us in this innovator category there was no blueprint for canned water we're not a copycat we're an innovator so we started this and we were like we're not going to take no as an answer we believe we're going to take we're going to be the punch bag and the guinea pig we're going to take all the shit to make this work and i think that's one of the hardest things about about the journey of can of water is that we have been the biggest punch bag we really really have been a punch bag of like just no no no shit then something happens david attenborough oh actually yes we'll take you on then another ward you know like then another canned water comes in and and and i think one of the hardest things is for a for being a young startup entrepreneurial business is you can't be perfect but you you're literally it's like you're the surfer but you're surfing against the biggest waves and you literally you surf and then you just get fucking brought back to shore and then you go back and you go over that wave and then it's it is so tough being the first to do something the when you're right in the blueprint aren't you yeah yeah and we're gonna talk about that i think what's fascinating is right at the beginning when we're talking about your dj and you said you're kind of one of your superpowers was uh this ability to to listen this ability to be angry about something this ability to be obsessed with the new thing and it's like you come to whole foods market and the woman comes up to you ask for the photograph it's like well actually what you've done is you've combined those three things anger at what you saw in thailand obsession with newness and listening and actually listening to the point and i and we're going to talk about this wave analogy because i think it's interesting because um the the wave is granted to begin with you it was pushing you back but i i actually believe you guys now and we're going to talk about the resilience and the punch bag stuff but you guys were the only ones in the fucking water yeah to begin with catching those waves and all you're the only ones paddling out right and now that wave is very much here and you're surfing it and I think Charlie Munger is Warren Buffett's side man but he's got a thing is being on the wave and a lot of people and actually the guy who gives a crap you know the he talks about being in the water and I think what a lot of people go through is they get into the water they get the waves pushing them back pushing them back punch bag no punch bag no and then they get out David Attenborough saying yes they get to the next wave punch bag no punch bag no but then if you just keep going have you seen that that that that picture of the guy hammering away have you seen that before oh what and the goal's just there yeah the goal's just there yes yes and there's been so many times when we've thought about turning back there's been so many things where you know in 2018 we were literally three months from going insolvent we were building you know we brought in a managing director he basically said listen guys you're building a really good brand but like no one knows it really like you might have a few celebrities holding it but you're not you're not making any money you're not selling enough and you're just running out of money basically and he basically said we've got three to four months to really turn this around how did you turn it around basically just well i get it was a bit of luck but we basically just planted the seed in every single part we did everything within our power everything like we were driving around the whole of london handing out cans to people building building awareness like we were we were doing huge guerrilla marketing sort of stunts where like where a lot of people would think it was beneath them like we were just sort of we didn't have any money like we would just sort of like stand outside of places and or like we'd be i mean like one of the things i'm not proud of but it did help us is we would take off people's billboards on the train and replace it with our own ones we couldn't afford to but this was like like for us at this point it was life or death like we were literally three months and i think that people started talking about so people started actually this whole chicken and egg situation in fmcg where you go to um an independent cafe and you say we want you to sell can of water and they'll say but you need to be in with it with the wholesaler we'll then go to the wholesaler and the wholesaler will say you need to have 15 customers we'll then get the 15 customers we'll get on the shelf and then the um you know the the independent cafe would say yeah we've got you now but no one knows what you are no one's buying you it literally is this chicken and egg horrendous situation and trust me it's a hundred times harder when you have a canned water brand because everyone thinks you're an energy drink or a beer they don't know what you are they don't know why you exist so the we've got to make 10 times more noise so if you're just a plastic bottled water brand or a glass water brand and you can see the water I know what that is it's just another water but if you're that yeah you might pick up the shelf but it's confusing so it was all about for us it was all about making noise we did some sort of like pop-up shops in in old street station and we did turn up at like your tastes of London like like unannounced and all these types of things but essentially we did start to we did start to get a bit noticed in the in those four months but the real thing that was the the catalyst which was so amazing um and if we didn't have this we would just fade it out like you know like a lot of brands that we've seen over the years is that on the last month where we literally probably like we were running out of money david attenborough and blue planet bbc you know they they they did an episode about a a whale that had died and it's it's child was like crying basically and honestly i'd never forget it overnight we went from being the biggest fad but what you but where did where did the can of water come into the whales kid it didn't it didn't but what happened was is that was it there was that the plastic killed the whale plastic killed the whale sorry yeah yeah plastic killed the whale and overnight everyone went on the same journey that we went on which is fuck i need to get rid of plastic what is better than plastic go on the journey see the same thing we saw aluminium's better oh these three idiots called me up four months ago talking to me about this canned water product so we fast-tracked all of these places breaks bid food booker tesco all these places that take people a long long time we got in there very very quickly because we now became a necessity so overnight went from sending a few hundred thousand cans in three years to nearly 12 million cans in 2019 sick which is just mental the i i think you create your own luck and i think you said i think people say oh you know you need a bit of luck but i think the harder you work the luckier you get i really do believe that i really believe that i think there's something to get quite spiritual here there's something in i really believe the secret yeah yeah but i really do believe that i think something's working for you so if you just keep showing up there'll be a lot of people who are have brands uh i've got so many mates who've had to like shut up shop yeah yeah that's a bit of a mouthful shut up shop yeah that's right they're at that point where the gold could be there or they turn back yeah what were the hardest conversations you were having in your head about whether to continue and go or go back and like if there is there will be someone listening to this who's at that moment of like should i just fuck this off yeah yeah how what would you say to that person stephen bartlett did a thing uh he's he's put it up a few times about like it's also a skill to know when to quit yeah which i agree with because sometimes you are flogging a dead horse and if you don't get any traction you need to know when to quit because you could be putting your energy into something else and you know i've seen people start something and it hasn't worked and they've started another thing and it has worked and it's been amazing so super important to know when to quit and I think that isn't for me to decide that's for you to decide but you need to sort of give yourself those objectives or sort of uh you know that that sort of that mental map in your mind of um when is the right time to stop if I don't hit this by x i've just got to give it give it up um and i do believe that any experience is good experience you know if you met me eight years ago when i started can of water as a completely different person wouldn't be having this conversation you know all all all of all of it has been through experience and the resilience actually has been built up from day one to now um i do for me personally i think that you know as a kid one of my biggest things of uh of adhd and one of the biggest adhd traits is starting something and not finishing it but i've always been very good at knowing what is the right one i'll give you like give you an example like but it's going to sound so weird i've been in many relationships but when i met my wife i knew straight away she is the one she's the one i knew it i knew it she is the one i knew because just the person that she was i've been in so many different relationships i knew that she was the one i went to go and see hundreds of flats when i uh but when i walked into this flat I knew that this is the one.

1:11:56I've always sort of been very good at making the right decisions. And I think that that's a skill in itself. Can you, how do you teach your team that skill? Because it's, I think, I think Jeff Bezos, Bezos, whatever, he's got a thing which is we're going to be the most effective decision-making company in the world. So actually the Amazon is further downstream, but actually upstream is we're going to be so good at making decisions quickly and effectively. Because I think, and I've, I mean, even some of the big companies I occasionally work with or like do some stuff with, is I'm like, how are we getting bogged down in this?

1:12:47How are we going around the houses with this? I'm like, this is just driving me insane. i don't think how can you teach can you teach or how do you get your guys to do it i don't know whether you can teach it i think that you have to hire good uh that's my my view on it and how do you test that in the hiring process i know it's a really hard question yeah it is i think it's through i think it's through asking questions and and hiring smart and not not quick you know it really really isn't easy to hire at the moment it really really isn't but it's super important that people are that's why i think it's super important for the people with the quality to hire the people if that makes sense but i i don't i don't think it's very easy to learn that skill personally i think it's something that comes naturally to people and you can you can actually see through decisions that have made in the past through whether if they've worked somewhere else and also it's just like i think that or if i sat with someone i could probably notice it quite quickly um just on the way that that someone's talking but it is it is a skill that i am very fortunate i i've i've i've got a lot of um cons um but i i definitely think one of my pros is you know i'll give you an example like as a kid i always felt a bit sort of like Like, oh, everyone's going into recruitment or property or banking.

1:14:15I'm a DJ. You know, this was at a time when no one was a DJ and no one really thought DJs were cool. Ten years later, every single fucker wants to be a DJ. And I'm standing there like, everyone wants to be. So I feel like going with my gut and not going with the crowd has been something that, like, started a canned water company. could have started a you know a let's just like a flavored beverage like like like something that's been there forever and i think that it's something that's been synonymous to me forever which we've gone into whether it be like the new music or the new this and the new that it's about going with your gut instinct if can of water just went with what is normal and what isn't different then we would just end up like every single other beverage company and i think that it's that juxta thing is really well also yeah the juxtaposition thing is really interesting it's huge and it's it's uh you you see it in in uh in so many things if everyone if if if anyone has started a business and has got through the first few years they are special i do believe that also the way i see it it's almost like, and I mean this in a positive way, like almost the black and the white is almost like the black sheep.

1:15:40Yeah. Like you were different at school. Yeah, a hundred percent. But then there's real value in that because, you know, going against the grain or going against the herd and ultimately, as you say now, every fuck is... We've got it written on the wall here, defy the norm. Defy the norm, there we go, yeah. Like that is our, don't bottle it, is literally, and defying the norm is literally our... Let's talk about naysayers and people saying no. So we met this, funnily enough, he um does a lot of music producing in uh sorry films djs this guy in costa rica he was a bit of a knobhead he's an american guy literally we sat at this bar and the first thing he does he sat down we met these canadian guys and oh we've got this guy they're at bpm you know they now do it in costa rica okay and uh comes down he goes guys what's your dream and i was like i was like you fucking joking me yeah and then he's like i was like this is my dream i was like as in like I mean Costa Rica on the piss like this is banging and he was like no that's a goal that's the sort of guy he was I was like I'll give it a rest just talking about like just a bit of a dickhead but and I actually thought this was at the time I was like this sums up this guy he's just like just a bit of a pillock yeah yeah he goes dude like he's like a guy out of like Inbetweeners yeah yeah yeah he's like Jay from Inbetweeners basically but American and he's a record producer sorry a video producer but he goes dude dude, I'm a trampoline in a sea full of anchors.

1:17:04And I was like, I was basically laughing and being like, that is so cringe. But the more I think about it, right, is like you kind of are this trampoline. As in like every fucker, every fucker for eight years has tried to pull you down. You said you were a punching bag. Yeah, yeah. What were some of those things people were saying to you religiously, militantly? And how did you stay positive? Because I think without any, the common theme between everyone everyone I've interviewed or just chatted I hate calling it an interview but um is is like an unholy amount of resilience yeah talk to me about that so as a kid I always see this is this is this is the typical um link uh founder linkedin um post my teacher as a kid they told me I wouldn't amount to anything look at me now that literally is like that's the poster boy of like of uh but that literally is my story like from a kid I was always told you can't do this you can't do this you can't do this like every single parent's evening Josh isn't performing he's not performing he's not performing he's not performing so my whole life I've been used to your shit your shit your shit he's got ADHD he can't do that he's this he's that he's that so starting can of water and also the same with DJing actually like just like you're not good enough you're not good enough and I would always get better and better and better and better and better to get to a point where people are like fuck and with can of water when starting it I remember when I told my family they literally thought that we were mad like my sister Lauren we laughed the whole time because I remember coming home one day and hearing her saying to her friend who said what's Josh up to and my sister goes he's starting this canned water company it's just the most stupid thing ever like who would drink canned water i remember my dad coming back coming home one night and being like oh like some guy was like said it was a bit silly but like you just keep going you just keep going and uh it's just like even like people that we grew up with like people would say to me like oh yeah i spoke to so and so they said it was shit so i i knew that it was going to be difficult i think that the hard thing for us is when business leaders would say it so like we met with one of the founders of arguably the biggest drinks company in the country this country and um well can you say i can't say who it is say it and i'll take it out i'll tell you after but these guys are like this might give it away like they're like the dream founders of any drinks company in the country and uh we sat down with one of them who basically just said listen it's a it's a cool product it looks good but the plastic problem's not that bad they sell loads of plastic and um like you'll never get into tescos and i just don't see why consumers would want to drink out of a can rather than a plastic bottle and that just like don't the conversations like that from people like that just shatter you like you just that that's like no sleep when you yeah when you say shatter you so what's the feeling as you get in your car you get on the train like talk to me but what a shat you horrible like just like like a feeling of failure a feeling of like how like are we the only people that believe in this um are we mad um and and obviously with my background of just always being doubted like you do think like why why is it that why is it that this person who has so much knowledge thinks that you like are shit though your product shit and you take a lot you take it a lot but you take it personally really really personally but then you know that was the that was the common theme throughout and actually funny enough I'll never forget it and this is in this is another innovator this this this this is a perfect innovator copycat story send an email to Selfridges arguably you know startup heaven but still like big and say to them we've got this product we haven't even got and we at this point we didn't even have for the first six to eight months we didn't have a prototype you need 150 000 of each skew to make a can of water basically we hadn't even tried cans of water at this point but we emailed selfridges and within six weeks selfridges basically got back to us and said you need to come in for a meeting and the buyer that just joined selfridges he basically was like have you got any inside knowledge of what's going on at selfridges and we were like no what he was like well i just joined from harrods and my first my first mandate has that i've been given is to remove all plastic from the shelves we'll be the we'll be the first retailer this this was in 2016 we'll be the first retailer in the world actually this 2015 will be the first retailer in the world to remove plastic out of our fridges we're doing something called project ocean and you've emailed me not only the week that i've started but the week that i got that mandate it's the strangest thing ever he was like we will be selfridges will be placing an order a cat for can of water we want you to be that one of the leading products that we launch with then london fashion week got in touch and we're like we love and you know we we obviously from the fashion perspective like we love can of water and we want to we want to choose kind of water for so amongst hundreds of no's and by the way that was at the beginning before a load of no's actually because i think that you know they're they're they were actually looking back the easy ones but you you sort of it's like it's like this and then and you're sort of you're you're just always it's always black and the white it's coming back yeah and i think that after like for the next four years it was it was honestly mate it was it was it was the most depressing anxious like there were some days where like i'd go home just in tears and i'm not an emotional person i wouldn't show it i would just go home and just cry because it'd be a whole day of just no no no this is stupid this is stupid why would anyone want to do this we're going back to this blackberry versus iphone thing this this um you know this sort of innovators and like and and people and and the copycats of people doubting doubting doubting doubting doubting but you you just keep going and you go and you go and you go and i actually think that right now and i actually saw you post about this the other day the other day like i actually think that right now is the best time for anyone to start a functional beverage or a brand oh for sure do you know why because brands like can of water and dash and huel have basically and oatly have basically been the punching bags where we've basically shown that anything is possible oh yeah so all these buyers that basically were like no we just want the same old shit are basically like oh no we actually can see now that people will buy like new innovation whether it be kombucha or kefir or matcha or you know like they're this is the best time ever to puff your chest out and be a um you know and and and be a be a product i think that the brand still i'm brand first always i think the brand has to be incredible for you to have success i i believe not right at the beginning but by the end of it like i genuinely believe oatly is an incredible brand i i do um and i think fuel as well is is a really good brand i think you have to stand out because if you don't stand out you'll basically just be washed out by the next functional beverage but i do think that it's the best time ever and people had to take the the hits to get to where we are you took the hits you surfed you paddled out when the waves were no no no no no which has allowed you to find the surf and kind of i'm not saying catch the way like the wave coming in your favor is david attenborough it's the selfridges serendipity of selfridges it's the london or milan fashion week whatever you said but and that's the wave coming in and then when people see that wave there's other brands on the beach with a surfboard and or brand like oh we fancy a bit of that yeah so now it's getting busier and now it's getting crowded and i think you're right like people you you guys for sure were one of the first to pioneer the wave like see the wave yeah i was watching a documentary about surfing randomly and they're talking about like finding waves and there's this place called nazare in portugal she had the five biggest surf spots in the world one fucker this guy called rob i think his name obviously yeah yeah he's a scaffolder no joking but he he went and found this place and he was the first one and now it's like now it's a tourist destination and it's the same thing with with the the functional functional drinks category is is you guys were paving the way but but i still think resilience is is i want to get kind of dig in slightly further into this resilience so you come out of a meeting by you know people have said it's just not going to work your friends i think that's an interesting one is some of your friends will really support you some will really be really kind of because they don't want you to do well yeah it's a fucking british thing i don't know what it is i've seen it um what do you you get you get a day full of noise you look at yourself in the mirror at that night what do you say what does josh say to himself to just keep going I think that it's just you learn to get thick-skinned and also

1:26:58I've gone through much more painful stuff in my life as we spoke about before whether it be my brother being ill or family members being ill or you know even like heartbreak you know like which is a really really tough thing like i've taken harder punches i think that this is like this is our baby so it is it is tough but i think that i personally think that failure is a really really good thing and i think that making like as i said before like make turning my wrongs into rights I think that the obsession with making it work clouded it that naivety is is amazing at times because you sort of because we didn't come from a drinks background we were so naive yeah and I I speak about that quite a lot because if we had a drinks background not only would we not have started this but we would have sort of we would have probably given up to be honest with you i think because we were so obsessed with making difference and also like something else that is like this is a purpose-led business this isn't just a brand that's sort of been plucked out of nowhere that we're here for a mission this is a this is a fucking war against plastic so in my mind i'm also i'm thinking yeah it's nose but we've got to keep going we've got to keep going because if i give up they've won you know and you know how proud it makes me that that there's brands like liquid death and evian have gone into a sparkling can and smart water in the u.s are going into cans and you know this is this is success this isn't failure this is success being in a category by yourself is actually the most depressing thing in the world it's depressing depressing yeah being in the being the only person in the category people are like oh wow you're the only person in the category no it's horrible because like the plastic people are like forcing them to sort of forcing their hand to go into cans and becoming a um you know a pioneer you know we don't even need to be a category leader like as long as we are remembered as being the the first and the ones that that have done this i think that's that's super important from a creative perspective otherwise what's the point but i think that the excitement of what the brand could be helps the sleepless nights in all honesty and also having a team as well who want the same for you but you know there have been plenty of times which i said before where i just have given up and a burnout is something in my it was a story of my early days of just constant burnout whereas now i'll go to the gym like there's no there's no time where like i'll be completely honest with you i'm not a firm believer in hustle culture i never have been this is a personal thing for me i'm not i don't believe in hustle culture sorry this is interesting right because this is really nuanced so some people think hustle is um working 17 hours a day six days a week that's one part okay another part and it's because i'm a bit conflicted so i i don't believe in that part yeah but then there's also the hustle of making things happen out of nothing yeah the hustle i'm good at that yeah yeah the hustle of like standing out giving flyers out 100 so it's interesting you are right there because i've never heard it that way yeah because i think because people like oh my god i'm so anti-hustle culture so i would say like you're a hustler like but i don't mean like a you know i feel like 50 cent we should put 50 on now get rich with i try and boy favorite album yeah yeah yeah sick album but um you know so so it's it's there's there's a kind of a nuance here because it's like some people say don't hustle but it's like and but i think working 16 hours a day is completely stupid yeah so do i but i because i could generally do my work smart yeah i could do my day in five hours yeah so there's that part there's like the actual time of doing work and i disagree with that but then the hustle of like the hustle the way i see if hustle is like okay if i know um this person knows that buyer that buyer that buyer knows the category director how can i put samples in or how can i get samples how can i get in front of that person i completely that's hustle to me yeah so it's interesting yeah but it's really nice you put it that way um because that is exactly what i mean yeah it's like i don't believe that 17 hour days are the way forward i actually think that would just lead you into an anxious life i think that there's one word that i try and live by um and it's a very simple word but i believe that uh we don't have enough of it which is balance like i think that a lot of people just put all their eggs into one basket um you know whether it be i'm about to have a kid in two months amazing congratulations thank you which is super scary but it's important to have balance you know i've actually found i've just bought a peloton for my for my home peloton is a brand i actually really like as well but the reason i bought the peloton is because i'm going to be at home a lot with a screaming baby and I need to make sure that I have balance you know and I want to be super supportive and I will be and I'll be a very very hands-on dad because that's what I'm like but I need to make sure that for the 45 minutes of the baby sleeping that I can sort of go and do what I love doing which is like you know exercising or spending time with my wife or whatever i think that if you just concentrate 100 on work you will fade into the this sort of this this this person that just doesn't necessarily have any purpose outside of that if that makes sense and i think that i've seen it with a lot of people and it's a really slippery slope again it's that's that requires some nuance because i think if you look at it over seven years you almost need that not 17 hours a day yeah let's let's be get to like the crux of this you kind of need for at least two years to be all in first two years first two years so it's like it's it's um because i think a lot of the founders like not just not not just yourself but like a lot of founders who've done the burnout bit i'm not saying burnout is a thing but you kind of it's really it's an art it's like you need to go run so fucking hard at that problem because no one else is going to run that problem you need to be in the waves yeah water but if you do it if you if you go too much and you don't recruit recruit recuperate you're gonna like you're gonna drown which is the burnout yeah it's about it's you know what it is it's about but it's the balance it goes back to balance it's the balance of that the balance black and white it really really is the balance of all of it it's like the balance of the hustle but with making sure that you've got that you that you've got time for your family and for yourself and for your friends you know it's super super important that you don't become that that that recluse that just takes all the hits goes to bed wakes up and takes the hit though i just don't believe that's life and also having i think friend like none of my friends give a fuck about this like they don't care they won't and then it's amazing yeah i don't when i go to the pub i don't i just want to talk absolute shit with my mates i'm exactly the same I'm exactly the same.

1:34:26And also, like, when I go out with my mates, I don't actually want to talk about anything to do with money or work or anything. I'm completely – I am that guy, that awkward guy that would just remove every conversation of football, money, work, and just be like, but how are you? But how actually are you? And you know a lot of the time what I get? I get, I'm not actually great. Good, let's talk about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we've talked about a lot of the – and I think it's, it's, I appreciate you being so candid, mate. I honestly do. Let's talk about some of the, like, you know, the, the, the days when you've gone like, this is all worth it.

1:35:03Like, what would you say? And it's probably hard to kind of pinpoint, but what was maybe the day that like, and actually, cause you're a DJ, I'm not, there's two parts to this question. So like, what was the day when you're like, I'm fucking having it boy. Like, this is like, this is, this is everything I wanted to do. This is, I've achieved it. And then what song would you pick to go with that day? I asked I asked this the reason I asked this I asked this to Ben Branson yeah from CD in fact I'll introduce you to him because he's got a you'd be an amazing guest on it he's got an ADHD podcast called Hidden I'd love to do it Hidden 20 % yeah mate I'll introduce you I'd love that yeah yeah he's a G but basically the question I asked him was what song would you pick the day he sold to Diageo what song would you pick and he picked Bittersweet Symphony by The Verge yeah yeah yeah sick song the whole song I was listening to it in the car.