Ama Amo-Agyei with Rory Sutherland and Elfried Samba on founders and the cost of success

33:02Like skincare was very educational heavy and would tell you every single step. Moisture. Hair was not like that. No. And people were so confused when I first came in. And I said, well, also I'm confused as well. Like my sister's even a hairdresser, but she's a hairdresser. She has stylists, but stylists aren't estheticians. They're not doctors. So they're not inherently, they haven't inherently always known the education behind hair, the science of hair. So that was then, again, I was piecing all of these things together and woven this all into the brand. You spotted the doctor. Yeah, I mean, I've occasionally, I think, been sold at a barber, you know, some sort of thing to put on my hair.

33:40And then I take it home and I go, actually, I have no clue where I'm going. Do I put this on wet? Do I put it on dry? And I just stare at the thing. Yeah, it's like, what are we doing? What do I do? So you're now in year one. You're starting to adopt the science. You have a team now. Things are going. Things are moving. You're testing out influencer marketing. You found out about the scarcity model. You're now starting to think in a strategic way. What happens in year two? Year two is just continuing to scale up. more experiments um and then first in person that changed everything again with hearing the feedback and hearing the it was a bit scary because again this this was covid so it's still very online world you take things offline you don't know if it's going to translate the same we um decided to do box park because that was at least there'll be some footfall if no one came at least i could attempt to pull some people off the street but we had a line and it was crazy because we're we're it was almost like in-person sales we were you know doing demos we were showing the bars and we were doing all these experiments as well so we were we we did pop up and that was amazing but we also I was kind of stretching my creativity with the products and I came out with a shampoo and conditioning bar that no one wanted everyone wanted shampoo and conditioner from us but they didn't want bars go like bars like like is that like is that soap no it's not soap it's a shampoo and conditioning bar and it almost took a year no it took a year for that to be almost like we were about to take it off of and suddenly it took off yes because i made a video ah we're gonna go into year three yes so it's it's it's so interesting all these tiny experiments and it's funny because Small, I think, does a shampoo bar.

35:34Yeah. And I just couldn't get my head around it. So I moved on to that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, because what I wanted to do was I needed the brand to feel like we were doing something. Like, it's not just, oh, this brand did this. We're going to do it too. It's like, if you don't have a philosophy for your brand, then what's the point? And all we wanted to do is this is what we think is best. This is what we think is best. And we think that transparent ingredients is best for you because you should know what you're putting in on your body. But also, if the innovation is what we think is best, like I tried 50 different formulas for shampoo.

36:11I just felt like for the, I guess, quality of ingredients retention. And I also think from a sustainability practice as well, like it was low key. That really was not the driving force. At the end of the day, like you are paying 30 pounds for a shampoo by that last four months. you will pay three times as much for a bottle i understand it's a change of behavior and it was a risk we took like it's not the thing you do but that's the whole point of business you find the things that you do you should not do and do them so that you can create some difference i think i was listening to um found this podcast no david senner's podcast with dyson he was like um just do things to differentiate yourself just for the sake of it so just differentiate for the sake of just so you are different and that it was dyson saying that yeah yeah and that is the point interesting that is the point that really is the point like what is the point if we're all going to look the same so i just needed to make sure i could not look like the big beauty giants like we're going to do things differently then you later go and you call them out yeah we're going to talk about that in year three so let's go into year three i'm such a villain to so many people hey hey i'm saying i'm a 2.0 i'm loving the look i love you can't do but now we're going to year three the storyteller right so so what got you to start being on camera and start to storytell you talked about the fact that you had twitter fingers yes first yes you tweeted you wrote you were more on the operational side of the business so now you you bring yourself in front of the camera what happened and why did you do that so i was seeing this trend americans canadians storytelling videos b-roll behind the scenes of the business all of that stuff the snippets of that but it wasn't quite a strategy and then i just made a video inspired by brand called midday squares they sell chocolate bars for midday it's like you know your sugar rush but without the crash it's a beautiful brand i love them so much they really they they changed the game i can't like they were the pioneers i just i'm just eating their nachos okay so i decided okay what is the mission of plumade what is the point here well we want to go up against big beauty at the end of the day seven conglomerates own all the beauty brands and even the indie ones that go into them sometimes there's been some controversies the the the formulas change and things aren't what they used to be and all of this stuff there's all of that we're independent brand we make it by hand we know what is literally going in and out of everything very unique to every other brand so let's just tell that story so i was like i hate the beauty industry xyz one two three i was just like no i'm coming in with my husband my brother our team we're doing this you can see everything we are being super transparent i am you as well by the way i went through what you went through so i have nothing i don't really have anything to gain right like i could have went through my hair loss journey in private i showed it on public you like again i me and alfred talk about it all the time it's like plant made was everyone's best kept secret it was like the product everyone used that no one wanted to speak about but it was not because of the product it was because of the problem no one wanted to be no one wanted to be transparent and say they were insecure about their hair ingeniously procter and gamble got away with this with showing someone buying head and shoulders when it was an anti-dandruff shampoo and the cunning the cunning creative solution was head and shoulders i didn't know that you had dandruff i don't oh which was a very very at the time it was ingenious because what you were doing is it It was a de-stigmatization, which was that head and shoulders wasn't an admission that you had dandruff.

40:13It was the thing that you'd use to solve it and prevent it coming back, which is quite clever. This is like 1970s British advertising. But thinking about it, it was a very, very clever formulation of a conversation to kind of get around the stigmatization. Nobody wanted it seen in their basket, you know, in the same way that you probably don't want, you know, pile ointment visibly showing in your trolley or your basket. Yeah, but the funny story with that is everybody always asks me, why do I wear a hat? The cool story is Tinker Hatfield, Virgil Abloh talks about having a signature, that side of things.

40:50But the other side is I saw that everybody, every male in my family, when they got to 35 years old, they had no hair. So I was like, I need to protect myself, right, from having to explain where my hair is gone. So now, whether I have a trim, whether my hair is bushy, whether whatever, you don't know. I could be bald right now. I'm not, by the way. But it's because there's a stigma around that. We can't afford turkey. It's expensive. And we were also like, I can't afford turkey. That's why you should buy this£100 set. It'll save you literally tens of thousands on a hair transplant. And no need to go through x-ray machine.

41:28Exactly. There's no recovery time. You can go about your business after you've applied your products. but yeah that that was really a hard thing that it was definitely a difficult dance but it wasn't until we hit body it was so weird now seeing everyone talk about plant made in such a positive way but it was because it wasn't about insecurity anymore it was just about indulgence people really loved our body stuff but our hair was very like secretive because it was really dealing with some hard hitting issues and were you always called plant made yes oh oh sorry no yeah let's get into the tea um so yes we were called planted yes for a year um and then i got a beautiful beautiful letter in the mail that my mom had delivered to me she thought it was a certificate it was a it was a cease and desist um which was so great basically as we were hitting you know you know multiple six-figure months i was like oh i should really trademark this and legitimize this business i mean of course i'd already incorporated but like i i found out that trademarking is the next step little did i know there was a planted already existing and um it was weird because it was not actually a conglomerate that got me it was actually a small business oh but they they weren't letting go of the ip it's not that they were like incredibly big they just would not let go of the ip so i had to shut down the business for three months and i actually tweeted it bbc actually picked that up and i had a bbc documentary on our way back from that that whole transition which was very interesting um jeremy clarkson actually meant meant tweeted about me which was funny because we ended up on the times at the same time as well it's like yeah this journey has been really weird um but yeah every time i opened my mouth to share the story something would happen yeah i figured it was a good um it was a good thing yeah but that was very difficult because that stopped a lot of momentum because people couldn't find us it was a very different name and we couldn't like we would be like formally but like that that to a customer was not enough even for three years people still called us planted even though we were plant made and then you had to change the packaging of course everything we took we literally had to we did a closing down sale, did a massive recall, had to change all the packaging and redesign everything.

43:52We lost tens of thousands. Was the other business, was that a beauty brand? Yeah, it was a beauty brand. Yeah, it was a skincare brand. We were a haircut at the time. It just, yeah. Trademark-wise, it would not work. Like, I spoke to lawyers and they were like, this is not going to work. This is not going to work. It would 100 % be confused for it. You know the fantastic story, which is that Apple Music, i.e. the Beatles Music Company, originally sued Apple Computer. And the original agreement was, it's absolutely fine to call yourself Apple Computer, as long as you don't get into the music business.

44:26And of course, at the time, they said, are you joking? Get into the music business. It might go beef occasionally, but that's the limit to it. And of course, then you end up with a whole IT store. There was some subsequent legal case around that, which ended up with a lot of money being paid in one. I think it was settled out of court, in fact. Oh, wow. Trademarking is not to be played with. IP is so, so important. And that's also another reason why one of the first things I say to founders is having trademarks. And if they say no, I'm like, run to the keyboard now. You don't know. And even if you're just saying an idea, you just have no idea if someone could be vindictive.

45:03And just for a payment. That happens once you start hitting a certain side. Exactly. The sharks start circling. Exactly. I don't think this business was quite happy that we were doing well and they were still on the come up, even though several years into business. But again, the funniest thing is I came up with the name Plantmade in the most hilarious way. I was in Jury Do. I got called to Jury Do whilst we were transitioning through this. And mind you, we have a factory now. and we have the staff. We have big bills to pay and I get sent to jury duty and I can't get out of it. I'm in this drug case and in between court, I come up with the name Plant Made.

45:49Because that's always how you come up with a great name, isn't it? As you've minimally trademarked that the following day. We've got lawyers in and we're like, yeah, let's, let's, let's. And America and everywhere. Please, I don't want to deal with this again. Whatever the cost. Apparently China also trademarked immediately. I didn't even know that. But maybe I think it's because most people are manufacturing out there. So that is also something. But yeah, trademark in as many places as you can the first time. All right. The world moves fast. Your work day, even faster. Pitching products, drafting reports, analyzing data.

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47:44Why wait? Ask your doctor, visit BotoxChronicMigraine.com, or call 1-800-44-BOTOX to learn more. So, you're now, it's now not just a smooth journey now, so you're starting to get challenges, you're starting to build some resilience starting to learn some lessons not everybody wants to see you flying right so year four what's happening in year four so yeah so we we end up on the fastest going business list um but we're getting into some casserole challenges because again this manufacturing beast we were basically building two businesses in one yeah because manufacturing was this whole thing. I mean, usually a business is going to source their goods.

48:26Everything's going to be a landed cost. It's going to land to the warehouse. They're going to ship it out. They're going to do the marketing. That's the vibe. No, we are buying raw materials that are sitting on the shelf for better, you know, value at the expense of that is cash that can't be converted. They can't be converted into real pound value because we need to transform that into the finished goods whilst also paying people to do that. So all of that, and we haven't even marketed the products yet. We haven't even shipped the product yet. So that whole process was something so delicate. And we don't have a lot of manufacturing in the UK.

49:06Obviously, there's a lot more other markets, you know, of course, China and so many other places that manufacturing is fantastic there. It was very difficult to get financing. So we're running into serious challenges. So we were going with unsecured lending and also trying to raise on top of it. It was very difficult because as much as people saw the numbers and opportunity, it was just always something that would not quite get them over the edge. Do you think this would have happened if PlantMaid was from America? No. Why do you say that? It would have been... Number one, our numbers would have probably doubled, if not tripled.

49:46and as much as like u.s isn't like it's i think there's way more manufacturing in the u.s um but business is the u.s like so there's so many different options for financing and our main struggle was we actually got so much advice from um u.s founders and u.s operators but we couldn't apply their same toolkits so they had operational toolkits and they had all these all these um all this access and as soon as we'd go and inquire us only us only us only to be honest our products are not that unique but there is a serious disconnect there was a serious disconnect that again was just stumbling growth it really was okay so amazing yeah yeah so it seems that the big difference culturally yeah where do you think the uk is built and set up for entrepreneurs or at least this new age type of entrepreneurship?

50:46I've just met up with a bunch of founders this week, knowingly and unknowingly, like a past by and stuff. They're all leaving. They're all leaving for the US. Yeah. That's five people in the last four days I've spoken to. They're all going within the year or two years because they just don't believe that there isn't much here anymore. I feel like we can all sense it. I mean, I'm seeing it on the news. Like even, you know, it's a point of conversation right now. Why is everyone leaving for the US or Dubai? And number one, there's obviously a mindset piece where it's really hard. There is a cohort of fantastic creatives and founders who are building incredible things that we know what we're doing.

51:31As soon as we step out of that, but that's not our day to day. We go to these events and we speak to these people. They're not our every day. Our every day is very difficult. The bank is slow. Like everything is slow. Everything needs so much. And time is money in business. And that's one of the main things. That's very interesting you say that because I was arguing the other day that the problem with sort of the bureaucracy in the UK isn't the cost of the bureaucrats, which is often how it's presented. It's actually the opportunity cost, which is that I suspect that for every pound they actually use up in salary, they destroy another five pounds of value.

52:10Simply, I mean, you know, if you look at, for example, building as a very simple thing, you know, you want to build a house somewhere. And every episode of Grand Designs is kind of a testament. And really, the problem is actually one of speed. It's not ridiculous that there should be regulations that you can't just build a drive straight onto a road, you know, next to a busy junction. That's not a ridiculous thing. But the extent to which it slows things down to a point where nobody can be bothered or nobody can afford the uncertainty that's the real problem isn't it yeah yeah that like i i couldn't believe like everything was time everything was time like okay it matters how much you know like from when you make money online to when it lands in your account it depends on each channel so we even saw a difference between our shopify and our tiktok our tiktok there was a point where when we first started was almost a month a month oh no we can't have that whereas shopify is three days yeah like that is too long for that money to hit their account because you could die in that 21 days you know and it's like that is what you know the internet the online business is and of course there's so much infrastructure and then you think about retail and sometimes your terms could be even pushed to six months you have to survive but there needs to be cash rolling where's that money coming from if you're bootstrap founder what are you doing and that is the real conversation here what is what how are we dealing with the time pressures of of cash flow in this country i don't know if that's spoken about enough because that is the thing killing us it's it's cash flow it is and we talked about the fact that brand is very very important but because of the current state of financing and entrepreneurship you almost have to focus on survival first yes before you even have the opportunity to start to think about what's the right thing for the business.

54:09I often say to a lot of people in the creative field is that it's not that the founders or the leaders don't know that that's the right answer to go with. It's just that they need the business to survive first. And you can see it. I was at the Times 100 and the vast majority of the brands that were on there were bootstrapped. Yes. So they've had to fight it out to get to where they got to. I actually believe that the crop of entrepreneurs we have in the UK are some of the best on the planet. We go to the US to deliver talks, to deliver the framework, but they have the support system to enable them to be able to thrive.

54:51Whereas on our end, the business genius to even get out of the UK is hard in itself. Yes, exactly. Now, to be able to sustain that growth and get to a different level, it's really difficult to do that. Exactly. And then it's also very hard to unlearn fending for yourself and having an abundance mindset because you're just so used to surviving. Where are people going in the US? Because what you see within the US is people leaving California for Texas. Yes. For a very similar reason, which is California. I'm seeing a lot of Houston and Austin. Austin specifically. Delaware. Yeah, yeah. Set up in Delaware.

55:28But I mean, people are over, in a sense, people in California. now saying we're over-regulated here. We can't do anything. And again, I think it's a speed. Yeah. Taxing is insane. From cost of living perspective, like how are you running a business in California? Like, whoa. You know? And it's crazy because... I mean, Texas now reminds me of California in the 90s. Because I was out in California and San Francisco, just visiting, I didn't live there, in the 90s. And the same energy now, you don't feel that in California. You feel it in Austin or... San Antonio or something like that. And now you're starting to see a lot of people going to Dubai as well.

56:05So there's Dubai, there's the US. A lot of people are even living in three different spaces, right? So the question of where do you live becomes a very difficult conversation now because your business needs you to be here. Your family needs you to be here. And also taxes, weather, et cetera, makes you almost live all around. And because a lot of businesses are online, you almost have to be a citizen of the world if you will right but there is a mentality thing which is that fundamentally you get the feeling in the uk that you're doing something new you probably shouldn't yeah and in the us there seems to be a framing which is it's not i don't think it's as extreme as how can we help you but it is the immediate understanding that you know people doing new and untried things uh is the natural order of yes things you're not being a deviant or a troublemaker by challenging the system yeah and i mean when i when i think about the u.s i think about like all or nothing like unfortunately the systems there are not to everyone's favor no so generally if people do not become entrepreneurs or entrepreneurial in their life i feel like they have a lot of agency over their life because they don't have another option like they're on the streets or they are successful it's like one or the other Like, there's not so much, you know, again, like the UK is fantastic because I do believe it cares more about its people and its citizens.

57:34But to a point where there could be some safety mechanisms that also allows for people not to take themselves to the next level, you know? So it's like, okay, when, because I fought to even get to the point where I believed I could start a business. I felt like I needed permission. But where's that coming from? Like, I don't know, but it's only because the school system doesn't allow for exploration, whereas I do believe the Americans do. Like, all the different subjects that they have to do, and they do debate. And, like, I feel like that free thinking and that ability to maybe expand mind a little bit more, I feel like that comes later.

58:12I always notice that with show and tell, that American thing where everybody has to present stuff. And you notice it in the stark difference between the average person on Shark Tank and the average person on Dragon's Day. Oh, that's good. Which is, you know, I mean, that's not to say there are brilliant presenters on Dragon's Dead and there are a few pretty disappointing ones on Shark Tank. But the level of the average is so much higher in the US because everybody has that kind of, this is how you give an account of yourself. Yeah, like there's so many different things. And of course, it's all rearing, right?

58:42But I think all of that is later. Like, I mean, I never used to speak. Like I was a quiet person and I go to university 18, 19 and I have to do these, you know, these group things. And oh, I was fighting for my life. Like I didn't want to say anything. Like I was stuttering. I shouldn't be 19 and not be able to articulate myself. You didn't have to do that in school. No. You didn't have to do that. You just ran out there and you went about your business. You didn't have to present. You didn't have to fight for your thoughts. You didn't have to do any of that. But that stuff sets you up for having better agency over your life.

59:16yeah a little bit of it is i think everybody fantasizes about being in hollywood there's a little bit of that if you have some sort of weird traffic accident in the u.s the sheriff appears on tv and he knows which his good side is you know he's like a sheriff from central casting you know and so a little bit of it must be that kind of acting fantasy thing as well but um that's no you're absolutely right i mean that business of effectively you know you stand up for yourself verbally uh is noticeable i think but then you realize this there's so many companies now that the uk should be proud of especially when you look at the times 100 i don't know why whether that be the government whether that be financial institutions can see the cohort of the companies that are coming in and helping them accelerate because it's only good for the country right yes i mean obviously i was a part of last year's cohort and you know there were some really great Like there's a, I don't remember his name for some reason.

1:00:14Oh, no. But I had a contact at EY that almost just shamelessly, like he took me to the EY Entrepreneur of the Year. I only missed this one because I traveled. He just was like, oh, like he actually helped me get into a pitch competition as well. Henley Business Angels. And I was able to pitch my business for the first time in front of people. They do the same in Ireland. I know because I'm going out to the event in Ireland. and EY seemed to be particularly well-disposed. They're not sponsored, by the way. I would have never thought. No. We just don't gatekeep. We don't gatekeep. I would have not thought EY would have been that place, but they are advocating for entrepreneurs, and they spotted me.

1:00:56And, I mean, a friend of mine, Simi from SimaEase, he won Entrepreneur of the Year, which is incredible. We were just there last year, spectating. He's now won. Like, okay, we need more of those. you know contact with Barclays and HSBC they're also doing great work but also sometimes it's not you don't know how like I feel like sometimes they don't know how to help yeah but like there's very easy foundational things to help with because there's a load of founders that don't even know like proper financial stack at a certain point in their business okay zero to one million zero to five million cool okay we start to creep to the eight figures oh we need a lot more financial help and if we're if our businesses are here in the uk what does that system look like here because all i know is what the americans are doing but we don't have the same systems so how do we build better financial foundations for businesses to to scale here in the uk i don't know i personally i still don't know because if you look at even culturally the fact that we are very discerning and also very we critique also like falls to our favor because we make sure that our products are great.

1:02:06So we do make sure that the products are great. We do make sure that how we're set up is right. We do make sure that we do the right thing. But similarly, you need that optimism, that naivety, that ability to try different things and take risks. We've got quite a good consumer market, haven't we, in a few ways in that one, propensity to shop online is pretty high. Yes, yes, yes. It's certainly higher than some countries in Europe. And also our willingness to try new things isn't as good as american consumers but it's not bad you know people will actually give you a go yeah um which i think is quite interesting yeah i will say um i have to advocate for the uk founders like the quality of the products is 100 there interesting i i again i love business so i'm shopping almost everyone on the list of course yeah the quality is unmatched but specifically even in the beauty industry you have to be you're not you can't just sell anything Like in the US, there's no regulations.

1:03:05Like anyone could come out with anything. I have to have a lab go through my formulations and make sure it is bulletproof. Even though I first made it in my house. It's 100 % natural. Yeah, you have to. You have to. So those measures are in place. So yeah, but there is like a level of perfection that is necessary for the customer's sake. But then unfortunately, like now tips into the operator's sake where maybe a business has to be too perfect before someone invests in them. But that's not how business works. We just need people to take risks. Because a lot of these organizations like your EYs and your bar, et cetera, they do a lot of great work.

1:03:42And the work is to get you in front of a room of investors that are usually UK-based. Now, if these investors are not willing to try to invest, then actually all that work doesn't end up to anything, right? Because it's great intention, but unless we can change the culture about reinvesting back in our economy, reinvesting back into future businesses because how many great businesses are still British owned? It's not a lot. There's a new crop of organizations that are coming in. But if you ask the support that was actually given by, other than the consumer, of course, to actually help these organizations become the poster childs of the country, there's so many great businesses that are being built around the UK.

1:04:23But why do they feel like they need to leave? Very interesting thing that happened, actually, which is that in 2024, the IPA gives five advertising effectiveness awards. And in 2024, they didn't always give five, but they gave five in 2024, five gold awards. Four of the five winners were family-owned businesses. Latheweights, McCain, Yorkshire Tea, Specsavers. And Dyson, of course, is family-owned as well, interestingly. And my contention is that if you look at sort of consumer capitalism, over a certain length of time, the consumer can kind of smell, well, okay, what your motivation is. It's almost like an odor.

1:05:03And the family-owned businesses and founder-led businesses have a kind of authenticity to them. And I suppose time horizons as well, where they're not preoccupied with immediate financial returns. In many cases, your name's above the door. You have a kind of thought for posterity. It always reminds me of John Kane, the FT journalist. He went out to dinner at a restaurant he and his friend liked very much. And on about the sort of 57th time they'd been to a dinner there, he said, there's something wrong. He said, it sort of feels like it's been bought by private equity. And they look it up. One of them takes out their phone.

1:05:39And sure enough, it had been bought by private equity. Because, you know, the portions weren't quite as generous. The service wasn't quite as effusive. And there is something there, which is that you notice that, you know, and the fifth winner, by the way, was Guinness, which is owned by Diagio. but it's kind of run like a family business to very long time horizons. And one of the questions I'm always intrigued by is, you know, one of the advantages I think the U.S. probably has is the proportion of these enormous, actually either founder-led or family-owned businesses and what proportion they make of the economy.

1:06:13I mean, Ford is technically kind of family-controlled, would you believe it? I mean, Mars is, F.C. Johnson is. I was going around Texas, H.E.B., fantastic grocery retailer. That's family owned. Bucky's is privately owned. And they're kind of just better because I think if you think about it, anybody who has shareholders is going to lose about 70 % of their customer focus straight off the bat. Because suddenly you're worried about somebody else. Yes. Suddenly your focus is actually on the metric you're focused on is not a customer metric anymore. It's some other financial engineering thing that you've been taught to do.

1:06:53And so that's something which I think is really, really nice to see businesses. As far as one can hope also, I mean, the pace of growth is interesting because that pressure to grow too fast, which often happens with certain forms of capital. As you said, did you continue with this business of only selling at certain times of the… Two and a half years. Two and a half years. Yeah, yeah. We did it for two and a half years. Two and a half years, yeah. The only reason why we stopped is because, again, we're now entering, that was like 2023 entering and COVID is now letting up. And now so people are changing.

1:07:32And that's like the main problem with consumer and business is that there's so many changes that you have to like, okay, well, what's next? And we always said, was that the right decision? And we will never know. We can't know. But at the time, we just weren't making enough money. And we also couldn't consistently market in the way that we knew at the time. Of course, of course. No, no, no. To bring in those, you know, those customers. And then also customers were like, I can't wait. Like, I need this consistently. This is something that I need, you know. In the back of my head, I'm always like, was that the right decision?

1:08:08I don't know. There is a finding. I think the most profitable restaurant in the United States per square foot is, I think, Joe's Softshell Crab in Miami. And they close when it isn't the crab season, bizarrely. And they sell other food other than crab. But it's almost like, in a sense, like Chick-fil-A closing on Sunday. There's something about that strategy which is weirdly, it doesn't make sense logically. logically but it somehow triggers something in the consumer's mind doesn't it yeah which is that you know if we can't sell what we're good at we're not going to operate at all i think it's business logic right business logic says do not close but human logic human logic yeah there's a reason why people are there and i can't get my hands on it i don't like that i want that and that was the main thing it was like this is always sold out why is it always sold out oh but But also then you're seeing through the grapevine, the people who would speak and the influencers we would sponsor because they were going through a transformation.

1:09:13We also made it a point to never work with like beauty influencers because that is someone who's educated. Our customer isn't educated. Why would they hear a person going through another set of products that they'd probably been sent and say something and then move on to another product the next week? It was someone who was visible, but was the same, you know, the same level of understanding of hair or whatever problem they were dealing with. So we needed to make sure everyone we were working with was on a journey. So going back to the whole conversation around privately owned U.S. businesses, raising canes, we're talking about.

1:09:55I just finished that episode. So good. By the way, which one is this? I know we're on a podcast. David Senner's podcast. I know we're on a podcast, but I would like, I, like Amma, I don't like to sit down and read. I learn everything from podcasts, from Blinkist, from all that stuff. But the David Senra Founders Podcast is our favorite podcast because it's all about like different founders. And they actually interviewed, he's recently interviewed Dyson, but he interviewed the founder of Raising Cane's. I think that's like a 30, 40 billion dollar organization privately owned. I think he still owns like 95 % of it.

1:10:29and basically he just built it from the from the ground up and a family business can get to that level right if it's very customer obsessed if it focuses on the product quality by them just thinking a little bit more british by making sure that they're elevating the product experience exactly that's what can be created now imagine if we took something from from it's almost like But Steve Jobs doesn't build Apple if they don't have a Johnny Ive, right? With the product and the British almost like perspective. It's giving the customer more than they expect. Yeah. This is the whole thing of that wonderful Will Godara book, Unreasonable Hospitality, which I'm always recommending because it's someone running a three-star Michelin restaurant.

1:11:13You'd think it would be hard to give someone what they didn't expect. But that's the subtitle of the book, The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect. and often those things are the first thing the finance people will try and cut because they'll go no one's expecting this therefore why would you spend money on it and you go you have to answer precisely that's precisely why you spend money on it yeah you know just because actually those moments i was you know at a provincial hotel watch i'll plug it's fantastic grace the angel hotel in abogaveney yeah and you turn up and then now you know it's bear in mind it's a hotel in a market town on the Welsh borders.

1:11:50You go, what's the latest you do breakfast? You're expecting to go, well, it's 8.30 during the week, but since it's the weekend, we keep open till nine, and they just go, 11 o 'clock. You go, okay, this is my tribe, okay? I don't want to get up in a hotel room and go, oh, God, we need to decide whether to have breakfast. You know, it's fundamentally an imposition, having a nine o 'clock breakfast cut off. And those tiny little things, which are just eccentrically good. They're the ones that carry all the freight, I think, in terms of your perception. I love it when I go to a hotel and see if the checkout's at 12.

1:12:27Yeah. And usually when I go to like European ones, they're like, it's at 12. And then they look at me like I'm crazy when I'm like, it's not 11? I'm like, it's 12? And I, what if I want to do it at one? Oh, yeah, we can do that too. I love you. I'm like, wow. And that doesn't, it doesn't, it's not anything genius. It's just that. Human. Yeah. It's just one hotel chain, weirdly again, privately owned. It's part of the Hoxton Group, but it's not called the Hoxton. Is it called 25 Hours or something like that? Yeah. But I'm pretty sure technically you can check in at half past midnight and check out at half past 11 at night.

1:13:05For goodness sake, I don't want anybody turning up and getting angry with them because I'm wrong. But I'm fairly sure that when you book a room, you basically get for one night, you get the entire day beforehand and the entire day afterwards. Oh, wow. Which is epic, which is really, really tremendous. But what it is, is just finding the things that no one wants to do and just doing them. This is exactly the point. Because everyone talks about things all the time, but it's just, oh, can someone just do the thing we've all been talking about for ages? Because why is it 10? Why are we checking out at 10?

1:13:34Like, I just woke up. Like, what are we doing here? The other question I was asking is that all you've got to do is steal from another industry. This is it! Every airline, if you're a premium customer and you turn up too early, they give you a lounge to sit in. You turn up too early at a hotel. Often you have no control over this because you landed in Singapore at 7 in the morning. And effectively they say, no, you're going to be homeless until 3 o 'clock. Why don't you wander the streets like a hobo, okay? And then similarly you check out and maybe – now there's a Virgin Hotel in the Caribbean which has a departure beach.

1:14:10where effectively after you check out, again, don't quote me on this, but after you check out, you have exclusive access because, of course, all the flights leave the Caribbean for Europe late in the evening. So, of course, you need to, okay, I get it, you need the room because you need to make up the room. But effectively what you're saying is you're now going to wander around aimlessly with luggage. I mean, you can obviously leave your luggage behind reception. But instead, they have a specific experience between the time you check out and the time you fly home. That is incredible. That's so cool.

1:14:41Yes. Like, you know, it's funny. The initial package, which was very bad, I sent out was with this letter that I'd written with typewriting font. And I'd print it out and I'd put it in the envelope. And people were just like, oh, my gosh, like that is the most beautiful thing I've ever read. And then we transitioned it into like a thank you card, which had instructions on how to use the products. but then all i do i just signed it with their name and a heart and everyone was like do not stop doing this i can't believe you've just signed my name and a heart ama what are you doing like i can't believe this i don't get this anywhere no absolutely right four years i just sit there signing with a heart just because they told me not to stop and i would not stop and i was just like there's just such insignificant things and also very significant.

1:15:33That departure. This is where psychology. I did that at every hotel, but there's very, also very insignificant things that it's all just, it's all just human. Like it's just all it is. And this, there can be love in business. Like it doesn't like you can make money, making people happy. And also just thinking about people like thought is, we're almost in like a thought crisis. You know, we know we're in a trust crisis, but also in a thought crisis. Like with AI going this way, if you have more thought into your business, you're also going to do very well. The John Lewis Christmas line, by the way, which is, you know, if you can't find the words, find the gift.

1:16:12You remember the Christmas campaign, which, by the way, I think is copyright in gold, and I hope they use it in perpetuity because I think it's tremendous. But that's also true of a business. If you want to say something, maybe an action is more communicative than a phrase. And so finding that highly communicative kind of discretionary bit of generosity can be absolutely tremendous, I think. Yeah. Yeah. And so we've now gone into year five, right? So we're now learning. So you've gone from being Ama, the person that was working in recruitment, you stumble onto a business, you get going, you don't know anything about business, so you're learning as you go, and now you're learning about cash flow, you're learning about operations, you're learning about hiring people, you're learning all these different things.

1:17:02What happens in year five? The beginning of the end. Investor comes after, you know, a very long-standing trying to raise and we're supposed to have a partnership where we, okay, because the business has been struggling financially because of everything that's been going on and with ruthless creditors just asking for more money sooner than they wanted it um we we end up with a position where the person we thought we could trust we can't and that person kicks the management team out of the business without us even knowing and that's two months ago today so now the love and soul the the handwritten letters the storytelling the transparency the the daily innovation the daily struggle if you will of making sure that you produce a product uh for the end consumer now that goes away right and if you have to look back on that journey how do you think you got to that point what are the things that happened what is the catalyst what is the bottleneck that got you to that point Again, it was just so difficult because the support of the UK business infrastructure wasn't there for us.

1:18:27We were eager and I was outside. I was trying to have every which way conversation I could. But again, most brands weren't even operating like ours to begin with. You talk about manufacturing, you've lost most people because they're not doing that anyway. So again, there's certain complexities that, you know, are difficult. And again, it's not even like the debt was the problem. It was just that the debt was so overwhelming that we couldn't put our money anywhere into growth because of just trying to sustain ourselves, you know, and make payroll. Like, it was to the point where, I mean, we were trying to transition the business into a new entity just on a strategy perspective.

1:19:08Also that everyone actually gets paid. Like, our staff is still here. the customers have continuity with the brand and also we can just continue as we were that was that was the whole point obviously that didn't happen but i think um starting a business for the first time as well is as it was always going to contribute to that because i just categorically didn't know what i was doing and i always never knew what i was doing but i also knew what i was like I know marketing very well but that also kept on changing too and sometimes there was delayed reactions on moving to a new thing that should have maybe taken advantage of things earlier you know I think about TikTok shop all the time it was one of the most laborious channels it made us money but it was so time intensive and I just couldn't wrap my head around the fact that I would have to put so much time into it me me and other team members and just not have that instant gratification like you do some other channels um i remember last year i put i put the raise down and i said we're gonna die if i don't if i if that balance and there's that as well raising really does take you out of the business so that time you're talking to all these people you're just you just don't have the energy to pour into certain activities that could you know spark up some revenue or some conversation online so i remember i put it down i said i'm going to figure out tiktok july of 2024 i'm going to figure out by december of 2024 november and december we'd made 30k each month after 500 pounds on the platform that's just me putting my head to it so that's me using that sales skill talking about the products and also figuring out okay what social content worked here but we were on tiktok a year before that and i just let it go to one of our team members and I just let her run it.

1:21:04But I should have done it myself. I think, again, it was the David Senor podcast. I don't remember what part, but it was something about like, oh, some people hire people to innovate, but that's your job. Your job is to innovate. It was my job because it is my skill set. It's my skill set to figure something out. And with the bandwidth that we had revenue-wise, yeah, we can't hire the experts. So we do have to really be in the thick of it. I should have just put my head down to figure out TikTok sooner because it could have been a saving grace because it literally made us money with basically no investment.

1:21:40With that£30 ,000 spent, we spent a grand. So it was like, if only I took advantage of that channel sooner. And if I took advantage of that channel sooner, then that 21 days, that month it took for that revenue to come in, it would have went down to three, you know? So it's those things there. and some stop and start on that channel as well. So there's loads of lessons to learn here. But the major thing is like, oh, thank God I don't have to start a business again not knowing how to. Because I've seen the entire life cycle of a business now. The problem with marketing, I always think, is that it is vitally important but not urgent.

1:22:22You can always defer it for another day because my father ran a small business. And whenever we advertised or did some marketing activity, it always worked. And I look back on that and go, why don't we just do more of that? It's kind of like, you know, this isn't rocket science. You spend a pound, you make five. This is quite exciting. And then I realized, of course, there was always something else. And you could always put it off for another day. And I always really, really respect those small businesses, like a pub that posts the menu every Friday or whatever it may be. And you go, this doesn't seem like that much, but you realize, you know, they've just had a fire in the kitchen.

1:22:59You know, they've had to fire the chef, et cetera, et cetera, whatever it may be. There's a whole load of grief going on. And managing to keep your nose to the grindstone in marketing activity is because it's always the thing you can go, you know, it's rather like I have, you know, emails where you go, oh, God, let's just do that tomorrow. Yeah. And then you suddenly realize it's been three weeks and you still haven't replied to the goddamn email because it's just a bit too difficult. And there are other things you can do right now. Yeah. And so it's really, really tough in that respect. So would you say that the transition, because we always talk about the danger when leaders of businesses start to go away from the customer and the front end of the business and start to focus more on the boardroom and the approach.

1:23:40Would you say that that's what happened? Yes. Yeah. I should have just stuck with the marketing because every time it's so funny. It's like I know every time it hit, like every time I was on my creative juice or like maybe it might be a pressurized situation. I figured it out. The business boomed. like every single time and it was like if only I had the time to have just done that if only that was me so that sometimes I was like the thing is it's funny because the operations actually informed my creativity but there was a point where I was just in it too much like I am actually as much a creative as I am an operator but an operator in a sense where I was formulating the products and things but from a creative from a creativity perspective you need that space right you need those random experiments in your personal life to connect dots again i just randomly stumbled across that video that changed the course of the business but again that video came too late because it took me a few months to come up with the first video after seeing the inspiration got it why didn't it only take a week was that the chocolate one was it yes yes why didn't that take a week so again i learned fast but because of everything else it took a while for me to translate that into action and those were the main things that really were were the killer for me but so i've known you through a big chunk of that journey right we've shared stages together we've hanged out together we've talked about like we've talked about founders together all that kind of stuff i have actually never seen you more confident and more sure of yourself and more direct than i do today it seems like it was the best business school you could ever go through yes and when you have to now go back to year zero ama that's about to go on this journey what advice uh would you give that armor?

1:25:41Well, the first thing is in a business, you're going to have to make a bunch of different experiments to work because you have no data. So figure out anything and everything you, within reason, of course, what you need to do for this business idea to succeed. If you now start to see success signs actually just double down until it works no more there are so many times where i look back and i'm like we figured it out and then we just threw it away and then it was oh that worked and we're not doing it pick it back up and then it doesn't make sense but again it's all the other things that that get involved that starts to because logically it makes no sense but when you're living it.

1:26:29I've literally seen that so many times where people stumble on success. And then in some very large organizations, I go, well, this was incredibly successful. Why don't you do it again? And they go, we've met our target for the year. Which is the dumbest thing of actual. Because if you'd said to my father, spend a pound, get five, he wouldn't have set a target. He would have done as much of it as you possibly can. But that's one thing. But you're absolutely right. There's weird thing. momentum you know yeah it's like like if you think about a car and if you stop the car and start the car you can never go to 70 miles an hour but if you continue to drive you can and that is exactly what it was and you know we we kept on stopping and starting so many founders that do that just categorically makes sense i've actually had that question which is well if that worked so well why did you stop doing it literally people go i'm not really sure i don't know it's i don't know it's this weird business thing it's this weird thing but a lot of the time it's two things right that's what i think it's a mindset thing like you just it just you block yourself like you just block it you just block the success maybe you don't want it maybe it's it's always too complicated or maybe like you you get a bit insecure maybe you don't even realize the success you just achieved or it's a there's so many things going on though like i just i'm clouded with drowned by the noise the working in your business and on your business piece like it's all of that you know and i was working so much in the business that i just could not work on it because if i just focus on my zone of genius i know i know how to make money out of thin air that is the skill i know i have i just didn't have enough time in the day-to-days to just continue to do that because we gen like you should not make 13 million out of 100 pounds it doesn't logically make sense but we did so now now i know okay i know the skill sets i need when i when i have a team for my next venture i will literally let them do what they need to do obviously i'll be there but i need to make sure i am in my zone of genius most of the time because i can't let that slip again.

1:28:44This has been incredible. Thank you for sharing your journey. Appreciate it. Really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you very much.

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