Minor Figures founder: Building a + £30 million Challenger That Thinks Like a Funk Band

33:59Like it's a very egoless place to work, hopefully. And everybody, you know, the best idea wins and it doesn't come necessarily from anyone at the top. In fact, part of my job is to throw out a lot of the worst ideas to make people feel, you know, to encourage people to feel comfortable to come forward. Because I know that through a distributed intelligence across the globe, we're going to have some absolutely phenomenal people. It's actually how do you tap that? How do you make people feel comfortable? How are you comfortable with failure and things like that? So an ensemble cast is probably the first connection.

34:32And then the idea around being a challenger brand is that you define yourself by what you're not. So keep coming after paper cups and, you know, some drink that's soft drink that doesn't have sugar in it's going after sugary, you know, the Coca-Colas. And you've got Brewdog, which is the ultimate sort of punk brand going after, you know, big beer. So you're kind of seeing this, you're telling this story of a sort of incumbent monolithic corporate structure that you're going to storm the gates of. And it's fine. It's a really good strategy for brands because people can easily understand it. It's really digestible very quickly, which is very important.

35:14But once you've got the formula, it's really not that exciting. like it's it feels now once you see that you see it in all brands and then it's like oh okay here we go another one of these so how do you create a brand which is not that which which isn't which isn't a challenger brand and i guess that's where the funk comes in we're not really against anything you know we think that this is the best way to live and we believe that that's a great thing to do but we're one of the things that we've unconsciously almost have a rule is We never really, in any of our messaging, tell people what to do.

35:49There's no instruction in any of our comms or any of our messaging or anything. It's really about a feeling and it's really about attracting people to it rather than aligning with people who do want to get up. I mean, there's nothing wrong with getting up and rising and grinding and hustling. I love it. But if you want to sit on the couch and watch telly, that's also pretty cool. you know so i think we don't we don't really have a you know like there's big wide world there's room for everyone we we kind of we like it we're into that so it's brilliant and we'll get on to your recent atl campaign but the reason i love that is it's just it's so it's like kind of warped and bends your mind and it's like i just loved it because everyone says you know available at waitrose available at and as you say there's an instruction there right with most atl campaigns to get the most bang for the buck.

36:43Why I revere you guys is you've just done it your own way and you've kind of – and this whole – that is very much a manifestation of play your kind of funk band and let people come dancing with you. But what you said there, I think this is really – I think for that – sorry, Dan. I was going to say, look, I think for that, like a lot of credit, we've got the – I describe the design as kind of our creative directors, but they have their own agency. They're called Stevenson Edwards, Joe Stevenson and Toby Edwards. They work for us full-time or practically full-time. They have since the beginning and they're friends of ours.

37:16And, you know, they're really the apex predators of graphic design. I mean, the amount of brands that now look like minor figures and are trying to replicate this style is unbelievable. So they've done an unbelievable job of ensuring this brand identity is continued. And to be honest, for most of us, we feel like we haven't begun, like we haven't started to even unpack it yet. So there's such rich territory that we haven't really explored. And, you know, when you talk about those campaigns, I was talking to someone recently And I was saying like, and this actually came from another talented person, Alexa, who's going to be our CMO.

38:00She was saying in the business that, you know, we do think so counterintuitively, like it is counterintuitive to not put your website, at least on the billboard or your, you know, buy it at Waitrose or how much it is like that's counterintuitive because as you said, you want bang for your buck, but it's not counterintuitive to want people to fall in love with the billboard or fall in love with the brand. So in that sense, we do something totally normal. It's like do something really amazing and really bright and positive and cool and gives you a feeling. That's not counterintuitive, actually. So it's a sort of interesting approach that kind of on paper, at least if you're looking at, you know, the sort of Excel spreadsheet, may not make all that much sense.

38:45Yeah. And this is why I was so excited for this interview is because outside looking at it so seems to come so natural to you and as you said there's lots of brands trying to copy what you're doing i mean i was at london coffee festival and i've never seen a stand like it it was mental it was absolutely bonkers i was like where am i alive i'd like this is mental and again with us with the with the stands we always said we've never really achieved it to be honest but again the person who's been working in the events she's totally amazing alicia she's she's phenomenal and we we discussed and we've never pulled it off yet but we would like to you know take a every year like take a trade show like on the road you know like like pink floyd with the inflatable pigs it's like what's minor figures going to do this year and every and we can travel that across the globe and then next year come back with another look and another feel and we've never really been able to pull that off but that's always been a something that's super interesting to us and again that goes back to the band the way band yeah um but so first you said you've got to you've um you've got you had to throw away some ideas almost from like the leadership perspective and i think it's really interesting because i believe to have one a good idea you need to have a lot of bad ideas and so you almost need to it's kind of like paintball you've got to shoot off a load of you know paintballs and eventually you'll hit one that does land and that's a great idea um what were some of the i uh maybe like ideas you had to throw away just out of sheer curiosity?

40:13Oh man. I mean, what, what day are we talking about? Is this, this is the thing. Is it on a daily basis? Like the, cause it seems you've got this constant where I'm trying to dig into is like, how are you being this creative? Does that make not just you, but the brand? Um, I think, uh, I think, look, the other thing is we're really constrained, you know, like, like you don't have it all your own way like we we you know depending on how you businesses set up their um production you know their their purchasing and all these things like you actually you're actually constrained by so many things that there isn't a lot of a lot of room for you to have these real breakthroughs without any money too not a big you know research and development team and and those sorts of things so what's really important is really listening to again the customers, you know, seeing how they're responding to things and being really agile and the ability to be fast.

41:15The gap between big corporates being quick and startups has shrunk so considerably now, like there's maybe 12 months before the corporate can do it. You know, in the old days, if you had Bree or Coca-Cola wanted to do something, they'd have a three to five year, you know, turnaround time and a plan and they'd sort of roll it out super slowly. but now they're getting more agile as well. So I guess you've got to swim faster than them. So I think that's always interesting to us. I think we've got the – our brand is very elastic as well because we don't really have like this really strict tone of voice where we have to sound the same all the time.

41:52And I remember, you know, in the early days of Minor Figures, I'll tell you like from a brand perspective, if you go to our Instagram, it's now sort of a user-generated content. And when we did that, because I was running the Instagram when we started, and I couldn't stand it. You know, I really was a bit like, oh, man, am I really going to try and curate? And this was five years ago, and people had these very beautifully curated Instagram accounts and things like that, social media. And I remember looking at a brand called Nugs in the US, and they make like a chicken nugget, vegan chicken nugget.

42:24And they had this unbelievably curated Instagram, and it was like all red. The colorways were perfect, and the panels were perfect. and this thing was like so incredibly beautiful and ours just looked like you'd thrown it against the wall that was it sort of looked like one of your friends you know there was just all bits everywhere and there was some bits of product and then we didn't show any product for months and then there was you know some jokes and i don't know it was just it did feel like a friend's and at the time i was quite embarrassed for minor figures you know instagram or social account and then you know i look back three or four years later and these brands and maybe i shouldn't use nugs an example but these other brands that are doing the same thing they're doing the three years later they're looking the same sounding the same you know they've got that that that really tight brand aesthetic that they have cultivated and they're still with it and i'm like oh my god thank god we didn't do that how boring you know like that would just be exhausting to be trying to do that so we we started just and again like people like oh your instagram is so great it's just so free carefree and things it's like well you know it kind of wasn't again not super intentional um it just kind of felt right and we followed it bohemi our beloved sponsor are helping build the fastest growing challenger food and drink brands look if you're a small brand just starting out and need your first indie stockist your first hundred stockist to wholesale bohemi are the platform to categorically speed that up but if you're a big brand wanting to get bigger bohemi are also insane they make field sales marble smooth silky slick they're just epic Ollie's Ollie's been on this podcast twice actually They saw a 29 % uplift in sales When using Bowie Me to check Major malt listings availability Insane, 29 % uplift by downloading an app Insane Lucky's saying, my boy Aaron Duff Who's coming on this podcast in a couple of weeks He uses it to manage a team of 30 people And they've, lucky's saying, have unlocked 500 draft listings by using Bowie Me Look, you've got to get involved with this stuff It's absolutely insane And it will categorically change your life it's just the sickest platform i use it all the time at ireland hi guys super super quick one so so excited look for years i've been badgering on about hungary the podcast you're probably bored to death thanks for putting up with me but hungary is also an agency and we look after one amazing brand called ireland's chocolate we've had a great time over the year we've won listings at a load of wholesalers we've won milk and more we've got our first grocery listing coming very soon which is very very sick but what i'm thrilled to announce is hungary's merging with hc consulting um my boy harry clark and his wonderful team he's an absolute g they do brand strategy new business business and account management but why i really love working with harry and why we've got on so well over the last couple of months is harry was actually the founder of the boozy isolate brand pops so he's been in the trenches he's grafted his face off he's had the sleepless nights he's had the turmoil he's had the triumph he knows what it is to be a founder he is a founder and he's got a proven track record in grocery and out of home holy moly dips the gut stuff Savile drinks, Remy O 'Gelato.

45:24So if you're a brand and you're stuck, you're looking for like new business help, you're looking to scale, drop us a message. We'd love to chat. Thank you so much. Back to the old episode. The way you're approaching the business is almost like a band coming up with a song. Like you're just trying different things and seeing if it works, if it feels right. And that's when you said it's elastic. And it's weird because I think it's either Penny or Kenny on the atl like it does feel elastic that that whole vibe it's really interesting i guess elastic or wavy is a good way to describe it like like i was saying how like if kids work you out then you're that was it yeah yeah yeah basically if a little kid works out you fuck so you know you've got to stay like changing your style and changing your personality and you know and then they're super you know you can see them really intrigued by you know and the curiosity continues and it just it gets deeper and deeper and deeper and you you can really make a real connection whereas as soon as little kids peg you they'd board with you two seconds later there's there's so much in that so i want to go to this band piece and as i said like all these ideas you're coming with it's almost like a band like coming up with different riffs and songs and one of my favorite bands well they are my favorite band is is the beatles right and what i love about them is that every single album they released you can see this morphing and this elasticity with that with their music and you know some songs if you think of um like helter skelter basically created like metal that they created that i don't know if you've heard that song but then you listen to that and then you listen to something like i think it's sexy say like all these different songs it's just so elastic and moving and and i think you guys as a brand are kind of similar to that you've obviously got minor figures fm so music is a big part of everything you do what would you say are some of the bands that influence you, not necessarily your favourite bands or music, but, like, have really impacted you as a brand?

47:20Well, I think separately, I mean, the one which we talk about is Parliament and Funkadelic. Like, we do sort of joke around, and, you know, I'm a huge fan, so we do joke around about that. But more than that, it's not so much bands that have influenced us per se. It's more that in the coffee industry, everyone's a musician. You know, you're working as a barista and you're a musician, you know, part-time and you're a musician. You're in a cafe. You're listening to music all day. You know, I think in our business, like we've got I think three people in our business have got their albums, they've got their own albums.

48:01So, you know, super talented people just internally in our space. So I think it's just something that's really natural to us and something that can be really interesting and really for a community and a connection piece is something that we want to pursue. I mean, we haven't quite worked out exactly how we want to go about it, but it does feel right. And there's so much in that for listeners because I think what you guys do so well is you kind of scratch your own itch and do what's natural to you and by doing that you pull these people towards you as you're saying at the beginning and i think a lot of listeners may start thinking oh we've got to look at what our competition's doing or do like some like a brand nps dip which i just it's like you know it's not gonna it'll tell you some numbers on excel spreadsheet but it's not going to tell you to be true to who to who you are as a brand and i think yeah what you guys are doing is is extortionate in that in that space um where here's the doggy again um with so what what i want to talk about is um is the book you wrote so i read somewhere you wrote a book is it called um personal taxidermy yeah where did you find all this infer i just i do quite a lot of research but as i said that i write every day like it's to me i think writing is what you basically switch off the amygdala which is that sort of thinking part of your brain and then you can get in deep into the weeds of creativity so i write every day and i've talked about this in the podcast um i like basically one day i want to try and write a book right but i think it's just it's i know i want to basically explore this so the first question is like why did you write personal um taxidermy uh why did i write it uh yeah what yeah why did you write it it's the first question then i suppose um bolted onto that is like what was your creative process and was coffee involved and uh so um yeah why did i i mean i've always been interested in literature and books and writing and I guess I had just sort of finished school and was doing things and I wrote a few short stories that had some success and I wrote a feature film without knowing how to write one and just because I think I was upset with the quality of Australian cinema at the time and I think that got optioned for you know two two pints of beer and a you know pack of crisps and uh and i thought oh well that's pretty good uh you know like i could probably have a go at this so i actually went back to school and i did a course um just a one-year writing course which was really interesting to to sort of connect with people who were thinking in that way and in that space and and again like if if you you know we're talking about that style of just going all out like there are people who can dip in and out of things and there are people who can have like, you know, in the old days you used to go to work and then you'd have a hobby, you know, the man would have his shed and he'd be, you know, building model airplanes or a train set.

51:21Now we're so obsessed with work. We work all day and night. We can't get away from our phones and we've lost that sort of ability, which is a bit of a shame actually that we don't have that second life, let's say.

51:36And I'm not that person. Like I don't have that second life and I can't do multiple things at once. I go absolutely all out on everything I do always, and it's just the way I'm built. So, you know, when I finish Keep Cup, I never think about it again, and when I finish a book, I just never think about it again. When I go after that, I'm just all out at it. So it was really, again, a challenge of could I do it? And ultimately, yeah, it's an unbelievably taxing endeavour to write a novel. And, you know, obviously it was a commercial disaster and a critical, reasonably critically well taken actually.

52:18But, and again, I'm sort of, I guess I would say I'm proud of it. I picked it up a while ago, probably a couple of years ago when I'm moving house, I found a book and I read it through. And it really, these days it reads like someone else wrote it. Like it's so long ago that it doesn't even feel at all like me. um but uh yeah i you know an incredibly taxing a long long process which i kind of i don't know is a sort of weirdo masochist that i am i quite enjoy it to be honest so i wrote that and actually i got it sort of published independently and then i had an agent in new york who was trying to sell it into the american market and that never took and then i had a i got money to write a second book which I kind of got halfway through and then at that stage I think I was traveling and then Keep Cup was starting and I was sort of swirling around different things and then as soon as Keep Cup really started to move I just again just went all in on Keep Cup and sort of left half a novel and previous life behind.

53:15So interesting and and what was the creative process would you be militant and like get up every day same time write for x period or was it we'll bosh a bit out here then there so i'm kind of fascinated with people's unique creative process yeah i think i think ultimately the discipline to get up and face it again whatever that it is is admirable you know and you know i'm not an overly disciplined person so i wasn't you know setting the alarms and making sure I was there, but, you know, I really wanted to, you know, see it out like it was, you know, I think, I tend to think maybe there's a bit of Daniel Plainview about me, you know, if any cinephiles know that reference where, yeah, there is something where I just like if I can't write the novel and novels won, then I just can't have that happen.

54:16You know, it's so interesting. There's a book I've got next to me called The War of Art by Stephen Pressfield. which is one of my favorite books of all time and he basically says i think he goes you've got to get your ass in the seat where your heart wants to be so i just sit here and start fucking writing and i love it it's to me it's it is this my hobby it's my thing that gives me separation from work do you still you're writing what are you writing now so i just write on basically posts on linkedin so i wrote a thing about um obviously the the categories being the same as glass i basically write four three to four pieces of content on linkedin a week and i feel i feel like i've got a book in me but i just need to face the beast at some point and obviously at the minute it's just too bonkers with manny life and doing this it's just there's too much but yeah i want to get a book out at some point i mean i think i think the thread that that follows that through i mean that's a it is a pretty crazy path you know um but but ultimately there is a thread through it which is is that and again it's sort of like the the things that i've personally been involved in they're all about product design and storytelling they're all they're all the same like if it wasn't minor figures and we were doing oat milk we'd be doing something else and i'd be approaching it the same way and if it wasn't that i'd be something else so they all and keep cups the same it was it was product design and storytelling which sort of led that business and completely I think the best brands, the best storytellers ultimately.

55:45And would you think, well, obviously what I'm kind of speculating here is that writing that book got you very good at storytelling that was then spilled out into Keep Cup and Minor Figures. And then you said literally you've always been a big fan of literature. What are some of your, the books that have really like influenced you or yeah. I wouldn't say it's overstating it to say that books and music kind of saved my life more than once. Interesting. In literature, the book which completely changed my approach to... writing and maybe everything I was doing at the time, the person that I was, was The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Murakami.

56:38I've read that. That is 10 out of 10. That is just unbelievable. It blew my mind on just too many levels, you know. And then since then I've read some unbelievable, you know, obviously that sort of magical realism of literature. You know, everyone in that space is borderline genius. But that particular book at that particular time for that particular me, ah i mean it was unbelievable all all his books have the because it's all about going into the well isn't it like the central theme with murakami's books is it all everything goes deep and what i don't know how he does it but he's got a brilliant book called what i think about when i think about running and he basically he's a he's a masochistic he's like he's masochistic about running like he will just bludgeon his way through ultra marathon races and then write for four hours a day and i'm just like that he's such an inspiration to me um the thing about his books as well.

57:31I mean, I can't, you know, to be honest, it's been a while. I can't really remember. But the thing that I, the impression that it left me again was around a feeling, like the process of reading the Wynap Bird Chronicle I remember was so intense for me. But at the end of it, his writing is so light and so lean that it was almost like a dream. It was almost like something that I'd remembered and hadn't read. It was a very strange experience. So that, that it's, I, when I read it, I almost thought that his writing is like Japanese cuisine in that it's like, it's so light and simple, but so like intense and complicated at the same time.

58:11It's a bit of a paradox. Yeah, no, he, he, he was, yeah. I mean, listeners should listen to that, should definitely read that book just for life. It's a brilliant book. and i believe listeners should should have some sort of writing or journaling process to help solve problems like obviously there's loads of stress building a challenger brand there's people problems there's financial problems um and i think writing allows you to kind of it's almost like someone said the spiritual windscreen wipers um to help you clear clear your head and then take action that's why i write every day if something's going pete tong if i can process it do you still do you still write now to or like when things are getting really tough is there a process or you just i love that i've given up writing i don't write i don't read i don't i just do minor figures i'm just all in always always yeah i just i just don't do anything else so um again like i don't take it too seriously either like the problem i would suggest that the issue for a lot of entrepreneurs is is that you have so much of your identity wrapped up in this thing you so much of you is in it, that you really need to be a special kind of maniac.

59:20Like you need to be absolutely 100 % committed to a new business and a brand and a mission. But at the same time, you need to be able to not be wrapped up in it. You need to be able to cut it loose. And people who can't do that end up, unless it's really successful, it's very, very hard. I mean, it comes at such a cost. And certainly minor figures and the things I do come at a cost to me and to my family. But, you know, I try and manage that well. And I manage that simply by almost, you know, stepping back always, constantly. So that distance is really important. So when you say stepping back, because this is one of the biggest issues for listeners, is that you're completely right.

1:00:06Their business worth is their self-worth, which is just a complete nefarious situation. When you say step back, what does that actually look like? Well, again, I just imagine what it would be if I just, could I cut it loose? Could I walk away? And I have to almost, maybe we're using Japanese as a theme, but isn't there something around samurais who are comfortable dying every day? There's something around that philosophy around, if I had to walk away from minor figures today, could I do it? And the answer always has to be yes. If it's not yes, then there's a problem. But then I just go and dive in and just go absolutely crazy.

1:00:46But I just need to check myself in that space that could I do it or not? Like what would it mean and would I live? And, yeah, I think. But that takes, you know, by the way, you know, I'm probably borderline sociopathic, so I don't know how easy that is to do. Yeah. No. I mean, I think, as you say, the samurai analogy is brilliant, but I think a lot of listeners will struggle to separate the business worth from the self-worth. But I think anything, yeah, it's kind of like the riddle wrapped in the enigma, right? So how do you do that? You've got to do them both at the same time. That's the problem.

1:01:24If you step back too far and you're not committed enough, you're never going to make it. Yeah. And if you commit all in, which you have to be all in, then your problem is you're all in and you can't get out. So you need to have that distance. And maybe that comes with a couple of failures. Like, you know, if you mess up a few times, you realize it's not so bad. Like if you manage to navigate your way out with your shirt on, you know, you realize it's not so bad. You know, almost everyone on the planet is not going to care. Oh, my God. I am so, so, so excited. It feels like Hungary is finally swimming in the big leagues.

1:01:58I can't believe this. It's absolutely mental. But delighted to announce that Big Fish, yes, Big Fish, are part of the podcast. Perry's been on the podcast three times. Listeners absolutely love it. some of my most downloaded and cherished episodes of all time. But Big Fish are behind literally so many brands in your cupboard, in your weekly shop. Charlie Bigham, Year Valley, Tyrells, Clipper T, Goo, Rana. I mean, make the list longer than the River Nile. But they also share risk and invest in brands that they really believe are a force for good. Brands that they believe are going to be the next big thing, like Howda, the snack that gives back.

1:02:36But even more exciting news, big fish want to speak to the next wave of small challenger food and drink radars that are destined for big things the raconteurs the movers shakers buccaneering visionaries so look if you want to speak to big fish and just have a chat get your brand in front of them then drop me a message my mate louis from local beer amazing beer was in their office aka la fish bowl uh last week chatting to perry freddie and the big fish crew so drop me a message if you would like to speak to them where i want to jump to now steward is every founder I've had on this podcast has said there's two stages that are really hard to get through so you've got zero to one one million retail sales and then the five million upwards and I think the zero to one is almost like the trough of sorrow it's like you feel like you're crawling through a field of glass like it's really hard and arduous and then you almost the second stage is where you you kind of get the distribution you've got a bit of brand awareness but then taking it to that next level is really hard.

1:03:39So the first question is, and you talked about pulling yourself through instead of being a pushing entrepreneur. What advice would you give to listeners going through that zero to one stage? I would probably give them advice before they got there. And what I would say to them is, do you know the top end of this business? Can you scale this business? Or are you going into what is essentially a bit of a dead end and you're not aware of it and people are telling you how great you are and the idea is great and the brand looks good and everything is good. But once you get into it, are you sure you can scale this to a place that, you know, you're comfortable with?

1:04:19And I think that that's really the first step because I think a lot of people, they start a business because they, you know, for whatever reason, loads of people start for different reasons and then they end up with a product which is doing pretty well. Like, oh, wow, everyone's liking this. Maybe I'll take this a bit more seriously. Maybe I'll quit my job and, you know, all that sort of stuff. So that is the first question that you need to understand really, really well before you even get to that stage. And if you can't answer that well, you basically need to get under the skin of that as best you can because there are a lot of people who we thought we were going to make money when we turned over a couple of hundred grand.

1:05:01It was going to be fine. and when we got to a couple hundred grand it was like oh man we still can't make this work and it's like oh shit we've got to get to you know quarter of a million so that's you know it's still not enough like you know all the all your overheads is building and you need to understand that very well so that would be before you get into it that would be the the first question to solve first problem to solve and then did did you hit that five it's about four to five million ceiling Did you guys hit that amount of figures? And if you did, well, there's always going to be like this, this sticking spot essentially.

1:05:37And when you, how did you get over that? Cause obviously now you've got offices in LA, Melbourne, you know. I wouldn't recommend that either. I want to talk about that in a sec. Cause obviously you've just flown in from Australia, which is nuts. Now that takes a cost. Yeah. Do not do that. Yeah. I think to be honest, look, Look, I think the other thing for us, which is slightly different is, well, maybe not different, but what's unique about Minor Figures is I'm not convinced in today's world you can be single channel. You need to have at least two channels firing. So you need to know two channels really, really well.

1:06:16And as an example, Minor Figures knew the coffee space very well and we built our product. Like, you know, when we talk about our product and how differentiated we are, all alternative milk tries to replicate dairy milk. So when they're designing the product and they're designing how it's going to taste, they're tasting it next to dairy and they're trying to get it to be as close as possible to dairy. That's buffering structure, texture, color, you know, like filtration, all these different attributes. And we were so weird that we never did that. We built the oat milk only drinking it in coffee.

1:06:53Like it's totally unique. I don't think any brand on the shelf has ever done that. I mean, looking back, it was totally naive. It was foolish. But at the time, we actually didn't care about dairy. We weren't worried about that. So we have built a product and everybody thought that steaming and foaming was actually the challenge in alternative milks. But a bigger challenge is to be more faithful to the natural characters of the espresso. So one of the interesting things about the coffee shop space is that over the last sort of couple of years, the coffee leadership has really lacked and the biggest story in coffee has actually been oat milk.

1:07:31And that's by default because the coffee space has lacked that leadership and that direction. And so, you know, our businesses, I guess people call their products in the oat milk space, they call them like barista products. I guess we call ours a barista product. But actually, if we were to be really technically correct, It would be a roaster product because our product is more faithful to what they're trying to do than any other product on the market because it allows more of the coffee flavor in and the way the product behaves in acidity, which is coffee flavor. And so you get a very bright cup, you know, like flat whites shouldn't taste flat.

1:08:09Like when you get these other products and you get coffee with dairy in it and all the competitor products, they taste so flat. And then when you get ours, it's very, very bright. It's like, you know, we come from a, most of the people in our business probably even drink black coffee. They drink pour overs. You know, that's another difference. So, you know, that's where we're trying to encourage the space, the category, the customers, the coffee shops to go. You know, like alternative milk, there's the old Henry Ford saying about, you know, if I wanted to ask my customers what they wanted, they'd say a faster horse.

1:08:39So all the alternative milks of trying to make faster horses, and we're being the Model T Ford. We're saying, look, this is going to behave differently. It's going to make your product optimized for your customer in the coffee space. So when you think about that, we know that channel super well. Like that's not where, you know, I can go in and fix a grinder, you know. Don't test me on that, cafes, by the way, because I might be overstating it these days. But, you know, like there's a lot of people in our business who can and who know that space super intimately. So we know that very well. And actually we had to learn retail.

1:09:14and that came with hiring people who spoke that language. It's a whole other ecosystem and a whole other language. And we were lucky enough to get Ben Veer, who I think you know, come on board a couple of years ago. And, I mean, he really just transformed the business. He's brilliant. We look back thinking, what were we doing? We didn't have a clue about how to talk to the big retailers. So, um, so again, going back to, to businesses who are starting, I think they have to fire in a couple of channels. So that's another thing that I need to ask before they begin. I don't know how they, it's very difficult to make money, to make profit through a single channel.

1:09:56It's so interesting because it goes back to this whole, like, oh, I know the goal of this conversation was to unpack this play like a funk band and let people come grooving with you. I didn't realize what you were saying there about, you know, you guys are coffee enthusiasts. You are musicians. I think on your website it says we're a rabble of musicians and barbers, etc. But the way you're actually making the product is what the roaster wants. And I didn't realize that that's how, because when I'm drunk, I was like, that is unreal. Like it's banging. But I didn't realize that that was the actual process of making it.

1:10:31And I think for people listening to it, it's like going back to like, stop looking at what the competition are doing or what they want to do. just do what your core wants to do and by doing that over time it will you'll start to bring your people to come and you know groove with you um just out of again sheer curiosity here it's like where would you say is the like best place in london for a coffee like with with your oat milk because i'm yeah i would i want to go there because i love i love coffee i probably prefer not to say just in case i upset a few of our other um customers but like i i like i like a lot of um i think let me answer this london's a super dynamic coffee space right i think it's one of the better cities in the world for coffee so as long as you um as long as you as long as it's you know one of the things about coffee shops is they're also so community-based so you know it doesn't really matter what i think about coffee it's good and how i feel it's kind of like you know you got to find just like what i like in a coffee shop is when you come and see me dan and And I say, how are you doing?

1:11:35You know, you have this little moment where, you know, you're leaving your house where you're getting yelled at by your partner because, you know, left the toilet seat up and you've, you know, left dishes in the sink. And then you're heading to work where you're going to get your ass kicked by, you know, everything you've got to do that day and your boss and whoever and your customers. And then you have a little moment where you walk into a coffee shop and they say, hi, how are you? And, you know, have you tried this new pastry? We got a new pastry in. And, you know, they curate an experience.

1:12:00You know, the music's just right and things. and yet they curate this wonderful experience which you know you take five minutes out of your day for it's like a little uh what did it was a new york investor who who i said she was young and i said to her um about how i was sort of explaining that experience in a coffee shop and she described that as oh we don't do that we dial ahead and we go and pick it up and then we drink it walking to the office what you're describing we would call self-care and i was like what i was Like, wow, no, that's just what you've got to do every day. Yeah, I mean, maybe it is.

1:12:30That's what you've got to do every day is go and sit down and have a coffee. Don't take it walking. Sit down, enjoy it. Take five minutes to yourself and have that experience just for you. But also be in a space which is super curated that you really enjoy and you respect and that you like. So I think that's, you know, there's plenty of places all over London, you know, all the boroughs. There's tons of those. I love that. And I think it's also all the best ideas come in coffee shops. they never really come in in like the boardroom or anything like that i think it's because you as you say you get your brain's getting stimulated with like the hiss and the smell of the you know the machines the music the chitter chatter it kind of as i was saying earlier it almost shuts down the amygdala part of your brain slightly allows you to kind of create these ideas um i want to talk about la um london and melbourne having offices there uh because that to me seems bonkers obviously you've just flown in from Australia um I suppose the first question is why did you go to and well just kind of to give some context first so Ben said to me um before we jumped on this is that it's interesting because you've got obviously London's kind of or the UK is beginning to like take off um Australia you've got like a stronghold because there's just two major retailers of there and then america's still pretty nascent in the grand scheme of things but how how are you but what why did you decide to go into into those other countries uh yeah again like not overly thought through and we probably like a lot of things and minor figures rushed it so my my i got two wonderful business partners um one of them runs the asia pacific region so after we started minor figures and i might be getting this wrong johnny so apologies if i do but i think his wife was pregnant and he said well i'm going but he's an aussie i'm going back to australia and i said well we'll just shut down minor figures it's clearly never going to fly and he said oh no i'll do it down there so all right okay well let's i guess let's see how that goes so in the end he he sort of kicked off minor figures down there um that was shortly after starting so immediately we had uk and australia and then um we struggled along and kind of you know until we designed the the oat milk for the cans and then we released with the new rebranded and with the with the one liter oat milk right at the time when um the category started to fire and so we were very blessed to be in that space that was really taking off and and we were then what happened was to get into the us there was an oat shortage in new york in 2018 it was the great oat shortage of whatever in new yorkers were kind of losing their mind it was one of the competitors couldn't supply So we got a call from someone in New York who said, I'd like to bring in, and we were the only business on the planet that made another barista oat milk, really.

1:15:22And so through that, he purchased the product from us and shipped it into the US. Now, we didn't know at the time that he actually was a very well-respected distribution partner who's, you know, been around forever in the cafe scene. So he was actually selling it across the country. So we weirdly went national in the US immediately through the coffee channel. And that's how we ended up there as well. So kind of almost by default. I know from previous experience, we probably wouldn't have gone to North America should it not have kind of happened that way. Like I definitely would have held off that move.

1:15:57I don't, for anybody who's listening, you'd be absolutely very careful about that. What is it? Because I wanted, what are the kind of the unforeseen challenges in America versus the UK? because I interviewed James Avedek from Goo and he said we take it for granted, but the UK grocery market is like so slick comparatively to other markets. How have you found the US? I think the US is just big and expensive. So if you thought it was difficult to crack, you know, the UK, I mean, basically that's California. That's not even, you know, we've got 49 other states. I mean, you can't even imagine it. I mean, you literally, you can't wrap your mind around the size and scale of it and then the complexity of that as well.

1:16:45Just that alone, if it was exactly the same as the UK and you just transposed it to that size and scale, you couldn't wrap your mind around it. And then you have to add on all the cultural differences and the way they operate. So it's a whole other, yeah, I mean, it's again, a whole other language, a whole other ecosystem, a whole other universe. So you can't really do it. I remember saying to a friend actually, I was sort of like, oh, we've gone into the US and it's going really well and, you know, we don't have any salespeople there and it's just going in the coffee channel and, you know, I think I'll probably just hire a couple of salespeople and kind of manage it from here.

1:17:19And he was sort of, he doesn't know anything about TPG and he's sort of like, oh, you're just going to phone it in, are you? You know, you're just going to like dial into the US and think you're going to make it. And I was like, as soon as it came out of my mouth, I was like, oh, fuck, he's just so right. Like, what am I thinking? So, you know, like, I mean, COVID hit at that time and then we sort of did a bit of rebuild and repair with the team over there. and I was actually, I've just come back from the US. I've been there for a year. I was out in the Palm Desert in California the last year with my family helping with the team there, which is, again, an unbelievably, we're totally blessed, an unbelievably talented team.

1:17:51We've managed to sort of get. So we're hoping, you know, we're positive for really good things to happen now. But, again, like that wasn't easy. It was expensive and timely and, you know, everything's an opportunity cost. If we didn't go into the US, how much bigger could we be in the UK And if we weren't lucky with, you know, some things coming our way in terms of money and investment and partnerships and strategic things, then we probably wouldn't have made it. And we would have wasted all the great stuff we've done in the UK and potentially in Europe. So you've got to be really, really careful.

1:18:26Hi there, guys. Thank you so much for listening, as always. It means the absolute world to me. Before we jump into this episode, I need a really big, big, big, big favor. I have pitched us massive guests, humongous guests. and unfortunately they've said no because my subscriber count isn't big enough. Please, please, please just hit the subscribe button on Apple or Spotify or follow. Ultimately, it helps all of us bigger guests equals better conversations, equals hopefully better insights for you, which means you can scale hopefully faster with a little less stress as well. So please hit that subscribe button and yeah, enjoy this episode.

1:19:01Are you just in the coffee channel over there? Are you in grocery or they're equivalent of in the US? We're in grocery now, yeah. That was the beginning in coffee. So we hired a couple of people and have started off in – now we're doing pretty well in grocery. So all the – what they call the natural specialty channel in all the sort of ones and twos and single high-end places, places in California like Air One and Lassen's. Northern California, there's a whole host, Buy Rights and a few places like that. But, again, Whole Foods, we've got Mid-Atlantic Whole Foods. So there's a whole bunch of retailers we're taking on now, which is really positive and really good to see.

1:19:37But again, retail just takes that time as well, where the one channel is super sticky and very instant. Retail is, you know, they've got to reset. They do the resets of the shelf or the slotting, you know, slotting time. So you might be waiting six months a year. If you don't hit that, you're waiting another six months. So super difficult, you know, difficult one. How long have you got, mate? have you got i've literally got a few more questions to run through wicked um so obviously spoke to ben before we um recorded this podcast and he said one of your kpis which i think is brilliant is how many people get um penny or lenny tattooed on them and i think that's it's just such a great measure of brand depth like no mps dip or score will tell you that and i think it And I think I've got this big thing about building brand awareness first, and that builds kind of like, not meek fans, but if you do brand depth, you build diehard fans.

1:20:41I think this is something you guys do extremely well with all your activations. You get them to fall in love with the brand. I want to know how the ideas for Penny and Kenny came around. Talk me through that.

1:21:00So, yeah, I mean, first of all, we don't really have any KPIs for people getting tattoos or anything like that. However, we do look at participation. Like what we're trying to achieve is not engagement but actual participation. So it doesn't really matter what that is. That can be measured in a whole heap of ways. Tattoos just happens to be the sort of obvious, like sort of pinnacle of that. But, again, they're getting a piece of artwork. Like it's not really minor figures they're getting. They're getting Andrew Ray, the illustrator, an absolute genius, R-A-E, check out his work. They're getting a piece of art that they sort of stick it on themselves.

1:21:40So, I mean, it's beautiful and fine. Like it's kind of secondary. But participation into everything we do. So if we do an activation, we're looking for people to come back and, you know, produce artwork or produce something or respond in a way which knows that they're engaged and that is really important to us partly because we're working so hard on that. Like we're not trying to sell anybody really, you know, like I think we're trying to advocate for a better product and potentially a better coffee and democratise that sort of space which has sort of been the high walls of the mustachioed barista.

1:22:23You know, you've got to climb over and, you know, spend a lot of money and be in that environment where we're trying to democratise that so everyone can access it really well. So, yeah, that's really important to us in terms of that. In terms of the characters, I mean, it kind of leans into the idea of an ensemble cast, the idea of people leading quite humble, beautiful, eccentric lives. Like each of those characters kind of has a bit of a story behind them, but the point of the characters is that they kind of represent our customers. They don't really represent the product and they don't really represent us.

1:22:57There's kind of just a lot of room and it's really, it's not really well-defined like what that is. But again, it relates to, yeah, Minor Figures, the name is about sort of, you know, a great life led, you know, authentically and however you want to pursue it, you know. And you said just because one of the kind of central themes of this conversation is all about storytelling. and I think you guys are great storytellers, but I think the better story you tell to your consumer and customer, the deeper the connection. And you said these characters have stories behind them. Out of curiosity, what are those stories?

1:23:37Oh, they've each got a little like blurb about, you know, how they got there, a little like what they're doing and, you know, what they're listening to or, you know, what they're into. So each of them, I think most, in fact, some of the newer ones might not, but the early ones did. So, you know, I think it was more a case where we were trying to understand it. Like even the name, we caught the penny is the name of the person on the oat milk cart. And, again, like she's kind of quite androgynous, so maybe people think it's a boy or, you know, there's often people like taking photos or sending like, hey, this is you to one of their friends.

1:24:09You know, like there's constantly this sort of chatter going on, which is, you know, we love it. Like that's cool. Like we exactly, I don't know, we leave that space for people to kind of explore perhaps definitely um and so two more questions to wrap up with and um kind of on on the on the theme of tattoos is i interviewed ben branson from seed lip the other week and um he's got peas tattooed on on his on his on his knuckles and um one of the questions I asked him and it listed a pretty great answer is if he could get something tattooed on, on a listener's arm. So they're starting out on their journey that they've got to see every day.

1:24:58Um, what would it be and why? And he said, think, think slow, act fast. I'd love to know what yours would be.

1:25:09Uh, again, like, I don't know, like, I'm not, I'm not sure I got any advice for anyone. Like I'm not again that's not our strict to tell people how to live or what to think of or yeah I'm not I'm yeah I can only do it how I do it I mean I don't know but no but that I think that's it only do it how you can do it and I think that's what is great because I think the main thing I've learned from from you is and and minor figures is this a this brave ability to just do what you want to do and be comfortable with that um because I think a lot of you know I I know for so many listeners are constantly looking at their competition or trying to do something that doesn't feel authentic to them.

1:25:49And if you're not doing something that's authentic to you, then you're just never going to attract your people. Well, it's almost impossible these days. As you say, you go to school, they tell you how to think. You know, you go to your therapist, they tell you how to do whatever. You come home, your parents tell you how to do stuff. Like you're just constantly being told how to do things. And then you're on your phone the rest of the time. So you're not really contemplating or sort of stepping back. So, you know, you're looking at whatever the hell you're looking at and the influencers are telling you now you're thinking like them and you just don't really have time to think a lot of problems through.

1:26:16So I guess I would not be encouraging or advocating for anyone to live their lives a certain way. That's not me. So I'm not going to tell them how to get the tattoo. But I do like also, is it Ben from Seedlip? I like his as well. Like that seems reasonable. Yeah. No, I think what you said, just I'm not going to tell you. It goes back to the authenticity point. Final question. is there's a book that I absolutely love called The Obstacle is the Way. And as you were saying, you're a bit of a masochist in terms of like, you can just like go all in and just like bludgeoning your way through problems and just keep grafting.

1:26:56Has there, what has been one that was seemingly insurmountable obstacle on your journey that actually retrospectively paved the way forward? Because I think every listener's got an obstacle right now that they're going through.

1:27:13um i think i think the major well it depends where you are on the journey but i think in terms of rather than ultimately ultimately i think that ben loves that book too the obstacle is away uh i think it's great book he had a book club for us for the for this team to read it but i imagine that there's always a couple of paths and the litmus test of the road you choose is the hardest one. I don't know why I think that way. Maybe there's something just inbuilt in me. If there's an easy path and a hard path, it's not the easy path is the one you should follow. So when you go into a business setting, then almost everything is an obstacle.

1:27:52It depends how you see it. I think if you think I've got to get up today and go to work, it sort of sets a negative mindset. It's like, I have the opportunity to go to work today. How good is that? Oh man, I've got to go to the gym or whatever. It's like, no, the impact of sort of what you're about. You have the pleasure to go to the gym. You know, you have the opportunity to go to the gym. It sort of changes that mindset into something which lessens the to go after. So that's the first thing. That mindset's really key. But rather than an obstacle, probably I think really focusing on the culture, I guess maybe the high performers, but, you know, the cause of problems, however that is, can really transform your business in a positive way.

1:28:37And the wrong people can really just set you back. Like obviously, even people who are, they just don't fit in or they're not right. Culture kind of comes out and focusing on team and people is really, really key. In a small business, the right people, because as somebody who is starting a business, let's say, you need to be very aware of that and be able to navigate that really well. And that is so hard to do, particularly for people who are new at it. It takes a long time to get experience of that and, you know, constantly making mistakes. Minor figures constantly making mistakes as well. But being able to navigate that really well and very fast is the key challenge you will have if you have any success.

1:29:24And to do it well, you'll turbo charge the business. You'll be so much further ahead if you make the calls early with... getting the right people in and getting the right culture getting the right org structure and understanding that really well and and how do you do that like is there a specific interview process or like how do you ascertain whether someone's the right fit because look i've seen this at mani life as well we've had people come in and leave and if it's not right and you you know some they're great people but wrong hires can kind of eviscerate the culture within two minutes and it's danger zone then.

1:30:00Is there, knowing what you now know, is there a way you at Minor Figures understand if they're the right fit? That's a big challenge for us now, actually. I mean, I think the thing for us now is we're 100 people or just over 100 distributed across the globe. So it actually becomes very difficult to kind of be across everything and to be able to communicate what Minor Figures is clearly. So that's a massive challenge for us at the moment. at our size. In the early days, it's super difficult. It's so difficult. I think probably you need to have a really good, rigorous interview process. And through that, you probably want to make sure that the person, at the end of the day, they firstly have to be able to do it.

1:30:49They've got to be skilled enough and they've got to have the experience for it. They've got to kind of be close to where you kind of need them. And then the final piece, the third sort of bit of that triangle is that they need to want to do it. Like I think that motivating people and hiring the right people who are enthusiastic and fired up is really important to small business. And again, it makes all the difference. It makes absolutely everything. Forget like whether your brand or your logo has got a little like tick here or the colors a little bit off or the product didn't come out exactly as you wanted.

1:31:25like um those things kind of fade away once you build a culture and a team and a sort of a business which you know it just can overcome those things Stuart that was unreal there's just so much in that I just the goal was to understand how you guys do things because absolutely looking in it is so weird wonderful and irreverent and I think I've got close to that I think the central learning for me is just do what you want to do and don't try and be like anything or anyone else um so yeah thank you so much for coming i really appreciate it that was a pleasure thanks for the chat thank you so so much for listening to the podcast i really really do appreciate it if you like that episode only if you liked it please do give it five stars subscribe tell all your friends families foes next door but one cat dog whatever please tell everyone about this podcast it means the world to me and i really want to understand what your pain points are as the new wave of challenger food and drink brands please do hit me up on linkedin search dan pope and hopefully we can together create a more meaningful and powerful podcast for the next wave of challenger food and drink brands thank you so much

1:32:49you