Lisa and Alana Macfarlane:  Founders of The Gut Stuff

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1:00This January, Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship takes over the ocean. The inaugural Bruise Cruise sails from Miami to the Bahamas aboard the Norwegian Jewel. Three straight days with pool deck bare knuckle fights in the Caribbean. Massive parties, beach events, DJs, cigars, tequila tastings, and nonstop action. The lineup reveals coming soon. Cabins are disappearing fast, and the prices won't stay this low. Reserve your spot with just$200 down at BKFSEA.com. Queen Carvania stood haloed by the morning sun. An army hung on her every word. My champions, I have sold my chariot on Carvana. It was a lovely SUV, an inexplicably queenly offer.

1:47They're even coming to the castle to collect it. Tonight, we feast. An offer you can feast on. Sell your car today on Carvana. Pick up fees, may I fly. Welcome to the Jazz Shapers podcast from Mishkondorea. What you're about to hear was originally broadcast on Jazz FM. However, the music has been cut due to rights issues.

2:13This is Jazz Shapers with Elliot Moss on Jazz FM. In partnership with Mishkondorea. It's business, but it's personal.

2:52Listening Colour. that soon. Invited to take part in twin research at King's College London under Professor Tim Spector. They became the chief guinea pigs for the British Gut Project, discovering that despite having 100 % the same DNA, their guts have only 30 to 40 % the same microbiota, if I said that correctly, which explained why their bodies behave so differently. I'm sure there's a lot to discuss there. Fascinated by the science and how many health issues gut bacteria was linked to, Lisa and Alana set out on a mission to shake up the confusing elitist communication around gut health. and make it accessible and fun.

3:25And boy, have they done that. The Gut Stuff launched in 2017 and they now have a successful snacking range of corporate wellness services business, three books, a consumer-focused gut health app, I hope this finishes at 10 o 'clock, and a now global TV show. Percy, great to have you here. Behind microphones again. Back by popular... It's been a while. It's been a while, but they kind of settled in very quickly here. Back by popular demand. The DJing thing, I just want to start in a random place. What's it like when you know lots of people, he says, asking questions, ridiculous what's it like when you know lots of people are listening to or watching you what's that was that a buzz i think you have to not be able to compute that otherwise you would just be paralyzed like i genuinely think especially in radio i think the beauty of it is you believe you're talking to one person and i think the intimacy of that is quite like obviously like virgin was a saturday night show so it was you were aware that people were getting ready to go on a night out whilst they were chatting to us but it really did just feel like it was us and our producers in the studio and I think when we did the bigger gigs like the Hugman-y 80 ,000 people Twickenham-y 80 ,000 people because you were just in your own little world you couldn't really compute like everyone in that whole stadium almost it was actually the more intimate gigs that you felt more connected I'd say like in a club sweaty club at 3am when you can see the three people that hate what you're playing glaring at you feels more exposing I think that felt more exposing than 80 ,000 people But there's a contradiction, isn't there?

4:55Because actually, I just saw Mark Ronson talking about his new book and the intimacy and the privacy and the solitude actually of being a DJ, even in a big club, is kind of quite strong because that's what you're doing. You're concentrating and you're doing your thing and of course you're reacting to the crowd. But then going out and talking about the gut stuff and amplifying for the last eight years what you do in all the different ways, they're very different things. yeah I think I guess like with with the DJ side it was more of like a rehearsed performance if that made sense but apart from when we were doing like five hours when we first started out in like whiskey mist in the West End we used to cry on the night bus on the way there and cry on the night bus on the way because the manager used to shout at us to mix every 30 seconds for five hours like it was horrendous yeah but it was a great place to carry great training ground for us yeah it was a great training ground But I guess with the gut stuff, it's just different.

5:49We are so passionate about getting the word out there, and it's like just speaking from, I don't want to say, from the heart, from the gut, I don't know. It just feels very, very different. It's also like now 0.005 % of our day-to-day is doing fun things like this. A lot of it is running a startup, which unfortunately has been glamorized a lot in the past few years. But we know the truth. It's hell. and it's you know sitting behind the P &L doing boring insurance forms yeah blood drawn cold moments all the time for those people that don't know about the gut and my wife has had you know health issues many years ago and then actually the gut was the way in for her many many many years 20 years tell me in your own words I've read a lot and I'm fascinated and I look at foods and Tim Spector's a bit of a hero to me in terms of the work that he does but in your own words what is the gut and why is it important?

6:40I think, you know, if you don't know about gut health, then you assume, like we did, that your gut is just your stomach. Or your beer belly. Yeah, exactly what we say to Tim. What beer belly? They're going early here. Let's see what's happening. Thank you, Lana. And Tim, actually, when we first asked, he was like, do you want to have your guts analysed? And we were like, we actually said, what do you mean, our beer bellies? But it's a big piece of kit, you know. It's everything from mouth to bum. And there's a lot of organs involved. And I guess the physical working of our gut is what we're talking about.

7:09and partially when we talk about gut health but i think this new area of research into the microbiome which is the bacteria fungi viruses that live in around and on us but the reason that we associate a lot of them with the gut is because most of them live in our large intestine it's kind of damp and moist there and they like to hang out in there and not only do they help us digest and absorb foods they are linked to pretty much every health condition and outcome and in current, you know, medicine and I guess it's hard because it's like difficult to explain the magnitude of the jobs that they do and the wellness side of them, you know, yes, we've come to gut health from a wellness perspective, but there's also, you know, a lot of people, I think 46 % of the UK population now have a digestive issue as well.

7:53So it's this double-pronged thing of, yes, it's a huge wellness trend and everyone needs to know about it, but I think it is also going to be a crucial part in the future of our healthcare system. I'm with Lisa and Alana McFarlane and they are the founders of The Gut Stuff. We're talking about what is The Gut and of course it's a big question and it's got a big answer and it's a big place. Why? Why was this so important to the two of you? Why were you so piqued and wanted to find out more and then were crazy enough to set up a business? Yeah, I guess we're from, you know, a Scottish working class background.

8:24Health was just not being ill and wellness was something that Gwyneth Paltrow talked about. And still does. And still does. And the average life expectancy, you know, we were from Scotland, it was 58 for men, 52, I think even. So, you know, health was just not on our agenda. You know, if you told us when we were younger that we don't know health and wellness business, you know, we'd ask what you'd be smoking or drinking, really. But as we went through the research, you know, we were those people before we went through the research, clinical trials with Tim, that did the cabbage soup diet, the Dukan diet, every fad diet, you name it, we did it.

8:58And health was just what we've seen on the outside, something that we did two weeks before we went on holiday and then we went to Magaluf and drank 40 litres of vodka. So, you know... Sounds like my oldest daughter. Yes. She can be in our gang. She might own a health and wellness business. She can't be on the rain, I promise. But as we were going through the research, you know, when, first of all, we learned what our gut actually was and how important it was. And these microbes, you know, when we first started to learn about these microbes, we were like, oh, give me a bath. Like, we're 80s babies.

9:27Where's the Dettol? You know, we were like, this is really weird. how did I not know for the first 25 years of my life that these beasties, we started calling them, I couldn't be alive without them. And, you know, our chief science officer says if an alien was to come down from outer space, they'd actually see us all as hybrid creatures. So half human, half microbial. That is how many microbes live in, around, and on us, which is a scary thought when you don't know yet, right? So we were like, A, why does no one know about this? This was 10 years ago. So at the time, people were not talking about gut health like they are now.

9:59people are like you two have lost the plot yeah there was no Zoe there was no Tim Spector there was no sense of anything there was no the public awareness was zero really there was like I guess Kellogg's and Danone and like big food brands playing digestive health yeah and then I guess the conversations that were starting to happen were in certain publications or in the back of health food stores when people were trying to charge like six pound for a jar of cabbage you're like it's sauerkraut but it's just cabbage in a jar so we were like the people that need this information most aren't getting it and we want to democratise this information.

10:30And also, we were DJing on Love Island at the time, and we were like, imagine if we can get the people watching the show to start thinking about the inside out rather than the outside in. And in a way, for me, that's the leap. That's the crazy leap, which says, hold on a minute. There's this thing which is, we talked about elite and specialist, and then there's this massive need, millions and millions, the whole population needs to say, what if we use the method? Naively. But naively, but brilliantly too. And yet, neither of you went to uni. One was dancer, which one was? Alana dancer. I think theatre producer you were going to drama school you've come back to something quite academic yeah I guess I was meant to do law and business at uni and Lisa was meant to do medicine and how did that go down?

11:07we changed our UCAS forms yeah that was a day that was a day what made you both do it? I think we just knew that we could always come back to academia at some point I mean we got I mean I did physics and chemistry at A level got straight A's and then we're like I'm going to drama school and mum and dad were like no oh, the first people in the family to go to uni. I'm like, what? And they're not. Yeah. But yeah, so when we die, our obituaries will look like it was planned, but it wasn't. But I think maybe our, like naturally, our sort of curiosity, and I think when we started going through the research with Tim, he was like, you guys asked so many questions.

11:44But I think it sort of scratched that science itch and I think our life must have just brought us back that way because we wanted to use that part of our brains that wasn't, you know, as much as we loved it, being used DJ. And we're going to catch up and find out exactly what that looks like in terms of setting up a business, which was obviously the ridiculous thing that you chose to do. Why didn't you just carry on asking questions? Anyway, Lisa and Lulana will be answering that very shortly, but they'll be back in a few minutes. Right now, though, we're going to hear a taster from the Michigan Innovation Series, which you can find on all the major podcast platforms.

12:14Lydia Kellett invites business founders to share their practical advice and industry insights for those of you thinking about starting your very own thing, as crazy as that might be. In this clip, we hear from Dr Max Munford, co-founder and CEO of Austec, the medtech company, on a mission to transform orthopaedic surgery through cutting-edge 3D printing technology. The Mishcon Innovation Series. Inspiration from founders of cutting-edge businesses. In association with Jazz Shapers, with Mishcon Derea. What advice would you give to those in the early stages of creating a new to the world technology?

12:49When you start building a company, there are three things that become very obvious and that's that product, process and people are really important. You know, product, so that's making sure you speak to the right customers, making sure you've got your technology. Absolutely. You know, in lots of ways, that's obvious, especially coming as an engineer by background. That's very obvious. Process, I think definitely not obvious to me, actually, but everything in your company, everything, the way you conduct yourself, the way the company runs, all of that, I would sum up as process and is incredibly important.

13:18and it can, I think, make or break you. But actually people, I think, are the most important part of the company. If your processes are wrong, if your product is wrong, the right people can fix them and navigate that. So I think making sure at the earliest possible stage that you've integrated the right people, making sure it's a diverse group of people, making sure that your team can actually collaborate, making sure you invest time and in some cases money or training in building that team, building them together. I think that's the most important thing you can do. The Mishcon Innovation Series.

13:47in association with Jazz Shapers with Mishkondorea. Jazz Shapers on Jazz FM. In partnership with Mishkondorea. It's business, but it's personal. You can enjoy all our former business shapers. I think there's around 500 of them now on the Jazz Shapers podcast. You can hear this very program again if you pop Jazz Shapers into your podcast platform of choice. That's pretty easy, isn't it? My guests today are Lisa and Lelana McFarlane, founders of The Gut Stuff, a multi-industry platform. It's a bit of a mouthful, isn't it? democratizing gut health education. So we've established you're both very curious.

14:19You're the why birds. You're asking what, what, what, what? You're academic, but you chose not to go to uni. But then you decided to set your own business up. The glamour of Love Island was not enough. The allure of the Olympics wasn't big, big enough for these two. What happened in those early days and months? What went through your head? Did you think we've made a massive error here? Or was it like, no, no, we're clear. This is for us. I think I missed the early days of the hustle. we had nothing to lose. I think fast forward to now, we've got other people's mortgages to pay, we have investors to answer to, and we're on the train that we can't get off, basically.

14:54There's not a day off. We've grown exponentially over the last year or two that there's nothing we can do to stop it. Do you take time out there? We talk about wellness, and you're in a wellness business. Alana, seriously, when do you stop? Yeah, we're not good at it. But you know you're not. We're naturally not good. We're due to sell bunnies. like everyone that meets us like you know I can't stop but when you do stop do you I mean what happens are you kind of on or off are you literally fall asleep and the rest is go yeah and we sleep well so I think that's probably it like you know we have martinis we love a martini hashtag gut health which particular martini hashtag who cares about health dirty martini filth filth filth I've actually moved more into because I've not got a partner in crime now because Lisa's pregnant I've moved more into a lemon twist yeah with a lemon twist it's lovely it's got a bit of zing to it yeah But we used to do, like, yeah.

15:43So my husband works at night. He's in the West End. And Lisa's husband works away a lot. So I used to go down to Lisa's at the weekend and we'd just spend time with each other and the kids. Drinking. Yeah. We used to have, we used to say, like, I think that's really important. Like, having a co-founder is brilliant. Yeah. But it also means that our sister relationship came second. So, like, our sister relationship came second to the business. So we had to carve out time to just talk about normal sisterly stuff. Mainly arguing, probably. But do you? Do you talk about sisterly stuff? Well, we always say we'd start with the margarita.

16:11and by Marguerite a three, we are back to talking about the consciousness. So we try. I think the kids sort of help dilute that. Yeah, we talk about the kids more than we do. But, you know, and back to the start of the journey, we were so naive. Like, it was like brilliantly naive. And I think that, you know, how we've built the business was out of, yeah, I guess there's, you know, the FMCG business was born out of doing services and education and things like that. but I think we would have been so paralysed we would never have started and I think the naivety driven know what we know now if we went would we do food and drink again oh my god but now low margin high volume product in Covid no and to be for the masses you know we were never going to be this luxury product that people were spending 80 quid for right we knew we had to be affordable accessible for everyone because that was our mission but that takes a hell of a long time to get there you've got to get to the stage of critical mass which we now have with Tesco and Sainsbury's and co-op but you know to get there has been a journey and i think yeah i think we were just so gung-ho wonderfully gung-ho and naive that i think if we knew what we know now you know of course we do it again but you know yeah it's been a roller coaster but it's a roller coaster and you're on the ride you still kind of enjoyed the ride to a point i'll ask you about levels of enjoyment out of 10 but not for now it's a moment um but i want to talk about the gung-ho thing and how that's informed how you actually brought this thing to life because i think it's a really important part of the strategy, if we're going to call it a strategy, the thing you've done.

17:40To me, the way you brought this brand to life, the way that you articulated what it was all about has been key. Just talk to me a little bit about that gung-ho-ness, as it were, and the sorts of things that you did. Yeah, I guess, like, you know, we had the brand before the business, so we were able to do and say a lot more than if we'd led with products, which I think that can be quite constraining because you have different sets of regulations, as the lawyers amongst us will know. but I think we were able to be bold and the only people that we had to answer to was each other each other and the ASA the advertising standards did they try?

18:17they didn't like the word poo no they were alright with that we had a campaign that was meant to be on bus stops like put it in the BS bin type thing and it was like cut this January so yeah they didn't like that and you know we actually the poo posters came up my husband and I over Christmas dinner and he was like I think you just need to put the Bristol Steel chart on bus stops and name the Poohs really funny names the Bristol Steel chart that reminds me and then suddenly we won so many awards we'll do our media and I think that I would love to try and but we just can't that was too big now but that naivety and just being like well we can do that or we'll just go into that retailer for one retailer that we're now listed in we basically got a friend that worked there to put store posters on the back of the toilets and just like asked the catering staff to do that.

19:06And, you know, there was that sort of hustle. And that being more maverick, now that you're much bigger, much harder to be gung-ho, how do you channel your creativity? How do you make stuff happen, even though you're a much bigger business now? I think we annoy everyone in the team because they're working on something and we're like, but what about this? Let's do that. So you haven't lost that energy for it. No, we did actually have bottoms in co-op. No ifs or buts. No ifs or buts. And it was a balloon bump in the bottom of the FFDA. So they are now in co-op. So yeah, we do get a chance to be cheeky.

19:39But I think it's an attitudinal thing. And I think the values we have as a business is not being scared to be in the room with the big guys. And gals. Guys and gals, of course. That is something I hope we've instilled in the team is that don't be afraid to pitch that or say that or sit in a room with people and ask for what you feel like you deserve. And I think when you're mission-led, it's not about us. It's not about how much product we shift. This is a mission that needs to happen. It's so, so important for the health of the nation. And I think when you have that as the backstop and the fire in your belly, you'll ask anything.

20:17Final chat with my guest, Elisa and Alana. And we've got a treat from Anne Peebles. That's in just a moment. Don't go anywhere. Jazz Shapers on Jazz FM. In partnership with Mishkondorea. It's business, but it's personal. I've got a few more minutes with the people that have been on my case, not what I've been on your case, I suppose. Lisa and Alana McFarlane, they're the founders of Gut Stuff. There's an energy that you two have, which is obviously just, I would assume, nature as much as nurture. How do you chill out? When do you stop? And if you don't, if you don't, how do you make sure that you maintain happiness and joy?

20:55Yeah, we need to get better at it, but I think we are very social beasts. we're very loyal our friendship group is yeah we are very close and so we talk about like switching off we go to the pub and talk about in Scotland we call it the Yibsy Yabsy's but it's basically talking about everything and nothing and that is I guess our way of switching off but we're not very good at switching off and doing nothing we sort of switch off by doing so we did this thing we took the team forest bathing I don't know if you've heard of it it's Japanese forest bathing yeah it's like in Japanese yeah there are forest bathing but anyway you go around it's almost like meditating when I have to meditate if someone asks me to meditate I do not I cannot do it I cannot sit still whereas this is more going around in nature really noticing the beauty of things notice how things move and using all your senses and we really really enjoyed it and all the team really enjoyed it as well so I think I sort of switch off by doing and the kids slow us down you know they're they're you know you've got to keep them alive you've got to keep them alive you've got to make sure that you water them and feed them so you've got two kids two kids between you but we've also we've also got eminently yeah another boy in the way but my Lisa's son was due on my daughter's birthday.

21:59Twins are weird. They're genetically half-brother and sister. Are they really? Yeah. So they're cousins, but they're genetically half-brother and sister, yeah. And they genuinely love each other so much. And I should say, if you haven't already looked Lisa Nullanup, you will not have realised they are twins. Oh, yeah? I didn't say it at the beginning, but you are twins. And that in itself is a thing when you work together. And I guess, yeah, we are very, very different, like opposites, I would say, but that's helped us in the business because we're actually mirror twins, so Lisa's left side of her like Lisa's very creative very creative was always really good at English at school and I like doing all the sort of very matter of fact binary ops numbers yeah the boring stuff Lisa would say do you switch though do you switch roles occasionally we've just so I've started doing more of the finance stuff we've got a finance director and I guess as you grow finance becomes more of a narrative than numbers especially when you have a finance director that can give you them so I'm better at shaping that narrative and conversation I do a lot more of the fundraising.

22:58And I do fundraising. So we're just gearing up for that now. Because again, we were talking about the DJ thing and at one point you were talking about who runs the desk and who's doing more of the talking and all that. But actually, in this conversation, it is, as I said to you, I'm talking to one person. I don't mean that in a weird way. But there's a little river running and we're just going left and right. But it feels... Well, mum always says we're half-wits. Because the egg split. So together, we would be a superhuman. But yeah, we just take half of it each. Or she says, it's like being at the tennis.

23:27It's exhausting. Thank you, mother. So the relaxing bit is actually through conversation. It's through connection. It's through doing stuff together rather than not doing anything at all. Yeah, yeah. We couldn't just lie on the sofa and watch Netflix. And what's next for this business? What happens in the ideal world? Well, there's all the nuts and bolts stuff that we're launching new. MPD in January. The team is growing by the day. we're gearing up for the series A once I've got the baby out and had a night's sleep which who knows movable feast and I guess genuinely like we and you know moving into new territories a lot of our audience in the US etc etc but for us trying to keep the core of what we started and democratising gut health and really staying true to that mission as we grow feels like a bigger task than the growth bit I think like staying true to why we started it and I think keeping checks on ourselves is really important as well in terms of the decisions that we make we started it with a purpose and i think that you can lose sight of that when it gets exciting and it starts to grow so i think that's the main thing yeah trying to get some sleep that's a yeah you're going to need some sleep i would get i would start getting that bank full uh because it's already going to get trimester just doesn't serve that i'm my son's still young so he's still get...

24:47I'm like, how many teeth come? Like, how is he still getting teeth? How many sleep regressions do you need? God's sake. Yeah, innumerable, unfortunately. And the teeth will stop at some point and then there'll be something else. Yeah, then it's the psychological warfare of having teenagers and children. Yeah, welcome to my world too. It's been brilliant talking to both of you. Thank you. Thank you both so much for your time. Just before I let you disappear, what's your song choice and why have you chosen it? So we've got a bit of a random story behind this but we basically, when we first started presented were flown to Nashville by Jack Daniels and we were taken to yeah this random place in Nashville and Steve Cropper who co-wrote Sitting on the Dockwood Bay which is our song was there we watched him live we watched him live when they sang it yeah and at the time we were like what and like our dad was alive at the time and we were sort of messaging him going like sending him videos he was like this is insane like you don't you two don't know how lucky you are and it was our first time we'd been paid to like we thought that was what our career was going to be that was going to be like that all the time and then obviously you hit the reality and you have to DJ for 50 quid for 7 hours but yeah it was the start of us really believing that two wee working class girls from Scotland could do something with their lives I think and that was like a real catalyst for us at that moment Otis Redding there with Sitting on the Dock of the Bay the song choice of my business shapers Lisa and Alana McFarlane I loved how they talked about their own brand wonderfully gung-ho and not just the brand of course but them as people and their personalities and what that brought to and has continues to bring to the business don't be afraid to sit in the room with the big guys and girls that point about as you're growing as a business you've got to have that inner confidence that you're in the right place and you deserve a seat at the table and finally how do you manage the stress will people do it differently they talk with their friends close friends and family the yibsy yabses as they said and as they would have said in In Scotland, that's how they do it.

26:44Talking over a drink, often a dry martini, in a bar or a pub, somewhere nice. Great stuff. That's it from Jazz Shapers. Have a lovely weekend. Jazz Shapers on Jazz FM. In partnership with Mishkondorea. It's business, but it's personal. We hope you enjoyed that edition of Jazz Shapers. You'll find hundreds more guests available for you to listen to in our archive. To find out more, just search Jazz Shapers on iTunes or your favourite podcast platform. or head over to mishcon.com forward slash jazzshapers. Today's episode is brought to you by Apple Ads. Ads on Apple Maps are changing the way local businesses get discovered.

27:22Reach customers when it counts, right when they turn I'm looking into I'm going. They're in decision-making mode, actively searching for businesses like yours and deciding where to go. Customers can easily call you, visit, and more from the same place they're viewing your ad. And all of this happens on Apple Maps, a privacy-first environment that respects customers and helps them discover new places Get started with ads on Apple Maps today And for a limited time, receive 15 % credit back on your monthly ad spend for a year Up to$1 ,000 per month Terms apply Head to ads.apple.com slash maps to get started Try business like never before with ads on Apple Maps

28:10Thank you.