How One Ingredient Changed 20,000 Lives and Built a Wellness Empire

0:00Thomas Robson-Kanu:Every new testimonial that we receive which has changed someone's life is, you know, 100 times better than scoring a goal at the highest level of football. Welcome to Shopify Masters, your companion for starting and scaling a business. I'm your host, Serena Smith. Thomas Robson-Kanu was a Premier League soccer player, or footballer depending on where you sit, on the verge of losing his career to an injury until his father's homemade turmeric remedy changed everything. I used this blend completely as my secret weapon throughout my career. That kitchen recipe became the Turmeric Co., now moving 300 ,000 units a week across nearly 15 ,000 stores throughout the UK.

0:38Today, Thomas is here to talk about scaling a family recipe into a thriving business and competing in one of the world's most crowded industries. Welcome to the show, Thomas. Thanks for being here.

0:48Thomas Robson-Kanu:Thanks for having me, Serena. What an intro. Listen, deserved. You know, I think so often with entrepreneurs, they're entering the space because there's a problem that they see that needs to be solved. But for you, there was a deeply personal problem that needed to be solved. Can you take us back to tinkering around in the kitchen in the genesis of these turmeric shots? Yeah, definitely. Like, I certainly won't take credit for it. My father is the one who created the Turmeric Co blend. And essentially, like I've lived the experience of, you know, what turmeric in a functional bioavailable format can do.

1:29Thomas Robson-Kanu:As a teenager, I suffered major surgeries, had two and a half years of rehabilitation. and by the time I was 17 I was basically hampered with chronic pain and inflammation in my knee following two major ACL reconstructions and I simply couldn't shift the pain and inflammation and the physios and doctors at the club at the time sort of told me that I was essentially going to have to live with this pain and inflammation all of my life but what they then did was prescribe be anti-inflammatories and painkillers. So I began taking things like ibuprofen, diclofenac, paracetamol, all pretty standard medication in the UK.

2:11Thomas Robson-Kanu:But after two weeks of having this standard medication, my body had a complete adverse reaction to it. So my father and I basically began asking the question, like, there must be another way to sort of reduce the symptoms that I was experiencing. Like, surely there was a natural way to try and reduce pain inflammation and swelling and so we researched across you know various different herbs medicines spice you know resources books um which had been written you know some of them sort of 100 years ago um and then we looked at like various cultures around the world where they use natural ingredients to reduce the symptoms that i was experiencing you know so ancient asian cultures ayurvedic practices and essentially we began to like identify relatively readily available ingredients but ingredients that weren't in a convenient format to consume consistently over a period of time so yeah essentially a long story short is six weeks after using this blend religiously I woke up rolled out beds headed into the bathroom and into the shower and I realized that that moment in time that that was the first time in over two and a half years I'd woken up without any pain or restriction in my knee and so from that point onwards, I was able to get back to training, get back to playing.

3:28Thomas Robson-Kanu:I made my first team debut in professional football. I made my international debut for Wales. My grandmother was Welsh. And I subsequently made my Premier League debut, which is the top flight of English Premier League football or soccer. And so I was able to do all of that completely pain free. And so I used this blend completely as my secret weapon throughout my career. And I began realising I was recovering and quicker than my teammates you know I would never get sick you know haven't had a cold in 20 years you know just don't get run down and so we realized that there were these other you know real tangible and meaningful benefits to this blend and so we began prescribing it to friends and family all of our friends and family began reporting you know meaningful changes to their health and by a decade later we saw this sort of growing trend within functional beverage but we realized that actually a lot of the beverages on market weren't actually that functional.

4:24Thomas Robson-Kanu:Like they contain things like apple juice or orange juice or water, you know, where the functional ingredient was, you know, few or far between. And so we essentially decided to bring this homemade recipe to market. The state of desperation you must have felt like you were in when you're young, you're injured, these meds aren't working. They're actually having like a more deleterious impact on your health and you're seeing your future really at risk. And then I'm like imagining your dad tinkering away in like a little apothecary in your kitchen. Were there other permutations of, you know, natural and functional ingredients that you guys tested out before landing on this sort of Eureka elixir?

5:07How much iterating went on?

5:09Thomas Robson-Kanu:Yeah, there was like three or four weeks of iteration. And, you know, for example, we started with, you know, at the time we could only source as an example, like turmeric powder or turmeric capsules. And then we very quickly realized that, you know, turmeric capsules and powder actually contains turmeric in a spice format, which isn't a functional format, you know, you wouldn't sort of powder a steak and then eat it, you know, so it'd been denatured, heat treated, processed, you know, it's not fresh, it's not raw. You know, it's dead food. And so we then migrated to then trying to source turmeric roots.

5:46Thomas Robson-Kanu:And eventually we must have been the highest, you know, sort of turmeric consumption family and in our area. And, you know, at times we'd have to head to different markets and multiple locations just to source it. But, you know, a uniqueness about the blend, I would say, is that every ingredient within it is there for a functional purpose. No filler. Yeah, no filler. Like we could easily add apple juice or orange juice to our product and it would, you know, reduce the price by half. But we would lose some key functional ingredients, you know, such as whole watermelon, such as whole pineapple, fresh pomegranates, you know, which all have, you know, either antioxidant or potential anti-inflammatory properties.

6:27Thomas Robson-Kanu:And, you know, there's research and literature out there now, which talks about watermelon and being a really potent natural muscle soreness reducer, as well as a fantastic hydrator, right? And that's the base of every single one of our shots. So I think it was, you know, definitely the combination of the blend and the sort of proprietary ingredients that we used to support with the absorption and efficacy. And then obviously, you know, turmeric root has been used for millennia and, you know, a lot of its active compounds have significant amounts of research attached to them. I think there's over 40 ,000 published clinical studies on turmeric root supporting, you know, a wide array of health ailments.

7:11Thomas Robson-Kanu:So, yeah, it was definitely an interesting experience to try and find the best solution. But, yeah, the one we landed on, it felt fresh. It felt natural. You know, it felt functional. Can you talk about that process when you decided, OK, there's a business opportunity here. How do we take this from something that's just like existing in our kitchen that we're handing out to friends and family in the neighborhood to something that can actually scale? So essentially, we spoke to the leading beverage manufacturers in the UK and Europe, and we said, look, this is our process. This is what we want to achieve, you know, fresh, raw ingredients, you know, quite a unique extraction process like it needs to be extracted multiple times.

7:52Thomas Robson-Kanu:And they basically just laughed at us and said, you know, this isn't scalable. it's not possible and we wouldn't touch it so we very quickly learned that in order to bring this product to market we would have to become a functional beverage manufacturer first and foremost before launching the brand and so yeah what we did was eventually figured out what machinery would work to replicate that kitchen process you know that took us about a year to figure out once we figured that out we were like okay where are we going to manufacture it and And yeah, we eventually decided to flatten some garages to the rear of my dad's house in London.

8:28Thomas Robson-Kanu:And we created a mini bespoke manufacturing unit, got it food safety certified. And yeah, by 2018, we were ready to bring this blend to market. I think something about the founder's journey is that like in so many ways, especially if you're a first time founder, like you just don't know what you don't know until you're in it. And you're like, oh, man, OK. here's the next mountain that I have to climb, right? Like you're thinking, okay, we can find a manufacturer to help us with this. You're running into roadblock after roadblock. You realize I have to do it myself. We have to do it ourselves as a family affair.

9:06All of a sudden you're getting into the manufacturing, your business yourself, which is just like such an enormous beast and undertaking.

9:14Thomas Robson-Kanu:Yeah. And so, you know, obviously having scaled the way we've scaled, you know, there's a lot of entrepreneurs who will reach out to me and say, I'm thinking about doing this product. Like, you know, what would you advise? And yeah, like I tell them, like, don't start your own manufacturer, like, because you will have to build two businesses at the same time. You know, as much as you increase your sales, you'll have to increase your manufacturing capability. And yeah, that is a real challenge. But the whole genesis of the Turmeric Co was very much purpose driven so you know to your point around you know overcoming these hurdles and these barriers and you know just consistently persevering it was simply because like we felt a real passion in the impact that we could have within society if our range of turmeric based shots through the turmeric co was available to all right and so yeah we persevered through many, many challenges.

10:13Thomas Robson-Kanu:And as I said, we were in a position to launch in 2018. And we were sort of looking at the market and it was almost like, how do what's the best route to market? Like, you know, it's a small 60 milliliter shot. So it's not like you've got a massive amount of, you know, packaging real estate to communicate the message of the product or the brand. And so, yeah, we specifically decided to launch the business direct to consumer. We wanted to essentially take consumers on the journey that they would go on when using our range and use that ability to have first party data and engage directly with the consumer to help inform, you know, the direction that we, you know, took the brand and the messaging and, you know, consumer experience and journey.

11:03Thomas Robson-Kanu:And the most important thing for us was that ability to actually capture the impact that our product was having on people's lives. And so within four weeks of selling our first product, we received our first life changing customer testimonial. What was that? So basically, it was a lady who had chronic back pain, you know, really struggled in terms of arthritis. and yeah she um used the range for i think three and a half weeks religiously and it reduced the pain that she was having you know gave her her mobility back and fundamentally changed her life and to put things in perspective we've now had over 20 000 life-changing customer testimonials across you know the widest array of health ailments um and yeah we're very passionate about what we're doing through functional nutrition in the form of the Turmeric Co.

12:00Thomas Robson-Kanu:range. Does it ever lose its luster when you're getting just like glowing testimonial after glowing testimonial? I would say no, it doesn't. I would say like, you know, I was fortunate enough to have a career in, you know, professional football and it's, you know, it's every kid's dream to, you know play in the Premier League and play at an international level and you know I was very fortunate to have incredible experiences within a sport and profession that I loved but actually I would say now having the impact that we have on people's lives for me that's a lot more rewarding than obviously you know bringing joy to fans and you know winning on the weekend and you know it's all fantastic, but actually we genuinely have a sense of purpose, a real sense of meaning.

12:53Thomas Robson-Kanu:And yeah, I think if, you know, if I was to read some of the testimonials that we've received, even over the last couple of weeks, your mind would be blown. It's a humbling experience. When you launched Tumor Company, you were also still a professional footballer. I mean, being an entrepreneur and being a professional athlete are both like completely full throttle endeavors. How were you managing your time and energy as you were doing both? Yeah, I think when I look back at my career, when we launched the Turmeric Co. in 2018, it was very much like a bit of a side hustle and it kept my mind busy.

13:30Thomas Robson-Kanu:It allowed me to focus my energy outside of football without exerting any sort of physical energy. And so So like for me, I was just really passionate about growing the business. So I was able to, you know, build the business, build some processes, you know, communicate in terms of, you know, our marketing message input in terms of, you know, route to market and, you know, web design, web development and consumer journey analysis. And so I kind of was doing it completely in tandem, but I felt that they almost like complemented each other. And it gave me a bit of a mental release outside of, you know, elite professional sports.

14:14Complemented each other, you're saying. I mean, as much as being a professional athlete is a physical game, it's deeply a mental game as well, just in terms of discipline and self-regulation and all these other elements. what from being a professional athlete do you feel like ended up being a really valuable

14:33Thomas Robson-Kanu:transferable skill to building this business i would say that the importance that you put on um like your attention to detail and your application to your craft i think you know when you're trying to become a professional athlete like you really need to hone in on your skills You know, you need to practice, practice and practice again. You need to almost be obsessive with it in order to build that talent, you know, build that ability to then perform. And so, yeah, like within that, there's an element of meticulousness that you have to apply to your profession, particularly in the early days of building it.

15:16Thomas Robson-Kanu:And so, you know, a lot of people would maybe call that obsessive or, you know, OCD or whatever it is. But, you know, you just sort of do that as a norm because you're passionate about it and because you're passionate about it, it doesn't feel like a chore. And so, yeah, I would say applying that into the business world, like you need to really, particularly in the early days, like have a real focus on attention to detail. You know, you need to really have a massive amount of, you know, care for quality and you need to be able to, you know, do monotonous things consistently well, you know, get the basics right.

15:53Thomas Robson-Kanu:And that's very similar in terms of sport. I would also say that understanding and the importance of team, you know, whether you're playing a team sport or even if you're playing an individual sport, you will require a team, you know, to deliver your performance. whether that's you know the driver who takes you to you know your fixtures or whether that's your training coach or whether that's your teammates or whether that's your manager like you know the the people around you and the team that you have around you is like paramount and you know within business like you have to really be over obsessed with the culture and with the mission and vision of what you're trying to create and make sure that that's, you know, instilled as part of every element of why you do what you do and across every individual within the business.

16:47Thomas Robson-Kanu:And if you begin to sort of create that environment, create that culture, you begin to, you know, overcome those roadblocks and you begin to, you know, drive traction into the business. And, you know, you can really move mountains. The functional beverage space in particular is incredibly crowded. I'm always amazed by the sheer number of brands I see at my local Whole Foods or Air One, right? And it feels like every time I go somehow, there's three or four more that have suddenly appeared on shelf. How saturated was it in 2018? And what helped you in those early days to break through in D2C? Yeah, I think it was definitely a new market in 2018, really niche.

17:36Thomas Robson-Kanu:a real low level of understanding you know why would you have a shot versus a 500 milliliter serving which also you can drink right like yeah you know but actually what's in the ingredients you know what's the ingredient list what's the processing you know what's the efficacy behind the ingredients that you're consuming and then what's the sort of need state that that product is serving. And so there was, I'd say, almost like no awareness of functional shots per se. And when I sort of look at the space now, it's definitely got a lot more crowded, but it's actually not very competitive if you're talking about the fundamentals of functional.

18:22Thomas Robson-Kanu:You know, I'm a former Premier League football player, like optimization of health and high performance was my job you know so I had to understand what is good for you what is not good for you like if I consume this today will I feel better for it tomorrow and if I wouldn't then I wouldn't consume it because you know I was being paid and being judged based on my performance and so I would literally say that right now even in the market today the reality is is like 95 % of the sort of functional products on shelf, like as an elite athlete who genuinely cared about my health, I wouldn't consume, you know?

19:08Thomas Robson-Kanu:And so that's the reality, but there is marketing and there's brand and there's hype and there's influencers who can move the needle of consumption. but we're kind of in a space now where it's been saturated with noise. But over the next, you know, five and 10 years, you know, the brands and products who are bringing real efficacy, who are genuinely changing people's lives through natural and functional nutrition will be the brands and products that last. And those that aren't doing that, you know, won't. it's as simple as that because actually why would i consume a functional beverage which isn't functional i would much prefer just to enjoy a coke or enjoy a soda you know just just have a coke and enjoy it like don't consume something functional and think you're being you know better for it when actually you're not so i think that education will be the next layer um in terms of like launching D2C as a brand.

20:15Thomas Robson-Kanu:And again, this was all organic. Like we had, you know, in hindsight, you look back and you're like, oh yeah, we did that. You know, that was clever. And that was, you know, good, good move. But we, we tested a lot. What did that testing look like? So yeah, so we tested in terms of sampling the product. We tested in terms of, you know, social, like social wasn't what it was today in terms of media spend and in terms of, you know, algorithms, influencers, you know, how you can sort of leverage content. So a lot of our growth was driven through word of mouth and organic content sharing based on the sort of testimonials that we were generating.

20:57And how were you generating those testimonials?

20:59Thomas Robson-Kanu:So our orders were 28 shot box you know 28 days of of product where you know consumers would commit to using it right and so we then applied a review app into our obviously our e-commerce store and tech stack and then that allowed us to begin to capture those reviews but then we very quickly incorporated the ability to like track the reviews coming in and then we we implemented a process a manual process where we would then reach back out to that customer, engage with that customer, ask them for, you know, would they be willing to do a video piece? Would they be, you know, willing to share more about their review and what they experienced when using the product?

21:45Thomas Robson-Kanu:So we kind of just sort of growth hacked the system in that way, which was not as sophisticated as a lot of sort of like D2C businesses would launch in this day and age. But yeah, the outcome was, was that we were able to reach more and more people in terms of awareness. And because of the benefits and the experience that people would have when using our range, we had a really strong retention rate and a really strong lifetime value. And so, you know, our focus was therefore around like, how do we really nurture our customers and take them on the journey that they would go on when using our range?

22:25When you go to your website, even today, it's chock full of these video testimonials. And like, I felt it when I was on the website, I was like, oh, there's something meaningful about seeing somebody's face and listening to them communicate about the benefits of this thing and the impact that it's having on their lives. How instrumental were those video testimonials in the early days in terms of building brand equity and getting consumers to take a chance on this?

22:52Thomas Robson-Kanu:Yeah, they were massive. I'd probably say, you know, those video testimonials became assets to us and you know we would you know request permission to then use that within our marketing so then these video testimonials would be incorporated into some of the email funnels and campaigns that we'd run for existing purchases or you know potential customers subscribers who would capture through our email capture so it was a pivotal decision to really focus in on that. And that was only possible because of the product. You know, so if we had done a product which had the orange juice in it, and, you know, it wouldn't have had the efficacy and the health benefit that, you know, our range full of all functional ingredients had, you know, because consumers would say, you know, I use that for 28 days, and I really actually didn't really feel a difference, right?

23:45Thomas Robson-Kanu:So I think that that was a pivotal decision to focus in on the experience our range delivers. But it was only possible because we invested and spent the time to really make sure and ensure product quality and efficacy. You know, when you launched the brand, something that I find interesting is that despite the fact that you had a public profile, you weren't really leveraging that in the early days of building the turmeric company, right? It was kind of like you had your footballer career and then you were building this on the side and you were sort of letting the product and the customer testimonials speak for themselves and you weren't necessarily at the front and center of it.

24:29And it feels like maybe there's been something of a transition in the years since then. Like, was that by design initially? And what's your relationship with how forward facing you are now?

24:43Thomas Robson-Kanu:Yeah, no, it's a good observation. I think, you know, I was playing at the highest level of professional football, you know, when we launched the business. And so I purposefully chose not to shout about it from the rafters. And actually looking back, I wish I had done because, you know, launching a business into, you know, this functional beverage space, it was a crazy, crazy journey. But I was also conscious that I had responsibilities as a professional athlete. And I'd say for the first three years of the business, you probably wouldn't have known that it was me responding to some of the customer service inquiries.

25:22Thomas Robson-Kanu:You know, it was me writing our email flows and trying to figure out, you know, how some of the platforms within email marketing work and I was in the dms of our social channels and responding to people right and so no one would ever know that but it was me right so I was in that level of detail and I wasn't able to sort of maintain that um handle on the business and really drive it to where I wanted to take the business you know and we're certainly still not there yet and so yeah I made the decision in 2021 to you know respectively retire early from professional football I was 31 years of age physically I felt better than I had ever felt in my career my final game was in the Premier League away against Leeds in May 2021 finished that and had the weekend woke up on Monday and I didn't need to go into training because you know I'd finished my contract with the club and I sort of had 10-15 minutes where I was thinking okay this is quite strange I don't have to get up for training but I opened my laptop and I had you know 25 emails to get through to you know respond to some suppliers and talk about you know some of the plans for moving our site a couple of miles outside of London and so we'd had maybe two or 3 ,000 life-changing testimonials at that point in time.

26:50Thomas Robson-Kanu:And the decision was, was like, how far do we want to take this business? And yeah, I made the commitment and finished professional football on my terms and committed fully to growing this business to a place where, yeah, we believe it can change the shape of the health of society. I mean, you went out on top. That's the way everybody wants to do it, right? And that's so powerful. And also like, oof, giving up a career at the highest level of being a professional athlete is difficult. Was there a degree of reticence to let that piece of you go? I think I'd made the decision beforehand. I'm incredibly grateful for the career that I had in sport, but I'm also like acutely aware that that career was only possible because of this blend and so actually it kind of like ties into the fact that well no like my purpose is to bring this blend to as many people as possible you know there's people who live with pain as if it's the norm it's that invisible illness people living in pain it is one of the most debilitating things in life.