Ep 54: Lawyer to Drinks Mogul: Olivia Ferdi’s Journey Launching Trip and Shaking Up Wellness

0:12Today I'm joined by Olivia Ferdi, lawyer turned founder and the woman behind Trip, the drinks brand that everyone's talking about. Olivia launched a product that didn't exist in the UK at the time from her kitchen table and has since turned it into a global company valued at over a quarter of a billion dollars. So let's find out why she's a lady who launched. Thank you so much for coming. I'm so, so thrilled that we get to sit down and talk because I'm such a huge fan of the brand and I have been for quite a long time. So it's so nice to see you and hear all about the story and get under the hood a little bit.

0:52So thank you so much for chatting to me. Thank you for having me. I always like to start these conversations in the same way. And that is sort of heading way back when to the younger us, because I always feel that we can connect those dots as to who we are as a founder or entrepreneur, CEO, however that might look. But there are those traits there often or the stories that have made us resilient and, you know, makes us lead in the way that we do. So looking back, what were those kind of early sparks of entrepreneurship for you, do you think? It's a question I get asked a lot, I think, because people like to think how they can build certain experiences.

1:34And I think my answer is quite unusual in that I felt like I was not the kind of person you'd pick for entrepreneurship. I am not a risk taker I love following rules I love school all the things that I think you'd agree you have to kind of let go of a lot when you're building something and in terms of that resilience piece in those moments I think my learning for anyone listening is if you don't feel you resonate with some of the traits people are talking about don't worry too much because you can build into those I have become the most agile flexible okay being uncomfortable okay being out of control person which I think is really key when you're building a business and that's not my nature but I've shifted typically that's really out of character for you that is so interesting because like you say lots of women that have sat in this seat are like I never really sort of fit the mold I wasn't you know I kind of always had that initiative I wanted to take risks and step outside the box so it's so interesting like you say that building something of your own does change you in ways that you kind of have to adapt and you know know that sometimes you have to pull the plug or sometimes you do sort of step outside of the box and there isn't a ceiling if you was going to take me back to the younger olivia school years how was that time for you so early school i don't know how far back we're thinking but i was shy i never did any public speaking this is a completely new part of my life and i think it's so exciting to people listening that you can discover a whole new part of yourself later in life start a bit as in your 30s 40s 50s 60s kind of sky's the limit but for me it was I was very well behaved um loved school loved sports had an amazing um childhood I have an older brother a younger sister um middle child but just loved kind of following the rules and being told what to do which is kind of the opposite of what you need to do if you're trying to build something out of nothing I don't know if you'd agree yes I mean I suppose yes and no but you gotta push the boundaries rip up the rule book a little bit I think because you realize they're out there aren't really any because every nobody has any journey is so kind of personal relative to whatever it is you're building right so and particularly with what you have built there wasn't really a benchmark so you kind of had to create your own totally definitely and I think when you're building when we were building trip my husband and I so we launched it just after our wedding and it started from this spark of a personal experience so we were looking into lots of different natural ingredients and botanicals when he had to have knee surgery right before our wedding we were told it'd have to be cancelled he wouldn't be able to walk me down the aisle like total nightmare and it was through experiencing all these different botanicals CBD was one of them ashwagandha ginseng we had this transformational recovery experience for him so much so that seven weeks after surgery he was bouncing around dancing all weekend we got back from that wedding we're like what the heck was that because these are ingredients that you might have found in a health shop but we didn't understand what they were and they were very difficult to comprehend it was always very expensive strange formats strange websites and we realized if we could put this into something delicious and fun and something you'd be proud to hold at your favorite bar that would be so exciting and actually launching the brand so we left our careers in law and finance and to answer your question about what I used to be like imagine a lawyer have you ever met lawyers I don't think anyone in the room is always the biggest fan you can see the image of my monthly outgoing of this kind of of this kind of person but that was me and and I was very um content in that so to shift into something so different I guess comes back to the point around having that personal experience and your question of ripping up the rule book I'd say leading with that personal experience meant we were the first customer we were the first customer saying why is it so hard to find a product with these ingredients why is it so why do i have to go to a strange store and a strange website why it's so niche 100 % and it's it's designed in a way that's intimidating and confusing everyday wellness should be accessible whereas some of the language some of the medical branding was quite off-putting navigating that ourselves we realized there must be so many people out there i mean i couldn't think of anyone that couldn't benefit from something to take the edge off to help with stress in a natural way yeah I know why is no one doing this so in terms of ripping up the rule book it was really I think with so many um female founders when you are the customer experiencing a need for something it taps into a realization that there's probably other people looking for this yes and that conviction I think is really important that passion around the reason you're doing something and guiding decision making is very powerful when you think about instinct over following a rule book for example because yeah we didn't have a rule book of the red bull deck or how to build a brand or any anything like that yeah so if we're gonna go back before we dig into trip and the spark and everything in between we talk about studying law did you have any because I suppose like you say that taps back into you being that kind of studious character you can say geeky is fine no no never never never but being someone that conforms somebody that likes consistency a routine this is this is what I'm picturing so correct me if I'm wrong yeah yeah did you ever did you ever sort of think that you might be the character that would build build a business I suppose when you're depends what sort of law you're studying but you're kind of working or acting on other people's behalves yeah so did you ever think that there would be a time in your life that you would do something for you no never never and I don't think I'd sort of seen examples of what that could be especially if we think back seven eight years ago I think now with social media where I personally feel like I'm seeing and hearing many more stories different looking stories of building a business but back then I would have never imagined it I didn't like being the one driving decisions or choosing what to do I was very content being part of a team building something meaningful in line with a broader kind of team goal so it was quite a surprise to me to kind of shift in this way I mean it's so so brilliant and I kind of like that because I'm such a fan of a pivot so I kind of like the idea of for me it feels like you really have pivoted in the terms of you've this you've had this spark you followed that yeah which I think yeah is a real pivot for you if you're used to being safe in that like I just want to be good at my job and I enjoy this and I'm here to learn or I'm here to do x let's talk about trip and that light bulb moment that went off because you sort of touched it before but this really isn't a business that was that wasn't commercial it really was personal definitely so let's let's go back into because you can have these situations and you can say okay we need to get you ready for surgery and it becomes a i suppose a real mission impossible and we're getting married and you are going to meet me down that aisle yeah um but when that moment's over that mission can stop right it happened it went well for you you researched into it but that could that could have ended there yeah so what made you do you think if you're stepping out of like safe olivia and olivia that likes to live a certain way yeah where do you think that light bulb of entrepreneurship went off what and why do you think so I think it was seeing firsthand seeing my husband go through that recovery experience in an environment that's quite emotionally charged you know a wedding day you're surrounded by friends and family you've got messages in the weeks leading out oh what's gonna happen you know we're here dance on crutches how's it get you know very high it's very emotionally charged and the celebration of his recovery and the wedding itself obviously was incredible and I think that environment probably was a little bit of a factor because there were so many loved ones involved who cared about what was happening and hearing about our journey I think when it we got back and we dove into researching it again with all those friends and family in mind realizing the understanding of the benefits of some of these ingredients it was like why is no one else talking about this we could help everyone who was at that event everyone in our lives who experiences a moment of daily stress you know the more we talked about it the more we just couldn't think of anyone that wouldn't benefit from this whether it was our friends um our parents you know aunties older generation who often don't even use the word stress like my mom would say she's not stressed let me tell you she is you know she's very worried they just don't use that vocabulary it's so true it's such a weird thing yeah but there's so many people who could benefit from this so we got very very excited about that and I think when you're talking about pivot as well what I feel when you say that word I think there's been many moments of pivot but because it came from a personal experience it's almost so intrinsically connected everything about trip is so unconnected to me and my husband and our family it doesn't feel this separate thing where there's necessarily big moments I can point to when you step back there certainly are yeah I think it was understanding more about the research and just to be perfectly honest like an incredible amount of naivety not having that rule book to reference we didn't know how hard it would be to make a drink we thought how hard could it be that was constantly something we said to each other how could it be you look at it on google there's a couple of options you call a couple of people they say sorry we can't do that but try this and and you kind of just keep moving forward you kind of do need that level of naivety because if you and we do say that a lot on this podcast as much as you kind of wouldn't change a thing because your journey's your journey however there are certain things if I knew that like yeah the detail would I have left it alone at some points maybe because it can be stressful and it's no mean for you particularly when you are you well I suppose you're creating that landscape for a proposition that didn't exist totally which is why I guess for some people listening I'd also comment on do what's right for you financially and personally so I stayed at my job and I did this on the side for a few months before going cold turkey and I think that was to be able to have the product in hand so that was several months I mean we moved the whole thing incredibly fast so from the wedding to the launch of the full product that was a year and knowing that I had my job on the side being able to do this sort of 50 % of my time was really impactful and I guess a sense of security before going full hog both of you in the marriage you know putting all your savings into it as newlyweds you can imagine a few raised eyebrows so I guess for anyone listening as well thinking about your personal expenditure and what is feasible if you have that flexibility that can be a really big confidence booster before you know the complete pivot if you will it's built up of all these micro moments and I think it's a real test of your passion and test of your kind of that unwavering belief in what you're doing if you can work a job but every hour that you get given on the side is you are you wanting to pour it all in yeah and you're making sure that you do i think it's a real test of knowing that that's the right thing i do agree i think knowing that you're invested and interested yeah is important because naivety or not 99.9 percent of people you meet say it's not possible it won't work it doesn't make sense how could i possibly put this in my store where does it go who's it for and so understanding that you are the consumer I think is a hugely helpful way to navigate that journey but staying true to the purpose and the vision as well as your genuine interest even if there isn't a personal experience that's shifted your perspective or your life knowing that you're interested as you say is so important because if someone's saying no 10 times a day and you keep saying but well maybe maybe we do a little bit and then we'll see you know you've got to have um real belief in that and it gets truly tested especially at the beginning super lonely which is kind of absolutely which we'll touch on in a bit but the fact that you are doing this for your husband yeah i can imagine there's pros and cons yeah you know in working so closely together but having that partner to bounce off is incredibly special a minute ago you said that you you kind of your outlook was how hard can it be how hard was it because i'm kind of i spoke to some founders on this podcast you know lots of different founders but yeah in stories in similar vein where i feel like you're kind of like i said sort of creating that there is no benchmark you're doing it sort of in real time deliciously ella was a brand that i know you know that she really struggled with manufacturers and ella did an incredible job of being really persistent yeah i spoke to um kara keen who has got a cereal brand called super keen that only launched this year but she was really sort of persistent on getting a manufacturer to be able to make cereal out of sort of popping tiger nuts and it was that became a mission yeah but again nothing like it existed before so how hard was it Like, were you extremely naive in thinking, we're going to create this really fun brand, an aesthetics drink brand that I would want to drink, but it's going to include everything that we want?

15:27Yeah. Were you kind of like, oh, well, no, this is this is really quite tough. I would say making it wasn't the hardest part. I think it's interesting as you say that, because it makes me think that maybe it comes down to perspective, that I don't think any of it. I mean, it obviously is hard. It's hard work. you don't achieve anything without hard work and you don't get to this sort of level without that but I think the way that we view the day-to-day decisions so the day is made up of a hundred moments decisions emails calls are they hard in themselves I think it's a perspective that working with my husband we're both very good at lifting each other up yes and something I would say often is it's not when people ask me for advice is it's not rocket science it can be really hard but it's actually not rocket science you know to make the first drink for example we googled where can you make a drink in the UK we were in the UK we thought better if we're closer to manufacturing it's closer to bring the end product near the customer which is better as well there's about five places in the UK that can make a drink with a what they call minimum run so when you're starting you don't have 100k to pour into your first production but the bigger you get and you work with better facilities they'll be putting millions of product down the line but to get your first run done you'll be looking to do what we call the minimal amount of cash and there's only a handful of sites that work on that small enough run we google them all we call them all we chase them we keep calling it's kind of like dating you have to convince them of why they should turn their machines off and put your product down the line when no one's heard of it and no one thinks people think it's going to break the machine like what of these strange ingredients like this is absolutely bizarre and actually the of those five manufacturers and however many hundreds of calls we managed to rock up to one of them we've got finally got a meeting with one of them because the understanding is that you need to pitch them about the vision of your business and the partnership and why they should invest their time in um working with you and we had what we thought was a great meeting and lester got the train up on a cold morning obviously took the day off or whatever managed to pitch this um manufacturer who seemed like fairly interested not that interested at all walked out of the meeting feeling that went quite well there was a guy sitting outside the meeting room who was visibly quite annoyed and it seems like we had actually walked into his meeting instead of him the manufacturer had not realized he'd accepted a meeting with us even though we had it in the calendar he was meeting someone else we'd taken that time managed to get in front of him when he had no plans to speak to us we ended up doing our first production run there which is incredible but that is you know 100 calls five people who could do it one who didn't really say yes one who accidentally took a meeting and then ended up making the first 10 000 these things just you know it's chip by chip you've got to keep going it's definitely not smooth sailing it's definitely hard work but also you just give it a go and it's it's also that at that point you're trying to really get other people that you need which are crucial into making this happen that power dynamic yeah but you're trying to get them to understand what you're so passionate about yeah and that that can be a really definitely particularly if it's more costly to do it in a certain way and you want to do it like this and it would be easier to do it like that it's you've got to try and get them on board as if it's their business too totally agree and it's really hard at the beginning when And I think storytelling and sharing our personal experience was really impactful, especially in the early days and helping bring people along on the journey.

18:58The reason to believe. But I wonder if you've had the same experience when you're launching something as well. You do have to make a few compromises in that first bit because you don't have the power dynamics of, well, I really want it to look a certain way. Or an endless pot of cash. Yeah, exactly. And if you're a perfectionist, it can be quite challenging as well to continue to push to tweak that product when you have a clear vision of what you want. but it's all a journey you know you couldn't possibly be at some of the best sites of the world producing millions of cans a day if you didn't start there you know everyone starts from somewhere i think it's easy to gloss over that and people think oh well i'm sure with your background you just walk straight into the top cases or yes no i was on the you know i've sold the first cans being you know literally flogging my wares you know like a salesman with like literally in olympia wherever trying to convince people anyone that would listen we've done all-nighters in warehouses you name it like the unglamorous side yeah for sure and because i'm thinking so you remind me what year did you launch so we launched in 2019 it was august september i say august september which is a weird thing to say because we launched our website in august and like literally no one came to it and then september we got our first shop because people weren't really buying drinks online at that time so august september 19 yeah and obviously we all went into lockdown in 20 so that was a bit strange and so yeah well we we launched my little coca like four weeks before the pandemic yeah i was like okay yeah yeah fabulous brilliant stuff um from 2019 to now yeah it's actually a crazy thought to think how far the world of wellness has moved and how kind of on board everybody is it doesn't feel woo woo anymore to kind of want to invest in yourself and take care of yourself and make better choices um but at the time was it quite a not a hard sell but was it quite hard educating people oh definitely 100 % and I think when you create a category we talk about creating the category of calm so trip represents these moments of calm throughout the day whatever the chaos looks like that day and it's creating different formats different flavors to perfectly meet you in that need wherever you are and I think that for a lot of people ultimately you know the beverage the drink it's part of a wider piece as you mentioned around the trends of better for you it's not just that you want a calming magnesium lion's mane drink when you walk into a store it's that you're just trying to make a slightly better choice for yourself for your mind and your body and I think what we've seen in well-being and wellness over the last few years is a kind of bigger conversation I don't know if you think it was also to do with the pandemic, but talking about how you were doing a lot more, whether it was in WhatsApp chats with your friends or your colleagues.

21:52We took extra time to check in because that's all we had to do. And then I think you notice the shift afterwards. We were frightened for our family's health and everyone's mental health suffered. And I think it was a big shift, probably in the way that we speak around mental health. it became a way that even at work in offices people might say I'm not feeling well today I'm not able to do xyz because my mental health is suffering in corporate that would never be discussed and I think that's been a broader shift in in wider health as well as remembering when you are creating a category it can take quite a bit of time to help convince people you know why we're doing something or why these ingredients are useful but I actually always in industry conversations we talk a lot about the category and the rise of functional so drinks like trip where they have added benefits are actually driving over a quarter of the growth of just soft drinks and actually soft drinks generally people are drinking less fizzy drinks and we get into the detail about the amount of lion's mane and where it's from but when i think about a customer everything we do at trip is very customer centric having been customers ourselves and i actually always encourage the team to flip it on its head a drink is a drink it's got to be cold refreshing and delicious in the right place and when you bring out these other elements I felt from a branding perspective when we launched there was so much noise and confusion having it as this aesthetically calming thing which from a distance on shelf hopefully tells you a story that it's slightly healthier or whatever but you can barely read what's in this from where you're sitting or even up close i didn't want to sort of other people in that journey and i think when we're talking about wellness a lot of things can be a bit intimidating but i'm sure you'd agree a lot of the best wellness things whether it's sunlight on your face a walk in fresh air sleep water you know these things i at trip we really do believe in those kind of simple the simplicity of it absolutely that and i think i think one thing that really makes it pop on shelf is a side of you know the ingredients everything else in between like you say that you don't see that from afar but how calming it appears on shelf and how aesthetically pleasing because everything else is really bright yeah it's very like buy me drink me and it's quite yeah if you're trying to find that calm it's not really giving that i don't think i think a big part of the customer base i don't want to say just women you know 60 of our customers are women but i feel like slightly more feminine branding or even gender neutral branding instead of that shouty yes energy pick me buy me now click baity thing you know it's often us that are doing the weekly shop we'd love to look at something a bit more aesthetic that can sit on your coffee table give me sheets I know exactly that exactly that yeah um when it come to sort of I suppose I don't know what your husband did but your background he was in finance he was in finance okay so when it came to building a brand were you really sort of nailed on aesthetically how obviously you knew the drink that you wanted you knew that was pretty that was the reason this was born right but the actual branding and that side of it was that a strength of yours that you kind of uncovered or was that something that you were a little bit like I've got this idea but I don't know how to execute this and bring it to life so my husband would be so kind to say it was definitely me with that clear vision I think it's definitely teamwork.

25:23I think I knew because it came from a personal experience, I knew how I wanted it to feel, not just feel in terms of the functionality, but the look of it, the aesthetic, and have always been quite passionate about that. We talk about the single can, the front of the can as the kind of non-negotiable bit that you see obviously around the back or the other packaging. The back of the pack, yeah. But there's something really sacrosanct about if you see it in a shelf or in a fridge, you've got less than two seconds to tell a story about that and going through the experience ourselves we realize it's very confusing it's quite intimidating it's hard to navigate you know we're really clear on what we wanted from that perspective my husband's my biggest cheerleader and we'll say I had the um kind of really strong opinions about about all of this but I have to admit we're a great team and he's annoyingly good at everything including including branding but I have a picture on my phone of the first i'll show you after the first um drawing we did just on the back of an envelope you know keeping it super simple the front is incredibly simple people are like that's not even a logo you know where's your um where's your iconography i'm like oh it's it's very clear and simple you know it's easy to understand exactly what to me makes it pop that's what makes it feel it always feels very like skincare reminiscent i don't know if you ever get this in your businesses but when you reach a certain level of success as well a ton of people want to tell you with industry experience your logo is not clear enough pastels should not be in a store um it's confusing no man will be seen i can tell you millions and millions of men all across the country have been holding that can there's nothing um i love to see more than friends will send me you know um guys on a building site or something who've just gone to grab their lunch and they're all drinking there yes they're in cans and i kind of enjoy not being proven right that sounds really self-centered.

27:15No, but it knows that you know the DNA of your brand. Yeah. I enjoy that it bucks all trends. So we now have an incredible team where we get insights decks and we read data and things like elderflower mint, of which tens of millions of cans have sold all across the country. That's my favorite, by the way. Same. It doesn't make sense. Nobody is looking for that specific product, but isn't that exciting that you could be thinking about something or working on something in your own journey that people don't even know they need yet because everything on paper about our brand doesn't make sense you don't have industry experience the product is more expensive than a red bull it's more than twice the price of a red bull you put it next to a red bull and it's a pink can this sells more than red bull in stores which is bananas and we just didn't even know six years ago or whatever that this could be something people enjoy and i think taking away from all that incredible brand idea or whatever I think it's it's a delicious refreshing drink yeah I think you know it's healthy people always worry about what their thing is and how do they know if they've found their thing and we always say is what we always say is your your thing is the thing that comes easy to you but hard to most and that's kind of when you know because you can you have people that try different jobs and it's not quite clicked but yeah actually that your thing could be a category that's not stumbled oh yeah you know that that nobody's stumbled across yet and it could be something so random in like recovery of an operation that's given you a spark to like it doesn't always have to be figured out and I kind of love that if you'd have put any of this on paper like you say on paper it shouldn't work it shouldn't be no outselling Red Bull no at double the price etc etc but it bloody is yeah so like and it's kind of like you say it goes back to you don't want to like prove yourself right and prove outside noise wrong but actually there's something so incredible definitely when it comes to like that you say especially someone who studied and you know enjoys following that kind of side of thinking yeah to be like something out of the box and gut instinct can be the biggest strength and biggest highlight of your life you know that is mad yes and pretty cool let's talk about pros and cons of starting a business with your loved one yes because i'm all i've had quite a few female founders not lots that are in business with the husband emma greed's been on she is in business with the end her husband joe malone has been in business with her husband gary from day one i'm just trying to remember it's not like a huge Ella Mills women Ella Mills um but the ones that come on here yeah that work in that vein have to me and I don't know your husband and I don't know you as a couple but to me they have the strongest unit and they have only incredible stories to tell yeah um which I love which is is is so incredibly inspiring how what do you think are the best and worst things about being in relationship and you know personally and in a business relationship i think you should do a couple's version of your podcast like a special episode yes we get all the guys and see what they think um as you say i think it's just the most incredible thing i know it's really soppy to listen to but and it's not for everyone and i would have never in a million years have expected this kind of journey for us yeah we joke that when my husband and I had careers before we have a very strong relationship we got together and we were very young I was 18 it was at university um so we've known each other 20 years almost been together 18 years we've grown up together in many ways you know going through those big life moments whether it's first job first house move all those things and we joke that you know I couldn't even name what he'd do all day who he'd be in meetings with you know I didn't know this we didn't talk about it so it's crazy to think that we spend all day together now in terms of best and worst parts I think like you said if it's a partnership what I feel really fortunate about is our marriage is very much a partnership and we feel like equals and he makes me feel more than equal to be honest which is amazing I think that's the right way to do it yes girl you know coming to the business together creating it together has worked so well for us I think I might find it a bit more challenging if it was me joining his or him joining yes my thing which I think is quite common in a lot of relationships the other thing is because of this person experience I've spoken about and that it was I guess quite emotionally charged being around a lot of loved ones at the time it was happening it has meant it sort of come from us so it feels very part of us trip and everything that comes along with that and so in a way any stress or highs or lows they feel very emotionally um strong but it means you do have your best friend there to go through those highs and lows with your question earlier about loneliness like i never feel alone and i think as a young mom sometimes you're like i really like to be alone now that's when you go to the bathroom for a break i know but equally you know we'll go to we'll be in meetings all day we'll go to a work event in the evening they'll say we're uh doing the seating plan where do you want to sit i'm gonna put me next to my husband we just want to chat you know and we'll get the phone out we'll look at the baby on the monitor or we'll just talk about something silly i think being able to connect the two is something i feel very fortunate those listening i'm sure would point out it's harder to separate to switch down yes but you know i'm looking at the product here i'm going to be going um out for lunch after i'll be seeing the product on menu i'll be thinking about new flavors i'll be thinking about how they're serving it I'll be catching sight of cans in rubbish bins or um chaps on building sites and thinking about that you know it's it's all around but it's also such a privilege to be able to blend the two I think working with your best friend if it's a partnership and a great teamwork as well you can really depend on each other and with any family business as well so I mentioned um I was at my sisters before this so her husband works at trip so they've been together since they were teenagers my little sister and even his sister works in the business as well so it's a full family business that's so lovely having a morning like today or running around you know you can always just depend on each other in a way that is really deep and meaningful even if someone's having trust i suppose too definitely even if anything goes wrong like health above everything everybody cares about the same thing it's the well-being of our loved ones so if you're having a tough day or um feeling on well or whatever it is you don't even need to think about explaining these things it's just kind of of course they'll pick it up for you whatever else I think it's so so special when it goes right like I always think like how wonderful to be able to share milestones with people you love the most and know that you have their trust I've also spoke to people on this podcast that actually it was it was great until it wasn't and then they wish they kind of never have blurred those lines because it you know really changed the family dynamic which it which also can be a hard thing but I think when you get it right and you've found when we're all looking for balance but in that sort of family dynamic when you've found the way that it works it could be someone else I guess it's like who knows you really well who knows you really well to make you feel great in your best moments out in your tough moments for me that is my husband and my family for others it could be a best friend it could be a stranger definitely um but I think it's it's really special isn't it especially when there's the intensity of being able to switch into both hats whether it's um yeah being here and then hopping straight home to see the kids and catch them between meetings or bring them to the office you know that blended approach I think works really well for us and we're very very lucky like I said it's so it's just when it's all in harmony it's a beautiful thing it's a beautiful thing to have I want to talk about retailers because once you've then got this product off the ground and you have got into the wrong meeting and you found an out of action and it's happening and the ball's rolling and you're you feel like you're sort of ready yes you launch online yeah August September because the august no one was no one was having it yeah um how did the retail piece then slot itself in there because was that an active approach because i'd assume yeah when you're when you are selling goods such as cans yeah you want that in that retail setting you want us to be able to pop to a shop and grab a can it's not sort of gonna sit d to c forever and that'd be the end of the story how sort of how did the retail piece come about so we always looked at again because we didn't have um you know traditional retail experience we looked at it through our own lens of how do i spend my day where do my friends go and we should be there yeah so it was okay maybe if i'm lucky i get to go to the gym in the morning go for a coffee on the high street go for lunch in the office canteen go to a cool restaurant with friends spend the weekend at a brunch spot or a hotel, make a weekend of it.

36:37We were like, let's go speak to all these people. And we literally went to speak to these people. Almost like day in the life. Literally. I was like, where do people hang out on a Saturday? Should we just pop in and see if someone's free to chat? You know, one of our first stockists in retail, we call it the out of home channel. It's restaurants and things. So a lot of people, when you're making a food and drink product say, I'll get into bars and restaurants. It's where the tastemakers are. Do that before you go into grocery, where people are less open-minded about their weekly shop you know it's harder to crack this was covid so the only places open were grocery but we thought great we will think about where people have brunch a lot of people have bottomless brunch let's have you know trip instead of alcohol as the bottomless brunch and one of the places we thought of was bills there's loads of bills restaurants everywhere literally sent an email from their customer website it went to customer services and i said i would love to speak to your drinks manager who shall i get in touch with and I will never not be able to thank whoever in customer service received that message, passed it to the drinks manager of the whole group.

37:39This is a group owned by, I think it was like Caring and, you know, a lot of restaurants. And this manager emailed me and said, I've got a board meeting about the drinks menu in five days. You want to bring your products in tomorrow? Meet me. We'll taste them and we'll decide. And we listed it that week in 80 restaurants, all three drinks. the first order they were setting us up on the system the first order the forecast was something like 700 000 cans we were like what are we going to do but i think a big thing and that is we say yes then we figure it out so it's literally to the point we talked about earlier it's not rocket science give it a google yeah see who's on the website see who's on the telephone put yourself out there you put yourself in that vulnerable position completely what is the phrase it's like you lose 100 of the shots you don't take absolutely i couldn't so there's things like that And then while I said our original website didn't get loads of traction on day one, just because it doesn't on day one, unless you're spending loads on Mesa, we were getting people taking photos of the product.

38:40What we were talking about, the can looking so beautiful, the branding being quite disruptive. We were getting hundreds of people taking photos out and about and messaging us. And that started to pick up a lot of traction organically. And some retailers, within our first three months, we launched in Panic Organic and Selfridges first. and then that October we got inbound emails from Liberty Boots like crazy so it's both right it's these crazy stories of people coming up to you and asking about your product it's us outreaching it's putting yourself out there you know one of our first meetings with Selfridges happened because before we launched we were taking the product around different events to meet customers and get feedback we really wanted to get people tasting it and telling us what they thought and this is the sort of unglamorous side we'd be spending our weekends in east london in places like the truman brewery you know 12 hour shifts of standing telling people about our drinks and we moved house recently and i found the a board with the prices of the drinks that i'd written by hand and we were chatting to someone at this event called vegan nights we were like okay we want people interested in food let's find all the foodie events in london let's go there and try and get people trying their drinks.

39:53And on this night out, someone approached the stand who was a PA that worked at Suffrages and she loved the product and said, I'm going to put one on the desk of the food buyer. And it went from there. You know, you just can't expect these things. The world works in incredible ways. It does. And it's like a lot of it's being in the right place at the right time, but also being prepared when you're in that environment and be open to sort of ending up there too. Yeah. It's not like you need a crazy master plan. like I can give anyone an excel of buyers names that's fine but it's about moving the needle yourself by showing up at these random places I used to always I think it's only in the last 12 months have I started not doing this I would have cans in my bag any handbag you never know who you're gonna meet so true like celeb here so you just never know yeah you're so right and it is it goes back to what you said earlier like sometimes it is about saying yes and then figuring out the amount of times that I've done that like can you take this job and can you yeah oh my god I'd love to and I'm like how the fuck am I gonna make this work but you do it's kind of good stress though it's it's good stress it's a good problem to have but then you're also like genuinely might not be able to do this but I've said yes now and I'm like my word is my bond so I'm gonna make it happen but it's it is kind of that's sometimes where the magic happens when you kind of put yourself in those situations and to go back to the younger you that kind of likes to keep everything as it should be yeah that's really where your business has forced you to to kind of evolve as a person yeah and just show up and chat i used to be terrified of public speaking of even speaking to strangers you know very shy and if you've got a product you have to talk yeah you are the one that has to talk the most everything comes back to storytelling yeah there's no one better to tell that story than the founder people people connect with people and hearing a story is much more memorable and and you connect it with the wider mission in a way that is much more impactful so unfortunately yeah selling the product yourself I'd say is is one of the most brilliant things you can do always be selling I want to start with um I mean a couple milestones and records that you've broken I want to read this because I I love this part where I where I start reading numbers but I want to talk about what it took to get it off the ground yeah because you how much were you sort of doing just the pair of you or how quickly did the team grow and were there kind of was there a ceiling on the funds that you'd set aside like how did it look sort of day one august september website I would say it's also quite again when I talk about it and reflect it sounds like this was the plan and this is what we agreed it was much more let's just keep going so we got married in august 2018 we turned the website on august 19 and launched into self ridges and planet organic that september the first production run was probably around april of that year so before that we had decided let's pool our savings let's just give it a go we didn't actually even have i think what's crazy is we didn't have a plan b we never said to each other if we don't hit that milestone and we don't get that retailer or we don't hit that revenue one of us should agree to go back to there was just no question that we weren't going to change the world we weren't going to help millions of people which is bonkers but which just shows your belief though it's naivety but it's the it's the belief and it was genuine you're all in yeah and it was never like oh i've seen a deck and i think we should be a billion dollar company it was like no no there There are people up and down the country who don't realise how much better they can feel with these natural ingredients.

43:34To do the designs, we work with an amazing sisters, two sisters in Notting Hill quite near us who, I mean, that was probably like£6 ,000. To like take the drawings and scale it up into what we call can renders and artworks and things that have to go to the printers. and then to find that minimum production run i think that probably cost i mean it's in theory they probably charge between 10 and 20k to do the first they do these things called bench tops to basically confirm it won't explode and then they make some in cans and then inevitably there's there's wasted you lose some things like that and you have to test the product so the getting the first production run wrapped and looking like a real product you could probably do for 25 grand and how nervous were you or were you when you press go on that first run i wasn't that nervous when i received it i was like oh things can go wrong right i didn't realize anything about physical products so again being a lawyer you need to remember that i worked behind email in a room thinking about best protection for a scenario or a worst case situation that may never happen in 10 years this was real life real product liquid spilling cans getting dented um fizzing over leaking things so when um you spend that money it's because you've got to buy ingredients to put in the product to make it obviously and then you might not sell that product for a good few months and even when you're buying ingredients you know ingredients can be stored wrong they can go off you know all these practical typical things that you can imagine around holding something in your hands that when you work in a corporate behind a laptop it's very abstract yes yes you know it's not tangible and you know you know if a problem happens you can try your best to solve it it's kind of yeah you don't if you know a reaction with an ingredient with another ingredient in a can definitely you can't necessarily call it i'm sure you have um in your experience with physical consumer brands.

45:44It's like things spill, things go wrong. Oh yeah, of course. It's not the right colour. The lids are not quite right. They don't fit. They've shipped the wrong one and then bring on COVID. Shortage of cardboard. The shipment doesn't arrive. Shortage of cardboard. The UK ran out of everything, including CO2. You wouldn't believe it. So the bubbles are put inside. I thought the bubbles were made when we mix it. Me too. I thought, oh, it's going to get bubbly. that's exactly what i would have thought you put the bubbles in before you seal the lid so it's um what you call it like maximum volume and has no air in it wow and there was a shortage of everything there was a shortage of bubbles obviously they call it co2 i'm like it's the bubbles it's the bubble you've run out of bubbles yeah what am i going to do doesn't that just happen yeah i would think that's like some sort of chemical reaction that happens totally yeah that's what i thought wow that's crazy and glasses and just bubbles and just bubbles happen yeah oh okay so that was great great what didn't we run out of in covid yeah i mean everything you know you order something and it doesn't come as you ordered i think that's a real classic situation that it's hard to imagine before you start your own business you think well i've ordered white so wouldn't white come yes so why is it orange yeah orange and yeah and it don't fit absolutely yeah and also the the print might not have been oh yeah it's kind of that and then once you commit to that moq you're in yeah and it's kind of miss the retailer deadline if you try and get new labels printed so you have to just keep going it's it's all it's those learnings that i think it's that that no one can prepare you for because in my mind it's just straightforward if we press go yeah this end shiny product 100 we actually thought that we could what you call turnkey or white label so a lot of products you can just say i'm looking for a xyz product in this format please send it to me and put your label on that would have been so great not when you're reinventing the wheel I know when you turn it around you see so many ingredients on it and if I advise young drinks entrepreneurs now I'm like stick to five ingredients it's much easier to scale up you don't need to worry about Brexit and tariffs and just pick a few ingredients but ultimately it's in that naivety that you've created what's essentially a moat you know what's unique to your brand what is more effort that other people wouldn't have done they wouldn't have followed going away from the insights deck they would have gone for something yeah much more that feels more obvious yeah but then it wouldn't be trip if you had made those decisions so it's kind of it is full circle but definitely yeah but a challenge of course yeah um since launch trips growth has been extraordinary um so you start sort of in that tens of thousands kind of investment up front you've now raised 40 million dollars yes a lot of cans i mean wow valuing trip but over a quarter of a billion dollars make it the most valuable drinks band brand with a female founder and ceo yes thank you yes thank you very much yeah um i'm just reading off of my sheet here trip is now the largest privately owned soft drink company in the uk hitting a hundred million dollars revenue um probably in 2025 and forecasting for 200 million for 2026.

48:58I mean, the growth of this brand has come at a pace that most brands never experience. Like, it just doesn't reach those kind of numbers. What practical decisions did you have to make to enable you to scale without losing control and staying true to the brand's DNA? Because we often find, and Ella Mills was a guest that spoke really honestly about this. She was like, I could have grown a lot quicker had I have listened to certain manufacturers where they were like, well, everyone's putting these kinds of oils in and like flavouring them with natural flavour. And she was like, no, well, can't it just be natural?

49:40And that's the flavour. So she really had to be persistent. And she said something which I found really interesting that if she hadn't sort of fought for that and stayed true to her mission up front because she could have scaled quicker. But actually at the time where it really did, you know, evolve, the people that ended up buying Deliciously Ella have had to stick to the same factory and the same manufacturers. And they've had to keep, because it's the brand now, and they can't now change the brand guidelines because she stayed so true at scale when she wanted to, you know, look at other territories and everything else in between.

50:20They've had to keep the essence of the brand going because now it's too loved, which I think is really, really interesting. So, you know, she could have sold out sooner, essentially. But I find, have you come up against sort of any practical decisions that, I don't know, that you've really thought, okay, this is helping me scale, but I'm still being in control here? Yeah. I'd say when you're growing that fast, there's definitely challenges i think the way that my husband and i always view things it's this kind of infectious energy of opportunity i think people are probably quite exhausted by it we're like but what about this what about this and again it's very much saying yes and then figuring it out yes you know even the us this year we've expanded it's like available in 10 000 stores whether it's targets or whole foods it's a very big place to go big so fast and i think to your question you know how do you manage that with a growing team and maintaining quality when you get to a certain size I'd say the benefits of things like the power dynamic when you're negotiating with the best manufacturer that makes the drinks for the top brands in the country you have more ability to kind of pressure into what you need versus the stories I told you at the beginning where it was like you'll take what you get and you'll be happy with it whatever happens even if half of it's fallen on the floor and I think that is a big inflection point for our business for our team they're able to negotiate in a way that has shifted I'd say in the last kind of 18 months which means we're able to grow but still stay true to delivering on whether it's innovation new products seeing what's trending seeing what our customers are interested in whether it's new ingredients um lion's mane's a big one at the moment you know functional mushrooms lots of different things that we can harness to stay true to that customer it's not um copy paste whatever we want to launch wherever it's social listening it's watching what our dms are saying about when and where they're feeling stressed actually if office canteens are more of a focus than i don't know hotels and um brunch spots let's let's pivot let's make sure we're staying true to what that person needs actually when you go to some venues you can't have a beverage in your handbag every time we made gummies so that people can discreetly pop them in their bag for a party or work do and I think when you're growing at that pace it's for me I always encourage the teams you know staying close to that customer whether your customer is the end retailer whether your customer is the person sending a dm we can never rest on our laurels stress is so personal and we are never a brand that would ever say anything like there's one way to live your life and you've got to have a green juice and do a headstand before you qualify it is the mum of three on the school run it is the nurse doing a night shift it is um you know anyone in this room anyone listening each experience is equally valid and really like intentional about how we talk about that which is why when we are looking at accelerating into opportunities you know this funding is all for our us expansions we've already launched there it's going really well and there's so much demand from customers and the community it's like how do we show up more conveniently we don't want you to only be able to go to xyz store we want it to be on every store corner for you and so with that it's just always bringing it back to the customer especially with a growing team i think when you have real life stories like some of the ones we were speaking about at the beginning you can really kind of contextualize why we're doing what we're doing yeah and use that to help guide teams in this like very fast growth phase and how do you find sort of because obviously the business scaling the team is a huge part of that scale how do you find that kind of onboarding the team in a way that you know you need that leverage to be able to scale but to keep your story yeah true as a founder you know and to keep coming back to that you know this is the mission this is why we're doing it this is where it started is it really kind of always re-educating your team basically yeah it's something we talk about a lot because we've grown so much um I think you asked earlier about what did the team look like at the beginning so it was just my husband and I for the first year we brought my brother-in-law in just as lockdown hit he quit his job at L 'Oreal and was like what have I done his sister joined as well and it was just us around the kitchen table for a good year and a half two years then we had our first hire um and from them we've we've grown to about 70 people i think when you're bringing in new people we're constantly having to look at are our processes good enough are our onboarding is good enough there's always more you can do when it comes to um people and culture and making sure you're constantly looking at it it's not a tick gun yes so i'd say that and then in terms of the mission what's great is that we actually attract a ton of talent that are extremely excited about the mission and helping a billion people find calm so with that you almost they kind of self-filter to have applicants who are very interested and that's I think really great for purpose-driven companies because you have that kind of very clear mission you're able to get a certain type of candidate and then a lot of people read about the high growth and I think a lot of people we attract are quite ambitious high performance type of individuals which has worked really well I'd say they're two of the key elements that we look for and sort of retain people that are very aligned with the mission but people who are also very excited by doing things slightly differently but moving at pace as well yeah it's because that's what I always think about when you're scaling the team it's I find like small hires or you know we've onboarded you know new team members this year and I found that so hard to really make sure I'm giving everybody enough time and obviously it's not at the scale that you're at so I just think it's it's it's so interesting to me because it kind of where do you I suppose it has to get to a point where you you delegate that to and you trust in I do find it a bit tricky to delegate that yeah I think I hear what you mean in that like you'd want to do it all yourself and have that face it's impossible but you also have an important brand an important purpose in all the businesses that you're running so people can connect with that in a way that don't underestimate how much they get from that even if it's not just you there's nothing like you obviously and being face to face you can't be in two different countries it has to be scalable um so we try and always optimize whether it's for ai or digital it'll be things like some digital onboardings will encourage people to listen to something like this you know get a kind of good view on the business but um you know it's crazy that you have to constantly yeah refresh how you're looking at things when you have a growing team and it's weird that I don't always know everyone's name yeah that's weird well it's really hard and you feel like rude and you're like oh god it's quite a difficult thing at that stage I think when you get to a certain signs it's like you're not doing the best job for the business if you are worrying about that versus you know yeah about the high level things and I do find that tricky and how would you say that your your individual role has changed since that kind of 2018, 2019.

57:41It feels like it's changed a lot. But also I'm really lucky that some of the things I used to do a lot of, I don't have to do anymore, whether it is the literal onboarding pack or, you know, being the finance person, being the lawyer, we can now pay for these things. So that has shifted. But a lot of the core elements, which is brand, products, so all the, we call it liquid, all the flavours, all the liquid development I'm um heavily involved with everything that touches the product basically and the brand I'm really really passionate about and then my role specifically because we now have a bigger team it's about empowering those like department heads or directors to filter up so I actually spend a lot of my time with you know the more senior hires in the business and a lot of the time relationships with what we call our partners so that could be um retail customers I'll be visiting them talking about kind of upcoming plans it'll be partners like the calm app so spending time with that team and thinking how we can work best together to help on the kind of aligned mission um it could be celebrity investors and ambassadors working with them so a lot of my time is out of the office at the moment but and also travel building out the u.s team and things like that so it's a real varied role because at the start i think that's naturally what happens isn't it that you're you do everything you do everything but almost now you're doing that in a real I suppose in more of a balanced way because at the start you are literally everything to everyone and yeah fully in the weeds but yeah raising capital and being able to expand the team means that you can be out of certain weeds but you're still very much in it but it's it's a nice it's varied in a nice way now oh definitely less high pressure would you say or more so i feel it's more high pressure in some ways now that i know uh the stakes in a way when you start you're just like whatever happens it's gonna be great whereas now you know well it becomes hitting numbers and yeah setting the strategy making sure we're hitting what we're hoping to be hitting yeah um you know shared goals and that kind of thing whereas the beginning it was just sort of a bit more i guess yeah yeah but with that comes this kind of very exciting energy which can make it tricky to switch off or fall asleep when you're like you know there's 10 000 stores in the us that want this how do we figure it out how do we get there they've asked for a launch in four weeks that can't be done how can we make it happen yeah you know shipments air um air shipments boat shipments drive trucks if we get seven trucks driving through the night you know we'll literally be thinking about it like that the problem solving has reached a different scale i mean i think we have a very i say we like dan i have a very strong mind like if someone says it can't be done i'll be like come on but it can but what what can we try the can do attitude we want today yeah i think that's um such a big part of how you build um 2026 is huge for you um you have got your biggest ever global campaign nationwide um uk television advert which is a first yeah um this is incredible because that will then mean millions more are now expected to try trip as an alcohol alternative which i love and it is definitely the drink that i would if i was hosting that's exactly how i would see it for like if i turn up and i'm not drinking that's exactly and if you serve me a juice like no i will not be impressed it's just not and i don't want like i don't want to like a a no seco or like a feel like i'm like you want tequila but without alcohol and you're like no i don't want to taste tequila without any alcohol in that's kind of not the point but i think that's a big part of why um it's interesting for gen z especially because like i don't think they've grown up on the taste of beer and tequila to be asking for a zero percent yeah yeah seco or whatever um this being home your first uk television ad but that's a that's a real branding moment isn't it yeah how excited were you to sort of realize that you've hit a point that you can have a television advert because that's like no mean feat like there's a lot that goes into that there's yeah it's a big cost particularly depending on what ad breaks you're running in and yes how that looks so that must have been a bit of a milestone for you definitely I think also when you think of this kind of product and how we really want to help impact people's lives positively you think okay a drink is a drink it was on the table it was in the fridge you're in someone's home you open a fridge they go about their day they go to the coffee shop they have their lunch they see a trip being on television feels like this next way to connect with people like in a very familiar format it's like such heritage brands that go on that kind of platform and what i found interesting is retailers as well have been really excited about it because i think it's such a deep rooted cultural way of people consuming information and getting excited about brands and ultimately relaxing and switching off when they're you know watching their favorite show yeah so to think that will be popping up between you know your favorite things on tv is very very cool it's so cool and it really is that extension isn't it like you say that like yeah you thought you spotted us throughout the day and now you're sat down yeah and hi it's definitely yeah especially when people are looking to wind down whether they're looking for something to help take their mind off things they can sleep better or they're looking for a wine alternative I think being in the home on their screen will be such a great way of demonstrating that as well And did you ever set out for it to be a sort of alternative to alcohol?

1:03:30Was that kind of a decision from the forefront or was that something like a bit of a happy accident? Definitely I'd say happy accident. I think what's interesting is that when I think of alcohol alternatives, they might be like we said, a beer without alcohol or a spirit without alcohol. but I think that's a specific area of the store which I might not shop in but I might enjoy something yes and realize I could have this in a celebration moment when my friends are drinking alcohol and sort of separating them into very distinct areas always felt a bit artificial and we were learning that a lot of people were messaging us saying I've either given up drinking and I'm reaching for a trip instead or um I'm having it instead of a glass of wine when I put the kids to bed or whatever because i don't want the hangover i don't want the anxiety i want to sleep well i'm very active whatever your life throws at you and it was a realization that this could really stand up against an alcohol yes option because people reach for alcohol number one to relax and the reason they'll reach for a specific option is they want taste and brand and then third is functionality so taste is something flavorful this isn't just sparkling water with a bit of lime or whatever you know you want something with what we call body so cocktails and wine have body they have layers they're something you can sip over a long period of time something sessionable and i think when we joked about juice you know you're not getting that same experience from a juice and then when you think about calories and things even um so much sugar and ultimately when we designed it part of the conversation was i didn't want people to say oh why aren't you drinking i wanted to be like oh what are you drinking tell me about that yeah that is so cool i haven't seen i've seen that on tiktok what is it and so it was empowering people who didn't want to drink rather than saying this is only for certain types of people yeah but ultimately we've never preached a certain moment in the day using those retail partners whether it's a leon at lunch or a solo house restaurant or bar by putting it in places where you are enjoying yourself we let people decide how they feel about that moment yeah if you're grabbing your lunch in leon you're probably thinking i want to be productive i want to treat but i don't want to be too sluggish etc and so that has been a big part of the storytelling in places where you can't be at shelf every time so having that storytelling has been really impactful because if you have it in a bar like bills it will be listed as a soft drink it will be in the non-arc section and it might be mixed into mocktails and cocktails so you're tapping into all these different moments where you can bring people to the brand without saying you must have three a day instead it's you see how you feel oh you liked it and you think you could enjoy this in the evening and they're the ones that are picking up in the meal deal and they're grabbing two cans one for lunch but also one for dinner yeah and i i think customers don't need to be infantilized i think it's important to respect the personal choices they make rather than you know this is only to be had after a full meal i mean no yeah yeah yeah yeah just you don't want to pigeonhole that and make the decision a lot of people have told us over the life of the brand oh you've got to be very specific is it an evening drink or is it a morning flavor and i just don't agree i think people i mean we were joking on the way in i wanted like three beverages at one time you know i'm that person i arrived at the office of so many fluids and everyone's like are you okay yeah i've got my water my matcha i've got my protein totally i literally arrived i think it's a lot more blurred And I think things like social have been really accelerant to trends, whether it's brands that are growing or seeing people get excited about new ingredients.

1:07:06There's things like, oh, I saw that on TikTok. Like I always, my husband and I always pop into shops around home. And if it's on shelf, we say, oh, how's it doing? How did you hear about this? And some of the store staff, whether it's in a bar or in a corner shop, they're like, oh, I saw it on TikTok and someone came in asking for it and I decided to order it in. And it's like this flywheel, it's so much more layered and interesting and fluid than I think industry have, I guess, been trained to believe. It's yes. This shopper only shops in that aisle. Well, actually, I do a weekly shop, but I forget I need more milk.

1:07:42I've got to pop to the corner shop. And I'm everywhere. I just feel like different things. Yes. And I think, again, not coming from the industry, but just leading with kind of intuition and heart and gut around that customer need. has been a big part of that rather than trying to pigeonhole as you say pigeonhole into this is a focused drink only for people who run 10k's it's like no no life is much more buried than that and every customer is very different and I suppose you're literally putting it in places and letting them decide how they're going to enjoy it which I think is really like you say again it goes against the rule book but I love that yeah I absolutely love that it's like giving them the decision and empowering them to make the right choices because that's what it's about you want them to be able to it's the choice right it's empowering choices absolutely that um i want to do a rocket round now and this is our quick fire round okay so i need to answer fast well we have to try but you know it doesn't really ever happen olivia i'll be honest um i ask every guest the same eight questions and the first one is what do you believe are the non-negotiables for launching a business I would say passion about why you're doing what you're doing because like we mentioned earlier nine out of ten people more than nine out of ten people are going to tell you it can't be done yes you got to really believe yes particularly when the days get hard too you need to have that little fire that you can't put out when did you first realize that you truly launched I would say seeing it on a shelf in retail so that was Planet Organic and Selfridges obviously Selfridges is the big one that's like a real kind of like the creme de la creme yes and When it's a place that you like to have a little mooch around in and you're like, I'm here.

1:09:22There's something really kind of satisfying about that, isn't it? It does feel like a big old tick. What is the first thing you do when you wake up and the last thing you do before you go to bed? Last thing before bed, it's with my husband on the phone, pictures of the kids, videos from the day. Very cute. First thing in the morning, I try not to grab my phone. I do grab my phone. I will often text my husband who does wake up before me saying, should we have a coffee? and that's his that's his note to bring me a coffee yes yeah yeah yeah i'm ready for my coffee honey i mean should we have a coffee together yeah i'm ready for my coffee that's the sort of princess treatment we all need i love it um one piece of advice that you wish that you hadn't listened to hadn't listened to i don't know if this is that relevant a lot of people say just buckle down don't take any investment i think on our journey things were growing so quickly it was an incredible amplifier it meant we could say yes to more things to build those big production runs make all that product i think you need to take good advice with that which is think seriously about you know your ownership and it's a family-run business for us um so protecting yourself i think is really important but you're right i always think that one with i mean this is never a quick fire we always elaborate um with that you get offered so many opportunities when a brand is really growing and succeeding but yeah having the cash flow to meet all those opportunities there'd be a lot that you couldn't say yes to I guess even as we discuss it I feel like the advice that I wouldn't want to accept is never take one person's advice as read you should take a few different opinions but also don't bog yourself down in too many expert opinions if you feel an intuition yourself or you feel like you know what I just can't stretch to that right now you should listen to that instinct so it's take advice and expertise but don't let it control yes where your business trust your own gut is almost like in tandem yeah um what's the skill that you'd love to learn oh my gosh I'd love to learn something I feel this new sense of creativity since trip where this connection to the branding and inspiration um I used to work as a lawyer in a fashion brand before um launching trip but getting into something crafty with my hands like building a skill whether it's like create i'm just looking at your incredible gorgeous ornaments here any of these things um but something quite tactile yeah kind of build that feeling of disconnect from the everyday and the digital with that escape artistic output would be amazing that would be so good i mean very indulgent answer nothing to do with the business no but but sometimes that's exactly what it is you need that escapism to really switch off yeah to help you be better everything else exactly that exactly that um what's one thing that you wish someone had told you before you launched trip i would wish people didn't actually recommend so many experts i think people are very quick to point to traditional expertise and i think what i've learned in the journey that we've spoken a lot about today is that you don't have to have all the answers you don't have to have done it yourself people are often very quick to make you feel like you're outside of an industry and oh you need this expert you're really lacking this hire you need to urgently get on that hire you need to get that agency and to sort out your xyz what do you mean you've never done your xyz again it's it's not rocket science so i think being wary of um not having confidence in the lack of industry connection or expertise i think is important to encourage people to build your own network yes of support advisors resources and not think that there's one way of doing things because that's definitely been proven to not be true overwhelming isn't it to take on everyone's advice like you say it's the advice you'll never start anything if it's really relevant to what you're doing isn't it probably don't even take it on too early if i'm honest yeah like i get asked for a lot of advice um now with young stage entrepreneurs and i am a little bit wary about being too honest because i don't want to put you off i want you to be aware there's lots of resources to be aware but i think taking too much advice i was sent a deck by someone the other day saying oh could you comment on my new brand and this is what i'm thinking and i was almost reticent to do it because i want you to go and feel that yourself what's my opinion you know you should test that with real consumers and just get your minimum viable product out there and a bad experience for me could be so positive for you or vice versa and it's a timing thing yeah yeah at the start of the line I do agree sometimes it's like it's like when you have a baby and then you've got those other mums around you they're like just you wait yeah there's just you wait mums that are like oh they're actually sleeping okay now or just you wait yeah just you wait till they start walking oh my gosh it can be quite overwhelming so you're always aware not to do that in business too i know um what would be the dream collab for trip dream either brand or brand or an ambassador or i mean there are so many brands that inspire me whether it's anything that touches kind of lifestyle and the broader kind of design or fashion yeah i can imagine like a trip elderflower mint road lip tins gorgeous yes or even something interiorsy that was all about like calming like a calming capsule of like i don't know furniture or fashion um i can imagine a collab with we already collab with quite a few airlines with their in-flight menus but like an elite kind of airline lounge experience oh yeah gorgeous yeah yes getting you ready chilled before the flight yeah yeah love that love that and lastly if you could choose one female figure as a mental past or present who would that be oh wow big question that's a really big question um one choice would be michelle obama yes incredible i mean you just it's she just talks in soundbites she's incredible yeah but if i'm honest another person i would like to have a little chin wag with i'd like to ask chris jenner so many questions me too running a family business building things from scratch longevity um managing all those relationships while building brands.

1:15:49I have a lot of questions about her as well. Her little black book. Oh, yeah. We saw, you know, the pictures of her 70th birthday. She seems to be having a great time as well. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. She's having a great time. She's having a great time with a martini in hand doing it all. But yeah, I'm so interested in like the people that she has on speed dial. I mean, we saw her turned up to her birthday party. Like, it's wild. She is, she's the OG, isn't she? Yeah, I think I'd definitely give her a call if I could. The original mama chair. Yeah. And I feel like she'd be a good one to be like, I'll connect you with this person this person yeah I like that that's a good we've not had that answer yeah that's a good one I have my serious answer than mine yeah no love it I love it it's a good one I think that's a very serious answer um and I ask every guest to leave a tip so for a listener that's listened to this conversation if you're giving yeah somebody that's I suppose looked at your journey and really kind of really likes what you've done and wants to emulate that success in their own way what would like one tangible piece of advice be that you would give to a lady looking to launch i would give two because i'm not sure if the first one is a tangible one is kind of believe in yourself so if you've gone through something and realized i'm a customer that needs this product i think that women are often very underserved by typical consumer landscapes consumer brands um that's a bigger conversation so if you've experienced something that you feel in need there is a very strong chance as an audience who are also experiencing that and a lot of information online or conversations you have with groups that don't look like you might tell you that's not needed I disagree so try and stick to your gut and believe in the solution that you're offering the second piece of advice which is a bit more tangible and kind of related is build your network of resources that doesn't need to be saying yes to every single event or feeling overwhelmed or out of your depth but it is asking simple questions when you do meet someone even if they're not directly connected to your field maybe they're from your previous job or career is there anybody you can think of that you could introduce me to for a conversation and they probably can think of someone they might not be the exact person you're looking for next but I really do believe in one conversation leads to another and these things are incredibly connected but women are brilliant at connecting and building support networks so let's tap into that and that doesn't need to look like paying 30 quid to have a ticket to some special event it could be something as simple as picking up the phone or sending a message um sending a dm to someone putting yourself out there yeah it is and just like not having that fear of embarrassment when doing so like yeah whatever i mean we say this a lot but it really it is that fear of embarrassing loudly now and like what is the worst that can happen you might not get a response yeah they might not be able to help you they might point you in the direction of someone that can do yeah like or at least you've ticked off that that isn't the route like you might also learn that that's not the answer process of elimination different way yeah but i think the embarrassment point is really important because i used to not like asking questions or putting myself out there i found it very difficult to do that and we used to have this thing called power hour dan and i where we'd sit at the desk and we spend an hour just sending outbound emails pitching hundreds of emails it was like try and do 100 in an hour because it's game yes if you send 100 you might get 10 replies and you might get one yes but if you send five emails your odds just exactly that exactly that and it is like you say at that start and it touches on what you were discussing earlier they the amount of outreach that you have to do and that you did do and that oh yeah what the job required at the start definitely and I don't want it to look I know it's often seen as kind of an overnight success story in many ways it has been but the amount of unglamorous graft behind that that is we were doing customer deliveries ourselves in the early days hand delivering customer packages turning up to retailers offices where i'd googled the address and just hope to leave a package for them hoping that i'd got some of the names right um you know you wouldn't believe the things that go on behind babe you turned up in a meeting that you wasn't it down for i'm always listen make your own luck that's my favorite story yeah whilst the man outside is like they were in my meeting yeah get out but listen you got the job done and honestly it is so so incredible to see um before i let you go i ask every guest we talk about ladies who launch but i love to talk about ladies who lunch so when it comes to a typical lunch hour and some founders will sit and say there is no typical lunch hour there is no lunch hour i just do what i need to do but actually it's a really sort of it's a divisive subject because some are I'm like, do you know what?

1:20:42I carve out that time and I make sure my team take it. And it's really, it's a really special time for us to have to make sure that we're super engaged with the business either side of that lunch hour. So how do you spend it? What is a typical lunch hour for you? What are you eating and where are you? I would say not typical. I don't have a sacred space or time for that. I've been breastfeeding until recently. So it's a lot of food all the time, including Deliciously Ella bars. It will be multiple meals by traditional lunchtime. So I've probably eaten at home a few times. You've been grazing. Yes, been grazing.

1:21:19If it was a special occasion at work, we might take people to Los Mochis. Oh, I love Los Mochis. It's right behind our office. You've got to come to our office. Oh my gosh. It's right attached to there and Kuro, Kuro Pagels. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where they do, it's not really lunch appropriate, but they do these cookie croissants. The Los Mochis is insane. Obviously, you can get your trip cocktails there, but like Japanese, Mexican. it's the best fusion ever and now they've opened like a bigger one in the city but i still always prefer that yeah yeah i do i prefer nottingham one that's just for me it's so gorgeous oh what a lovely spot you're in yeah it's so cute i don't know if you remember but that street is all pastel colored houses yes yeah all the houses are like pink purple green it's crazy yeah oh my gosh right next to curo bagel as well which is like a bit of a scene yeah i don't know it there yeah I mean, you've just said cookie croissant hybrid.

1:22:10I'm in. I'd have that for lunch. There's like queues outside the door. People are often peering into our office because we are right next door. So the queues of like content creators. Oh, I'm coming to say hi. You should. I promise I'm coming to say hi to you and not just for a cookie croissant hybrid. We'll do like a whole food tour. Yes, please. I'm here. I'm here with Tripp in hand. Thank you so much, Libby. It's been so good to sit and talk to you. as I said at the start of this I've been such a fan of the brand for such a long time and I remember having this trip to Soho Farmhouse where I really sort of was like oh my gosh like I'd already seen it and like having that moment and that experience with it I'm such a huge fan so thank you so much thank you for talking to us this is gonna really be inspiring for so many of our listeners I loved it appreciate it thank you

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