#59 - Ellie-Mae Healey - Marna Iced Tea [Head of Brand] - Ex Perfect Ted

0:28Hello, hello, hello and welcome back to the Unfounders. as perceived. I think they're onto something really great. The brand is gorgeous. The liquids are delicious. And I really hope you enjoy this conversation. So without further ado, let's get on with it. I am so excited to announce that Mission Kitchen, London's home for food and drink entrepreneurs, are sponsoring the unfounders. If you're a chef, baker or food brand looking to grow, Mission Kitchen are the place to take it from kitchen table to the next level. I've been to the site in Niamh multiple times and you can truly feel the energy and excitement in the room.

0:55They support a membership of more than 100 startup businesses, giving flexible access to commercial kitchen space, expert mentorship, and of course, a network of fantastic founders, which is truly invaluable. If you're ready to take your business to the next level, head on down and book a tour today at missionkitchen.org forward slash unfounders.

1:21Hello, and welcome back to the unfounders. Today, I'm joined by the wonderful Ellie May Healy. So So Ellie, can you please let everyone know where you work and how long you have been there? Hi guys, I'm Ellie May. I work at Marner Iced Tea and I've been at Marner for, it's coming up to six months now, so not long at all yet. And I am the head of growth here at Marner. Brilliant. So for those who have heard Iced Tea and go, yeah, I know what Iced Tea is, what makes Marner different? What's the story? How did you get involved in Marner? So basically we're completely different to everything that's out there.

1:53We've kind of stripped iced tea back to basics we batch brew all our iced tea with real loose leaf tea to kind of create an elevated iced tea which has no sugar in it and is low in calories so trying to change that iced tea kind of game in the market I think everyone knows the big the big boys who've always been around like Lipton other the brands but a lot of iced tea in the market at the moment just doesn't brew actual real tea so yeah we're trying to bring it back to basics trying to do things the right way and slowly brew it and to kind of create an elevated product yeah for people to enjoy and then in terms of the story and found a story it started with Tristan and Tristan's 26 and his friend Mara and they were flatmates at Bath Uni but Tristan went on a trip to the US for holiday and absolutely was a massive iced tea fan already but went over there and saw the amazing kind of selection of iced tea and how over there they actually brew with real tea there's a lot of selection and he did notice like over there whilst he's over there there's so much sugar in iced tea and I think he was trying to be a bit healthy with all the American food he was using and he was trying to find something that didn't have any sugar in I mean he just couldn't find it so he came back spoke to Mara his housemate when he was back in the UK and was like let's give it a crack like in our house I'm in London try and see we can make some actual iced tea here So they made it and they started making it in their house in London in big batches, tea bags, brewed it overnight and then just like shipped out to their friends, see if they liked it.

3:30And it was quite a big success. And then they kind of went from there onto markets and they tested out the concept and then tried to find a way to see if they could scale it up. Yeah, Kamana was kind of born out of the idea that Tristan had a real big love for iced tea and then came to the UK and realised there wasn't a healthy, low sugar iced tea here and no one was doing it the real homemade way. I think it's been about two years since then. And then I joined about six months ago. So it's all been a bit of a roller coaster since the first idea was born. So from an iced tea perspective, like I've tried various iced tea, like when you go to America or a lot of places abroad, you'll find iced tea and it just seems like much more of a thing.

4:18Especially in America, you get like your Arnold Palmers and all these other kind of things. But sometimes they are either really, really super sweet or they're not sweet at all and they're really bitter and horrible. And I had the lemon one yesterday. I've got the mango one in my hand right now. So I'm going to do a, let's see if we can get the old noise. That's satisfying. Hopefully that comes across in record. But yeah, one thing I really liked was you can actually taste the tea, which I think, as you said, the fact that it's brewed from real tea. I gave some to my sister-in-law and she was just like, wow, it actually tastes like tea.

4:48So yeah, what's the from you coming in and going, well, were you an iced tea fan? Were you kind of on the fence? Like I'm I'll put my hand up and say I'm massively a coffee fan. I do like the odd tea, but I probably much more drink an iced tea if it tastes as good as this versus a cup of tea. So what brought you into the tea world and what was that move for you? so in terms of yeah i've always been a big coffee fan as well but in terms of tea my parents are both northerners so i've always drank tea since kind of a young age but when i went on holiday i'd always have iced tea um and i did used to drink quite a lot of like lipton iced tea when i was younger um and then kind of when i grew up i was wasn't as big of a fan just because of the sugary element and trying to be healthy and things like that but yeah i'm i've never really found anything that's like mana and when i tried it and met the boys i was like wow this is amazing i really love the concept the vision and the idea and i just thought it's something that i've never ever kind of thought about before um because i think when you taste what's on the shelves at the moment it's quite sugary it doesn't feel like it's actually tea um it's all very yummy but not necessarily the most healthy option so yeah i think it's very different to what's out there as well which is what was really exciting when i came across it uh yeah i can confirm the mango is absolutely delicious i think that's probably going to be my my go-to i know you said the peach is the most popular yeah peach drinks are always absolutely delicious so yeah with the mana team now so you've mentioned tristan and maro so you've mentioned these guys is there anyone else in the team uh how big is the team now you've clearly got an office with the background behind you um no it is a team of three so we've kept it very lean uh tristan maro started it in jan 2024 and then i joined um at the beginning of the show so yeah we've kept it very very lean um to start with um and i think the next kind of coming months um and next year especially i think we'll look to grow the team out uh but um yeah we keep it very lean we really play into a lot of ai and we kind of utilize ai for a lot of things especially like the operational element of things Mauro, the co-founder, he's ex-tech, ex-startup, so that's very much come from him.

7:00And I've literally, since being here, I've learned so much in terms of how to utilize AI in the best way possible, but also kind of keep that human touch. So all the relationship sides of things, we really, really make sure that the human touch is still there. But yeah, in terms of operations, AI has been big help, especially with such a small team. So yeah. We all know that brand is important, right? But what if I told you it can impact growth and customer acquisition costs by up to 50 %? Against Ordinary are a brand agency who help founders, marketing departments, scaling teams ensure their brand is the most powerful tool for growth.

7:35From brand strategy, tone of voice and visual identity to helping you get retail ready with ongoing brand growth retainers. They really are the full circle agency for growing your brand. B and the team are absolutely fantastic. Just imagine what they could do for your brand. So what are you waiting for? see how they can be your grand growth partners against ordinary.com i'd love to know if you have like a tangible example of the kind of ways of doing that because ai often gets a really bad rap and people i know it's taking jobs it's doing that but it's like actually when you utilize it properly like even if it's just tweaking a long waffly email and just say like please refine this for me or whatever it is like what are the kind of software or things that you're using to streamline your business especially as a small team i think one of the big things for us is kind of our our sales system and our sales funnel and the way as a small team of three we can't like reach out to everybody individually we're trying to utilize quite a few sales platforms to kind of either send out sales outreach but then personalize it in a really nice way but also on the other hand we do it for ops as well so kind of anything po's coming in we kind of automate that with our ai that we've that we've done ourselves um kind of we've coded it so we can basically get any kind of new order coming in can be sent straight out and we don't have to touch it so yeah we've done quite a few things on an operational standpoint and from a sales standpoint um to kind of streamline every process even coming down to kind of our sales um database as well things we can type in um if we've found a new lead it will come up in our sales database and then the whole team have it and then that'll send out like an email chain to other people so we've done small things that have like very like time efficient things that can help us in quite a few ways you haven't found one for new line forms have you that would be my favorite thing because they used to be my least favorite thing yeah i'm sure everyone like that's a massive like please no whoever creates the new line form app um where you can type everything in and does it for you i think that'll be onto it onto a good one there brilliant and for you with being head of growth like what does a typical day week look like for you i know we're we're talking the week that lunch is about to go live so when this comes out hopefully many people listening will have come and seen us and said hi and tried your drinks and come and seem packed but yeah what does a typical week look like for you at the moment gosh i don't think i've got a typical week every week is so so different i can imagine you're the same um in a startup and in an fcmg business it's always different but i'll give an example of this week um the past couple weeks um i've been doing a mixture of kind of sales outreach and people are coming to lunch um this week um i also have been the flip side not doing sales i've been doing kind of the graphic design and the operations behind lunch and trying to get the trade show set up so kind of an events standpoint as well so not just sales um a bit of marketing bit of events planning I kind of leave the ops and finance to Tristan so that's not my forte at all but um yeah so I feel like every every week is so different which is why I love it so much yeah it can be reaching out to buyers maintaining like relationships with our current customers and current accounts um going for a coffee with somebody in the industry also managing our wholesalers as well like every single day is different especially when you're in that kind of first couple years of like that scrappy startup phase it's always like unexpected you don't know what the week's gonna bring um which is why i really really enjoy it as well um yeah i like i like how every day is different it's quite nice yeah i think that's a the common answer like i ask it a lot of podcasts but i'm always like i know no one's gonna be like okay monday i do this it's like no that's never there's never the same which is the beauty of why this industry so much fun um and I think I'd love to now touch back on your career history because I know you've you've done some bits and events like way back when um but what kind of when you were in education or growing up what did you think you were going to do full-time for a role and how have you ended up where you are today so when I was back at school I was very very sporty so I was obsessed with hockey and I very much wanted to go down the professional sports person's route and go to the Olympics and that was like my big dream um but unfortunately yeah that didn't happen I got injured and things didn't end up how they meant to end up which I guess is the case for a lot of people but yeah I I was always very entrepreneurial I loved business I had loads of interest I love politics and sport so I kind of didn't really know um when I left university kind of what I wanted to do um and I went traveling for six months after after uni because I just had no clue and I kind I wanted to experience the world a bit more and then I came back from traveling um and I just had absolutely no idea I was applying to loads of different things and I was thinking do you know what I'm going to write down a list of businesses I really want to work for um and I think are really cool at the moment um and entrepreneurial and where I can grow so I wrote down kind of five names of businesses and perfect head was in one of them and I'd seen it on LinkedIn and I was thinking wow this is a really amazing cool new business I really like I saw Dragon Zen episode and I was like do you know what I'm gonna write a cold email to their head of sales and see if there's any roles going at all so I wrote a cold email to Shani at Perfect Head and they invited me in for an interview which I was quite shocked about but I did spend I did spend hours like crafting a perfect email listening to podcasts and industry kind of understanding as much as I could because I was like very determined on like getting a job there because I just thought wow this is a really cool business it's it's growing really quickly and it's something I wanted to be a part of so yeah I had an interview there and then got a role um our perfect head um in their sales team and I was a wholesale and specialty account manager there um and learned an insane amount like so much in a short space of time there um as you can see like they've grown so quickly it's like a massive rocket ship like you feel like you're you've been there for years but it's not been years it's been months um learned a great deal and kind of fell in love with the industry from then on and yeah i my role was mainly looking after the wholesalers speciality um accounts like selfridges etc and then kind of also was helping with a lot of the new business side of stuff there as well perfect ted taught me a great deal uh i felt like i learned like five years of fcmg in such a small time and then i actually met mara and tristan founders of mana a couple years back at an event um and stayed in touch with them we became really good friends um and i was kind of like cheering them on from the sidelines and then they asked me to join um join them at the start of this year um I couldn't turn it down because I kind of saw the vision of the business they really like impressed me they were great people and I was like do you know what I want to join an early stage startup um and be at like the proper scrappy phase and new business phase because that was like what I love the most uh so yeah and I guess that's kind of like how my journey came into the role I'm in now yeah there's a lot more on the way but yeah no I think obviously perfect ted everyone will know of them I had max on as the very first episode so I know you worked with max for a period of time but what was the transition like going from perfect ted where it's an ever-growing team to then doing that swap to coming across to mana and then being kind of one of three like how how was that move for you to begin with you're like oh this is a much quieter office now yeah quite tough like I obviously big big way bigger team there still startup but way later in the stage of their growth journey and whereas man is still much very in their early stage still trying to fight for business trying to fight for our first big retailer and I think that I really wanted to be in such more of an early stage startup and kind of be in that growth trajectory so yeah that was one of the big reasons I wanted to move across and just learn learn even more so yeah no it's been very different to adjust but I'm really enjoying it so far and I've learned a lot a lot of things I mean Tristan has a ex kind of banking background so I've learned a lot of finance side of the business and kind of the P &L side a lot a lot better um which is great and I think my commercial like skills as well I've got like a lot better just from like sitting next to him every day and having such like a numbers brain whereas I'm very much I think an English English brain so yeah um a lot has changed and yeah smaller teams nice you'll keep in touch with a lot of the perfect head team Max included he's doing really well so yeah yeah no love that I think it's it's quite the quite the swap and I imagine working with Shani and the rest of the sales team because that sales team just seems to be ever expanding and growing like what were what kind of some of the the best lessons or learnings during your time there that you've kind of taken across with you into mana i think to be honest i kind of went into perfect head not knowing anything about the industry not knowing what skew was a palette not knowing any other kind of lingo at all building building my like bank knowledge there um not just in wholesale but also like in retail and being exposed to that side of the business and how how what how it works i kind of knew absolutely nothing so i think honestly the lessons I learned um were like invaluable there just from interacting with buyers and reach out and like sales outreach and how that should be like all kind of put together yeah I learned so much um and then also like the marketing side as well because we all were in the same office we kind of saw everything that was going on so yeah no really invaluable being even it was a small team so I think we were a team of like 15 when I was there um and now it's like 35 I think which is crazy um so yeah no I can imagine um like it's completely different now the the stage they're at but um yeah when we're a team of 15 we used to have like lunch every day on Fridays together I think they probably still do that now but um still get to hear the insight from ops from marketing from all sides of the business which is what I kind of loved being quite entrepreneurial myself.

18:10So I kind of loved having like the little bits of intel and little bits of knowledge from everyone when we used to sit down on that Friday. And then that's kind of what I love about Marno now, I get to do a bit of everything, which is fun. Yeah, I think I was going to say, I bet there's even more of that now being a smaller team where it's like, oh, actually, like we need some marketing, but you're going to be the one that's going to help do that now. So yeah, I think that's always the fun stage. I think for me, that's where I've always loved being and it's nice when you have the team building around you as well.

18:41Sure. So you've been six months in the role. What have been some of your kind of big wins or kind of favorite experiences or things that you've done so far? Well, so far, I would say I think I've been put in a position now where I'm like heading up majority of the commercial strategies, looking at retail and like kind of having those conversations with buyers, which I never really had prior in my prior role so that's all quite new to me but that's like the more exciting end of things like trying to I mean as a challenger brand in general trying to get into big retail um and have this like first initial conversations with buyers I think is really tricky and really challenging and I'm sure like a lot of other brands um kind of know I'm coming from there but um I find it really exciting um and the challenge to try and get us into big retail and try and like connect with those buyers is really exciting part of the role um and also a big challenge as well but yeah in terms of like the big wins um we've recent months we we've done really well in like the qsr side um of of the business like we've done really well in qsr majority because mana's fat free so because of our tea content and our iced tea it's vat free so So for QSR and big coffee chains, it's a big, big commercial win for them.

20:03So, yeah, we've been doing really well. We launched into Farmer J's, Oil & Steen this year, and a few more exciting ones to come, which I'm not sure if I'm allowed to share. And then, yeah, some other big accounts, Westmoreland Group as well we've launched in, and some others. Yeah, I think big focus has been on retailers and trying to crack those. Yeah, no, I think there's a lot more exciting things to come in 2026. Hopefully it will be executed. That's brilliant. Yeah, I love that. And I think for anyone who is listening, obviously you mentioned a few places people can buy it. Like where else can people get their hands on the drinks other than hopefully having tasted them at lunch last week?

20:44Yeah, so we're in a lot of coffee chains. We're in Olenstein, the Pokey Houses. For some reason, every single Pokey House loves Mama. We're in Ireland Pokey, Pokey House. but also in Whole Foods markets you can find us there in Harrods and then a lot of offices around as well. I think we've majority of the first year Mara and Tristan were majoritively trying to crack offices and get us into as many offices as possible because I know that a lot of working professionals love Marner especially because of the health benefits of the tea and it's low calories. So I think, yeah, no, I probably missed quite a few as well off the list.

21:27I think that's kind of the main ones at the moment. We've done London really well. I've completely forgot. I think we've done London really well. I think one of our first listings was Fortnum & Mason, which kind of drove kind of our marquee listings. So we got Fortnum & Mason last year and that was one of our real marquee partners. And then we also got listed with Soho House as well, which was one of the big drivers and I think winning those marquee partners has really helped us to go into like the next phase of growth so yeah I think winning like Soho House, Fortnum & Mason etc Harrods has like really elevated the brand a bit and put the brand into spaces and people's hands that we wouldn't have been able to get the brand into before but yeah and we also recently made fortner mason's first ever iced tea as well which was exciting we announced that i think it was last week yeah amazing i've got the can here i can show you one sec we've got a little collection of all our cans can't actually see it yeah we made fortner mason's um iced tea um which was a big big privilege and the fact that they trusted us to do that um i feel like does is it means a lot to us as a business and I think yeah we're also listed with them as well in their stores so Marn is there as well so yeah something I'm really proud of.

22:53Nice were you involved in that project was that like already in motion as you came on or was this something that you led? It was in talks when I came on but I can't give I can't take any credit at all I mean Tristan did majority of the work but yeah no we were involved like the buy side of things and then kind of like the execution side of things as well but I think majority was Tristan it was kind of in motion as I arrived so yeah I definitely can't take credit at all but yeah something very special I think as well and I'm quite proud to be a part of part of that I think yeah these landmark listings and partners like having a Soho house Fortnum & Mason they just kind of give that depth and quality and it ticks I mean as I said I've been sipping away at this mango iced tea like throughout the podcast now and it's absolutely delicious so I think once you get it in hand and liquid on lips is always the phrase which is obviously why trade shows and samplings and getting people to try it but what do you think kind of one of your biggest barriers is with regards to iced tea because from my perspective if I think of iced tea I do think of Lipton I think if it's really sweet and sugary and that's kind of where my head goes so what like what's your perception of the iced tea market or the biggest challenge for consumers and and buyers as such because they're like well we've got some iced tea i think for us like iced tea in the uk is kind of always been quite a stagnant market so you've only had your your lipton or your harry bromptons and then that's literally been it there's kind of been no other players in the market um it hasn't really had a fresh take or a modern take on it that category hasn't really been touched for years for decades and i think what's out there at the moment is iced tea that's not actually made with real tea but made with extracts and sweeteners and sugar so it's all very it's very it's been quite the same and not kind of been untouched and so yeah I think the fact that we've come in to kind of disrupt that it's quite exciting to give the UK a healthier version of their kind of favorite drink I mean I think we can all probably agree that tea is probably one of Britain's most loved and kind of yeah it's quite ironic that tea is is one of like the UK's biggest biggest loves and yeah I think we've come to disrupt that in like a modern way and try and make iced tea healthier overall I think there's quite a few barriers obviously like as a new brand coming in getting your name out there is really hard getting in front of the buyers is also really hard trying to get like 30 seconds of their time is tricky but I think the more we get samples into hands get people tasting mana I think is probably the best bet for us and I think more people that try it more people we can hopefully convert to a healthier option um so yeah love that um for the listeners benefit is it still is it sparkling like what um so it's it's lightly sparkling which i think some people are sometimes like whoa i'd not expect that at all iso is meant to be flat but when tristan amaro first did their kind of focus group testing they found that in a can people prefer and expect like a sparkling or a fizz so yeah and majority of People preferred it with the lightly sparkling touch.

26:00So yeah, that is what we went for. So yeah, it's all three flavors, lemon, mango and peach. They're all lightly sparkling, which is something quite different. But it's been super popular and received really well so far. Yeah, I think that almost surprised me because again, I don't know if it says anywhere on Cannes. It might have something on there. It might be something that's been tweaked. But yeah, from my side, I've definitely had other iced teas or things that have come in a can where I've expected, like subconsciously, I've expected the sparkles. And the fact that it hasn't, I'm like, oh, yeah, well, it's an iced tea.

26:35I think it's Naughty. Do like the alcoholic iced teas. Those are still. And the first time I had it, I went like, for some reason, I expected bubbles, even though there's nothing that says it's sparkling or fizzy or yeah. Yeah. Even having like a can of water, you crack it open and it's the still one. You're like, oh, I'm expecting some bubbles. So I think it's smart from that perspective because I think people will naturally understand that. But yeah, I think it absolutely makes sense. And to me, as I said, I think the flavor is really good. And I would way prefer that over a kind of still hot tea.

27:05I would probably choose one of these because I like the fruitiness. I like the fact that there's no sugar in there. There's all these other things. And the flavor of actually the fruit and the tea is very real. And I think that's, yeah, from my respect and to anyone listening, definitely keep your eye out because they are delicious you join my sales team yeah no I no I agree completely um yeah it's really different which I think is what what the aim was um yeah I think the aim of the next six months to a year is just to get as many people trying as possible I think that's the main main aim and start a brand so um I think taste is always like number one in terms of importance to I think every consumer so I think that was a big tick for us Love that.

27:46Flipping it from away from all this exciting, positive, uplifting stuff. I'd love to know some like tough days when things didn't quite go to plan, like in both Perfect Ed where things are moving at a million miles an hour and now moving to a much smaller team where there's very few of you doing lots of things. Like, has there been any like things that have gone wrong recently or some really tough times? You're like, oh, that was actually, that was my bad and it was a really bad day. And but we got through it and here's how. yeah i mean gosh there's so many things i think as a small business and when you're growing you're always like learning things always happen i can think of probably one that happened recently during production we're producing a big production round of drinks and the factory flooded so we have these big tanks where when we brew our tea before they go into the canning line we get big tea bags extra large tea bags and chuckle the tea in so it can brew overnight and somehow our big tank flooded and it flooded the um the whole factory floor which as you can imagine wasn't the finest of days but yeah it was a complete accident I mean these things happen yeah uh quite a stressful day um a lot of liquid on the floor um a bit of a disaster but yeah I think we obviously learned from that and the factory team did as well so yeah I think that was one of the big ones that's recently happened and there's a lot of a lot of other examples as well but um yeah i think when you're at a startup you kind of have to expect all these like knockbacks um and there's kind of things trying to punch you in the face all the time and just kind of have to get keep getting back up and laugh it off but yeah no i think yeah uh walking into any factory where the the products leaked or flooded i can imagine the heartbreak the horror they're like okay how do we fix this what's gone on yeah it's not not what anyone wants especially when you get also the cost like that's that production gone it'll mess orders up yeah yeah hopefully it didn't affect operations too much no we're back to all good we're all fine yeah i think we learned a big lesson on that one so um yeah i don't think it will happen again i think good touch and word don't want that to happen again but yeah no i love that and from your learning so you obviously in the past you didn't touch on but you've done some like hospitality doing some front of house and some other things like that like to me I think customer service and kind of the service industry is such a good way of learning everything from how to handle relationships how to look after people how to communicate like so many things can you think of any times or any lessons you've had either from coaching or swimming or being involved in hospitality that you're like actually these skills are really transferable because I think that I think there's so much to be said for anyone who works in hospitality in a previous podcast we're talking about field sales talking about cold calling all these things and learning rejection and handling conflict and all these things there's so much within it yeah no I completely agree I think when I was at school I was a swim teacher and I learned so much from that I did that for around like three or four years whilst alongside studying for my A-levels so yeah I kind of taught from kids learning how to swim for the first time who were afraid of the water up to adults that couldn't swim as you can imagine quite a lot of challenges arise with being a swim teacher a lot of parents that want their kids to move up a lot of like difficult kids so yeah I think like in terms of like people skills I learned so much doing that job how to have those awkward conversations with parents about about their kids or how to how to speak to someone how to speak to kids when they weren't listening I think that made me grow up quite quickly even though I was probably like 16 or 17 then so yeah I think that was a big a big thing for me as well as all the hospitality roles I've done I mean I think everyone should should try and work in hospitality at some point I think it does open your eyes um to a lot of things but yeah in terms of like a customer service standpoint and kind of speaking to people um I think that did teach me quite a lot uh especially in those kind of growing up throughout school I always loved to work I think I always loved that extra money extra pocket money so I always kind of had two or three jobs on the go whilst at school at uni as well I did another I did a field sales role as well at uni which was a lot of a lot of like door-to-door sales it was a tech startup so I was going around selling so I think that was kind of my first insight to sales and whilst you got a lot of rejections and no's and doors in your face I think the resilience you kind of build from jobs like that when you're quite young it's quite uh really powerful I think that in kind of my sense of why I went into sales and kind of how I think I ended up down that road was because of the people element like I love chatting to people and kind of people's always kind of been the center of all my jobs so I think that's why yeah the kind of how it led to to the role I'm in now I think that's my favorite part of the job and speaking to people, the relationship side of things as well.

32:55So yeah. Yeah, totally agree. I always say I fell into sales and it's just all about relationships. Like I just naturally sell. As you said, I'm coming to join your sales team, apparently from my pitch today. Yeah. Like when I'm passionate about something, I'll tell people and everyone's like, yeah, you know, that is sales. So that's kind of why I've ended up in this world. But to anyone who is in a situation where they're looking for their next move or coming out of school and uni and going, where do I go next? Like, what do I do? what would your first bit of advice be like to to get them into this world or to get them into the the field sales sales world yeah I think I've had quite yeah quite a few people message me about like how how did you get into a startup at the moment like the job market is really tough especially for people coming out of uni people coming out of school and also a lot of people don't know what they want to do so yeah I know when when I left I kind of wrote a list of of businesses down that I was really inspired by and that I wanted to work at and then like religiously kind of studied them um listened to podcasts I mean I listened to loads of fcmg podcasts before my interview um and kind of prepared myself in every way but um I think the best thing you can go and do is message someone reach out to people and not be afraid of like of no one replying or no one saying no and trying to kind of immerse yourself in industry as much as you can try and meet people for coffee go to lunch go to trade shows and kind of immerse yourself properly um yeah properly in the industry and kind of understand it um before kind of applying for those roles is probably my advice yeah totally agree I think I did the same when I closed my business I meant what's next for me uh I was like well I want to work in the food world but what brands do I love and I was just literally opening my cupboards and fridges and freezers and going okay what's what's in here what brands do I like why do I like them and got to do exactly the same like listen to podcasts hear the founders, go on LinkedIn, find the stories, find the teams, who's making noise, who's doing really cool stuff.

34:53And I think after a while, you realize this is a very small industry. Eventually, everyone knows everyone, which is another reason I'm so excited for lunch this week. But yeah, I would love to now just go on to the song. So this is the song question that I ask everyone. And it's what song best represents your experience in the working world? I think I'm going to say, which is probably controversial, but I'm going to say Messy by Lola Young. I don't know if you've heard it. It's a new one. I do know that one, yeah. Purely because I feel like nothing is ever perfect in the working world. It's always messy.

35:23It's always unpredictable. But I think that is like the fun of the startup life. That is the fun of like working in a small business. Yeah, I knew I never kind of wanted to work at a big corporate business. I wanted to be kind of the entrepreneurial side and like the grafting in the proper scrappy side of things and trying to learn as much as I could, which is why I kind of went down went down the startup route after uni um so yeah i think messy also one of my favorite songs at the minute no see it's a good one it's always in the office i will add it to the playlist that'll be the ever-growing playlist which if you haven't checked out and you're listening get into the comment section and hit the the unfounder song selections it is pretty wild but it's a it's really good fun i'm gonna have to add it to our office playlist yeah it's you'll there'll be some songs like what on earth is this and you'll have to work out who actually did that so um yeah there's some some wild card ones in there no this has been really fascinating i think the brand looks gorgeous the liquid is delicious i think it's it's got a really good concept and opportunity to grow in the market and with you involved i'm excited to see what uh what else is to come great yeah no same i'm excited and thanks for having me on it's been great um i'm very excited for what's to come and i'm sure i'll see you at lunch as well yeah absolutely and And for anyone who wants to get hold of you or find out more about Mana, where is the best place to do it?

36:43Is it LinkedIn? Yes, I live on LinkedIn. So if you ever message me, I try and reply to everyone. So yeah, LinkedIn is definitely the best place. I'll put the website in as well. Hopefully you've got a stockist list so people can find out where to find it and get their hands on it. No, been an absolute pleasure. And yeah, to everyone else listening, thank you so much. We will see you on the next episode. Thank you.