The Inherited Entrepreneur: You Can Inherit Money But Not Respect

0:02If you grow up in a family with a lot of privilege and a lot of opportunity, I think it's really important that you grab those opportunities and respect that other people don't have these opportunities. opportunities, so you should grab them by both hands whenever you can. In 2022, Belgian Henry Vindevogel launched a beauty and personal care unit called TOCG within his family's holding company, Demir Group. Brand offerings include natural and sustainable lotions, deodorants, and shampoos sold via major retailers, e-commerce players, and independent shops. In 2023, TOCG earned$45.8 million in revenue.

0:43That would be also an amazing idea for someone that has nothing. But you already had something and you decided to still venture and do something by yourself. Why? I think it all comes down to the values that you grow up with. You know, my father, my mother, every time they said something, you can do whatever you want in life. But if you do it, you have to be the best at it. I think the biggest disadvantage is that people always compare you with your family. So if somebody else starts a business, 5 million in revenue, everybody would say, oh, it's a great thing, you know. But for me or for people in my situation, they really start comparing you with your father, you know.

1:21Do you use money as a way of quantifying how successful you are? Do you think your story is misunderstood by others?

1:39Henry, I've interviewed several founders and what they all have in common is that they've started with very little financial means, some of them with none. And also most of them, if not all of them, they didn't have an immediate network, a professional network that they could tap into so they could be helped in one way or another to build up their business. In your case, your path towards success, it is different. And that's why I think this conversation, this episode is going to be very interesting because you decided to open up a business within a wider portfolio of businesses that belong to your family.

2:22And I am very sure that this comes with its own set of challenges. And I'm also very sure that it wasn't a walk in the park for you. In a nutshell, can you describe to me what's the mission, the vision of your company? effectively what is it and secondly why did you decide to work with your family in one way or another yeah well if you grow up in a family with a lot of privilege and a lot of opportunity i think it's really important that you grab those opportunities and prove well not prove but essentially respect that other people don't have these kind of opportunities so you should grab them by both hands whenever you can and that's also when how i started my company to cg so the organic consumer group because we got this opportunity where we were approached by an investment banker and they they uh they said okay we have this company that's for sale dr organic it's a carve out out of a big deal bountiful company got sold to nestle for five billion there's a portfolio of beauty and personal care brands that are still there uh are you interested and we said yeah okay let's look at it and in a short time of four weeks we looked looked at the company and closed it four weeks after so but that was the start of essentially a platform so I was kind of through into the idea but then when we started looking at the company we started seeing all the opportunity that was there so it's essentially it was an orphan brand that got neglected for a long time, but it still had this authentic brand, a loyal customer base, a foundation that we could build around.

4:04And what my family has traditionally done in the last 30 years is looking at trends that are happening in the markets and trying to preempt those kinds of trends. So that's what I saw when I looked at Dr. Organic, is the trend that people are moving to this clean slash natural beauty and personal care. And we had this great foundation where we could build on. So that's why we started TUCG, because we saw, if I give you a little bit of a backstory, this industry has tremendously changed over the last 10 years. 10 years ago, it was dominated by small to medium-sized businesses you would buy in independent mom and pop shops.

4:49Now, 10 years onwards, natural and clean beauty and personal care products. You can buy it anywhere. In every supermarket, in any drugstore chain, you have Unilever, Procter & Gamble that are also there. And being a natural is no longer necessarily a USB. So we saw the opportunity there that there's a lot of these amazing small to medium-sized businesses, but that have to face this kind of new reality of increased competition, resources coming into the space. So we saw this opportunity of combining them and unlocking the synergies that exist between them, but also adding capabilities that these smaller companies do not necessarily have, you know, like e-commerce capabilities, capabilities to internationalize, you know, a lot of these founders, managers that are in these businesses.

5:40they started working for these companies started these companies because they believed in they wanted to change the world you know bring products to the market that are more sustainable that are good for the planet and essentially we wanted to combine all of these businesses professionalize them so that we can bring them to the next level so that we can bring them hire the right people bring them abroad bring them to the right channels and use our network and the investor base that we have and the people that we know to unlock the potential that exists within them. I'm very interested in understanding how your brain functions because I think it's safe to assume that a lot of people that would be bringing up or would be growing up in a similar environment to yours where perhaps wealth was something that was around you, one can become lazy in a way and you don't have the need to either make money but also develop things because those are things are already around you um so i'd like to understand why did you decide to do this and open up a business in this case i think it's a it's a great idea you're effectively acquiring all this set of organic beauty brands deploy your management resources help them perhaps clear out the bottom line scale them up and find synergies between them now that's an amazing idea and i think that would be also an amazing idea for someone that has nothing but you already had something and you decided to still venture and do something by yourself why well i think it all comes down to the values that you grow up with you know my father my mother every time they said something you can do whatever you want in life but if you do it you have to be the best at it you know if you want to be a painter go paint but be the best painter if you want to be a baker go do that but be the best one and that's kind of how we grew up you know i come from a family of entrepreneurs my father's not preneur my mother runs a hotel so she's an entrepreneur as well my uncle also has a business my grandfather has a business so for me it's kind of like a butcher son becoming a butcher for me it was obvious to to become an entrepreneur but also an investor so it was kind of this natural path for me and it's like you said if you grow up with a lot of resources and wealth it's it's quite easy to just relax and just say okay let's let's do whatever and you know let's let's work but mostly spend time doing the things that i enjoy but that's the thing i really enjoy building these brands when I go into Holland and Barrett or Boots, on holiday even, I go into the store, I look at the products, I see people buying the products, and that's what makes me happy.

8:36And that's also something that I saw with my father growing up. It's not always that we've had the resources that we have now. He also built his company from small, and he's done it five times already. But that is so inspiring. You can do it many times, but it all starts with creating a good brand, a good company, a nice culture around you and enjoying what you do essentially. Because otherwise there's no point to it. I think the benefits of being brought up in such an environment are obvious to an extent. So on one hand you have access to resources whenever you want to do something, but also from a learning perspective you have all these great entrepreneurs immediately next to you that can advise you, but also you can learn from their experiences.

9:31But I'm also sure that there are disadvantages of growing up in such an environment. One of the things that I picked up on from what you were saying is that your family is asking you to be the best at whatever it is, whether it's a baker or selling potatoes, whatever it is that you want to do in life, be the best. I think that that can have an impact in your perception of life. It can make you insecure in one way or another if you're not delivering according to their standards. What are the unobvious disadvantages that perhaps people don't know when it comes to growing up in such an environment?

10:15I think the biggest disadvantage is that people always compare you with your family. So if somebody else starts a business, five million in revenue, everybody would say, oh, it's a great thing, you know. But for me or for people in my situation, you know, they really start comparing you with your father, you know, like if he started businesses that are way bigger than that. So then it's like, OK, you know, even if you do something, they might credit the things that you do to your father just because people just know you from the newspaper, from whatever they see online. but essentially they don't know the dynamics within the company and at some point in my life i also decided okay you know we have the resources that we have today and it's also my duty for me and my family to sustain that and do something with it because i've also thought okay let's start something from scratch and then people will respect it more but then again you know it was already there so why not use it and not use all the network and people around you like also when i started investment banking i uh i applied for a job and i wouldn't wanted to do it all by myself you know like i applied online i did you know all the interviewers didn't want my dad to interfere whatsoever and i succeeded and that was the first step that i did okay i did it by myself but essentially when I look back at it it's it's essentially not necessary use all of the help you can get use all of your network because the world will do it as well everybody else will do it so don't put yourself in a disadvantage from the start so as I said before I I was fortunate to grow up with this network with this with these resources but I think the the most respect I can pay to it is by again grabbing these opportunities grabbing these possibilities that i have and do something with it because it's easy for me to say okay let's let's just live a happy life but you know not make it too difficult for myself i can understand what you're saying because on the other side of the table there are advantages to starting a business with no means or that vast network.

12:37The most obvious advantage is that if you fail, no one is looking. In your case, let me put it in an even more obvious example. The son of Cristiano Ronaldo, I think it's Ronaldo Jr. He wants to become a professional football player. I think right now he's playing in Al Nasser, which is in Saudi Arabia. A lot of people are looking into what is he going to become. and I am very sure he's aware of that. So there's a lot of pressure and a lot of expectations from him and immediately comparing him to his father. Is he going to be like his father, better than his father, worse than his father? It doesn't matter whether you accomplish less, equal or more.

13:20You have your own path. And I think that people that are brought up in these kind of environments, they never start with a blank slate. And that can impact you from an emotional perspective. And the fact that you overcome that and still decided to start something by yourself and not become lazy and not give excuses on why you shouldn't be doing things and why you shouldn't start a business. Because I'm sure you can build up a thousand excuses on why maybe today is better to sit at the couch. You still went out there and did something by yourself. Can you tell me how did you manage? Or if you're still working on it, because perhaps it's a work in progress.

14:01to shut those voices in your head from external people from other opinions on you feeling your father's shoes yeah sure so you kind of have to personalize success for yourself so for me it's kind of to me success is if you achieve the milestones that you've set for yourself and that is success essentially you should not externalize it and what people think by the way This question is something that we ask always at the end of every episode. And it's so interesting that what you've just said was my twin brother's answer. He also came to the show. And that was exactly his answer. How did you come out with that definition of success?

14:48It's like if you grew up in this kind of family, you will always have people who are jealous or immediately have an opinion about you. So you kind of have to shut those voices down for yourself. Otherwise, you will just get stuck and it will immobilize you. So you should look at yourself and say, what do I want to achieve? And what do I want to do in my life? And, you know, I always say to other people, just look at the people around you, your best friends, your family, because their opinion is what matters. And if you are happy with yourself and what you've done, and that's not always quantifiable.

15:24It's not only about money or anything else. it could also be creating an amazing culture in your company, creating amazing brands that people love, something like that. And if you are happy with that, well, that's all that matters, essentially. And if you can live like that, you'll have a happy life. And, you know, you can shut down all the kind of negative, you know, talk around you and just focus on yourself and your journey.

15:55let's deep dive into your company the organic consumer group so you founded this business in 2021 and your strategy is to consolidate all these different sets of beauty organic brands within the umbrella of the same company right now through different acquisitions that you've made including the one that you just mentioned, Dr. Organic. The overall revenues of TOCG is 45 million pounds, roughly 45 million pounds. Now, describe to me the strategy for this investment. So when you assess a company for you to acquire, are you acquiring the minority, the majority, the totality? how are you deploying resources for you to help them scale so we always acquire the majority but when there's managers or founders within these companies we always want them to reinvest a significant stake in the holding company because essentially what my job is is convincing entrepreneurs convincing managers to join our story to join this journey to actually take a leap of faith that together we're going to be stronger in the end and that's my day-to-day you know especially in this natural slash organic space again a lot of these entrepreneurs started trying to change the world it's not about making a lot of money or selling their company in the end so they really have to believe in what you have to say and in the value that you're able to bring to the table.

17:35And that is the part, like for example, when we acquired La Saponaria in Italy in 2023, the acquisition process took 14 months. A lot of private active firms would have already given up. But this company was so amazing, authentic people. Also the founders are still in the business, Luigi and Lucia. They're working like they've never worked before because they're passionate about the business. and that's essentially also as a family coming from a family of entrepreneurs that is an advantage that we can resonate with these type of people because we've done it before we've also put our trust in partners to help us grow our businesses and I think that is really important looking in the same direction and building and helping each other out and that's not an easy an easy thing to do because having companies with different cultures from different countries working with each other is really hard to do.

18:30But when you're able to do it, that's really when the magic happens. I've interviewed a great entrepreneur who built up a financial institution very similar to yours. They acquire the majority of consumer brands. They've acquired so far seven. And he told me that one of the challenges, one of the main challenges of doing this is that on one hand, you do want to lock the founders to work for a period of time in the business. That timeframe can vary depending on the profile of the founders and the strategy for growth for that particular brand or that business. But ultimately, you need to work with them for a period of time.

19:11He told me that working with founders sometimes can be challenging because they are very emotional towards their business. It's their baby. They have their ways on how to do things. But when you're coming as a majority shareholder and you're acquiring the majority of the business, you come with your own agenda you need to scale this business and perhaps you might have different ideas to them how do you deal with this do you face also the same challenges with founders sure you always do but when we buy these businesses we buy them because they already have these great cultures these the the brands the company the culture that they've built is so unique and great that essentially we don't want to want to disrupt that because that is part of the success of this business so we try to come in as coaches as people who are trying to help and of course in the end you are the majority shareholder and they will have to take into account that you also have an opinion but it is the key to make sure that you stay aligned for as long as possible that's also why we always try to financially align ourselves with these entrepreneurs and keep respecting also these entrepreneurs and their opinion and what they want to do with these businesses but it's also really important when you acquire a business that at some point when things get rough when things are difficult that you also make the decisions that are necessary and sometimes that's things that these people don't want to hear or that decisions that they are afraid of taking.

20:48But then that's also why you got on board and that's also why they've accepted you as a partner. And that's what we always say to companies that we're trying to acquire is you don't choose, well, we don't choose you, you choose us as a partner. That's why we always say it's maybe when there's another bidder, but they bid more money. It's not always the best case. better take the bidder that bids 10 % less, but that you really have a good connection with the people that you really think that you can work with well and that you can gel with well, because that is in the end going to create so much more value, not only from a financial perspective, but also from a personal perspective.

21:36Do business with good people. That's what Warren Buffett always used to say, but it is true. Do people, do business with good people that you like because that will unlock the potential that also exists within you and the company but i would like for you for you to tell me maybe with a few examples in more detail how are you helping a company grow so you acquire the business your partners are you setting the agenda of what happens next are you allowing them to set the agenda so we begin always with a conversation about where do we want the company to go and then we as you said we try to enable them to grow into that that direction but also by adding the resources and especially the people to get there because my father always used to say there's only three important things in business it's people people people it is because it all starts with people when you're trying to build a great business so we try to add people that are maybe overqualified for the stage of the business and you know our ceo of tucg used to run a business that is one billion in sales so now he runs one that is 45 million but we can use his expertise and his coaching for the local managers to see where they need to go to unlock the potential that they see in the business or open their eyes to something that maybe they were afraid of taking.

23:04For example, at La Saponaria, they were always afraid of increasing prices towards their customers because they're very community-driven business. All these smaller shops, all their customers buy their products because they're affordable but also good for the planet. so it's not only driven purely financially but at some point you know when there's inflation when there's things going on the business you have to have this coach this this person that tells them okay for the the business to be able to grow to go to the next stage we should sometimes take these decisions and it doesn't always need to be super rash but there's many ways of getting there So it's mainly bringing in the right people and the right resources.

23:55And when you found this sweet spot of something, also really put your investment dollars behind it and taking a leap of faith also in these entrepreneurs and the managers that you have and the team that you have assembled together. Like for example, before TUCG, I looked a lot into Amazon and how it is selling on Amazon because a lot of people in their 50s, 60s, the managers of the bigger companies, they only have a really high level view of what it is like. They treat it as any other retailer. But I really deep dive for six months. I followed all kinds of courses, all kinds of things online so that I could really understand to the detail what you need and what kind of products it needs to be able to be successful on Amazon.

24:47So what we try to do now when we acquire this business, because Amazon has become like a third leg next to, you know, retail and your own web shops, for example, it's become a real significant part of the business. is try to build a right team on the holding level of the OCG that encompasses all these capabilities, but then can help these smaller businesses that maybe not have these capabilities on their own because they cannot afford it or they cannot have all the capabilities altogether. That's also why we think that bringing together all these brands is so valuable because they can learn from each other from mistakes that have been made.

25:29and that again it all starts with bringing in the right people that can use their knowledge and share their knowledge with the different brands the different management teams to then unlock the potential at these different brands and businesses i hear what you're saying um if i'm going to play devil's advocate sometimes that could be the chicken and the egg problem so your organizational structure is i'm going to hire this eight star team of professionals that are going to be delivering services in the form of their knowledge and experience to all the different subsidiary brands that I'm acquiring.

26:05And because this team is the best, perhaps it's costing me more, but because they're the best, I am ensuring that the growth, the stability of the businesses that the OCG is acquiring, it is in a way less risky or more secure. Now, if I were to put this into a context of a business that is right now starting, it might be challenging because you You cannot acquire that very expensive manager or former C-level of this company to be the leader of my company and so on and so forth because I don't have the financial means to do it. So I need to build up the company with the resources that I have and extract as much as possible from this manpower.

26:46And then I'll be able to get to those A-star players. In your case, you started already with this idea. In order for this overall ecosystem to work, I need this A-Star team. And that's expensive. And then once you have this A-Star team, let's start acquiring different companies within the beauty organic sector. How did you raise funds to be able to afford this infrastructure? Well, it all starts with the story that you're trying to tell, with the plan you're trying to do. So we started with this great foundation of Dr. Organic. Everybody could see that there was a lot of potential in the business, but it was just not there because it didn't have the right culture, it didn't have the right management.

27:32And I think if you have a good story and a good business case, money will always follow. Because now private active firms, they're full of money. Money is not the issue at this point in time. You just have to be able to reach the right people to be able to tell your story. And I think that's the difference where the trick lies. For me, and that is the advantage that we have had, we have such a large network and we already have some track records that people know from reading the newspaper, from talking to other people. talking to other people knowing that we are a trustworthy business partner that actually raising money was the easiest thing of all of the whole journey to do because they believed in what we were trying to do we they believed in the opportunity so you've raised the funds through your family business uh no so we've um so we essentially started acquiring dr organic just by ourselves but then for example when we acquired la saponaria we brought in other investors and that is not necessarily for the money when you mean by ourselves is through family funds right uh yeah by ourselves is the family funds yeah but then uh when we acquired saponaria it's not that we could not fund it all by ourselves but it is because we wanted to attract smart money blue chip investors so we've had we have guys who are presidents from unilever global beauty ceos avon but also entrepreneurs who founded three businesses in influencer marketing and then sold them so we we we kind of built this whole network around from these old guys who have the network to bring you into boots that bring you into the places that you need to be but also the younger guys who have different experiences that can help you uh indirect to consumer but also have a different uh viewpoint same goes within the family you know my father has his knowledge 30-year knowledge that he built up in consumer health care he has his network but then you have me and the younger guys in the team who are also more aligned with what millennials what the new generation ones like i previously said amazon e-commerce we understand that way better uh you know that's also the biggest difference um what i always say is if you do something as a young person try to do something that old people don't understand my my brother for example he's an ai and robotics engineer when he says something even if it would be wrong my father would still be impressed but when i say something in finance he knows everything about it yeah so it is different So if you start something like now in AI or something in a hot industry, but that is quite new, I think it's easier also to raise funds, to do the new tech, because you're in the slipstream and people don't necessarily understand it.

30:36So that's why they will be more willing to put their faith in it. Unlike if you want to start something in the steel or oil industry, it's probably really hard to start something new. I agree with what you're saying. I'm also going to pick up on one very important thing that you mentioned, which is smart capital. This is something that I've seen across many different entrepreneurs that I interviewed from various different industries. And the most successful ones, or more than the most successful ones, the ones of which their companies have been growing steadily, they were able to onboard investors that they were providing knowledge, experience, and there were big players in that particular industry.

31:19So they can either unlock you some doors. So perhaps if you are in the consumer industry, they can open the doors of very big retailers. So you can also sell there. But also they're able to give you the right advice in specific moments of growth of the business where if you don't have someone that has done something relatively similar, the chances of you making a mistake are much higher because we live and we learn. And I think we cannot know the real path towards success unless we make mistakes or unless we do these small failures. So don't get me wrong. I think failing, it's great. But if you have someone in your corner, in your cap table that has done that before, you can make new mistakes.

32:03But at least you don't make the mistakes that this other person has done, which has already ventured in that very similar path. and in fact every business that i right now build is with that mentality so when i started my company i was not i had a very different approach towards who do i want to to be part of my shareholder cap table i didn't want anyone from the industry because i thought that perhaps you cannot do you cannot have two drivers within the same driving seat in the steering wheel because we might be confronting each other, especially in consumer brands, because everything could be subjective, right?

32:41It's your opinion, it's my opinion. Unless we really test it through data, we will not really know. And I didn't want to lose a lot of time and resources in A, B and testing against a shareholder, especially if that shareholder could be large. I was wrong. I was very wrong. Smart capital is incredibly important. And if you have someone in your corner that has done something similar, But also, as you said, someone that you can gel with, someone that you get along, I think your company's chances to succeed are considerably higher. The first 12 months of running a business, I think there could be a whole book or a whole movie on those first 12 months because they're incredibly intensive from so many different angles.

33:28I would like for you to describe to me three different stages within those 12 months. So first of all, you have this idea or you identify this opportunity. Where were you? Who did you share this with? Some people told me that they were in a barbecue and they had this great idea. And now, you know, an idea from a barbecue becomes a$200 million idea, right? So walk me through that moment. And then, so you have this idea or this opportunity. How do you put it in motion? What do I do next? How do I raise funds? In your case, how do I identify the right company for me to acquire? because I'm very sure that for you, it was very important that the first company you acquire needs to be successful, that acquisition.

34:09Why? Because going from zero to one is always harder than one to 100. So how did you manage that? And then ultimately, once these two things are accomplished, how do you keep the company growing from a governance perspective? Well, we actually jumped into it by chance. I was actually on holiday in Croatia back then when we got to the opportunity. and essentially we just worked through the whole holiday. My mother was quite pissed off with us, but we just have to jump at it at that time. And we kind of got through into it. The process only took four weeks, but then it's only when it starts, well, at week four, the company is yours and then you have to do something with it.

34:51So the first thing that we did was took a flight, went there, spent two full days with the management trying to get to know the business, understand the business, get to know all the people within the business just dive really deep into it also go to the stores look at all the products see what's wrong see what you can do with it essentially making this 100 day plan what you always say what do we want to achieve in this 100 day plan and that is mostly getting to know the business looking at the challenges but also looking at the opportunities that are there and then after this 100 days you essentially when you especially when you acquire a business you kind of have to stabilize uh whatever's happening because usually when there's an acquisition there's a lot of turmoil there's managers that have and the founders that have to it's a very intensive process usually so you kind of have to stabilize the business bring it back to normal and just solidify all of that.

35:52And then when you've gone through a couple of months of that, then you can start focusing again on the future, seeing what you can do, what kind of resources you would need, map that out. Also, when would we need, for example, a CFO to come into the business or a new head of sales because we want to tackle abroad. Think about the thing in the long future, map that out for the next two or three years maybe just for yourself to see where you want to go because in the end it's again we're telling a story we had this great opportunity we saw what was happening in the market but then you also have to act upon it and you have to really hit the ground running because these acquisitions they take a long time like i said saponari was 14 months now we are talking to five different companies i'm seeing one tomorrow even but it takes a while also these people don't really want to not necessarily want to sell or are convinced by our story at day one so it takes a lot of getting to know these people building relationships with them and then um and then when the time is right also for these people then integrating them into the business and then the story starts all over again that is the thing with m &a it's like you said starting a business from scratch you are the the driver of the culture well when you do when you do m &a and when you have this platform it is you have many cultures to deal with and you have to kind of create a culture and that takes a long time that takes two three years and adding new people uh you know convincing the people that are already in the business to maybe do something different to maybe ascribe to a new culture a new vision that they were not necessarily used to or or the business also becomes bigger and more complex and then at some point and that is also really important you have to be honest with yourself as well and like maybe a cfo was great your co-founder was great at being cfo when you did five million in revenue but maybe not at 50 million and then you need to be able to also make the difficult decisions and don't have egos and just do what's best for the company because it is a real you have to evolve with the company and when at some point you're stuck then you just have to for yourself also know what you can do but also what you cannot do and that i think is also one of the more difficult parts of being in the business because you usually like working with these people and it's difficult conversations but that is really key so let me see if i understood the picture so you're in croatia with your family and then you identify this opportunity this brand called dr organic seems to be a great company to acquire and skate because it has a lot of potential then you end up acquiring the brand and then you decide that well let this not be just a one acquisition let's build up an umbrella where we can have under this umbrella several different acquisitions.

39:07And that umbrella right now is called the Organic Consumer Group. So due to the experience with TOCG, but also through your family business and also through your corporate experience in banking, M &A, Did you identify the most important things that make a consumer brand successful? So I think starting from being in investment banking, I would recommend almost any entrepreneur to start one, two years investment banking consulting. Why? Because it really exposes you to something you would only normally be exposed to 10, 15, 20 years later in your career. You know, you're able to work with top managers on a day-to-day basis.

40:04You also see the end of the road of a business when they get sold to somebody else. So the biggest advantage that you have when you start out in one of these industries is that you know where you have to work towards. because a lot of companies get founded by students getting together about something they're passionate about, something they love, but they don't really think about the economics, for example. And when you've been in investment banking, then you know what you have to work towards. You know what is important, for example. And that is, for me, always the key when you start a business.

40:37Try to be in a consumer business with enough margin because then you can always take some hits. but when you're only running on 10-20 % margin when there's inflation of 5 % then you already lose all your profitability so it's really important to from a beginning outset look at the market you're in look at where it can go in the end and if you can scale in the beginning it will always be inefficient because it's a small company you don't really have the volumes you don't have the money to pay for listing fees at retailers or so on. So it's always going to be difficult and less efficient, but you just have to be smart.

41:20But then in the end, when you scale the business, you have synergies, you have economies of scale. So that can work, but you have to be able, you have to already see that from the beginning because a lot of entrepreneurs sometimes just stumble into these issues at some point and then they have to kind of figure it out. So I think that is already the advantage of having kind of mapped the market, having this experience, talking to the people in the different industries to pick the right industry that you want to be in. Because it's really hard to change in the end. You know, I'm thinking of this one company who had a great product, a deodorant product that they sold through influencer marketing.

42:03But their unit economics were just wrong. They did a great job because influencer marketing is really expensive. It's really difficult to do. they sold a lot they do more than 10 million in sales but in the end they got stuck because their unique economics were just what they were and they couldn't extend that a lot further even with scale so then you get stuck at that point and that's really a shame because then you've built a business for eight years but uh yeah if it's wrong from the start then it's really difficult to to pivot from that especially when you're already at a later stage through many conversations that i had with other founders that are in consumer goods industries i have identified two important factors that can determine whether a consumer brand can grow or can become quite successful quickly the first one is the storytelling we live I believe in a day and age in which people are not just buying a product people are buying the story behind and if you don't have a compelling and authentic storytelling you are going to be competing with a lot of different companies that operate in a sector that is not that different to yours.

43:30So you can design so many different changes to your product, but ultimately at the other end is at the other end. You can change a little bit the quality, the branding, the way that it looks, pricing. But people are buying the story behind. How do I feel? I'm buying an experience. I'm not buying a product anymore. So that's one of them. Storytelling. And then the second one is that it seems that it is easier to become a dominant player in a niche market rather than becoming successful in a very, very big market. And I think that's probably a mistake that entrepreneurs make in the early stages.

44:13You identify how big is the market. And if you see that a market is very big, you believe that there are a lot of opportunities. You can make tons of money from that. But it is very competitive. But if your market is very niche, so for example, Let's say that in the case of deodorants, I am building deodorants for people that are allergic to this particular product. And 99 % of deodorants in the world, they have that product. The market for the people that have that allergy is much smaller. But how many operators are doing that? Many, probably far less. And what I have identified through all these amazing interviews is that it is considerably easier for you to become a dominant player through spending the same amount of money or time into that particular venture.

45:01What do you think of this? I think on your second point, exactly right. When you start a business in a niche, you just have way less competition and your marketing dollars also go a lot further away. It doesn't mean that because you start in a niche that you're never able to break out of them. There is this famous company in Belgium that now just raised quite a lot of money that got bootstrapped. It's called Udo. It's an ERP system. And they essentially focused on all small to medium-sized businesses. So essentially the businesses that the SAPs of this world ignored and essentially started providing almost a free service to all of them but these small businesses also grow into larger businesses and then that's when they started monetizing that business and they're now adding more applications and more uh open open source uh um capabilities into it and so he started out in a really small niche business but essentially created a huge business by by then expanding his offerings but by first being successful and something that from the start might have not been very attractive for these big guys.

46:18And then getting back to your first point, I think you're right. It's all about storytelling and about community building now. Look at Ryan Reynolds, for example. You know, he started his Gin. He started his Mint Mobile. You know, these are things that they're dominated by huge players. And he's probably also not the best businessman. What he can do is create some kind of community around the products. People love these products and want to be part of the story. Same thing goes with TOCG. We have products that have values connected to them. And that's also why we invested in them in the first place.

46:58They're really authentic and people want to be part of that story and they believe it. Because when you have Unilever, for example, when they bring a natural product on the market, everybody knows it's Unilever. And usually 70 % it's greenwashing. And that is really what differentiates yourself. What is greenwashing? Greenwashing is when you portray yourself as being natural or organic, but essentially it's not. You see a lot on the labels of, for example, bottles of shampoo, bottles, recyclable, but essentially all plastic is recyclable. You can also work with recycled. So there's a small difference or 97 % natural.

47:43Natural is not a protected term. So organic is a protected term. So natural, I mean, even wood is natural. You know, stone is natural. So it doesn't mean anything. But I've also had this question around food. So when I see food that versitized as organic, an organic tomato, all tomatoes are organic. They're not inorganic. so why isn't it like advertised as bio or ecologic in a way that maybe the way this tomato has been grown it doesn't have pesticides and so on but for i don't know i think the word organic is something that it has been abused in a lot of use cases that at least to me don't make any sense whatsoever whatsoever but maybe it's one of those buzzwords or or hyped words that make people buy yeah exactly you're exactly right but then it's up to also the governments to support us in it now the eu is really pushing forward to get rid of that greenwashing because it's essentially deceiving the customer it is not not every customer a doctor organic customer turns the bottle and looks at what's in the product not every customer does that so they just take it because it's it's in a green packaging and they think okay it's probably natural uh but that's why you also need the governments so now there you have to be for example within beauty cosmos certified to be able to claim organic also with our name doctor organic in the past you know it was not always always super it was always natural and it had a lot of organic but we specifically certified it organic to be able to show to our customers like look what we are saying is real We don't really have to do that.

49:29And it costs money to also do it. But we really wanted to prove to our customer, okay, this is the real deal. I was researching in particular about this topic a few days ago. And what I found is that the reason why there needs to be more government regulation is exactly because of what you're saying. People are not looking anymore at the back of the shampoo. And why is that happening? This happens, usually people look at the back of the shampoo, historically, after they purchased. because as long as they see it's organic or whatever they buy it, but then maybe a few days later they go back and they check what it has.

50:02When do they check that? They usually check it when they're in the toilet. But what is happening when we're in the toilet in today's world? We're not checking the shampoo. We're not reading whatever is next to us or with our phones. So that is gone. It's completely gone. And because of this, there was a very big research by a consulting firm that was basically saying that more government regulation and legislation needs to happen very quickly because consumers are buying products that they think that they are targeting these missions, but they aren't. And you're being deceived in a way. And it's incredible to see that very big companies like the ones that you're mentioning, let's say Procter & Gamble's, they can get away with these things.

50:46These are not startups that they don't have their resources or legal means to be able to know what's right and what's wrong, what's ethical and what is not ethical. These are very, very, very big corporations that they know perfectly the difference in between right and wrong, legal, not legal, ethical and ethical, and they still, in order for them to sell more, are able to get away with this. Exactly. That's also what we're trying to do with kind of TOCG is not only just create a great business, but also trying to change how people do business. you know uh dr organic just became a b-corp saponaria will become a b-corp in a couple of months so it's and and we think the biggest impact that you can have is by first building a successful business but doing it in the right way and when then when people see okay by do building a business in a sustainable way you can actually be successful you don't have to cut these corners you don't have to go on the wrong path you can actually follow the right path and still be successful still uh also have financially a great company uh it doesn't need to be charity and i think that really has the biggest impact i think from what i've seen that is 100 the case when it comes to fundraising a lot of companies are able to raise funds because they are esg compliant or because they want to invest their money towards being B Corp certified.

52:12But also in a lot of discussions that I've had with various founders, what we have seen is that when they need to make the hard choices of increasing the price of their products at the expense of being ESG compliant and so on, it's not financially your business always justified because what we have seen is that the consumer, if you give them most consumers if you give them product A that is costing you 10 pounds and from a quality perspective is exactly the same as product B that is costing you 15 pounds the difference in between product A and B aside from the five pound difference is that product B has been produced with a lot of different care for the planet and so on and so forth so effectively is ESG compliant in that way or is B Corp certified if there is a big price disparity between A and B it has been proven in Europe that consumers are going to go for A.

53:09How can we go around that if we're a business? You just have to be able to communicate it in the right way and that people actually know it. Because people are willing to pay for it, but it needs to be communicated well. And that's sometimes difficult. When you're in the supermarket and you just see a shampoo bottle standing one next to the other, it's really difficult. That's again why building this community, building this great story is so uh important and that's also the advantage that you maybe have being a small company is that you still can kind of have this legitimacy legitimacy this authenticness to do it because all these big guys they have the big marketing budgets they have all the things you don't have but you can find creative ways to try to do that i was sitting with a venture capital investor only last week.

54:00And he was talking about Tony Chocolonely, if you know the brand. It's all about ethical chocolates. They used to have own people on the ground in Africa seeing if everything was done in a sustainable way, if the people got paid normal wages. Well, that VC guy said, open it up to everybody. Open it up to Starbucks. Open it up to Walmart. and in the end it was the right decision you think oh no i'm going to keep it all to myself but now starbucks is their biggest customer they sell their private label chocolates but also their branded product and then of course if you want the cheap chocolate whatever you can still buy it from starbucks but it will be done in a sustainable way but you can also buy of course the branded product that you really buy into the story so it's it's sometimes being creative of thinking about different ways to tackle this.

54:57But it's really hard. As you said, it's always a balance between is it going to hurt your business in the long run or should we just be pragmatic or should we just stick to our values and stay true to them? I think what you are mentioning, it can help, but I don't think it can defeat the problem. So demonstrating to the consumers, sharing with them your production process and making it transparent that it is compliant with the ESG regulations and so on. I think it can help. But ultimately the consumer, especially right now, we live in a world in which there is a very strong economical crisis paired with the inflation and the interest rates.

55:42People have lower spending flexibility. So pricing is incredibly important. for the consumer and if it's for the consumer then it becomes also for the business so i think the main change would come if the government is subsidizing in a way the companies that are truly following the standards that you're mentioning not just doing greenwashing but truly following those which obviously they are more expensive but the governments right now they have bigger budgets when it comes to supporting businesses that follow these these standards and through those subsidies and the business would be able to reduce their sales price.

56:22And then you can be very competitive with others. So if you're comparing 10 pounds of brand A that has a good product or brand B that has an equally good product, but brand B is also 10 pounds, but has been produced in a sustainable way, then yes, I strongly believe that people are going to be choosing brand B. But pricing, I think, is incredibly important. Yeah, you're absolutely right. Same goes, for example, if you look at what's happening with the climate. I'm a huge proponent of carbon credits you know it really levels the playing field you know some even even look at my country it's belgium you know we're really small in in area size yeah so you cannot build windmills everywhere you know but it's good if you can build these windmills somewhere else where they do have a lot of space and the right infrastructure for it but then you just pay for it so essentially that way you can level the playing field but essentially you could also apply that to other industries as well like you said for example recycled bottles you could say okay if you want to work with virgin plastic that's totally fine but then you have some kind of tax or credit that essentially then you need to pay and if somebody uses recycled bottles that you know did cost a lot more well these people get the credits so they can actually receive money for the things that they're doing so i'm a really nice proponent a good uh a proponent for these kind of uh problems and it's because if you regulate things too much then it's difficult yeah you know same goes again with the ai you're just cuffing yourself because this is a global world you know you're competing also with with chinese businesses with american businesses uh that just have a different legislation that just have a way different environment so we should also not be naive but if we can all together create a system where that is compensated I think that that is really where you can make the difference but it is tricky to do.

58:27Henry when one looks at your story especially the different pieces of information that you can find online, one might get the wrong understanding of who you are. Now that I'm talking to you, I see that there is a lot that went on in your life that goes beyond being the son of this person or being brought up in that type of accommodating financial environment. And I see a person that has worked very hard to have a vision of the world that is quite complex. I think you have various different angles to view a particular situation. And I think that only comes if you have educated yourself in multiple ways.

59:16But also I see a person that is brave to risk your name or your reputation because you're coming already with one. Because for you, it's very important to build something by yourself. I have to admit that this is not what one can come across when I Google your name online. do you think your story is misunderstood by others well yes and no of course you do have all these resources and opportunities and just that you just got because you you're born into it and that's also it's important to also accept that that is also not your fault or something it is just a reality that is there and it really for me it really depends what you then again do with these opportunities being misunderstood sure but then again when i was talking about success it's really you have to individualize it so if you if you really start overthinking these kind of things then again it it demobilizes you yeah um but again so it doesn't really take up a lot of my time of thinking about what other people think of it it is it is it is just what it is to someone that right now must be thinking all right but probably your life was easy can you tell this person what has been the hardest moment that he had to ensure whether this moment was personal or professional well the thing is when you acquire these businesses or when you already have these large resources.

1:00:56If you fail, you also fail pretty big. You know, when you're just a small company, you can test out things. But when you already have existing company, you fail really big. So in the beginning also when we bought Dr. Organic, there was a company that had these issues that it was just orphaned there. So we really had to take risks and take the company in a different direction. But there's always some lack to it. So, okay, we rebranded the products, we changed the formulation, we had it certified and so on. But that takes a while and it also takes a lot of investment and time and resources. So within that period, so to say, where there's this lack that these products are not on the market, of course you have your sales that are slowly but surely sliding and it's not anything you could do, but still i get stressed by things that i cannot control i don't i know it's counterintuitive yeah but when i can control things or i can do something about it then i just go for it and then you kind of have to believe in yourself and your capabilities but also in the team around you that you'll be able to solve it but the the most difficult is when you kind of have to make this leap of faith so okay we believe in what we've built and in the end it will be successful and then of course you will have these failures along the way you know we've had then distributors going bankrupt and having an outstanding invoice of a hundred thousand or we had to write off we used to have own hives in New Zealand for our Manuka honey business we had to write off more than a million these are tough pills to swallow but in the end you have to then learn from them and take that and change the structure and so now we have different rules in place so that these problems can no longer occur and yeah but in the end entrepreneurship is always about taking risk if you're trying to do extraordinary things you will always risk and you will always do things that are difficult but you always have to be able to accept and cope with the fact that you're you're gonna fail but also fail big at some point because when your company is bigger and when it gets bigger you will fail and you will lose a lot of money but then it is really what you do with it and it cannot immobilize you you have to learn from it and then become stronger from from that how do you overcome self-doubt because you are not starting from scratch where you're building also your confidence so your starting point is acquiring a company by investing a lot of millions in it and then you need to run it so you i think it is natural for you to think at some point am i ready for this how do you overcome this just throw yourself into these kind of situations like a lot of conferences that i go to i'm usually the youngest guy there again i was talking to the ceo of kkr and to all these kind of people for uh for a long time and that's really when you start building this confidence and the fact that you belong there because this guy doesn't have to talk to me for 30 minutes you know it's just because he was interested in what i had to say and if you have a couple of these events happening uh whether it's in your business uh you know closing a good deal uh selling getting into boots or whatever all these kind of experiences it all builds on your self-confidence and then at some point you need to uh also for yourself accept fun all right i'm doing the right thing i am i am here and i actually deserve being here and it's not just because somebody gave it to you or uh because you know your father has a certain name and is famous in the industry at some point you also have to tell yourself well this is something that i did and this this is uh and this is actually you know this actually gives you the confidence to do then go to the next step if you're very honest right now with yourself is this something that you had to tell yourself only once and that's or is this something that you have to remind yourself?

1:05:34You have to remind yourself all the time. And especially when you're younger, that is more difficult. The older you get, the more experiences you have. So then people can also see your journey. But especially when you're a young entrepreneur or starting somewhere, you still have everything to prove. But when you start getting 30 and older, then you already have your track records. people start respecting also more what you have to say so i think it gets easier but it's still something you need to be able to tell yourself all the time thank you thank you for opening up because that's an insecurity that you're accepting that it can be recurrent and i think you're much more self-confident by accepting that money can mean different things to different people what does money mean to you i guess money means to me freedom you can do money frees up so you can do what you want to do what you're passionate about and uh it's it's more of an enabler uh like you especially in today's world you go on instagram and uh or on youtube and you see a lot of these videos of people asking uh how did you become a millionaire or billionaire That's always the wrong question, in my opinion.

1:06:52It's usually these people started out wanting to create great businesses, creating great brands, and essentially the money followed, and then they just used the money to become more independent and being able to do what they want to do. You see it a lot with founders that sell their business, and then they start using the money to do what they're passionate about next to their building uh building their businesses maybe they didn't have time to do those kind of things for 20 years because they were just only focused on their on their work but then after they're able to also pursue their other passions do you use money as a way of quantifying how successful you are no not really because there's always going to be somebody else who has more there's always going to be uh it's it's a bad it's a bad uh comparison so to say it really depends i think success is more of what you have built and it's not necessarily uh at some of our businesses we're also minority shareholders but we're still very much involved in the business and we still consider the business as our own business and it's not just because we have the most money into it.

1:08:13It's just what you're building that is important and doing it together. And it's not necessarily just by getting the biggest paycheck. It's also you still have to have fun running the businesses. Otherwise, you work to live, not live to work. But it's great when you can combine these two and when your work is essentially also what you like to do. There are a lot of entrepreneurs that when they deliver a public speech, they start by saying, I am self-made. And it seems that this is something that they're very proud of. Was it ever important to you to be considered or not to be considered self-made?

1:08:58Sure. It's always, especially when you grow up with a successful father, everybody is always going to compare yourself with your father. but in the end I also kind of accepted the fact okay we have all of this existing business already there and somebody needs to do it again my brother is a robotics and AI engineer so he has totally different passions in life so I always had this kind of feeling that I have I have I I also have to do it. But there's always something inside me that wants to prove to all the people out there that are the naysayers, like, oh yeah, he can do it himself as well. But it's always a struggle between the two because you also don't want to abandon your duty that you have towards your family and towards the opportunities that you have already had and not abandon that.

1:09:55But you also want to go your own way and do something. But what I try to do now is just have a good intersection between that. Okay, we started the business with the family funds, but I am running it. It's not my father who's doing it. And I'm trying to make the best out of that and grow the business from there. And the situation just was what it was. When you get born into a family, it's also not your fault or not your choice. It is just a fact in life. Essentially, life in general is not a fair place. there's always going to be somebody prettier smarter more capable than you but it's it's all about again what you do with it and how you build want to build your own life i'm going to ask you a difficult question have you ever felt that your accomplishments are not truly your own is this something that you ever felt sure especially again from the outside perspective when people you know always in your face they will always you know be excited and and be very supportive but then when you hear from other people yeah okay uh he probably got it or or it's always so easy like you said before uh then then it gets really you know it starts playing with your mind sometimes but essentially all accomplishments are never an accomplishment from one person it's always a team effort especially in the company you only see the founders the ceos in the magazines and on on forbes 30 under 30 but essentially it's it's the team effort it's the people that you work with that are the most important and you know you all also have to admit that to yourself and it's always a team effort even even if my dad helps me sometimes being my sounding board and being my sparring partner it doesn't mean that it's his accomplishment only you know I agree with you at a fundamental level I've recently delivered a speech at UCL and this speech, basically, I was invited to deliver this speech after my company got awarded by the Sunday Times.

1:12:17It was listed as one of the top 100 fastest growing companies in the UK and because of that I was invited to deliver a speech at UCL. And I said that it's a pity that only I get this invitation. yes I founded this business but it would have been impossible for me to do anything without my team without specific people that were with me from the very beginning I am just one pillar perhaps a pillar that decides a lot of things but one pillar after all of a lot of other pillars so I think that both when celebrating success, but also enduring the feeling of failure. Sometimes the founder is very alone, and I don't think it should be like that.

1:13:10I think we should share all the success. If we're succeeding, hey, this is all the team that made it happen. So Forbes under 30 shouldn't only be for the founders. I mean, if you had people that started with you, employees that started with you, and they've been through the hard moments, tough times, battling everything, pivoting, they should be also mentioned, but also in the failures, right? I mean, ultimately, if you're a founder, you are yourself, and the business is something else. You're just part of a team, perhaps leading the team. So it's not only your failure. And usually people just point at you, point at the founder.

1:13:42Oh, he failed at building this business. Well, hey, there are so many other moving parts, all these other people that perhaps we were not working all towards the same direction, so on and so forth. So I think that the overall notion of teamwork needs to be more embedded in our society especially when it comes to entrepreneurship both on the success side and on the failure side talking about failures what does failure mean to you again it's it's very you it's very personal thing again i think failure you you have to be kind of willing to fail it's an integral part of the entrepreneurial journey but again the best thing to kind of hedge failure is believing also in your own capabilities and in the capabilities of your team because if you're trying to do extraordinary things you're gonna take risk you're gonna fail but then it's always about how do you get back up and by having the right people around you and by believing also in your own and even if you keep failing all the time it is that's what's make the difference that's what makes a great entrepreneur is trying to improve yourself all the time learn from yourself and i think that's the most important thing it's keep adapting uh it's what darwin said right it's it's not about being the strongest about the person that can adapt the most i agree with you i think the more modern version of Darwin's theory, which was adapting evolution, is pivoting.

1:15:21I think what matters in business, again, this is something that I've felt and I've experienced personally through my own business, but also through identifying and having these great conversations with other founders, is that what matters is to not quit. The moment that you quit is then when failure can become final but i don't think failure should be final i think it's just one part of the roadmap towards success so pivoting and not quitting it is in my opinion the most important thing within entrepreneurship and then because those two things are should happen especially failing you should have a very good relationship with it if you know that that's going to happen why to dread it why to fear it it is going to happen so you might as well take the best of that failure and that's when real growth happens because i i said this before but at least i personally never learned anything from my successes nothing i've learned everything from my failures and in fact every time i fail i think well i might not know where this failure is going to take me but it's taking me somewhere rather than thinking oh my god i succeeded and i signed this deal with this private equity and we're going to unlock these five other openings and so on and so forth i don't think in that way i think exactly that but when i'm failing what is this going to bring me and i think that's very important for an entrepreneur so it makes you not fear failure

1:16:58let's talk about forbes i'm very interested to to know if if this recognition because it was an external recognition was important to you i think first of all it's just a great honor but also validation from all your peers essentially that what you've been doing is again the right thing uh you know it kind of gives you confidence boost but for me personally it it kind of is an amplifier. So essentially you've been screaming the same thing, but now you've been handed a microphone and an audience to do it. And that also comes with some kind of responsibility. You know, what we're trying to do with TOCG is again, building a great business, but also doing it in the right way.

1:17:42And if you were able to broadcast that out into the world and hopefully then also convince or just influence just a little bit another entrepreneur, then it's already a success. Was this important to your father? Not necessarily, but he was very excited about it. Also, when I got the nomination, I was lying in bed and I got this email and I was like a little bit stagnant and my girlfriend was reading over my shoulder and she was saying, why are you not more excited? You know, I think it just had to sink in a little bit. but again it's not just the award that's super important but it's also um the community community that's around around it as well and meeting you meeting other great entrepreneurs and seeing how they how they kind of do it that is also really important aspect of it to me

1:18:43henry how would you define success yeah so it is again very personal it is about achieving the milestones that you've set um for yourself because um yeah again it's it's not about being external and in the end as a humble belgian you should always say i'm not successful you know there's always this kind of next milestone there that you're able to achieve there's still so much work to do but then as an entrepreneur you also have to kind of teach yourself to be to be able to say okay i am successful and celebrate those wins together with the team that have helped you achieve that because that's also really important because if you keep only saying oh we're not there yet we're not there yet then you will never in the end reach your goal because there's always this next step there's always this this next restaurant opening there's always the the next phase in your life would you say you're successful again yes and no as a humble belgian no but as an entrepreneur yes thank you thank you henry for the honesty you've been brutally honest with who you are but also with who you are not and i really appreciate that I think it's very easy to judge a book by its cover and when someone might read your cover they will get the wrong idea of you because the moment that you open that book and you start reading one chapter or another you immediately realize that there is so much more to you than that first cover there are so many cases in which the children of affluent parents they end up either They're in very bad situations in their life or just not accomplishing anything meaningful professionally.

1:20:33Again, because they don't have that drive, that need. Because they have what they need already in their lives. At least what they think they need in their lives. It is said that tough times create tough men. Tough men create soft times. Soft times create soft men. And then soft men, they started all over again. They will create tough times. You broke this rhythm. You broke this loop. And you have created a blueprint to define success that it is very different than a lot of entrepreneurs that we see today. You're a very unusual case. And I really mean that. I thank you again for your honesty, for sharing your story.

1:21:24I think it's very important that we hear it from you, not just what we read in a piece of paper but from you and I hope that this is inspiring anyone that they fall under a similar category and encourages them to follow their dreams and to be whoever they want to be which is what I get from you thank you, it was my pleasure thank you Henry