The Twin Entrepreneur: Building A Tonic Water Empire with my Sister - Raissa De Haas

0:02So for all the female founders, across all the interviews that I'm having in this show, they ventured into a business because they would have been the perfect customer customer. it. Is this also your case? Yeah, definitely. Yes, it's true. Raisa de Haas is the co-founder of Double Dutch Botanical Mixer Drinks. Launched in 2015, the company now sells over 2 million bottles every month to 26 countries across the world. The sisters, who are also identical twins, have built a brand that is 100 % carbon neutral. Our flavors are based on molecular pairings, so we looked at what flavors work well with cucumber so that's kind of how we came to cucumber watermelon i always kind of was super interested in drinks and premium drinks and how premium brands are being built and always had a passion for drinking myself we sell about two million bottles a month i think it's actually a good thing to not think about all the hurdles because otherwise we probably wouldn't have started so if a bar doesn't stock double dutch i will never think somebody else's what are the pros and cons of working with your twin sister?

1:07I think the challenge is it's super emotional. We are still siblings, so we have the sibling fights. We can be each other's biggest enemy and then 10 minutes later we need to go into a meeting together and smile. But only one of us could be in the photo shoot to be on the cover. It's the worst thing they can do to a twin. It's better to not get the award at all. I know. We've made massive mistakes or failures in, for example,

1:41Raisa, let's talk about your family structure. Does your entrepreneurial spirit come from them? My parents were both entrepreneurs and they talked a lot about money growing up and a lot about business. So I do think it comes from family a little bit. And how important do you think is to have supportive parents when you decide to build up a business? Especially when you want to build it if you're under 30. I do think it's super important. But we always kind of knew that we were going to do our own thing. But our father especially actually always said you need to first get experience with another in a corporate environment.

2:24Don't start straight from university. You need to get experience and make your mistakes with someone else. So when we started Double Detch, they were actually quite like, you have two masters and you're starting a little soda company. It's ridiculous. In the beginning, they were quite supportive, but they just thought you're making a little bit of a mistake. It's ridiculous. So, but then when we were growing and okay, we got our first kind of little milestones, they were very supportive from the start, but they just, they were very supportive of the idea, do your own thing, but maybe later in life.

2:55So I think actually it was also quite good to have a little bit of a shit we need to really prove ourselves. But I do think having support is really important and knowing that they are behind you. So you went and worked in finance and you did that because your parents were asking you to do that? No, not really. I did a bachelor master around finance, so then graduated and the natural thing was to go and work in... I started working for a private wealth management firm. our parents they've never really said you should go into this or in this but it was kind of what was expected i think myself or so i i generally thought that banking would be amazing and i really saw myself in the banking world um but then when i started i just thought there must be more fun things in life and how did you come to this conclusion because i have some friends that I mean, when you go to university, they always sell you like at least a few industries that everyone should aspire to, like consulting or you got to be a lawyer or you got to be, you know, in finance, whether it's a hedge fund, private equity.

4:02And you're like really working your ass off to aspire to that. But you don't really know if you're going to like it because someone is telling you. And because that someone maybe is your professor and you look up to that person, you think that that's the right choice. So what made you think that this wasn't for you? I had this romantic image in my mind during university Being a woman lady in a mad environment But I don't know When I started it was just behind a computer Making numbers It was just kind of the day to day Very quite boring And my sister she started working in a corporate environment In a corporate banking And she really hated the fact that the career path was so set out for you.

4:48You have to do two years of whatever the level was and then two years of that and then you can move on. But if you do amazing or you do kind of, or you slag along and you don't really do your overhours, it kind of is the same path because you needed those kind of timelines. And I think that's also when she was talking about that, I thought, oh my God, if that is really how finance world is, then it's really not for me. so then we just we started talking we said let's quit our job around the same time is there something you've learned during your corporate career your short corporate career that helped you to build your business i think it was probably a bit too short i think in hindsight i wish maybe that we had a that i had a bit more of a corporate career to understand more the team environment, the management side, the leadership side and having to have a bit more experience in that.

5:46But I think actually my first kind of part of study wasn't really useful in later life in Double Dutch. But then the later part at UCL was actually really helpful. And I did a year of tech entrepreneurship and they did kind of a process on funding, how to structure your articles of association, how to look at kind of every different part of marketing and ops and finance and kind of the whole startup environment. And I think that was really helpful. So you worked in finance and then you went back to university at UCL and what you've learned at UCL you found more useful to then apply when building a business than your corporate experience.

6:33Interesting. For me, and also my brother, because we founded the company together, my twin brother, which by the way, you're also a twin. That's why this conversation is extra exciting for me. For us, our corporate experience really shaped us and prepared us better than our academic experience. so we were very lucky to work for a consulting firm that you were not just attached to one particular industry and then let's say you start in telecom and you stay forever in telecom and that's all you're going to know about but we were very lucky to be in a very dynamic team and we got experience in projects across the industry so whether it's pharma automation automotive, sorry, financial institutions, telecoms.

7:21And not only, let's say, in one area of the business, so it was not only, let's say, in the technology-oriented projects in IT, but in different business units within the organization. So we got exposure in marketing, in sales, in operations. So that gave us almost a 360-degree view on how a company operates, obviously at a very high level, right? These were very big clients, big companies. but it gave us a good understanding of how the internal processes they need to be designed in order for a company to be efficient. So for us it was quite interesting. And how long did you go there? We did it for four years and a half.

7:55Okay, so that's a lot longer. Yeah, a little bit longer, yeah. But then, funny enough, we went away and then we started doing something completely different. So we are entrepreneurs now but in the hospitality space which one might think that it has very little to do with consulting which to be honest in a way there's a lot of transferable skills and I think that's why I think we became I can maybe say successful at least until today. In your case so you go from finance then you study and then you go into the food and beverage business so how do you land into this last point? I always kind of was super interested in drinks and premium drinks and how premium brands are being built um and always had a passion for drinking myself um but and our parents they also organized lots of tastings always with friends and so we kind of grew up in that environment um and then when we came to ucl we the the tech entrepreneurship was um the idea of that master was to devote your year about writing a um the business plan for a startup id in the fintech-ish space.

9:05But we came to London and we saw hospitality so much further ahead than back in Belgium and Netherlands. Bartending is a real career here. Gin and tonic is a real staple. So we asked our university country to vote our year about what we are passionate about, which was the drinks industry. And so I did a year of market research with bartenders and hospitality venues on what they were looking for in their mixers. And back then, gins were massively exploding and you had that whole flavor hype in gins that you had the rhubarb gins and the saffron gins and the crazy gins coming up. The choice of mixers were really kind of staying behind and they stayed very standard.

9:42So then I graduated with the concept of more flavorful mixers, not just for gin, but also for tequilas and rams and making delicious long drink in a really easy way, giving higher margins for bartenders or for bars, but also giving that restaurant experience for people at home, lowering calories, lowering sugars. and then our university gave us a kind of prize for best thesis of the year and with that they gave us our initial investments and a year of free office space and some other stuff so that was kind of then the kickstart as in okay let's let's try it and make our dissertation reel and that was the start of Double Dutch.

10:17You're the co-founder of a very premium tonic water which is called Double Dutch we have a few of your products here so I'd like to try a few of them Which one is your favorite one? Ponget and basil This one? One of our first flavors It is the one you want to try also? Yeah, absolutely It's a bit more herbal A bit kind of Mediterranean flavor profile Super delicious with a tequila Okay I like tequila I like tequila more than gin to be honest Gin gives me headaches the day after Bad hangover Oh really? I shouldn't be saying that right I'm switching to this. Then you should try tequila or vodka or less.

11:04It's probably from the sugar. This is pretty good. Yeah. It's also good on its own. Pretty good. My girlfriend likes tonic. She buys fever tree. So maybe we should switch to this. Absolutely. I'll send you a whole bunch. This is pretty good. I'm going to try another one. Cucumber and watermelon. So a bit more summery. A bit more. This one more summery. Very fresh cucumber and then watermelon gives nice little sweetness to it. Super nice with the gin or vodka or with the white rum. It's kind of a twist on a mojito. My favorite one is your favorite one, the pomegranate and basil.

11:40If it was in this industry, which industry would it be? Would you have started the business in a different space? I don't know. I think that's a difficult question. I would have thought always that it was kind of in the finance space. So that's definitely not it in the end. I'm really glad that it's kind of my hobby that I made my job on about. I don't know, maybe something else in drinks, actually, or hospitality. For my brother and I, it wasn't because we really always wanted to have a restaurant or a group of restaurants. It was, to be honest, just an opportunity that we saw. And we saw that there was a service that we could provide.

12:20We saw that there was a good opportunity from a financial perspective. and also we could raise the funds. We had, let's say, the right people around us with the appetite for that type of investment. So we just seized that opportunity. But one of the things that I'm finding incredibly interesting across all the interviews that I'm having in this show is that so far all the female founders, not maybe like all apart from one, but all of them, they ventured into a business because they would have been the perfect customer for it. Is this also your case? Yeah, definitely. Yes, it's true. Was this your first business?

12:55First proper business, yes. Always had kind of like side things. Like I had for a while, we made our own clothes and we sold it to friends like a little fashion brand, but not properly. How do you make your own clothes? Go and buy the fabrics and then we had someone who got it for us. Really? Yeah. What kind of clothes? A bit funky, crazy clothes. So that's also maybe why it wasn't mainstream enough. so it's funny because also we had a similar experience so when we were like 14 15 back then maybe now too but i'm not well adverse of how the the headphone market is going but back then the dr dre those big ones were like they just came out and everyone like was like super hyped about it but they were very expensive especially like if you're 14 years old you know obviously you're only going to ask your parents and not every not every parent can afford it so we found a contact in China and we were bringing it from Shenzhen in China and we were selling it for like 50 euros when each of them was like in that normal I mean they were fake ones right or let's say no not fake ones they were a good imitation but funny enough this is this is also something that that we had an experience on so I guess I guess it's always a little bit inside of you that that you want to venture into something that you want to trade buy sell or build up something by yourself right Exactly.

14:19Yeah, definitely. Okay. So you have right now 12 flavors, but you started with two. So let's say that, for example, if I want to start a consumer product business like yours, let's say chewing gums. Right now we live in a very competitive market. So there's tons of chewing gums in the market. And I know that there's five flavors that I love. Should I start with those five flavors or maybe those are too many options and the consumers will not understand my brand. and I start with one or two like you did and then gradually increase it to 12. So what is the rationale on how many flavors you started with in comparison to how many flavors you offer right now?

14:58We started with two flavors because we wanted to, so we started with our cucumber, watermelon and pangret and basil. We wanted to have one flavor that's kind of more, slightly more mainstream flavor, cucumber, watermelon, slightly more summery, slightly sweeter, and then one flavor profile that's a bit more unexpected, a bit more kind of towards the other end, not as sweet, but more herbaceous. So kind of two different flavor profiles. We started with two because we wanted to see what works best where in different channels, maybe, or towards a different audience. And we couldn't really afford to start with a third one because it would be extra investment.

15:35It would be extra stockholding. And in the beginning, we just had to find a way to kind of bring it to market as cheaply or as cost-effectively as possible. So I do think it also depends on where you're selling it. I think if you're selling to retail or to, for example, hospitality, it's probably a different environment. I think getting as a new company three products on shelf with a retailer is going to be very difficult. In hospitality, it's probably going to be a bit easier, but then also need to think about every hospitality business has limited fridge space or how much really can they store.

16:11And then we very quickly actually launched our Indian tonic and skinny tonic afterwards because we launched and people really liked the flavors. But they said it doesn't really make sense for us to be stocking two flavored mixers and then having to go to another company or another supplier or my Indian tonic and my skinny tonic, which is kind of the staple that we always have to have available. So then we thought, OK, we need to have those at the very least. And then we thought, okay, those are the only flavors that we will do that other brands may also have. But now we have a ginger beer and ginger ale and a lemonade and a pink soda, fake grapefruit and all the flavors, just because those are kind of the needs.

16:51And then we have the one, the flavors that identify us and differentiate us from others. So I think it's also just looking at the market and what's actually, what does our customer, which is hospitality businesses, what were they actually looking for and what do they need? So you're saying that the cucumber watermelon is the most mainstream and democratic. Out of our flavors at the beginning, yes. So how did you determine this? So we did lots of research with bartenders, in particular in kind of hospitality businesses, what were their most popular flavor profiles in cocktails and in gins. And back then, for example, Hendrick's Gin was one of the best selling gins.

17:32So that cucumber flavor profile was very well known with the gin and tonic drinker. And we knew that we wanted to differentiate. Our flavors are based on molecular pairings. So we looked at what flavors work well within cucumber. So that's kind of how we came to cucumber watermelon. And within Pongrat and Basil, we looked at kind of flavor profiles within food. So we knew that we wanted to look at something kind of basil, more Mediterranean flavor profiles. And then eventually arrived at Pongrat and Basil. So random question that just came to my head because I was thinking about my grandfather drinking a tonic.

18:05So out of, let's say, your customers, do you have like some sort of data that tells you how many of your customers they use the tonic as a mixer for whatever else you're in tonic or tequila? And how many people are drinking the tonic on its own? Because my grandfather is one of the very few people that I met in my life that drinks tonic alone on its own. It's interesting, definitely. when we started it was a lot less but because the whole non-alcoholic and low ABV is becoming so much more popular at the moment it's approximately 25 % without alcohol 30-25 % and then 75-70 % with alcohol but for example our our ginger beer is really popular on its own as well our laminates are very popular on their own our cucumber watermelon ginger beers are popular one of my shareholders is a massive fan of ginger beer so we can I was just very spicy I'll send you a bunch so how many of these bottles do you sell roughly on a monthly or annual basis we sell about 2 million bottles a month oh wow did you ever I mean was that your target from the beginning did you ever consider imagine that you could reach that we had our financials and our business plan but we never really thought about I think it's actually a good thing to not think about all the hurdles and all the channels, because otherwise we probably wouldn't have started.

19:31But I think we still have such a long way to grow. So yeah. And what's the distribution of sales in between different sales channels? So restaurants, maybe hotels, supermarkets, and online sales. So hospitality in general is by far our biggest revenue channel. So about 75 % is bars, restaurants, hotels. And then about 10, 15 % is retail. and then a little bit online and events, festivals, hampers, Christmas gifts. Is that the same case for your main competitor, which I'm assuming is Fever Tree? They are more in retail, definitely. But we deliberately wanted to build a brand and entree so that it's really special when you go into a restaurant.

20:15It's a product that you don't know that you can't have at home. So we are first building it in hospitality and then at a later stage moving into retail in the UK. So you're not doing it because it's easier to penetrate the hospitality business, but because it's a better strategy to position ourselves there. So then your brand is stronger when you go to retail. Yeah, I think it's definitely in terms of building the brand and positioning in hospitality, I think it's better than building it in retail. And I think also hospitality, we sell to 6 ,000 bars and restaurants or hotels in the UK. It's much more spread out.

20:49I think if you go into retail and only retail, you're dependent on four or five players. If you get a delisting in one, it's a lot less differentiated. And in terms with hospitality, I think it's a more fun business. We are having fun. You're having a nice environment. In retail, it's very much and it's very promotion heavy. Yeah, it's easier, I think, in hospitality. What's your overall vision for this business? Do you want at some point to exit and sell it? Do you want to make it an empire and still be at the head of it? We definitely want to build an empire, grow distribution in the UK and globally, definitely, and become a real household name.

21:35And I think Joyce and I, we've built a brand to where we are at the moment, but maybe in the future there may be better CEOs or not. I think it's all kind of to be confirmed, but definitely building it into an empire. Yes. A bit of a funny question. Are you able to go out with your friends and still enjoy gin and tonic without analyzing, I don't know, the cost of that tonic or the flavor notes? Because in my case, for example, when we had the first restaurant, every time I was going out, I was analyzing everything. So at some point, my friends, my family, my girlfriend, they were like, Alberto, we're not going to go out with you anymore because we're not going out with you.

22:18But today, I mean, six, seven years down the line, I was able to find that balance and switch off unless it's an amazing experience, which then it really doesn't matter who's in front of me. Even if it's my anniversary with my girlfriend, bless her. I'd be like, honey, sorry, but my brain has a different rhythm so I can switch it off. So what's your experience in that? I can't in public drink a gin and tonic or another mixer. I've never done it since starting Double Edge. So if a bar or restaurant doesn't stock Double Edge, I will never drink somebody else's. So then I would order a wine or champagne or something else.

22:59And how do you make competitor analysis? In the office. Oh, in the office of drinking. Yeah, but I won't order it in a restaurant or a bar. All right. So let's try to be as honest as we can as possible. In my case, I'll start. Okay. In my case, I don't think my restaurants are the best in the world. I do think they are the very best that they can be built with the resources that we have. But there's bigger companies with more resources. So hence, maybe the experience in some of them, I accept that they're better than mine. So I look at them and I aspire to that. In your case, what do you think about your competitors?

23:35Do you think your product is better? Or maybe some products out there are better than yours for the time being? I think liquid-wise and product-wise, we have the absolute best product. I really believe that. And I really stand behind that. But do we have the best marketing, best branding, the best support, the best sales? Absolutely not. but I think liquid wise yes I'm very confident that we have the best of everyone alright so got it so you have the best product but you don't have the same resources as a bigger company to put it up there from a branding and marketing perspective so let's say let's play an exercise I give you whatever money you're asking for to build it up to that level that you want because you're saying that your product is number one what would you do with this money?

24:28I would put most of the majority of it into sales support and sales execution and marketing to our customers and with our bartenders and our hospitality venues. Give me a practical example. I would build a much bigger sales team, both in the UK and abroad, and do a rebrand probably, but we are actually in the position at the moment. So no, first step, absolutely, hire 100 extra salespeople and put the tools behind the sales people to actually sell it into bars and restaurants a lot more with the right support for our customers. How much do influencers influence your business? Because, for example, we've seen the likes of Logan Paul with Drink Prime or even big actors like The Wayne Johnson on The Rock or Kevin Hart.

25:25But most of them, or a lot of them, they ventured into some sort of food or beverage, in that case, beverage business. Do you think if you were to have unlimited funds, you would onboard someone like that to be the face of the business? I think it's super interesting. And I think especially in the US, it's amazing to have a big A profile celebrity. I don't know. I think in Europe, people are maybe slightly less interested. it or I think it's so important that it's then an amazing fit and that it's authentically who really would fit Double H perfectly. I think if it's just a random A-list celebrity but it maybe doesn't really fit in terms of what they stand for, what we stand for, then I don't think it will do much.

26:16There's lots of examples of celebrities who bought in and that it actually didn't really drive their business but then for example the George Clooney or Aviation Gin, there are many great examples where it did amazing. And so I think if we find the right person, I think it could absolutely be right. Who would be the right celebrity for Double Dutch? I knew you were going to ask that. We are actually making a list at the moment. I'll get back to you on that. Boris Johnson. Probably not.

26:48Right. Changing a little bit the angle. So walk me through the initial steps of your fundraising. So from when you have your idea, all the way until the initial money arriving to the bank account. So when we started Double Dutch, we got small investment from our university, or like free price money, which was about 10 ,000 pounds, which we thought was amazing. That was gone very quickly. And then we kind of needed to start fundraising, but we didn't really know anyone in the UK, didn't really know anyone in food and beverage. so our best idea was to find people on LinkedIn which in hindsight was a bit naive but we found our first investment raised through people on LinkedIn that we approached kind of cold call we looked at people that had a relevant experience in hospitality or in food and drinks then we raised our first investment round through those sending messages for LinkedIn yeah to people that we thought could afford so we raised about 250 ,000 pounds what did you say in that message let's say just on a high level perspective what were the few pointers that you were mentioning we started Double Dutch these are kind of our first successes your profile looks amazing always put in lots of compliments in there you have an amazing career we'd love to go for a coffee I think our first messages were first we're looking for an advisory board and then we sneaked in the investment conversation.

28:19And we got some really good investors actually from the first part. How many messages, if you can remember, you sent and how many people you got to actually invest? We got five people to invest and I think we sent about 30 messages. So quite actually, because when we, back in the beginning, I really thought the UK is so supportive and people here for the underdog and for the small company. And I think the environment here is so startup friendly. Also because of governmental initiatives like EIS and SEIS, which makes it really attractive for angels to invest in smaller companies. For those who don't know what that is, can you briefly explain what it is?

29:00So there is a scheme here, SEIS and EIS, and it's Enterprise Investment Scheme, I think it's called. And basically, it gives an incentive for investors that you get 50 % of your investment into startups back in tax-free. So basically, it reduces the risk if anything would go wrong for the investor. And I think that makes lots of individuals and high network individuals who are maybe just investing smaller amounts interested in investing in super early stage companies. Did you include that in your initial message? Probably not because we didn't know it. But then along the way, people told us and then probably started putting that into our pitches.

29:53So you did not reinvent the wheel or fire. So this is not a new product in a way. You entered a very competitive industry. Why do you think you became successful? Execution and brand. And I think it's so important. I think lots of people think that they have to reinvent the wheel or that you have to invent something totally different. but it is probably easier to go into an industry that you don't need to educate consumers about what it actually is that you're selling. But I think if you believe you have a super, a great product, like you have great restaurants, then I think it's about the execution, doing it really well.

30:41And like you have great service and beautiful environments and delicious foods and great stuff. and it's about the whole experience. And yes, probably someone else could copy you, but if they don't give the same passion, it won't work. So I think it's the same in food and beverage and lots of industries. It's about executing it really well. I'm actually very happy that you say this because a lot of people don't venture into a business because they don't think they have a groundbreaking idea. They come up with an idea. And this happened, for example, a lot of times to my girlfriend. She pitched to me an idea and then she talks herself out of it because she's like, you know what?

31:30Someone else is doing something very similar, so I'm just not going to do it. And my take on this is that most successful companies, apart from the five companies that they've invented something completely new, especially in the technology environment, but most successful companies, they're thriving, not because they have an idea that no one has really tried before. It's because implementation is better. It all comes down to governance. So I think this is a fantastic lesson for anyone that is listening. But don't get into this business because it's very saturated and we only can have double touch.

32:03Exactly. Let's talk about failures. I think failures, this topic is something that is very much related to what entrepreneurship means. and some people are not brave enough to speak out loud about their failures. Describe to me your biggest business failure to date and how did you recover from it? I think it's difficult to pinpoint one biggest failure because I think there are so many mistakes throughout the week, month, year that you kind of learn from. I think we've made massive mistakes or failures in, for example, in the beginning, sending a whole truckload of Australian product to, for example, Austria.

32:53I mean, how silly. And then that cost us a lot of money that we actually couldn't afford. We had to bring it back. We have to destroy it. And I think that was a mistake of 50 ,000 pounds or something that in the beginning was so, so, so much money for us. and kind of we recovered from it. I can't actually just keep going and don't literally just need to find ways of fixing it. But I think also, I think one of the mistakes we made in the beginning a lot over and over again is we hired our team for that moment in time rather than thinking ahead. Okay, we may need someone at this level in, for example, a finance position, but didn't think about, okay we are actually doubling our revenues every year so if we hire for this person right now they're probably outgrown the company or the company's outgrown them in a year's time so then we need to go through the recruitment process all over again we need to onboard again you just lose time and lose money consistently i think we did that a lot i think if i would start over again i would much earlier think about hiring maybe slightly more experienced people even if you afford them but bring bring on right people three days a week rather than a more junior person five days a week i think we made lots of mistakes there i think there are so many small mistakes throughout the year it's difficult to say one biggest failure what's your biggest failure i knew this was coming my biggest failure i don't think my biggest failure is not coming it doesn't come from a bad outcome because the way that I register failure is not in that regard.

34:34That's not how I define failure. My biggest failure is when I'm upset with something that I've done personally wrong. So for example, if something goes wrong with the business ultimately I'm a human being. I'm able to recalibrate and bring myself back to ease or peace. Because I know that I focused on effort but my biggest failure really comes and that feeling of failure comes when i feel like i could have done something and i didn't and i know there was room for me to do more just from an effort perspective not from a result point of view and that's that was one of the biggest lessons learned in the initial stages of my of my career and that's why right now my motto is 80 effort hard work 20 % talent if not maybe 90-10.

35:23Also I have an interesting relationship with failure. I don't think that failure is fatal but at the same time I don't think that success is final. So when I think about this if you think failure is not fatal you're not going to be afraid of it and this is something that if you want to become an entrepreneur you need to accept. Failure is part of succeeding you just don't have to quit to reach that success but it's pretty much part of succeeding it's guaranteed it is guaranteed in one way or another um throughout your journey but at the same time i don't think success is final so when things are going well i don't i don't become very complacent right i don't just chill and let things go and see what happens because things are going well so that keeps me always on my toes but at the same time if i don't think that failure is fatal i'm not afraid of it so i'm always in that limbo that keeps me hungry yeah and driven it's interesting what you say i read a quote can't remember who it was from stress and like do you lay awake at night stress probably doesn't come from stress mostly comes from procrastination or not or knowing that you kind of could have done something about something but you didn't do it rather than i that's true i never have stress about maybe a failure or mistake or something that went wrong if i couldn't do anything about it but i lay at a way ignite if i'm thinking could i do something different didn't do it now it's too late or something like that yeah it's interesting because i had this conversation with my girlfriend because sometimes when you see the stress from the outside it's easier to identify where the stress is coming from in comparison when it's yourself trying to make that analysis.

37:10So I asked my girlfriend, in which moments did you see me more stressed? And she clearly told me that it wasn't when I had the biggest amount of workload. It was when I had mental stress because of perhaps responsibility. So right now we have over 200 employees. So maybe I could be working less, but my stress level is higher because my responsibility. So if I go through a tougher period, that really has an impact on my emotions. So is this something that also happens to you? So is it stress not related to workload and more related to, let's say, maybe emotional responsibilities? Yes, absolutely.

37:52I am super fine with long periods where you've got periods for us. it's also not very seasonal it's where there's weeks of i need to work until 11 12 at night and i need to do the weekends and then all of a sudden it's weeks where i can get my whole weekend free but and and i don't mind either because it's in periods and it's fine i think the stress is when either some things are not going as to plan or maybe we're not it's a tougher environment or we're going into production but an ingredient didn't arrive or whatever we have the risk of running out of stock or those kind of things the things that go wrong is much more stressful than than ours yeah absolutely let's talk about a very stressful topic maybe co-founders in your case it's your twin sister in your case and in my case that's why I said sometimes it's stressful So I find it super interesting because the relationship in between co-founders, the synergies, can really set the company to success or at the same time failure.

39:02What are the pros and cons of working with your twin sister? I think the pros are that you know each other inside out. So it's super efficient working and you don't never need to diptoe, don't need to explain why you're saying something or if you don't agree, you just go for it. I think it's efficient. I think also that you can 100 % trust each other. I give something to Joyce. I don't need to follow up. I don't know. I just know it will happen or I know she will do it to the standard that I expect. We are so similar. So I think that's super helpful. And you know that she will never be, I don't know, do anything behind your back or something.

39:41So the trust, I think, is super important. I think the challenge is it's super emotional. Like we are still siblings. so we have the sibling fights so we can be each other's biggest enemy and then 10 minutes later we need to go into a meeting together and smile and yeah are you competitive with each other? yes but I think in a good way growing up we always were kind of competitive like oh she's studying so then I need to study more like that not competitive as in I'm doing better than you not really no I wonder if that's more of a man thing than a female thing because for us, for Irene and I, one of the biggest lessons that we've learned was to learn how not to compete with each other.

40:31We were both trying to find our place in the business, even our roles in life, right? Our identities. So I'm not sure if it's more of a male, maybe testosterone thing that you're competing with your twin sibling. And you have different roles in the company? Yeah, you're asking my next questions. These are things that you want to know from another twin. We do have different roles. And it's not because we have different skills. So we both started the business coming from the same, very similar academic and professional backgrounds. But we immediately understood that we could not both be doing the same thing.

41:10He needs to have his area where he needs to grow. And I need to have an area where I need to grow both professionally, but also personally as a human being. And it took a lot of trials and errors, let's put it that way, for us to find our way to coexist in a manner that is healthy for the business and is healthy for our relationship. But one common denominator that I've seen also across most interviews in this show is that most co-founders have different skills and that works very well in the business. in your case you're twin so i'm imagining that you your your background is fairly similar to what i'm saying with mine so how did you divide these responsibilities it's exactly the same as you say it's very similar backgrounds but we started double edge and then naturally so we have very different roles in the company i do everything with brand marketing sales and joy says everything with finance ops and experts she got the worst end of stick um by the way i take care of the same business units.

42:10Operations, we share them. But yeah, he's on finance. I'm on marketing. So we're the cooler twins here. Exactly. It just happens with us. We never really said like, okay, this is how we're going to split it. But in those first weeks, months, maybe a year, Joyce naturally started doing the invoicing and naturally started doing the budgeting. And I naturally started doing the branding and marketing. And then... we kind of made it official and this is now your role and this is my role. And I think it's a good split because I am slightly more creative and Joyce is much more kind of financial or more structured, I would say.

42:53So it does work, but it's not like I had my marketing background and Joyce had our finance, we both had a finance background. When you have a difference in opinions, because this can happen a lot of times, especially in our business. And a lot of decisions are, they could be data-driven, but if, let's say, my brother, you know, lays out a scenario and I laid out a different scenario, they both, when you hear, when you listen to them, they could be absolutely right. And you bring a third person and maybe the person is like, you know what, they both could work, let's just test one or the other. So do you have a mechanism that removes that deadlock.

43:35So decision-making becomes fluid. We generally say that's kind of the last words we go for is within their department. So Joyce can then, if we disagree, she has the last words within finance ops production, those things. And I have the last word in my department. Yeah, we do exactly the same, apart from obviously there. It's funny because we always fought out of the smaller operational decisions that we need to make on a weekly or monthly basis. But we never thought about the big decisions, the strategic decisions of the business. We were always super aligned. Yeah, same. What do you think is that?

44:14I don't know. We fight a lot about tiny things that really don't matter or we disagree to those things and we're aligned on the big things. So I think that's a positive, but it would be worse if it's the other way around. I think, I don't know. Do you have an answer? yes i think that when there's bigger fish to fry meaning that when there's a decision that is more important than who's right unconsciously for us we set aside what's my opinion about you in business or me in business or your approach to life whatever it is right and we focus on what's really the best way forward as a whole for the business and then in this small things that we fight, we know inside of us that whether we go his way or my way, there's going to be a marginal difference.

45:01And that marginal difference may be smaller than showing to the other I am the one that is right. You know what I mean? But I have to admit that this got reduced so much during the last year. So right now we're going to a very healthy and progressive type of approach. But interesting. So we have a lot of synergies.

45:25if you build a new business would you do it with your sister

45:31yes i think so i would probably not start a business from zero again i would but i do think what i also do like with doing it with your sister is that it's so much more fun everything aside then maybe i think the highs are so much higher and the lows are slightly less low because you can confine in each other and um so i would never start a business on my own probably and i would not know who else to do it with than my sister because i wouldn't i think the the dynamics with a friend are very different it's um i think the fact that you know each other so inside out really does help a lot. Continuing on this imaginary world where you're going to build a new business, what would be the greatest lesson that you've learned throughout your experience right now in building Double Dutch that you would apply to this new business?

46:33That's a good question. I would be much more organized from the start and then keep track of everything from the start from kind of people we've met um the way we do we we structure things the way we do business um i would do our hiring and our team like i said from the start much much better more organized for the future um and i think what i put to the same is lots of companies start and they think about marketing but and how to market and what what promotions will you be doing and where will you'll be marketing towards what consumers. But it doesn't really matter if you don't have any sales and if nobody's buying your product.

47:14So I think focusing on sales, sales, sales first is the most important and getting the right team around you, the right network. Let's talk about Forbes. When you got the nomination, did you celebrate with Gin and Tonic? Of course. Really? Okay, explain to me, walk me through the moment, how it happened, where were you, and were you with your sister? That I actually can't remember. but I remember we got to do the photo shoot for the magazine and it was all quite last minute so maybe we found out like a few hours before the photo shoot or something I think but only one of us could be in the photo shoot to be on the cover set so we did a rock scissor and I won that's the worst thing they can do to a twin it's better to not get the award at all I know So I got this.

48:10And then Joyce stood there seeing me picture. So that was nice. Little win for me, yes. And I think that we celebrated with the gin and tonic afterwards. We went to a pub in Mayfair and had lots of gin and tonics. I think the celebration is double as nice when you do it with your twin sibling because you celebrate yourself, but also you're celebrating the most important person in your life. So it becomes, you know, an incredible, amazing moment.

48:46Did this nomination help your business in any way? Like maybe to fundraise, gain new clients? I think it mostly helped with credibility in fundraising and having a kind of big solid institution behind you I think it helped with the credibility. And I do think that some investors may look through those lists to then actually approach. Because when it went out, we did have quite a lot of VC funds. We didn't really go with any of those in the end approaches. So I think that was, it was in 2019 and we were just funding at that moment in time. So it was good timing for us, but not really with customers.

49:29right for me for me it was useful to say to my mom i'm doing the right thing yeah because when we when we told our family we want to enter into the hospitality business they were supportive of us venturing something by ourselves but they always told us the hospitality business it requires for you to be there a lot and you know people can steal from you So this was a little like patting the back saying, you know what, maybe I wasn't so wrong after all. And I've always thought the same thing, like you can make lots of money from real estate, but you can lose a lot of money in real estate. Same for pharma, same for oil and gas, and same for hospitality.

50:10You can make a lot of money, but also lose a lot of money. So it all comes down to the implementation and how good of an entrepreneur and an operator you are. How, changing, probably drastically the topic, how would you define success? So I think success for me is when everything goes well with WDH when we are having good growth numbers when we have good top line numbers when we get our customers that we are targeting the team is doing well but I think maybe success for someone else may be something totally different So I think success is good financial stability, good financial prospects and a happy life.

51:00Would you say you are successful? I definitely think I have a very happy life. But I'm always chasing more and better. Thank you so much, Raisa, for coming. I honestly believe that you represent everything that your brand is. so you're fun, you're energetic, you're bubbly. And I'm also very happy to hear that someone, instead of trying to identify a gap in the market and trying to fill it up, for once they're looking inwards to see what resonates with them. And then you go and make a product or a service out of it. So I'm really looking forward to seeing Double Dutch stocked in all the hotels, all the restaurants and all supermarkets very soon.

51:47Thank you. Thanks. you