James Laithwaite: How rugby league's unluckiest player won in business

16:17James Laithwaite:Last year I interviewed Sarah Davis, Dragon's Den. I interviewed her up in Newcastle and she came up in the lift and she's with a PA and then when she got to the top, she gave her phone to her PA and said, when I'm here, I'm completely invested in this and the people in the room and to you.

16:34Michelle Laithwaite:Yeah.

16:35James Laithwaite:And I just thought that was really telling because you'll meet a lot of people. Eddie Hearns, somebody, he's almost always got a phone attached to his ear. But the impression I get, when he is with you, he is invested completely in you.

16:45Michelle Laithwaite:Yeah, he is. He really is. And do you know what? I want a PA. Can I have a PA, James? But yeah, he is. And I think that that's something where you can see it sometimes very in his phone, in his own head, doing what it needs to be. But it's a real art, that, because he's a showman, as you've seen on the show, the Netflix one. But the whole Matrium team, the whole Matrium team across the mall, the CEO, Frank, the CMO, Ross, who I've got a really great relationship with, all of them are just brilliant with us every time. They're super engaged. So that's why we like working with them, because that's the way that we are at FuelHub as well.

17:19James Laithwaite:one thing you mentioned earlier as well is that i mean your three pillars are premium trust and quality as well you've never tried to be the cheapest you i see it in newspaper industries where you get price cuts there's always a race to the bottom you've never done ridiculously you know 40 off your first order and stuff like that have you no i think that was from the very start

17:38Michelle Laithwaite:we always wanted to maintain that we are at the premium end of the market and that's our usp and our produce is by far the best quality that you'll find it ours is an industry in which which is quite a saturated market, but there are a few of us that are kind of the leaders. We really are focused on building a brand, building that trust, and making sure that we are the very premium. So it makes us not for everybody, but what it does is it makes our subscribers a lot more loyal, a lot more sticky. They're a bit more of a better caliber of subscriber. They'll stick with you for longer. and i know that a lot of our competitors are aggressively discounting because it does become a volume game and but like i say to the team all the time cream rises to the top our growth has been been quite fast certainly over the past 12 months but it's been sustainable for us we've never you know gone too heavy um and grown too fast it's kind of affected the quality or the service that's the balance because you'll see with our competitors that they will get negative reviews about the quality slipped or you know they're taking them out of the ball or whatever we make sure that we can always balance everything and that the growth sustainable for us you've got a

18:51James Laithwaite:subscription model haven't you yes you know so you know that you're going to be x number of orders every week as well i mean that's the that's if you can get a subscription-based model for any business that's the holy grail um one thing i like about you and james is i think you come across as authentic yeah and i've not met anybody who said to me tell you like that michelle that she's hard work. Apart from James. But you get what you see and I think that comes across it comes across in your LinkedIn as well and there's a LinkedIn post that I thought was brilliant. You did it on your fifth anniversary of Fuel Hub and you attached two photos there were five years apart.

19:27James Laithwaite:In the first when you were eight months pregnant and you're ready to deliver your first food order and then the second you know five years on you're in front of this giant articulated lorry and you've got all the Fuel Hub meals with all the all the packaging. Were the kids with us I think weren't they?

19:41Michelle Laithwaite:were the boys on the picture as well I think.

19:43James Laithwaite:I can't remember, I can't remember but either way it was just it was because you know you can you can write a million words but a picture it tells a million words yeah so you get the two right and it's authentic and you don't overdo it it's really it worked really well and I'm just going to ask you because it'd be better in your voice than mine can you read what you wrote? Okay. You don't need my glasses you're not that old are you? Am I that old? No you're not that old you don't need my glasses. Oh no I don't not quite yet maybe next year.

20:08Michelle Laithwaite:so we often get asked similar questions was it tough yes it was the hardest five years of our lives but also the best what were the biggest challenges and I'm so proud of what we've built we've had so many challenges including a newborn a pandemic a cost of living crisis food prices and energy at an all-time high to name a few it certainly has been tough we have invested everything into our business made massive sacrifices and taken huge risks there were Many times when James and I felt exhausted, overwhelmed and financially and emotionally stretched to our limits. But we helped each other through the tough days because we always believed in what we were building.

20:48James Laithwaite:Yeah, I mean, and you had a really good response to that. What's your approach to LinkedIn?

20:53Michelle Laithwaite:So it's a funny one with LinkedIn because you just touched on me and James being authentic and we are. and what we don't we want to be founders that we want our story to like inspire inspire people and to be um show them that we literally did come from nothing we had no money we don't come from wealthy backgrounds very working class roots we've built something really special together that we're so so proud of but we're not in the game of being you know wow look at us that's not who we are but we do want to put our story out there so there is a real big balance of celebrating the wins and the success without bragging and I think that's where LinkedIn's the perfect platform because it's really supportive and I think I put a post on the other week saying you know happy new year to the LinkedIn community it's like having thousands of mates that are on your side and I believe that with LinkedIn I love it and you know James and I will often write posts and then ask each other can you look at this and make sure it doesn't sound too cocky or too arrogant or whatever so really conscious of what we put out there but we are proud of what we've built and we're doing really well and we want to share it but we do find that there's a there's a fine balance because sometimes you'll read things

22:02James Laithwaite:and think oh you know yeah and i i i recognize those posts as well i think the thing is is that if you were to say everything in those five years was magic yeah and everything was great and nothing went wrong and i would say then then you're lying yeah you know but then there's the other side of

22:16Michelle Laithwaite:things as well you know there's times where i feel like you see so much wonderful positive stuff on LinkedIn but then there are days where you know you especially as like a you know a female founder you know a female CEO it's challenging for a woman it's challenging for me like just before you arrive Stanley's school run would say bumped his head well that's the third time this year and the other two occasions he was in hospital with them he's fine by the way there's no he's not in hospital on his own but but but they ring me they don't bring James and I'm you know and so it's all these different things that you know it's really challenging and it's tiring and i'm 43 now so you know i'm on the wrong side of 40 and you start to get tired i've got a teenager but all these things that are just impactful so sometimes i feel like you should be able to be honest on linkedin because i think they can be the most impactful and i did a panel just before christmas a women's event and we sort of sat there and we were really honest it was a room full of women and we were asked about like did they say challenges and in that kind of environment can really be honest and a little bit vulnerable and say you know it's challenging so it's not all rainbows and butterflies it's tough and we're going through this massive you know growth period now where the problems are still you know daily but they're a lot weightier

23:32James Laithwaite:now a lot heavier so that panel would have been with the amazing louise stevenson louise yeah exactly because she's raised like 160 000 200 000 pounds of breast cancer which is a phenomenal lady as well. I just want to focus on the relationship between you and James as a husband and wife. And the reason I say that for you is because there was a study that estimates there are 1.4 million couples or co-preneurs in the UK. You're the CEO, James is the CEO. Just explain the way that dynamic works. I mean, who does what and what's your strength and what's James's strength and weaknesses?

24:04Michelle Laithwaite:Well, I'm the CEO because I don't like being told what to do by anybody, even James. Yes, I am actually, yeah, I am. Yeah, very much. I've always been like that. Never liked being told what to do by parents, teachers, bosses, nothing. James is nodding in the back. Yeah, James is nodding.

24:19James Laithwaite:Okay, if you couldn't see that, James is definitely nodding. In fact, almost his head was coming off, he was nodding.

24:25Michelle Laithwaite:Me and James are so very different, but that's why it works. So James is very like, you know, calm and, you know, nice and day-to-day operational and he'll really give everyone time. and I'm very quick fast you know tell me all the facts let me make a decision you know I don't beat around the bush I really don't like it when people come to me and beat around the bush and don't have the facts even James and but it works so well like James will make sure that every single day the food gets produced and gets out of the door to the customer I'm more vision long-term strategy you know keeping obviously people happy on the board the investors the growth and really building now the team out as well and making sure we've got senior people in the leadership team in the right place because that's the next step for us is to really build that senior leadership team.

25:14James Laithwaite:See, I've spoken to my wife about this and I don't think we could work together and the reason I say that is that when we decorate we always argue. I hate being told what to do and I hate being told off you know and it's like I can do something that's not straight Yes it is, no it's not. So I don't think I could take that into a business.

25:33Michelle Laithwaite:I've actually created a monster with James though, because he's getting like me now, and he gives as good as he gets, yeah, which is, which is, but do you know what? Outside of work we have a great relationship, and it's important.

25:42James Laithwaite:How do you get that right? Because you're the CEO and COO here, but at home your mum and dad, husband and wife. How do you get that relationship and the demarcation lines?

25:50Michelle Laithwaite:Do you know what? I think because we've got, the boys are amazing, and we have so much fun with them. We're dead outdoorsy. We love going to the lakes and going for walks with the boys. we've got football we've got RAF cadets for Alfie and we've got all these things going on and we just always say to each other when we get home at night we probably will have like an hour where we'll talk work because a lot of time we're like ships that pass in here we don't even see each other and so we'll have like an hour where we'll chat about everything and then we make a rule where we go look eight o 'clock let's just stop talking about work but we do talk about working for the kids yeah exactly although last night we would be we were in bed at like quarter to 11 talking about chicken slices James weren't we?

26:29Michelle Laithwaite:A bit random but yeah so it depends on what's going on but we always talk about business in front of the kids we think it's really important because the kids have grown up with FuelHub and we want them to look at us and be you know parents for entrepreneurs and hopefully when I hear things in the background they'll take that with them throughout their life and I think that Alfie's showing the signs of being really entrepreneurial himself although he wants to be a pilot but he's quite busy he's 14 he wants to be a pilot and but he's quite it's quite business savvy already and he's very interested and I think it's really important to talk about business in front of your kids and that's a good move though it's because you get

27:04James Laithwaite:Alfie into like you know Ryanair yeah and then you get your food as a premium food you want to

27:09Michelle Laithwaite:Ryanair there you go exactly maybe British Airways maybe yeah a very good move premium I was going to

27:15James Laithwaite:ask you um going to be to change in a second um you spoke on LinkedIn about nipping up the lakes with James and have a date night yeah I mean because you're super fit and you've got no weight on you at all and you're perfect ambassadors for Fuel Hub you know there's nothing there's no fat on you at all so your idea of a date night is to go up to the lakes yeah and to climb a mountain at five in the morning yeah whereas my idea of a date night is is Doritos and the whiskey and Coke how important is that yeah to you as a couple and you as co-founders it's massively important and

27:49Michelle Laithwaite:And, you know, for the first few years, we really couldn't do much because of, you know, the finances. We couldn't leave the business. The Lakes is our happy place. We love it. The minute that me and James get to the lakes, we just go, OK. And we'll have like one night. It's a break from the kids as well. We've got a fantastic team here that we can completely trust to run things for us. So it's become a lot more. We've always loved the lakes. But there's been occasions where I remember once we climbed Scarfell. and when we're at the top of it we've got a call from our ops manager to say that dpd weren't arriving on time and there was this big massive catastrophe and so it wasn't always easy to relax you know and then but now because the team is so amazing and we can trust them we can really go and let ourselves be you know climb a mountain turn our phones off and then go and have some nice food afterwards and chill and it's it's definitely a happy place how often how comfortable

28:42James Laithwaite:are you with pitting yourself out there as Michelle Lafoy, you know, you know, the person? Because being in the public eye and selling yourself as a face-off Fuel Hub doesn't come naturally to everybody. How can I believe in that?

28:59Michelle Laithwaite:I'm comfortable with it in the right formats like this. I'm not being on a panel and speaking to, you know, other founders. I love being in that space. I'm not really a big Instagrammer. I'm not really somebody that puts themselves out on Instagram and all the rest of it. I think James feels a lot more comfortable just given that he's obviously used to play rugby in front of thousands of people. James has done commentary on BBC and stuff. I mean, I do a regular spot on BBC Radio 5 Live. It's easier on radio, though. And, yeah, so I'm getting more comfortable with it, really.

29:28James Laithwaite:I'm a big fan of Radio 5 Live. I'm a big fan of, actually, female founders being heard and seen as well. Definitely, yeah. We're going to come to James now and talk about... Well, he's going to have his right of reply, basically, but he's also going to talk about the transition from being a professional sportsman to being a business person, but also the dynamic between the two of you as well. So that's the first half over. That was Michelle Lathwaite, the chief executive of FuelHub. Part two, the second half, is James Lathwaite, her husband. He's the COO, played over 100 games in his rugby league career, suffered horrendous injuries as well.

30:00James Laithwaite:A bit younger than Michelle as well, and he said he had to learn from the bottom up when he launched FuelHub with his wife. Looking forward to this. well delighted that um jane glaithwaite has joined us he swapped seats with his wife michelle you sat in on what michelle said earlier i'm going to ask you a couple of questions one about the relationship between sport and business the relationship between you and your wife as well in terms of being the co-preneurs as well but you were nodding vigorously when michelle said i don't like being told what to do okay just get just you know shine a light on that um well yeah i think it It sort of speaks for itself.

30:35James Laithwaite:Michelle doesn't like being told what to do. She's a very, very independent, amazing lady. Or I wouldn't have married her. But, yeah, Michelle's very strong, independent, and she likes to do sort of what she feels right. Obviously, she listens to my views and takes it all on board. However, though, if Michelle has got something on her mind and she thinks it's the right decision, she's a very driven person. Yeah, great answer. So we're going to start about sport, if I may. I mean, this is the, you know, the Naked Founder podcast. If this was the Naked Sportsman podcast and I got you to reveal your left leg, you broke it four times.

31:13James Laithwaite:I think you've got double pins and you've got plates and you've got all sorts in there as well. You played over 100 games in a professional rugby league. Interestingly, I asked Michelle how many tries you scored and she knew, but it was a guess as well. How did you deal with the transition between being a professional sportsman to being a business person and were there any qualities that you could transition and take over from one to the other yeah well definitely there definitely was qualities going back to the the career um you're right i played about 105 games but a lot of them years were hampered by serious injuries from the age of sort of 16 i broke my leg at the first the first time when i was 16 I broke it again when I was about 18 22 25 really serious injuries, operations every time pins and plates I also had a broken neck in there as well dislocated shoulders was it?

32:09James Laithwaite:it was a brutal career Chris I'll be surprised if there's anyone with an injury record like mine to be honest was it a proper broken neck? Michelle mentioned it people talk about broken necks people talk about Bert Troutman and the former Man City goalkeeper as well. You know, what's it like dealing with that? Because the resilience that you need in business, and it's the R words, what you hear more than anything, is resilience what you need in sport? Yeah, definitely. Well, my broken neck was a fractured C3, so there's different vertebraes and stuff in your neck. Some are a lot more serious than other, and it all affects different parts of your body.

32:45James Laithwaite:So I was very fortunate to just fracture C3. I was actually sort of paralyzed for a few hours, sort of from the waist down, I think it was. I sort of lost feeling in my legs and toes. You wouldn't have known if it was temporary or permanent? No, at that point, I didn't know. I think I lost feeling in sort of my fingers and arms for a bit as well. Got on a stretcher, went to hospital, and then it started coming round, the feeling like a pins and needles feeling. But luckily by that evening, the feeling had fully come back. I had a very stiff neck. However, the feeling did come back. So I was very lucky in that instance.

33:21James Laithwaite:going back to your question about sort of resilience and what sort of traits I've learned from rugby I feel there are loads of really good qualities that I've learned from being a professional sort of a good attitude mental resilience coming back from injuries been on crutches for a number of weeks been bed bound for weeks having to focus on your diet that was a big area which forced us to found fuel hub really because with all my injuries if I'd have just gone and ate rubbish on the sofa for 12 weeks um that would have been the worst thing for my recovery so i was always focused on diet when i was injured that was one thing i was very very serious about even still getting to the gym with with a cast on the leg i was still doing chin-ups with a cast on and sat on the rower with one leg on a skateboard for example while i was doing rowing i was doing all this sort of stuff to keep fit and keep my nutrition in check so So I was always on the money on that side of things.

34:18James Laithwaite:But I just think in general, when you're part of a team and you want to do your best for your teammates and you want to perform for the crowd, whoever's watching, paying good money to come and watch you, all them traits have set me well in business. You were part of a team at some of the clubs that you played at, Warrington Wall, Toronto, Wolfpack, Bradford Bulls, same by three. You're part of a team here. You've got an inner team with Michelle And then you've got the Fuel Hub team of 40, 50 staff as well. That transition into becoming a business founder, how easy was that? Because it wasn't something you were taught, was it?

34:52James Laithwaite:No, no. It was quite difficult, to be honest. I sort of founded Fuel Hub with very limited experience in business, in anything to do with business, finance, invoicing, emails, you name it. I was sort of starting from the bottom. if there was like a bottom level level of sort of founding something or going into a career i i started from the bottom really but luckily i was always sort of a doer i i had a brain like i got i got good gcscs i went to college um and like michelle mentioned before i sort of when i was very young i got a little terraced house um and then i got like a flat an apartment got a few more from sort of re remortgaging them and luckily we had a bit of bit of money behind us just from from using my brain so i was sort of on the right path that side of things but in terms of the business i was starting from scratch i didn't really even know how to send emails correctly and what terminology to use so um so yeah it was all a learning curve um me and michelle were doing everything in the business from the start from washing pots to chopping vegetables to packing boxes to delivering boxes and we did everything you name it and it all set us in good stead for where we are now.

36:08James Laithwaite:There's no role in the business that me and Michelle haven't done. Now, final question. You mentioned that about you could barely send an email. Not because you're stupid because you weren't, but simply because, and I've spoken to a lot of professional sports people, and everything's done for them. You know, their food, their passports, their pay their bills. And when that stops, a lot of them struggle as well. You seem to have this really insatiable appetite to learn. Would that be fair? Yeah, definitely, yeah. like obviously we've got an amazing tool of online social media all this sort of stuff now now we've got chat gpt ai so there's so many learning tools out there i've always been a big um i've always loved podcasts so from day one i'd put a podcast on in the car all my podcasts are focused around business health well-being and like entrepreneurial stuff so that's where i did a lot of learning as well and yeah just just been a sponge really and trying to get as much information speaking to other people in the industry who've sort of done similar to what we've done other food manufacturing sites people in don't know packaging you name it I've sort of tried to learn learn on the go last question as well if you were talking to a couple out there who are thinking about launching a business based on your own experiences what would it be what would my advice be advice be be prepared for what's to come if it's going to be a successful business sacrifice a lot of sacrifice and you've just got to put in the hard work that is it work-life balance gets brandished around quite a lot of feel at the minute if you don't have that luxury because you're trying to grow a business that isn't always possible in the early days work-life balance will come well I think you can see there's an amazing chemistry between Michelle and James what you can't see actually if you're just listening to it is each of them were in the recording studio as we recorded the other person's interview as well and there were a few raised eyebrows a few laughs and a few nods as well i'm going to finish by talking to michelle and she's going to talk about her ambitions for fuel hub both in terms of where the business is today and where she want to take it welcome back michelle and i hope you heard what james had to say you've hit a milestone of i I think 20 ,000 meals a week.

38:25James Laithwaite:You employ around 50 people. I think this year you're tracking between six and six and a half million pound in turnover. What's your vision for Fuel Hub?

38:34Michelle Laithwaite:So, as you say, you know, it's been a big year for us, hitting that 6.5 million revenue mark. And the plan for us would be to move to a new facility that could take us to manufacturing up to 100 ,000 meals a week in the future. So finding our forever home, if you like, building on what we already do, you know, sticking to the mission which is to be the UK's most trusted meal prep brand focused on premium trust quality build out our b2b clientele as well we want to work more with corporate businesses as well um so we're looking to expand on that by bringing in a new business development manager who can be actively looking for those businesses we've got a few on our books

39:11James Laithwaite:already it's worth saying that i mentioned some of the professional sports clubs that you work with that's not exclusively what you do is it so are you b2c so 90 percent 92 percent of our revenue

39:24Michelle Laithwaite:is direct to consumer so it's a weekly box of meals obviously delivered to your door and around eight to ten percent depending on the point of the season and because of the sports that is the b2b side of things but we were hoping that that will grow into that corporate as well but

39:38James Laithwaite:it's very mainly direct to consumer yeah we spoke at the start about the fact that you got a desk from eBay for 20 quid. I think your first website cost you£800 as well. It did. It was very good. Do you look at the, do you look at your cash flow every day, five times a day? What's your...

39:52Michelle Laithwaite:Yeah, it's really weird because I am really stingy and me and James have had a meeting with our head of finance earlier and I just still act like we've got no money all the time. But we do need to invest, but it's great. You know, James is really good with the numbers as well. He really can, you know, have a good understanding and the grasp of costs and the operations. So Head of Finance is great. We're all in every day. We've got a really robust financial model and system that we're all in every day. So, yeah, we do. We do stay very close to it because it's key. We've had so many instances where things have hit us and side swiped us like the increase in poultry, increasing beef.

40:35Michelle Laithwaite:Beef at the moment is so expensive. It's incredibly expensive. So these things, they come in salmon, for example, we just got this massive jump in salmon last month. So we've always got to be constantly agile and pivoting, especially when it comes to the menu, to make sure that we're still giving customers the premium meals that they want, but making sure that we're keeping it within a price range for them.

40:55James Laithwaite:I have to say, because you're in a sector where discretionary spend, people might not want to pay an extra 20 % or an extra 20p, you know, because you're already premium end anyway. yeah we always end the naked founder podcast with the same question and there's a tradition in the us where the outgoing president will write a letter to the incoming president with advice okay if you're writing a letter to michelle as a founder or to any other founder there on day one

41:21Michelle Laithwaite:what would you say to yourself always trust your gut it's so simple like i say this to everybody all the time just trust that feeling in your gut all the time if you believe in something don't listen to people we got told from the start like you know you're crazy this isn't this this little food thing you're doing it's not really going to be anything and you know me and james were lucky to have each other but we always believed in it and if you believe it it will happen and just don't ever don't ever deviate from that just trust your instincts is what i would say i know it's very simple but have faith in your beliefs and your instincts you didn't have a plan b did you no it was plan a yeah all the way michelle delighted that you could uh a invite us

42:02James Laithwaite:and take part in the Naked Founder podcast. Huge thank you as well to our sponsors, Financial. We couldn't do it without them. Thank you very much to Michelle Nathaway.