Oat Cult - Ben da Costa

0:03Hello there and welcome to episode 126 of People Doing Things. So I'm super excited to have Ben DaCosta on the podcast today. He is one of the brilliant minds behind Oak Cult, the overnight oats brand inviting you to join the cult, if you dare. Having burst onto the breakfast scene earlier this year and taken socials by storm with their standout packaging and provocative, illustrative content, as well as their debut brand film, parodying horror films like The Wicker Man, showcasing a fictional cult with a devotion to overnight oats. brought to life by the bootstrap team of powerhouse creatives.

0:39The brand was born from a simple frustration that breakfast is often a choice between ultra-processed nonsense or a faff you have to remember to prep 12 hours in advance. Oat Cult provides a simple solution. The UK's first ready-to-mix overnight oat sachets that are high in fibre, free from added sugar and packed with 1 million live cultures to worship your gut. merging two of the biggest trends in food right now convenience and gut health wrapping it up in a bold subversive brand that is hard to forget in this episode we're going to delve into them blowing their whole startup budget on a make or break brand film the risk it takes to make breakfast a bit more culty and why the food industry needs a bit more creativity and originality tuck in if you're feeling brave enough ben welcome to people doing things how's it going Oh good thank you yeah.

1:33So jumping in you started your career in TV production as a videographer for shows like Big Brother, Saturday Kitchen and The Bill before moving into music, founding a digital magazine before managing the chart topping band Razorlight. Then you moved into advertising kind of working your way up to ECD for some of London's top agencies creating award-winning ads for brands like Lexus, Subway, Xbox, TalkTalk, Argos, amongst others, earning yourself a reputation to be reckoned with in the creative industry. And now, Ocol, before touching on your career, what would you say deep, deep down drives you?

2:18Well, clearly, I don't know what I should be doing with my life. It's like when you hear it back, you're like, oh, I've had quite a few different careers. I think it's maybe I'm sort of existential searching for something deeper I don't know I think I'm in therapy to try and discover maybe slightly why I jump around so much I'm driven but I also get bored really easily I think I just have a desire just to keep pushing myself and challenging myself and I think when I do something and I think I've got good at it I kind of don't allow myself to just stick at that and then I sort of chuck myself in at the deep end and do something else yeah so I don't know if there's necessarily a driver more sort of I mean it'd be self-sabotaging if you want to like you're gonna make me cry like superbar on a podcast but uh yeah maybe there's some sort of innate thing that I'm just constantly searching for something and I probably quite elusive for me yeah I think about it as like momentum I really thrive off momentum right but is there this sort of fear of stopping or becoming stagnant yeah i think that's it like i think as a creative the older you get weirdly we were talking about the older you get the less desirable you are yeah it's like if you're an architect and you're like in your 70s everyone's like wow this person's like a really nice pair of glasses really lovely pair of glasses they come in and everyone's like wow amazing it's like super experience like but actually that that in advertising that experience isn't necessarily considered and it's kind of they say a young person's game of and so i think there's this fear of like what happens if it all stops yeah it's like inertia isn't it the fear of inertia yeah i think yeah just like flatlining everything's yeah and so i think i've i think yeah it's probably from a place of anxiety of like like shit what what if it's what if nothing what if i'm unemployable yeah so I need to like constantly push myself.

4:15Do you think there's something in it? Because I've thought about this a lot. Is it proving something to others or to yourself? Yeah, it's definitely not to others. I sort of pride myself on not particularly giving a shit. Irreverence, yeah. Of giving a shit what other people think. I mean, I want them to not think I'm a horrible person, obviously, but in terms of like, I don't really need someone to, I don't need external validation, but clearly I need internal validation somehow. so yeah potentially it's a kind of because I would say mine is the opposite I think I probably crave like what's it called affirmation yeah which is less internal and probably more external yeah in terms of like a people pleaser that's why you do a podcast exactly we talked about it earlier like your career jumping through different mediums yeah which I think is really interesting because a lot of people are quite discipline specific and just work on one thing but you've gone from film to media to music to billboards you know to tv now packaging yeah crazy illustrative socials like what's the silver thread if anything that ties them together the the thing that I would say is it's like opportunity it's like when I started I I was, I got, someone said, do you want to come and like do one day's work on Big Brother?

5:39And you can bash the cables, which means like take, the cameras would move around the house and Big Brother. And then you would take the cables and sort of fold them neatly so that the cameraman could go to the next window. And so that's kind of how it started. And they gave me like 40 quid. And I was like, wow, if I made it, I was like, mum, dad, I don't need to go to school anymore. Like I've just got 40 quid. I'm a baller. And then they would let me go on the cameras a little bit to have longer breaks. and I was like quite good at it and it was very practical and I wasn't particularly good at school so I was like this is this is what I'm going to be and so that got me into I'd flunked all my GCSEs and A-levels and so that got me into Ravensbourne to study broadcasting and so like these opportunities when you look back on the journey that you take you kind of you realize everything's happened that's that's the route you're meant to take almost it's like these are the decisions you've made but I've kind of allowed myself to be brave enough to like jump into something else.

6:34And so when I went to doing film and then I was doing music videos for bands at uni and using all the kit, and then I was doing my own promotions and nights to like put those bands on and they were rubbish because no one would come. And this is pre, I'm showing my age slightly, pre, you know, MySpace or internet, you were like, you'd have to flyer nights and hand out flyers and for weeks I was flyering, flyering, flyering. and so I started doing fanzines to promote the bands of the nights that I was doing but to do the fanzines it was too expensive so I put them on the internet and I would say that would be a sort of moment in my life that everything kind of changed because from putting it the this magazine on the internet at a time when the internet was just sort of taking off and I was meeting bands and giving them like video cameras and they would send me that back the tapes and I I would edit them at home and put them on my website.

7:29And that was suddenly transformative because I was getting like two, three, 400 ,000 hits a month on my website. And all these bands were sending me these videos. And everyone was like, who the hell's this guy? And this before YouTube existed and all these kinds of channels. So again, these moments of like being brave and taking jumps in and kind of pushing myself out of my comfort zone, I know I can do it. It's this kind of like supreme, I would say arrogance in myself that I'm like I'm so self-confident in what I that I can do it even naively sometimes and to a fault where I just completely don't know what I'm doing but I will do it yeah and know that I'll find a way of working and solving that problem and so that I think is the golden thread of like these all the things that I've done I've always just arrogantly I think it's arrogance what was the jump from that digital publication kind of taking off to like the other bits of yeah so then I went so then um I someone said oh do you want to come work for Razorlight and at the time Razorlight were I'd just done Live 8 and they were like the biggest band in the world yeah Johnny was dating Kirsten Dunst and they were like this like a super big band and I was like yeah this would be amazing like and so I started doing the same things with them like touring with them filming uploading stuff live so every gig you could see your gig and band behind the scenes of your show so this is kind of pre they were the first band on twitter at the time and so we were like i was trying to like creating this channel and i built a relationship particularly with andy the drummer who wrote a lot of the songs and he said look i'm leaving yeah i don't want to be in this band anymore it's quite a dysfunctional band and they talk about themselves so do you want to come and manage me and again it's like that arrogance of yeah i can manage like a rock star yeah i'm like 24 i know what i'm doing yeah i know how to manage a band and so i set up my own music management company and took like a percentage of his income from record deals that he had and completely fucked up i didn't know what i was doing at all like completely no no clue i was negotiating contract laws from like my mom and dad's house and I just didn't know what I was doing.

9:43And so it was an absolute disaster. And I think probably that made me go, oh, I need to get a real job, like an office job. It's how I described it to my friends. I'd spent from 16 to 25 kind of doing all these kind of things and none of them ever quite, like I sort of messed them up or I jumped too early or I got bored and did the next thing. And so that's when I went into advertising and weirdly like probably spent the the longest amount of time in that industry met my wife and had kids and sort of did the the office thing but i think inside i've always been that person that jumped around yeah um was it hard not to jump around yeah it was really difficult yeah and you've got young kids and there's a lot of pressure and in advertising you just keep getting paid more money and there's a lot of money and you you kind of get used to that chain you kind You kind of get used to that kind of way of living.

10:39You're trying to work out how you can extricate yourself from it a little bit. So I thought the way to extricate myself was to run the business myself. Yeah. So that kind of was my, okay, I'm going to get to running a company, and then I'll be free. And ultimately, I wasn't. It's the same challenges, except you're responsible for lots of people's lives, and you're emotionally attached to all these people. and that sense of responsibility is really stressful and daunting and these different moments in my career they all kind of connect in that film has been a huge part and that's a huge part of what we do at Oak Col and how we communicate then you've got like running a business is something I've done since I was young the internet is something that I've sort of loved and lived with mind's heart like so all these things kind of feed into all these kind of experienced parts of you that you realize are all really helpful yeah and it's always interesting listening to a podcast where people are where they've come from and whether they were a brand side or whether that you know all this kind of that all impacts how their brand kind of comes to life i think ultimately i love this like what do they call it like fortune favors the brave you know there's a bit of that like early adopter spirit but in quite um an inventor type way that I see in you like oh this thing's happening like let's go fucking figure it out let's like I can do it this is fun and then you know it's innovative it's early technology and I remember seeing a lot of the a lot of the founders you know we'd be the first person on like mob kitchen Ben from mob kitchen right yeah it was like very early in terms of Facebook yeah and really hustled yeah but managed to get this like at the time it's like four for a tenner thing going on but because it was an early platform you know he could have fast attraction and then just kind of grew it into all these different things and could adapt it I definitely see like you talking about your 20s it's like these new things are happening I'm going to like jump in and give it a go I just love it I like I think it's like easy if you're into those things and how did you land on oats and I think the question that I have here is like you know chicken or the egg was it overnight oats that you landed on or was it oak hole the idea you know because i think they're ones that sort of has a creative spirit to it yeah and then let's do the brand and the other one is like oh fuck i love oats how can we turn this into something yeah weirdly it was neither yeah so i knew that the criticism of like creative led businesses particularly in like this space is that they're just obsessed about the brand.

13:23And that's all, it's just a brand, but nothing else. I knew that that would be a challenge for us. And I knew also that would be the thing I'd find the most fun. So I kind of weirdly left it like dessert in a meal. I was like, I knew that at some point we would get to do that. But I'd have to do all the other things first because otherwise I'd only want to just do the brand thing. And so weirdly we started with a spreadsheet. I did the thing that I didn't want to do. but it was like we need to build the business back like we need a good margin we need like to make sure that it's a good product like it's people have it regularly like just like I didn't want to like invent some a new recipe that was going to cost loads and tooling or like I didn't want to have to buy a new machinery or it came from a place of like I know I can do the brand and I believe that I can do the brand but I'm going to spend like months back end building a business and I found when we were chatting the other people that involved in the business and it was like like oats is an interest like people eat oats every day and I need to convince people to eat oats so it wasn't even overnight oats it was like I don't need to tell anyone you need to eat oats because the work's been done in terms of converting people yeah but the the category was boring as shit and the innovation is like they just copy each other and it all looks the same like you could move one logo and put it on another logo so that was the space it was zero rated I thought apparently that's a good thing in terms of like that and there was like the numbers made sense and so that's kind of how we started it was like we have a potential of a of a business on paper that could be profitable and investable and could grow so I know it's not like the sexy story but I didn't allow myself to do that bit first and so I get a lot of people particularly creatives in advertising and sort of in that space saying hey I want to do a brand I've got this brand it's a you know and they tell me the name I'm like oh you're you're fucked and they were like why it's like because you've just you've done the you've you've gone straight to dessert you have to do all the horrible shit first I think it's probably one of the best bits of advice they've heard on the podcast is to do the do the ugly hard functional excel spreadsheet bit before anything else because otherwise you're kind of wasting your time even if the fun bit kind of lands it's not going to sustain it unless the numbers add up no and i you know i think you know learning from my own experience you know there were definitely some decisions that were very brand story led for the honey project at the start yeah and now i look back a couple of years in gone i fucking wish i did more on the numbers yeah and i think that's kind of that i like that was what I'd spoken to I went and met every founder I could possibly who would meet me yeah and said I'm thinking of starting a brand like what would you and I just was asking like one thing I'm very self-aware of like I am extremely arrogant in myself I'm self-pleased but I also know what I don't know and I knew that I didn't know anything in this space at all yeah and so I knew brand and I knew how to create a brand and and try and make it famous and hype it and do all that kind of stuff but I didn't know anything else and so that was part of what motivated me in terms of who I asked to help me join and join the business and and so unusually there was several of us that joined all the same like I sort of found people that I was like oh wow you're brilliant at that you're brilliant at this and then I brought them all in at the start and said look I want to build something I don't know what it is but I want you to do it with me because I know that you're brilliant at this thing that I don't know yeah and that was a kind of you know safety in numbers a little bit but also like this will never happen if I don't get other people to help me yeah yeah and I always it was never I've never been never motivated by money in this project like this has never been the motivator in terms of it's about a sense of like freedom I think yeah and that's what that is the motivator so I think it's I come from a different place it's like I think there's you know you've spoken a couple of times about arrogance but you've also then spoken like fairly concisely about humility right which is not which is going right which of the bits are like the ugly hard unknown areas of this like how could it fail if i don't focus on it and then focus on those bits the hardest bit first yeah you know when like people do a to-do list yeah some people work you know start with an easy one yeah which i'm guilty of an easy one build up momentum but that's like going to the hard part yeah it's like i mean it's that kind of thing we were talking about it before but it's this kind of self-flagellation of like punish yourself almost like and it's that but it's kind of what what i knew i was very aware i'd spoken to people and i went and met a few people that are big in the space and they're like creatives can't run businesses so i don't know Just don't do it.

18:21And my advice to you is that creatives can't run. And I was just like, why? And they were like, because you don't care about the money. You don't care. So I was like, right, fucking fuck you. Fuck you. The best thing start from a fuck you. Yeah, maybe. And it was a bit like, no, I think that was it. And I think particularly creative people are always, you're always taking risks for other people, for other brands. It's always easy. You're asking a client, oh, spend this money on this thing. It's going to be good. but I've always treated these projects like they were my own money and it was my own like and I've always looked to clients when I was working like in the eye and said that I believe that this is like I can't promise you because there's no but I believe in it and and that's kind of that's how I've always approached these things and I feel like that validate like I feel like I've got to prove it to all my clients in the past that I'm still doing the things that I preached i guess yeah and i i think that's exactly the same with honey like you can encourage brands to do something all you like and selling the idea and the creativity and not really give a shit about like whether it's actually gonna make a difference or an impact but when you're actually on the other side of the fence working out how to allocate budgets to what yeah knowing that the pot's not an infinite pool of cash yeah and you're not trying to use up a budget left over in the end of the year yeah it hits you in the face right yeah yeah and these are like particularly the size that we are a wrong step is you know could be critical really and i think that you know that's the perfect segue into like your launch yeah because you put all your chips into essentially stock yeah and one brand film essentially yeah you know that is taking all your cash and putting two fairly big bets right well yeah I mean we thought we would be able to build this business sort of everyone talks about bootstrapping and uh I was sometimes always questionable like I think how we did it was we took a thousand pounds of people friends and family I don't even know if we pested you I'm sure we might have but you took a thousand pounds and And then I was explaining to my mother-in-law that she would get like£500 back in SEIS.

20:43And so we raised£30 ,000. It's how we built this business. And then of that£22 ,000 went on like stock. And that left us with, you know,£8 ,000 plus minus C legal fees and some other things. We had like four or five grand left. And yeah, we put it all on making a film. which again is like just i don't know it's you look back and it's slightly mad but i think i'm a massive advocate and believer in the power of advertising and also you should just posture like you're bigger yeah and so we were like everything we've done we've tried to do as if we were a million pound brand from like where we source the product from like the packaging the materials that we use to the way we try and distribute the products to everything we've tried to do but not albeit not always perfect, but we've tried to posture as if we're bigger.

21:36And yeah, the film was a way of posturing and it kind of, it did work, thankfully. Yeah, I mean, it's done, like we were talking about it earlier, about 100 ,000 views off the back of it. And I think it's one of those, we've seen a lot of creative brands come out of the States or Europe, but here we see it a bit less. sometimes and it was a really nice moment to see like I remember seeing it online and it's something that you know obviously stays in your head yeah but it's also nice to see a brand come out of the gates and take a really fucking big swing at it yeah like I think that's the bit that I was like fuck this is like cool yeah like it feels very it's very iconic it's very disruptive it's conversation starting it's a reverent which yeah i mean it's a terrible ad to uh tell you really about the product yeah in terms of like it's a pure brand ad which is like really not what you should do but in some ways it's like here's what we can be it was almost like here's what we can be now we're going to spend the next year doing that yeah a little bit and again it's like the power of brilliant people like three shades who directed it just did an unbelievable job of making i remember being on on set in freezing cold in like a robe or something just looking at the footage thinking shit this is so cool this is so good um because there's also that fear particularly as a creative of making creative things yeah without anyone to you can't blame anyone else yeah because everyone's cheering you on as you can't say oh the client this was really good but the client ruined it yeah or they we had a brilliant original idea and then the client made it bad because it's you yeah and so that i think i've honestly probably was the heart is the hardest thing i've ever worked on yeah because i kind of was like i'm just too emotionally invested in this as well as to like to know if it's good or not yeah unfortunately i was just like sending it to like edits to every friend i was like is this good yeah i don't know is this good can you tell me this is good so that was i definitely need an affirmation yeah for that what were some of the unexpected like benefits treasure troves well i think like what did it lead to well we got out of the week in the grocer that's suddenly huge amounts of exposure exposure we got out of the week and loads of other like publications and in terms of obviously advertising we knew that based on where i'd worked and the network i'd built that there was probably an audience advertising people were probably quite a good audience to target initially so we kind of knew that even if it only did well on LinkedIn, basically, there would be enough sales in that.

24:27And ultimately, that was true. It generated a lot of sales for us. A lot of people were like, well, I might as well try it. And that's interesting. And they admired the bravery and the - The shitspair. Yeah, exactly, to do it. And I think that then gave us an injection of cash that we didn't have. So it repaid back the money we invested and some. And that gave us then the money to keep the business going really did it then lead to traction in other places either like retailers getting in touch online retailers like did that did like the grocer for example yeah not necessarily um i think we're definitely on watch lists in terms of like a lot of buyers added me on linkedin or whatever and like we're watching what we're doing i don't think we've quite like i don't think it was like a billion hits or like i don't think it did that yeah but But it's certainly like in terms of like in our category, all the founders of rival brands or PepsiCo or whoever are all following what we do now.

25:30We basically run the business on organic sales still. Yeah. We've done no real meta or Facebook ads or anything like that at all yet. But then also it has put us in the spotlight. So it has like exposed us when we probably weren't necessarily fully ready. Yeah. You know, we were very green and it's been eight months and a lot of people watch what you do all the time. There's a constant pressure of like it being madder or more interesting or crazier. And then you've got to keep that cycle up. So, yeah, on reflection, we should have had more planned. Yeah. Like we should have had the next thing and the next thing.

26:09And I think it's that keeping that momentum going. yeah and I think if you set a bar people are like excited for what's next and then what's the second film look like yeah exactly and that is a really hard like the second the difficult second album yeah it's that that is a real challenge you know for founders listening if you're going to distill some of the learnings from it like if you had five or six other founders in the room yeah or aspiring founders yeah they're like want to launch a business what would be some with the learnings from? Well, I think the thing about the film was it doing that and it being a purist, like a real expression.

26:45People understood what the brand was. I didn't have to go and like tell people what it is. I just, you can just press play for 60 seconds and you kind of understand what we're trying to do, where the brand sits. It's irreverence. It's like, it's a bit edgy. It's trying to poke. It's trying to be a bit provocative. It's like, you kind of understand it without having to say it. It's a protectable thing, a brand. Like anyone can make oats. really like people like to tell me constantly that they make overnight oats themselves at home that isn't the thing we're protecting the brand is the thing that is ours that you can't do and so you have to do things and behave in ways and be different deliberately different on purpose and i think that is the kind of thing that the film did it like set the stool like we're not going to do it the way that serial brands yeah do things we've made that choice yeah which is fucking terrifying we'll come back to the terrifying but i think there is also something in you don't have an infinite amount of money it's better to do some one thing really well and make a bit of a bang yeah rather than spread back you know we're going to spend you know 50 pounds on tiktok 50 pounds on instagram do you know what i mean like it's better to kind of concentrate some of the efforts i think give yourself a bit more of a bang yeah and then be able to share that and kind of capitalize on some of the organic stuff because that's where your return on investment is going to maximize if you can get people sharing stuff it's also something you can put in a pitch deck it's something you can send to people you say what's the brand who is that like these are it's an asset you can use this out you can check this out here we are like What I get or am always quite interested in is the whatever the brand does like from its personality has to like match up to the product.

28:38Yeah. Because it's giving a promise of it in my mind. Yeah. And if it doesn't meet that promise or that expectation that it itself sets, then it will disappoint you and you won't buy it again. Yeah. But what I think is really great about Oak Colt and what I was like quite surprised by. Yeah. Is it actually tastes fucking good. I think someone said recently to me that what is nuts is you under promise and over deliver on the product. You kind of people go, well, it's a fun. It must be shit. It must be shit. Yeah. It's like to be that mad, the product has to be a sack of shite. Yeah. And no, we spent like a long time like making that right.

29:18Like market stalls and things and testing and again, doing the dirty deed. Yeah. like having worked in advertising if the product's shit it doesn't matter yeah like you put lipstick on a pig you can't i read somewhere that i was listening to someone and these are not my words but he was talking about brands in this kind of place where they're building community right so you build a community but the community that you're building is like purely transactional now it's like your only reason you're building a community is because you want people to buy shit from you and i think i was like wow that's kind of true that's kind of what's happening now It's this kind of thing of like, come and join us, but buy shit from us.

29:54And it feels disingenuous. So I think what we're trying to do, and when you can be led in creativity and whatever, is that you can build a brand that's just fun. And we're openly trying to sell you product. It's not a trick. There's no rug pull and then buy it. But we're just having fun. And you're like, okay, well, if I'm going to buy overnight oats, these guys are fun. If I'm not going to buy overnight oats, you're not going to buy overnight oats. I don't know. that's how I'm trying to build a community yeah and I think Oatly Liquid Death too Liquid Death have never like come and be here on our WhatsApp group and we'll like they've never done that they've just made fun shit that people like and then people identify with that so Hub who founded Tenzing but was ex Red Bull yeah he wrote a book on it actually it was around this concept of the brand bank account and when you want people to buy something or you advertise them with shit you're like going into uh it's using your credit up yeah but when you give something entertaining yeah you know you're building that equity up yeah and i think that's what is really interesting especially with you know obviously with the films but the bits that i like seeing yeah that break the feed yeah are the like crazy illustration yeah like moving illustrations telling a story but then also paired with like a real point of view on something yeah it's a really nice break the principle i've always used in advertising is that no one gives a shit yeah that is how i like no one gives a shit about your brand and that would be like my big like reveal and if you know in a meeting i'd be like right look really sorry to break it to you but no one cares about your you know whatever your floss yeah uh tooth floss brand i'm sorry no one's like i fucking love two floss brands they don't so you have to make them give a shit yeah and so that is kind of always the principle and there's the way that i i've unpacked that in my brain over all these years is simplicity saying one thing well so overnight it's without the sacrifice a sacrifice film it's like a simple the weird animations they're ultimately just the same one thing like put it in the fridge or they're always like so simplicity and then relevance so making sure it's right for the right audience so what you're making appeals to the people that you're talking to like people who don't like oats milking themselves into a bowl are not going to buy oat colt yeah yeah yeah that's just not going to happen so like we know who it's for and who it's not for but distinctiveness is the most important thing i think people kind of forget that core ingredients so distinctiveness in terms of how the brand looks which obviously you're brilliant at in terms of understanding and unpicking how that brand looks, but also how you behave.

32:38Because like you say, the feed is like, no one gives a shit about your brand and they're scrolling through like I do. You just doom scroll, doom scroll, doom scroll. And you just need, it has to feel different. And if it's someone else doing not so good founder-led content or whatever else or another boring film about, I know that that's what you want people to hear about the brand, but they don't care. And you have to put that out on like, that's been the hardest thing as a founder it's like realizing that no one else cares as much as me about oak coal i love it it's all i think about but no one else gives really as cares as much it's refreshing yeah but i think also like the effort that goes into thinking that how can i make this the most entertaining version of the point that i want to land yeah and committing to that idea because a lot of you know linkedin's obviously been a place that you've spent time right to punch through yeah and i think for smart reasons yeah there's a lot of dross yeah on the platform yeah you know to the point where i like absolutely love memes about you know the linkedin stereotypes yeah it's great to see when people kind of punch through and use different ways to do that yeah I mean I sometimes like find myself quite cringy when I post stuff but it's kind of the game it's the way it works right you're kind of having to shout and shout the loudest sometimes and it's difficult I think my two biggest hang-ups with the creative industry is that sometimes it doesn't have like the right voice or sometimes it just wants to talk to itself You know, it's like designers or advertisers who like just want to like obsess over themselves.

34:31Like I went to this talk with Dan and it was just people complaining about like their clients not being adventurous enough. And I was just like, it was just so dull. I had to walk out. Like I got so bored of just, you know, people just be like, yeah, yeah, aren't our clients dumb? and you're just like, fuck me, you guys are living in a weird world. I think I found it really frustrating. It was like very navel-gazy. There are definitely agencies and people that aren't doing that. Yeah. But they're probably not at those events. Yeah. So it's like everyone talks about real people and then whatever.

35:05But yeah, it's a very bizarre space. I always described it like high fashion. So it's like I don't know anything about fashion. I don't like genuinely the terrible and bad dresser. but you go to like a catwalk and you see people in this kind of amazing like weird kind of clothes but that isn't clothes for anyone to wear yeah that's clothes for other people in fashion to go wow they know about fashion yeah and I think probably a lot of advertising is that is for other people in advertising to go wow you really know about advertising and I sort of was all right not doing those i was quite enjoyed making the stuff that like my mum liked yeah or like my friends would see like silly stupid things and that's kind of always what i enjoyed but i do respect and have a massive respect for the people that can do that high-end fashion advertising thing i just couldn't and i think it's because i wasn't traditionally trained and like i just wasn't that person like i'd come from a different space and fell into it yeah so that's how i kind of see it i don't like i loved it i still love avatar i think it works it's amazing yeah but i think yeah there's high fashion and i think what's challenging for small brands particularly is that sometimes they're used as the as a case study for high fashion they're not going to pay well so then they kind of feel grateful and so then they're kind of manipulated into doing something that's kind of high fashion but actually isn't really gonna move the dial so yeah my definite advice is like this is going to be entertaining and if it is then you'll be fine you can you know go with what but if you're like i don't know who's the fuck's gonna watch this or do anything like what i don't get it yeah then that's probably a good indicator that it's shit yeah exactly you are currently fundraising at the moment well we've run a business on no money yeah and we've done pretty well so imagine if you had more so imagine if we had more is kind of what we've done so same thing all the boring stuff like modeled what that business looks like with some more money and capital to help us grow I think I was really naive again in that I thought I could do it with no money yeah you realize that why fundraising is so important to growing the business but also it's like the people that you meet that can then with the experience that they have that been there and done it before a lot of the time at this this stage that can help you connect with the right people and that are in the journey and join the it's I find that the most exciting thing on fundraising it's like these new people like you like you kind of like Avengers assemble and you get new people coming in and you're like wow there's like other people that are like gonna help me push this yeah because a lot of people say fundraising is one of the most difficult parts yeah what are the like highs of it that you've really enjoyed that were unexpected and what are the like nastier lows side of it like have you been yeah yeah emotionally tested at all i think it's like um there's definitely a sort of language in fundraising and i didn't know it i think that's one thing it's like if you don't speak in the right ways people go well do you really know how to do fundraising and then they sort of question do you even know how to do a business you're like i know how to do the business i just don't know how to do the fundraising part yeah i found that really demoralizing it's like the the kind of like feeling like a bit out of like not that well connected i don't know how you know lots of people say oh you'll be able to get that money easy just speak to a few i was like i don't know who these people i don't know these people yeah so i think that's been a challenge and that's been quite demoralizing when you meet other founders and they're like oh yeah we've done it or we've we've already got this and you're like how have you done that so quickly but then when you meet someone it can be like and they suddenly go you should speak to them you should and suddenly you're connected and like and they're like i love it and they kind of get it and they believe in what you're trying to do and they like that is the most empowering thing because it's such a hard hard slog to get anywhere yeah uh that is a kind of like a bit like a sort of mario mushroom where you're like you get a little like a little buzz yeah um so yeah i think it's like getting in and trying to feel your way around a bit and and you're worried you're gonna fuck it up and the thing i found i've kind of got to did it for a little while and then took a break and then come back is just being honest and then you'll find that i've found the right people that kind of understand what we're trying to do yeah and there are other people that don't understand what we're going to do or we don't fit the mold of a brand an fmcg brand there's a few of us all involved different people and that's a bit odd there should be two of you or what which one of you's from finance it's like well none of us oh right okay that's a bit why not so it's that kind of nice people aren't gonna aren't gonna come on you touched on it there yeah you know around this like i guess like not having a silver spoon in the yeah in starting a business yeah you know makes it harder in some ways and i think the food and drink industry can sometimes be at fault for definitely having a lot more people with a better start to it yeah like on a practical level like what are some of the barriers like is it the the connections is it the confidence i think it's The catch, what is it?

40:33It's all of those things. And it's not a criticism. It's like, brilliant people have done brilliant things, but it's just harder. It's like, you aren't well-connected. You didn't go to school with other people that now work in finance. So it's genuine truth. I just don't know those people. I'm definitely not like a kind of like, you know, I was fairly privileged and I'm very lucky and fortunate to be where I've come from. But it is a huge disadvantage. Like, I still can't believe that in this day and age, the school you go to impacts so much but also the ability to take risks it's taken me a long time you know I have two kids I've got a mortgage had to be in a place where I've built enough buffer financially I still have to freelance sometimes to pay my bills these you know I can't just go all in still and so I'm building the boat as I say slowly yeah to be able to go on and go all in and I think that's a privilege that people have that I don't necessarily think they acknowledge sometimes also I'm older so it's harder you know I can't just do anything with no money you know I've got things I have to pay for and kids clubs and whatever else they're doing yeah so I don't think people would be aware of it unless they thought about it necessarily and it's not a criticism it's just you know there's the 93 % club which is obviously 93 % of people went to state school I would probably argue that of the brands that are privately school educated people I would say 93 % that's me picking a number out of my ass to be honest but would come from private schools a bit odd but that 93 % of the population went to state schools yet 93 % of brands in this space are and I just wonder what those brands would look like if there was a different mix of people from different places yeah would they be more representative would they be a bit more like would they because FMC a lot of these brands they all end up in like the same sort of shops and supermarkets and stuff is that because that's where those people are from and that's what helps shape them would we have some more interesting like brands i don't know yeah on the worst side of things there's an argument to say like it is a bit cliquey and there's people coming from privilege on it on the other side of the spectrum one of the things i love about the food and drink community in the uk and in london yeah is they do like look after each other oh my god i've never seen such a generous group of like people ever it's absolutely wild and i know how everyone how busy everyone is because i'm busy and i'm only doing like 10 of what they're doing and yet they always find time and will always help you out and will always try and connect you but i think it's that the fear of asking you kind of got to get over yourself a little bit yeah if this kind of like oh do i fit in a little bit you know am i welcome genuinely i love it it's way nicer than any other industry and i've been in a lot as we've discussed yeah exactly it would be my favorite yeah um so yeah no i agree people doing things is all about like honesty and integrity and we've obviously already had quite a lot of it in this episode but what would you say have been the biggest highs and lows you've experienced so far uh high like people trying it I just find that just it's just it's still mental isn't it it's nuts like you bump into people and like especially if you meet someone who you don't know and they're like oh yeah like I like oak coal I've tried oak coal you're like no you haven't they're like no I have and you're like wow okay so I find that just like that's magic that's like I still get an absolute buzz the just the slog it's so hard yeah it's so can be so boring and i'm definitely someone who likes to jump around and i think keeping myself like committed and focused to that business and not getting distracted and doing something else shiny is the hardest thing yeah and becoming demoralized and thinking shit this is like this is never going to work and and and those kind of things are like and the sort of imposter syndrome and all those kind of others all of that collective stuff the stress of it it's thankless emails, complaints boxes, rips you know you're like fuck's sake but I do think that like I don't know Laura's sometimes been like why are we doing this stuff with honey and then I'm like but there's like 30 ,000 people with our jars in their cupboards like isn't that fucking sick of basically a fuck you to rouse yeah you know i think that's quite cool i think that high is so high yeah that any lows are sort of counteracted yeah that's how i see it and you know for every one person hating there's probably like 100 who are pretty like yeah yeah i i kind of like hate too it's like this should be in like people talking about you yeah i kind of like that at least it's like it's there in a cupboard somewhere inside i can like the food and drink is amazing except in our category like no one's like i always say hello but no one speaks to me like obviously rival brands and and that kind of like oh there's a bit of oat beef yeah i can't well there's not beef but like there's a they just like sit on my linkedin or look at our instagram stories all the time or you're like just let's just chat just say hi come and say hello maybe you're now the cool kid in uh i'm in the oat world they're all like oh i feel a bit scared i just think it'd be it's like a niche within a niche yeah i like i like the idea of the bad boy of oats i like well if there's anyone from oats listening please come and say hello he's nice i promise nice and uh i'd love we can talk about oats yeah but yeah no i kind of like that i can't i kind of quite get a little kick out of it what does the future hold in store for oak hole like what's next what are you most excited about what does the second album of the film look like someone told me to be a little bit more single-minded in what we focus on yeah and i think next year i think we're just rather than getting so distracted by all everything and every supplier and every possible option of this could be cool we're just going to try and like just stick to one thing one or two things and just go all in stack the chips up high yeah go like right this is we're on this and with this and if it's not that we're not interested and then for the films i don't know it's like every i write them that i've got a book full of stuff i mean i didn't create the ad it was brilliant feeling tom he wrote the ad with a bit of me fiddling with it and like a good creative director but um yeah writing constantly what about this what about this what about this idea it's a lot of pressure i think so when we do it it will be it has to be amazing yeah well i can't wait and thank you so much for coming on people doing things to me a pleasure thank you for having me that was ben de costa founder of alt cult on people doing things as always i've been your host ed little and if you are feeling particularly generous of spirit reviews go a long way to helping this podcast grow so please head over to spotify or apple and leave one people doing things on a mission to celebrate and inspire the entrepreneurs of tomorrow Time