TRIP CBD Co-Founder: How a Sports Injury Led to Europe’s Biggest CBD Brand

0:02We always knew, okay, we need to create a brand and a range of products that allows us to bring these amazing ingredients to the mainstream. Trip has always been created based on how do we target people who have a certain feeling, not a certain demographic profile. We knew that we wanted to help a billion people find calm, not a million people find calm. James Edmonds co-founded plant-based CBD-infused drinks brand Trip in 2019 with his two friends. Its canned sodas are now stocked in stores and bars in over 30 countries. I think that when you're building a consumer brand, it's very hard to pin your success on any one factor.

0:41When someone goes and buys a trip from Sainsbury's, I don't know whether they saw us in a house, saw us in a gym, whether they saw our TV ads, an Instagram ad, an influencer, or their mum told them to buy it. It would be very interesting if their mum told them to buy it. It happens the whole time. That's very good, by the way. Raspberry, orange blossom. That one's lovely. People mainly use it for stress, to help them find calm, to relax, unwind, and some people use it for sleep as well. Success. What do you think? How is it different for you? You're the first person that asked this question back.

1:16For me, success is...

1:31is.

1:48feel incredibly light. And number three, it has to breathe and dry very fast. BornBound nails it at all of this. They're designed with this cutting edge nanotechnology, making them lightweight, breathable, and quick-drying. Exercising regularly is essential to becoming the best version of yourself. To help you get started, we've secured an amazing offer. Use the code that we're going to leave here below for you to get 30 % off BornBound gear. I hope you take advantage of it and you unlock the best version of yourself. That's it from me. Now, we're going to get back to the episode. Thank you.

2:25James, let's start with the basics. What is CBD? So, CBD is extracted from the hemp plant. It's a cannabinoid, one of approximately 110 cannabinoids used all over the world for lots of different things, but people mainly use it for stress to help them find calm, to relax, unwind. And some people use it for sleep as well. I started hearing about it when I, well, mainly because my girlfriend told me that I should try these products because they would allow me to calm down and to release some stress. At first, I was a bit like, do you have used about it? But then when I tried it and I started researching about the effects and I came to the conclusion that it wasn't a drug, I actually started liking it.

3:17How did the CBD or where did the CBD movement come from? So was it an accident? Was it an experiment? To be honest, I think I can only tell you about how I discovered CBD and what kind of led us into the trip. It was a really personal experience that led us there. It wasn't that we were particularly knowledgeable about hemp or were researching the space. Essentially, I started a trip with two co-founders called Olivia and Daniel. I've known them for years. So way back when I was 16 years old, I started going out with Olivia's sister. And so I've known Olivia since I was 16 years old. At the time, Olivia and her sister both went to the same school.

4:07So I've known her since I was 16. When I got together with her sister, she, Olivia, had a boyfriend called Daniel. And so I've known them since I was really, really young. And so we grew up together, essentially, never had any ideas about going into business together. All went down very different paths. And how we discovered CBD and generally how we discovered plant-powered well-being was totally organically. Olivia was a lawyer, Daniel was in finance, I was in marketing, and they were about to get married in 2018. And Daniel was out playing football about six, seven weeks before they were supposed to get married, and got into a bad challenge, tore his ACL, and it was really bad news.

4:56He was supposed to be walking down the aisle six, seven weeks later. he was having to go to his suit fittings with a huge like uh wrap around his leg olivia was not best pleased they were thinking are we going to have to postpone the wedding and so at the time daniel's brother was living in new york and he said okay we have to try everything anything to try and find a way to get recovery how do you sleep better how do you reduce inflammation we need to keep this wedding going and so he said okay i've seen in the u.s there's some athletes and they're trying some of these natural remedies l-theanine cbd it helps you sleep it might help you recover better and so they were trying anything and everything to basically be able to walk down the aisle rather than be on crutches okay save the wedding save the marriage um and so when his brother said why don't you try these products he sent over some cbd products some L-theanine products.

5:55And essentially, we were not experts at all. In the form of oil? In the form of oil, yeah. And Daniel found it was amazing to help him recover. And he went from being on crutches down the aisle, and instead of that, he was able to walk down the aisle and even dance all night. And so it was this amazing recovery. The next day, his knee was quite swelled up but the fact that the wedding was able to continue was this amazing moment of not only is it incredible he was able to walk down the aisle but when they got back from the wedding they were thinking what is it what are these ingredients how do they work and so that was this real kind of light bulb moment where we basically discovered these ingredients and so it wasn't from a business idea of we want to make a cbd brand we want to make a natural ingredients brand.

6:48It was purely interesting that these ingredients worked so well. And so I first discovered these ingredients when after the wedding, Daniel and Olivia, before they ever thought about starting a brand, were just passionate and excited about these products that they hadn't really heard of, that you couldn't buy anywhere in supermarkets or restaurants, or you couldn't find anywhere, but they just found to be amazingly effective. And so they got back and the first experience of CBD and Altheanine was not from a business perspective perspective but it was purely personal they got back from the wedding and then suddenly thought okay this is interesting started researching it and it all started from there so it was never a a business passion it was just purely how do we make Daniel be able to walk down the aisle right so they find these products in the u.s daniel consumes them he's able to sleep better recover faster and dance his way out exactly then olivia and daniel they start researching about all the different benefits from cbd and similar related products or substances and then they come to you with a business idea?

8:04I would say first they came to me and just said, these are amazing ingredients, you should try them. And I can say they became really passionate telling their friends and family, there are all of these amazing plant-powered ingredients that you can't find anywhere. They're not in supermarkets. The formats are hard to use, hard to understand. They taste horrible. and we were all saying back to them that doesn't look great I'm not sure I want to try that that looks a bit weird do I really want to try a hemp oil how do I take it it tastes horrible and so the first experience was then purely recommending it to people because they found it to be so effective but getting pushback of I don't really want to take this I could never take this and have it on my desk at work.

8:54And so I think that was the real genesis of the business idea was that they discovered these amazing plant powered ingredients, but none of their friends and family wanted to take them because they tasted bad. They looked weird and they couldn't buy them anywhere. And so I think it was from that that they thought there should be a brand that basically takes these amazing, really effective ingredients, but puts them in a brand flavor format that allows it to go to the mainstream. And so I think I first heard about it before they had a business idea. And it was probably us saying, I don't want to try that, that then sparked the thought of there should be a brand that takes these amazing ingredients and brings them to the mainstream in a way that people will enjoy taking.

9:41It's the same way when you want to relax with a gin and tonic in the evening you want to enjoy the flavor as well as the feeling when daniel and olivia discovered these products you might enjoy the feeling but you would hate the flavor and the experience and we wanted to create a brand at that stage that was authentically functional and that's the most important thing but also uniquely delicious you need to enjoy using the product as much as the feeling afterwards interesting you're very brave because back then the market especially in the UA from what I'm understanding, wasn't very much penetrated.

10:17Consumers did not know what these substances are. What are the benefits? Why should I take them? How should I take them? And also there is probably there was this stigma or this question mark around, is this a drug? Am I going to be judged if I consume it in public? Am I going to get addicted? So you have this very safe job in marketing. you were a senior brand ambassador for L 'Oreal a brand manager for L 'Oreal whatever choice you make to become an entrepreneur needs to be safe in a way because your opportunity cost is very big in this case you decided to venture into something that it hasn't been done before why did you think at the time this was a good idea?

11:06You're totally right that the awareness of these products was not very high and these ingredients was not very high they weren't sold in any supermarkets and the demand for L-theanine or CBD at the time wasn't particularly large because no one knew about it but I think what really drew me to it once Daniel and Olivia came up with the idea of let's create a brand that makes this mainstream the the demand or feeling that you can have a product that helps you find calm was so clear to me that there has to be a brand that helps you find calm, helps you relax, that isn't bad for you, that it was just so easy to understand.

11:48I think that maybe making a CBD brand would have felt like a stretch, a really hard job to do. But we never went out to create a CBD brand. We wanted to create a brand to help you find calm. We thought it didn't make sense that in 2018, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of people are trying to find calm through meditation, yoga, exercise. But the only products that help you find calm at that time that you consume are beer, cigarettes, chocolate, wine, all products that are vices. They're not great for you to consume in every single day.

12:33calm that is also good for you. So while creating something that contains CBD and L-theanine, there wasn't that much demand for those ingredients. What we knew is the demand to de-stress, to unwind was really universal. And I think that's what's been really exciting about Trip is we are doing something new. We are doing something different, but we never had to explain to consumers what the product is for because everyone's automatically understood, I do want a product that helps me relax and unwind. And it's such a universal demand to have products that help you do that. While the ingredients might be interesting and not that common, the demand for a product that helps you unwind and find calm is so easy to understand.

13:19But it didn't feel like a huge stretch to have to create that brand. Interesting. So you have these two close friends that you've known for so many years they come to you and they tell you we want to build up a range of products or a product that help you come exactly so you have this vision or more than vision you have this mission the mission is build up a range of products that are going to help people be more calm now that's something very clear very specific how do you bring that into reality. So this is an idea and it's a great idea, but how do you execute this idea? I think that with most great brands, they have a really clear mission or purpose.

14:06And that's exactly what our mission or purpose is. Help a billion people find calm. That's what we want to do at TRIP. We want to be a brand that globally helps a billion people find calm. And then you need to think about what is the way that we can help achieve that mission. And for us, that was taking these amazing plant-powered ingredients, but we knew that if they stayed in small brown bottles, weird powders, products that wouldn't be suitable if you had them at work, you wouldn't see them on a supermarket shelf, we'd never be able to bring it to the mainstream. And so we always knew, okay, we need to create a brand and a range of products that allows us to bring these amazing ingredients to the mainstream.

14:50and so that's why we launched with beverages and supplements and really focused on creating a brand that was easy to understand relatable made you feel good when you picked up the products and you were being seen with it and most importantly was delicious people don't want to have a product that tastes horrible if they're going to use it every single day and so that's really been our superpower is creating a brand that allows the mainstream consumer who maybe isn't an expert in every single ingredient to be able to access plant-powered well-being in a way that is delicious and easy and that's why drinks are so amazing.

15:30There are drinks in every single restaurant, bar, gym, cafe, supermarket, office and if you're not an expert in supplements you can still find calm through drinks. And so that's really been our focus is making these amazing ingredients accessible to everyone all over the world.

15:54So branding, branding was a key fundamental ingredient in your journey. What is branding? For me, branding is definitely not marketing. Branding is anything that influences how a consumer experiences the product. For us, when we created the brand, we wanted the product to be able to explain how you're going to feel without saying how you're going to feel. We wanted the colors, the minimalist design, even the way that the can feels and looks with its matte feel, with a soft touch, to be able to indicate that you're going to feel calm from using the product. And so it's all of the little touches that you do to help your consumer experience your product.

16:42It's not paying for a billboard that is part of your brand, but it's anything that your consumer sees, touches, tastes, all of that is branding. Did your branding evolve from 2019 until today? Very little, very little. The front of the can has barely changed since 2019. we've been really fortunate that the brand that we created back in 2019 has really resonated with consumers across the world the UK France the US people really understand how they're going to feel they like what it is communicating to them that this is a product that's going to help you find calm and so of course we've evolved and improved you know packaging made it more sustainable but the look and feel of the brand has remained remarkably consistent over the last five years.

17:37If I put my shoes into someone that might be listening to this conversation, I believe they might be asking themselves, well, I agree branding is fundamental in consumer goods, but how do I achieve great branding? There might be some branding principles that you can apply that are common success factors in previous products that are successful in today's world. Did you work with a branding agency that allowed you or that enabled you to come up with this? We've worked with great agencies throughout our time, but when you're very small in a startup, you can't afford to spend 50, 100 ,000 pounds on the leading, most expensive branding agencies.

18:25and you really have to come into the design process with a clear idea of what you want to achieve. And I think the most important thing that you can do is try to be focused as an entrepreneur, but also in branding. And you want to think every element of your product, the packaging, the label, the fonts, should be trying to communicate a relatively simple message. We're launching into a really crowded category, beverages and supplements. and so we need everything that we do to try to communicate a relatively simple message that you understand and so for us that was the overriding principle of marketing is of branding is how do we communicate calm through the look feel and uh text that we use and so from the very beginning that the kind of line that we've used since 2019 is trip helps you find calm amidst everyday chaos What that means to people is totally different.

19:24Your everyday chaos might be totally different to my everyday chaos, to a mom of three, to a father of two, to someone who's in business, not in business. Everyone has their own sense of chaos, but we want the overarching feeling to be the same, that trip is that moment of respite in your chaos. And so our principles have always been find the idea that you want to communicate and then try to have that idea flow through as much of the branding as you can. This is fascinating, if I'm very honest, for me to see, because usually if this is the first venture, if this is your first business, you come to the conclusion and the answers to these very big questions.

20:07How does good branding look like? How does good branding look like for this particular type of products after testing a lot? and the market gives you this feedback and then you start shaping shaping shaping towards a final product and then you're happy with your branding because your consumers are happy with it in this case you knew very well that accessibility was very important people didn't know about this product so then they shouldn't be um it needs to it needs to feel something that almost a kid could buy um the colors the simplicity the messaging within 30 seconds you need to know exactly how am I going to be feeling?

20:45Which I find fascinating that the three of you knew that from almost day one and that didn't change since you launched. Now, moving into more marketing, which is also, I believe, incredibly important in consumer goods. Within the last five years that you've been working and growing Trip. Have you identified one particular type of initiative that works better than anything else? I think Trip's journey when it comes to marketing is probably fairly unique. So when we first launched, the products have a range of ingredients, lemon balm, ginseng, chamomile, but CBD was one of the ingredients. And at that time when we launched, you couldn't advertise on Facebook, Instagram, Google, you couldn't really advertise anywhere that was realistic.

21:45We weren't going to launch straight and go advertise on TV because we were still very small. And because we couldn't pay to advertise on any of those channels when we first launched, we had to focus 100 % on how do we build this brand organically? How do we build this brand without spending money on marketing. And I think for us, that was the most incredible discipline. And while throughout that whole period, I would have loved to spend money on marketing because I'd come from L 'Oreal and that was what you do. You spend money on marketing. And I couldn't use any of those skills of spending money effectively on marketing.

22:24What we had to do was work out how do we create a brand that consumers want to tell their friends about, that they want to post on social media, that the press want to write about, the influencers want to talk about. And so I think that that discipline has really been crucial to our long term success. Because we couldn't buy reach, because we couldn't buy eyeballs, we had to focus on creating a brand and a range of products that people wanted to tell their friends about. and that meant creating the best possible products products that you feel calm that taste delicious that are new that are different and are interesting enough that you want to tell one other person and for us that was the best discipline ever because we spent all of the time that we maybe would have spent focusing on how to run effective instagram adverts and focused all of that time on how do we make the best possible product so that if you pick up a product you try it and you tell one other one other person or an influencer picks up receives the product and they want to talk about it because it's new and different and that what's now called virality and when people think about virality they think 10 million views on tiktok but real virality all it needs is that every single person who receives it tells one more person and you grow exponentially and so our real focus when it came to marketing was how do we get every single person to tell one more person that this product tastes delicious and helps them find their calm and for that we've now been able to use marketing to kind of pour fuel on the fire but the most important advice I would have to any entrepreneur is before you focus on how to drive awareness and spend money the most important thing is that the product is organically viral that anyone that comes to your restaurant anyone that uses your app thinks that it's good enough to tell one more person and if you have that then you'll be able to grow organically james i have to admit that i'm even more impressed right now because i've had the privilege of sitting down with amazing entrepreneurs um and um one of the findings so far is that if you want to be successful you need to work very hard and effectively not quit you need to pivot definitely and and reshape your path um to overcome whatever challenge you are facing in this particular case you are on one hand launching a product that nobody really yet understands then be and most importantly you cannot advertise it you cannot tell people what this is how to consume it what are the benefits what's a usb um and if this was your third venture and you've already exited two companies before that you might have several different lessons learned from previous experiences on what to do in this particular case but again um similar to branding from a marketing perspective you thought well i cannot market my products but instead of focusing on marketing initiatives i'm going to focus on product development and making it so good that the word of mouth is going to be my my marketing form my marketing initiative which i find well definitely it worked so so my compliments on that but also uh from an entrepreneurial perspective it is it is fascinating to see that that you came to that conclusion so quickly and you pivoted within one of the with a very big challenge at such an early stage in your first venture i think we've also been really fortunate that one of the amazing things about beverages is that they're everywhere they're in every single location where consumers go and so we've been able to work with some of the world's best partners that help communicate what the product is for without you having to put it on a billboard so if you walk into some of the top bars in the uk soar house annabelle's trip is on there as an alcohol alternative and so people go in and think okay i don't want to drink alcohol tonight i want to find a drink that is interesting delicious and they find trip as an alternative at sewer house that automatically tells you they know that sewer house is a place that is known for curation the highest quality products experiences they know that it's going to be a great tasting product they might try it in that experience they then know for the back of their mind trip is a great alcohol alternative and then when they see us in a supermarket they know okay great trip is an alcohol alternative or they find trip in wasabi leon and think okay trip is a great lunchtime occasion or one of our first uh launches was in the gym equinox just down the road from where we are today and people will think okay if it's in equinox it's not going to be unhealthy and so we've been able to work with all of these amazing partners and through association people develop their branding where you sell is part of your branding it's not just what you sell where you sell as part of your branding and if you see trip in equinox you think it's healthy if you see trip as an alcohol alternative in sir house you understand that it's an alcohol alternative.

27:52And so from the very beginning, we've been really fortunate to work with amazing partners that have helped develop people's perception of trip because of where they find it as well as what it is. I've recently invested into a take consumer company, early stage. And one of the reasons why I decided to invest in this company is because the USP, the unique selling proposition of this company is very, very clear. So in order for you to penetrate the B2C, the consumer market, the USP in today's world, when the world is so competitive, needs to be clear as day. Within 30 seconds, even less than that, you need to understand what the brand is selling, whether it's a product or a service.

28:37And I think that while every methodology for you to partner with these different companies, whether they are lifestyle-oriented like Soho House, fitness oriented like equinox they are honestly speaking incredibly smart for you to build up the values of your of your company without having to really push it and spending tons of money in marketing which even you were not able to do in the early stages but all these different things but if your business had a complex usb because you had i don't know a few other ingredients there that they were not as clear as your overall mission which is i want for people to feel more con that's it then i'm going to bring this into the lifestyle community into the health community into the people that are not drinking alcohol as you mentioned in annabelle's those are side initiatives for you to basically go back to the overall mission which is something that everyone could relate to as you were saying and i fundamentally agree and i'm fascinated by how all these different points are tied into that overall mission totally and i think that it's it's one of the reasons why it's been so rewarding in the last five years is that there wasn't a category of products that were consumable that helps you find calm but everyone gets it very quickly people get that they want a product to help them unwind that isn't alcoholic all the time there's obviously a place for alcohol we're not preaching that everyone should be sober but there are some times where you want to unwind without alcohol and trip is the best product for that.

30:12And I think that having a mission that is simple is the most important thing. You need that North Star, otherwise you can get so easily distracted. We could so easily launch so many things under the trip brand that would be distractions, but we always have to remind ourselves, what is the mission? What are we trying to achieve? And that really guides every decision that we make a very large study done in 2019 basically concluded with the fact that 20 roughly 26 percent of people in between 16 years old all the way until 25 don't drink alcohol and i find it interesting that they say 16 years because technically they shouldn't be able to drink but hey we're in the uk so but that's interesting that's that's a lot of young people not drinking.

31:03Why do you think this is? When we look at this kind of new generation, Gen Z, there's more awareness of the impacts that alcohol have on them, the way they feel the next day. They're more attuned to their bodies, to their mental well-being than ever before. People are more comfortable talking about stress, talking about anxiety, talking about hang-anxiety when you have a hangover and anxiety at the same time. This is a generation that notices that and is comfortable talking about that. And the peer pressure to be downing drinks at university is lessening as a result. And I think that as people become more attuned to their health, and that's not just physical health, it's mental health, it's only natural that some people will choose not to drink alcohol.

31:55Not everyone. and we see that most people are not choosing to not drink at all but they're the kind of flexitarian when it comes to alcohol they maybe drink less or even in the one evening they'll intermix they'll have a gin and tonic and then they'd have a trip and then a gin and tonic and so it's just about balance and we would never preach you should do one thing or the other but I think this is a generation that drinks less than ever before and cares for their mental well-being more than ever before and i don't think those two things are separate trends i think they're one and the same what is the primary age of your consumers trip has consumers right from 18 to 65 and older there's not a core demographic that we're saying 18 to 25 25 to 35 trip has always been created based on how do we target people who have a certain feeling, not a certain demographic profile.

32:54We knew that we wanted to help a billion people find calm, not a million people find calm. And so we wanted to create a brand that was accessible to men and women, younger people or older people. And so there's no reason why if you're 25 or 45, you aren't looking for the same thing, a product to help you find calm. And so the brand and business has always been set up to be accessible to all and not exclude any particular group of people. So less and less people are drinking alcohol because I think the population is becoming more health conscious. And I think it's a great direction where we're heading.

33:37If Trip is so healthy, why can't underage people drink it? with any product that has any ingredient that's in food supplements if you want children pregnant women any particular group to be able to try anything that's new you need to do a lot of consumer testing in order to prove that it's safe and so it's not that you necessarily can't use these products as a child. But on the back of any food supplement you find across the country and the US, it will say, do not give to children, do not use on pregnant women. It's not necessarily because it's bad for children or pregnant women. It's just it's extremely expensive to test products on these groups because fair enough, if you're an adult, you're not going to be easily handing over your kids for any testing of new products in the same way that when you're pregnant you're not going to be testing loads of new products and so it's not that it's necessarily bad for children it's that it's very expensive to test any new product or food supplement on them i need you to be very honest with me if you had a child would you give this to your 10 year old kid for me personally 100 i think that the ingredients that are in trip I know are so well tested and are, me personally, this is not a guarantee from a marketing perspective, but I would definitely be comfortable with it.

35:16I'm sure there's a lot of kids that would like to have you other than that. What do you think CBD in general has become so popular? I really think that the brands that are doing well that contain CBD are doing well because they're meeting consumers' needs to help them find calm, to help them sleep better, rather than any particular ingredient. I think if you think about other categories that are similar, maybe the energy drinks category, or even gut health as a category, consumers don't say with Red Bull, I really like taurine, or even I really like caffeine, and it's not called the caffeine category.

35:56It's called the energy category. Consumers look for products that help them feel a certain way. And it's not really about the ingredients. The same when it comes to gut health. If you go to any supermarket or store, you'll see 50, 100 products that help you with gut health. But consumers aren't looking for specific, most of the time, consumers aren't looking for a certain number of natural bacteria or people aren't looking for taurine with energy drinks consumers are looking for a feeling and i think that the brands that are doing really well that contain any natural ingredient that helps you find calm are doing well because they're giving consumers a way to get the feeling that way they want rather than being tied to one particular ingredient so for the ones that cannot see this and they're just listening to it we have in front of us the entire range of CBD drinks.

36:55James, can you walk me through the first product that you launched all the way until the latest one? And why did you decide to bring them to market in this order? So when we first launched Trip, we launched with a range of beverages and supplements as well. The beverages all contained a range of natural ingredients, L-theanine, ginseng, lemon balm, chamomile and CBD in a range of different flavors. Elderflower mint, peach ginger, lemon basil, even a cold brew coffee. And all of these products in the beverage range were created to try and find the right balance of two things, making them authentically functional and uniquely delicious.

37:39we really wanted to find products that people really enjoyed taking would recommend to a friend would pick up off a shelf if they've never tried elthenin or cbd before and so they had to be delicious sounding but also we created products that were really inspired by cocktails in that they were elevated and sophisticated we didn't launch with a lemonade a cola and a ginger ale we wanted products that were interesting and layered and so they have many different juices within them to create a really layered and sophisticated flavor while still appealing to the mainstream which one is your favorite one it's like choosing between your kids uh you have a lot of kids exactly uh elderflower mint for me is really delicious it's uh one of our best-selling products uh it's got minting which really gives you an amazing refreshing aftertaste um right i'm gonna give it a go go for it and then you can see here we've also got a couple of products that we've uh launched in 2024 which contain magnesium lemon balm lion's mane uh all of the products are really unique in that they have unique blends of natural ingredients it's not just about one ingredient it's about a blend so you've mentioned before that your primary focus was on product development and building the best products how did you test how did you come up with a conclusion or how did you know that the product was going to be liked so how did the testing look like you've got to remember that when we first started trip that's very good by the way raspberry orange blossom that one's lovely that one's uh got a really nice flavor a little bit of apple cider vinegar in there which gives it a bit of a kick my girlfriend would love that then really it's really delicious uh but it's also important that it doesn't taste exactly like anything else that you've had before it doesn't you need to have a product that you remember and i think it's important when you're creating a brand you don't want to create a brand that is liked by everyone and loved by no one.

39:57When you go to a shelf and you go to a supermarket, in particular the drink aisle, how many drinks are in the fridge in a supermarket? 50, 100? People don't pick 20 drinks and take them home. They pick one drink. And so they're going to come back to the products that they love. If you're everyone's 10th favorite drink, they're never going to buy you. And so we want to create drinks that people love, that are new, different, and interesting. thing so what should i be feeling and when should i feel it we've got a range of natural ingredients in here and the one that you're trying there it's got cbd it's got lemon balm it's got l-theanine in it and what you'll feel is calmer you're not going to feel drowsy sleepy but it essentially works with your body's natural system to help you find a bit of calm.

40:53And it works differently for everyone. Just like how caffeine affects people differently, CBD, L-theanine, these natural ingredients work with people differently. But what we find is that most commonly, you'll feel a bit calmer after about 20 minutes. And some people will decide to have more than one drink a day. And some people will just have one. Just like with caffeine, can you build up a tolerance to CBD? As with any natural ingredients, if you have lots of it, you can build up a tolerance to anything. But I would say that it is not particularly noticeable. You don't build up a very fast tolerance.

41:32Should I be having this before a meeting? I have it before every meeting. I have it every day. But I would say I definitely have it before a meeting. I think that as an entrepreneur, you're commonly going into situations almost every month that are new to you. You're going into new business opportunities. And with that often comes stress. And the most important thing that you can do is be calm in those situations. Stress is not helpful for making business decisions. sometimes it's a good motivator but you don't make great decisions when you're very stressed and so making business decisions or being in a business meeting being calm is really important so i'd have trip products before every important meeting are there different like grades or qualities of cbd definitely as with any ingredient there's different ways that you can produce manufacture, test.

42:33And so TRIP as a product works really well, not just because we've found good ingredients and we want to put magnesium in a drink. We've then tested lots of different types of magnesium to understand how do we create a product that is absorbed well by your body? How do you create a product that also functions well in a beverage? And so we've been able to create not just an interesting mix of ingredients but find the right and highest quality ingredients to make sure that you have the best experience because if it's uniquely delicious that's amazing but it needs to have the balance of being authentically functional how many of this do you consume a day so we have them in the office i have them in my house i would say that i probably average three to four drinks per day personally three to four so one of these ones has 15 milligrams of cbd 25 milligrams of premium cbd is that a lot when we've created the brand we wanted to create a product that was accessible to everyone.

43:47We didn't want to create a product that was too strong or not strong enough. We wanted to create a product where if you're trying Trip or trying a calming product for the very first time, that you feel calmer, but also that you can have multiple drinks within a day. And so that we found that the range of ingredients that we have and the balance between the different CBD content, L-theanine was the right balance for our consumers. So I'm seeing that all of your, the drinks that have CBD, they have 15 milligrams aside from the one that I was drinking, which has 25 by chance. Is there a reason why you've chosen to have one that has a higher dosage of CBD?

44:36We've created that specific product to essentially meet different consumers' needs. One of the amazing things about being a brand that started being very digital, so we launched in COVID. We launched in 2019, very quickly, everything shut down. And so when we launched in 2019, you're just getting started. And very quickly, overnight, things shut down. We were selling into gyms, bars, restaurants, cafes. And then very quickly, we couldn't sell in any of those locations because they were all closed. It's very hard to launch into new supermarkets because they were only selling flour, pasta, water.

45:17And so we have always, as a result, been very closely connected to our digital community. It was the only way that we could talk to consumers. It was really the only way that we could sell to many consumers. And because of that, our digital community has always been a real foundation of the business. probably as a result of being really driven by the kind of limitations of lockdown. But it's been one of the kind of most incredible drivers of the way that we create the business now is that consumers are able to directly communicate with us all of the time about different ingredients that they want us to launch, different flavours, different formats of products.

46:02And while as a business we went many years without launching new products, we've always been able to have that direct line of communication with consumers to understand what they want from TREP when it comes to ingredients and flavors. So you've launched the company five years ago. Within five years you became the dominant player in the UK market. I believe you controlled roughly 80 % of the market share. and in 2023 last year you grew 500 percent when you look at this data from the outside one might assume that your roadmap to success was very smooth now in my experience my understanding in business regardless of the industry and even if you are right now leading one of the most successful businesses i am pretty sure that you've went through struggles challenges can you remember and share with me the biggest challenge that trip has faced today i think for me the moment where we felt most helpless was definitely march 2020 i think that we created the brand really based on we wanted to make a product that was accessible to everyone, that was sold in multiple different places.

47:34It was sold online, but it was sold in bars, restaurants, gyms, cafes, supermarkets. And it was where people can discover new products. In March 2020, pretty much all distribution shut down. We couldn't advertise online. And so overnight, the business plan that we had to build through retailers like Planet Organic and Sewer House and Equinox, suddenly we couldn't add any new stores because they were focusing on their core range. They didn't go out of stock. You couldn't discover us in your local coffee shop because they were all closed. Everyone was stuck at home. And I think it was a really good learning for us, because while in March 2020, we were all sitting at home thinking, what are we going to do?

48:25We can't sell into any of the stores that we thought we were going to sell into. The business plan that we had is essentially being torn up. And I think that that was the moment where we were probably looking back the most helpless and we were thinking okay what do we even do now but in the end that was probably one of the moments where we were able to create the business that we have today because we were able to really build an incredible online community we were able to really focus on continually improving the product so that even if you couldn't discover it in your new local bar you were still telling or friends about it, but also through the stresses that everyone had through those lockdown periods, through the pandemic, people became more aware of health than ever before.

49:18And so I think it's always a really good reminder that sometimes the moments that are the most painful and you're the most worried about the direction of the business, they're also the moments that create the kind of most opportunities for you to learn, develop your business. And often it's the businesses that go through a period of struggle and have to pivot or evolve to get through that struggle that actually are the best businesses. And so while in the moment it was extremely stressful, I think that one of the key reasons that we're where we are today is because of the challenges that we experienced through the lockdown.

49:58I mean, definitely your story is a story of resilience, hard work, and perseverance. Within one year of you launching your company, you're facing one of the toughest economical situations that the world has ever seen. In March 2020, the UK went into lockdown without knowing what a lockdown looks like, what it means, how long are we going to be in that situation for? And your business was a baby. It was barely one year old. So it's incredibly fragile. And I can imagine that a lot of founders in that position, they would naturally consider closing and pivoting into something else because the uncertainties of lockdown were huge.

50:40Again, another example of resilience, which I am blown away by so many different examples of resilience. But again, now I can really understand why the company is so successful. while the idea of building a product that makes you more calm is fantastic. The execution has been brilliant from my understanding right now. So again, my compliments on this. And I think this is a great takeaway for anyone that is listening. On the outset, when I was researching the journey of Trip, the first, let's say, the first round of research, everything appeared to be like a walk in the park. flowers and sunshines.

51:22But then as I went deeper, I understood that there's been moments where you've worked incredibly hard and your choices led to where the company is today. And right now, getting to know the story firsthand and hearing those very specific examples about marketing, about branding, about product development, about lockdown, it's incredibly inspirational to come to the conclusion that hard work is what really brings you to success because you might have an amazing idea. You might have at some point an amazing product, but if you don't work very hard for those challenges and the challenges you've shared with me, they are real challenges.

52:03I've heard other people share challenges that in my humble opinion, from my experience, I would not consider them real challenges. They are the nature of being an entrepreneur. In your case, these are real challenges that you have to think. I think you're totally right that no journey is ever smooth for any entrepreneur. And I think that for me, there are two things that are really important in starting a business. One is you need a clear purpose or mission. But even more than that, you need to have your values and you need to be trying to live your specific values with consistency. I heard someone talk about how important consistency is and compare it to training for a marathon.

52:48You don't train for a marathon with one, two or three great training sessions. If you do three of the best training sessions ever and nothing else, you will totally fail at running for a marathon. The only way to train for a marathon is by consistency. You need to train week on week on week for many, many weeks. Otherwise, you just won't be able to do it. And for me, running a business is exactly the same. you can't be occasionally great you have to be consistently good you have to be getting up every single day and trying to work through the challenges and opportunities that you have because it's not going to be one single great idea that allows you to achieve a great business it's consistency and I think what you see is that quite often the most successful businesses and entrepreneurs are not the ones that have the most unique incredible idea it's the businesses and brands that are the most consistently committed to achieving their mission trip wasn't the first product in the uk that helped you find calm uh we aren't totally unique within the category but we just have an amazing team that is really committed to being consistent to aiming really really high every single day to help us help a billion people find calm but it's much more about the small things that you do every single day than the one amazing meeting or the one incredible presentation you need to have high standards but you need to have consistency more than anything else hi guys just a quick one from me we're very proud to partner with bornbound an innovative sports apparel brand.

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55:07You've been making very logical, and that's everything that I'm getting from you, very logical, well-calculated decisions throughout the last five years, overcoming every challenge that you've been facing. But this is one side out of three of the overall picture. So you have these two other co-founders as we've discussed previously. There's Dan and Olivia. Exactly. They're a couple. So I'm sure that working with a couple has advantages and some more challenging aspects. Walk me through those. Daniel and Olivia are married, but we're also family. I'm married to Olivia's sister. The first hire that we made at the beginning of 2020 was my little sister.

55:54And so for our first year of the business, all of us were related. It was my sister, my sister-in-law, her husband. And throughout that whole year, working as a family, I think it was one of the most kind of foundational experiences that we had. And it's really been a superpower for us throughout our business. Would you call Tribu a family business? Definitely. Definitely a family business. Obviously, we ran out of blood relatives after that that we were going to hire. I was going to bring my dad on as a finance, but I decided it wasn't maybe a great decision. But I think that there are so many benefits of working with someone that you're close to.

56:38Firstly, there's trust. You know that whatever happens, they're acting in your best interests. I think that's really, really crucial. Finding someone who you're going to work really closely with. If you're going to put 100 % of your effort into a business, you need to trust that the other person is really pulling for you and is working in your best interests too and is equally committed and I have 100 % trust in not only just them at Trip but you automatically have that trust in family I think there's also a certain a certain level of directness when it comes to communication that I know that I can message Dan at 11 p.m on a Saturday night and I don't have to worry if he thinks I'm overstepping any boundaries.

57:29I know that he's probably thinking about Tripp as well. And so I think that it allows you to have a certain level of communication that I don't know if you could have if you weren't related to the team that you're working with. And so it's really been an amazing experience. I also think the last thing is we're really fortunate that we have an amazing team at Trip. And so being able to celebrate the wins is one of the most important things of any business. I think the best businesses don't get there by just being good and commercial and aggressive. They have an amazing culture where they celebrate the wins and it creates a culture of winning and growing.

58:11And being able to celebrate with people that I'm close to at Trip and family is really so rewarding. and how do the challenges look like because it is natural in any co-founder relationship but i believe when there are some emotions embedded in that relationship if you work with family you obviously have those emotions um that sometimes can generate challenging situations so can you describe to me what are how do those challenging situations look like and how do you overcome them? The reality of trying to start a business is that there are either challenges or opportunities that you're nervous about because you need to make the most of them.

58:55You're either coming up against problems or you're worried you're not going to win as big as you could do. And so there are high stakes every single day, whether it's a problem or something that you're succeeding in. there's still a certain level of stress that comes with that and so I don't really see the big problems as being that different from the big opportunities if we have the chance to launch with a big new retailer do an exciting campaign I'm probably equally as stressed about that as I am with things going wrong because I want to make the most of the big opportunities and so we have such an amazing working relationship as a family that everything we do we're trying to do the best for trip for the best for the mission whether it's solving a problem or making the most of an opportunity and i think that's one of the great things about working with family but of course it's not just family at trip we're a team of 60 or so people and we work amazingly closely with uh everyone at trip and we're really fortunate to have an incredible team that helps us win when it comes to opportunities and helps us overcome the challenges in my case my co-founder is my twin brother and i personally found it to be on one hand very rewarding and empowering to work with family on the other hand i have to admit that there are moments that can be challenging because you have a personal relationship a very close personal relationship with this person so in my business with my twin brother which is where we are one of them where we are right now but also in other businesses that i've built with people that are either friends or people that i'm close with at the founding level the common denominator approach that i found successful across these different businesses is if from day one you divide the roles and responsibilities so you're not overstepping there's always perhaps a slight overlap in decision making and i think that's very healthy because two pairs of eyes will decide better than one but ultimately you need a certain amount of business units for you to be responsible for and your co-founder or your co-founders need other business units is this also the approach you're following in trip it's really interesting to hear when we first started and when it was just four people around on a kitchen table, it was very fluid when it came to responsibilities.

1:01:25You're such a small team that you kind of have to wear many different hats, supply chain, operations, finance, branding, sales, developing product. And I think that we've always felt that working together and collaborating helps us achieve better results personally than trying to do it solo. And so not just between myself, Daniel, Olivia, my sister Katie, that was the first hire, but as a business, we really try to foster a sense of collaborations. It's one of our values that everyone talks about all the time. And you do need to have clear roles and responsibilities, but I would say that more than most businesses, we prefer for people to work and overcome problems as a team because we're trying to do something that's never been done before.

1:02:26We want to be synonymous with calm the same way that Red Bull is with energy. We want to create a new path and a new category of calming beverages. And so we're going to have to do something that hasn't been done before. We need to create our own path. and to try and do that with one person heading up a function we have found it's quite challenging and so we really try to foster a sense of collaboration between different teams different people within the teams between myself olivia daniel between all of the teams at trip and we've really found that collaboration has been crucial to our success.

1:03:07And how do you go about conflict in decision-making? You have an idea. Yeah. Perhaps Olivia has a different idea. And then it may be natural that Dan can agree with Olivia more, not necessarily because they're in a relationship together, but naturally because they know each other better and they spend more time. They can discuss about that new initiative or that next move more than you would discuss with them so how do you resolve this challenge in a healthy way there's a phrase to have strong opinions held lightly and we definitely really focus on trying to live that where you need to think really carefully about every important decision and you need to be able to passionately put across why you think X is better than Y.

1:04:02But you also need to be comfortable and not have too much pride. And I think that that's really important. There will be ideas that I have that are different from someone else's, whether it's Daniel or whether it's someone else in the sales team or any team at Trip. And you need to be comfortable not always being right. But is that something you've learned in the last five years building the company or you already started the company with those values? I think that it came organically from having a small family where because we didn't have extremely clear roles and responsibilities and the way that we created our first manufacturing process, created the branding, was very much by committee and as a team.

1:04:53And because we were three people sitting around a table and four people quite quickly, it really fostered a sense that collaboration was the way that we wanted to solve problems. And we always, any big decision, it never rests with one person for anything. We really value that having more brains is better than one brain. And so I think that it came organically from the way that we worked in our first year or so. if you could change one thing in trip's journey sounds funny to say trip's journey maybe because i'm on the second one so if you could change one thing in trip's journey what would it be

1:05:42it's a good question i think we've been really fortunate that the challenges that we've had are the things that have made us stronger and better and so to be honest I look back at the the limitations that we had I said we couldn't advertise when we started when we launched we couldn't get distribution in some retailers but I think it's it's really important that as an entrepreneur you don't look back with regret but if you were to do it all over again is there something you would do differently or slightly different so perhaps onboarding a shareholder at a different stage launching in this particular retailer yeah you you know, at a different point in time.

1:06:33I honestly think it's really important to look back at the things that you would do differently and learn from them, but I wouldn't change anything. Because I think the earlier that you make the mistakes, the faster you learn and the better you are as a leader, as an entrepreneur, and as a business, as a team. And so there are definitely, as with any business, small things that you change on a daily basis. But I wouldn't go back and change them because otherwise we wouldn't have learned from them and we wouldn't be the business that we are today. Let me reverse the question. So I do admire that you're very positive and I think that is incredibly important to be an entrepreneur.

1:07:22But let's say that you and I are going to build a new consumer business. it could be another beverage and you already have trip and you have all these lessons learned from trip are there any things that we won't be doing that you've done in the past that we could avoid from making those mistakes let me have a think i'll be sleeping on this in the meantime yeah it's not to say that trip is a is a perfect business and we don't make mistakes but where the business is today there are some businesses that i would say are being you know it's more a simpler business or maybe a less competitive business uh trip is a beverage i think that i didn't realize when we first started in 2019 how competitive beverages are and it depends what your goal is but launching into one of the most competitive categories of beverage where your competitors very quickly are billion dollar brands that are spending tens and twenty million on marketing it doesn't create the easiest environment and I think that one of the things that makes trip great is that we're creating a brand and product that we enjoy as consumers but if I was starting again or giving advice to people I would say it's really important that you're passionate about your category but if you automatically focus on what you enjoy as a consumer it's often something that's quite accessible and as a result lots of people want to do it whereas there are some businesses where they're slightly more obscure unusual and as a result naturally can be less competitive and so I love where we are as a business but I think that I maybe didn't realize how competitive beverages was going to be when we launched back in 2019.

1:09:32Let's pretend I am Coca-Cola. Okay. And as Coca-Cola I'm going to make you an offer. I will tell you, James, I really like you as a managing director in Trip. I think you are a tremendous, you have a tremendous potential to be a CEO. How much money do I need to pay you for you to leave Trip right now? Not to sell your shares, to leave the company and to leave your role as a managing director and to do something with me.

1:10:09I don't think that there's a figure where it would be worth leaving the experience that I'm having at Trip. I think that you have to be commercially minded to want to create a business. If it's a for-profit business. you have even a non-profit business you have to be commercially minded and you have to be ambitious about the goals that you're going after but i think if there's one thing that i've heard quite consistently from people that have exited big businesses or have cashed out some of their shares is they always say they wish that they'd spend more time enjoying the ride to get there and the satisfaction that they've got following the exit following you know the big windfall or becoming significantly richer is not as satisfying as when they were building the business for the first time and the goal for trip is not for personal gain as the main objective and I can't see myself enjoying another role as much as I'm enjoying trip now and when I look at my personal goals what I want to achieve and be proud of salary is not the top of the list of what motivates me and the mission that we have at trip to help a billion people find calm but also how much I just enjoy working with the team working with my family hearing people that say trip has changed their lives i don't think that it's worth giving that up for any salary to be honest i agree with you i i fundamentally believe that um if you have purpose beyond making money it will prevent you from quitting because i mean the chances that you won't be seeing realistic money in the early stages of the company is incredibly high you're probably going to take a big pay cut from whatever you were doing before because the business isn't making any money so if your purpose is and in this case going back to your mission and your vision is not interlinked or closely related to generating money then the chances of you not quitting are much higher which i believe it's the ultimate goal for an early stage entrepreneur which is don't quit adapt keep working hard and keep believing in yourself in your product and the business at the same time um when when you're starting a business sometimes you go down the path of fundraising and when you fundraise depending on the type of investor that you are onboarding you might encounter the typical question uh which goes um how does an exit look like is it going to be in three years in five what's the multiple that we're going to be expecting I personally as a founder find that question very very challenging because a is a startup and then b who really knows I can put something on paper and it could be based on assessments on projections on forecast on what other competitors have done but ultimately every company follows a completely different path even if you are in the same industry as the company that is right next to you in your case I'm not aware of how your capped table looks like How do you balance maintaining your mission and your vision pure, aligned with keeping your shareholders, which is a very important stakeholder, satisfied?

1:14:07It's a really good question. For me, the businesses that we look up to when it comes to aligning mission and commercial ambition are the businesses where achieving your commercial goals also help you achieve your mission. So there are some good examples, whether it's Patagonia with sustainable clothing or Tony's Trocoloni, their whole mission is to create slave-free chocolate. And so with every single product that you buy, you are putting money back into reducing the problem that they're trying to solve the best mission-led brands are ones where with every product that you sell you're helping achieve your mission and with every product that we sell we're helping people find calm they're going for healthier products and so Patagonia is doing the same thing where they're creating products that are sourced with sustainable products that are long lasting so you have to buy less products they're creating products that you can reuse and repair and so their business goals of selling more jackets or Tony's of selling more chocolate and Trip of selling more cans are helping them achieve their commercial goals and Trip has been the fastest growing food or beverage brand for the past 16 years.

1:15:42It's not to say that we're not ambitious and we don't have commercial goals.

1:15:51But achieving those commercial goals helps us achieve our mission. And that means whether you're a shareholder in Trip because you believe in the mission or you believe in the commercial goals, you're all pulling in the same direction. And we want to create a business where the commercial goals and the mission are really aligned. It's not a decision of, we're going to give away 10 % of profits to charity. And then when the business is struggling, a director might say, let's give away less to charity, which is a challenging situation. For us, everyone always wants us to help more people find calm by achieving our commercial goals.

1:16:31And so that means that whether you're a shareholder working in the business, that you're all pulling in the same direction.

1:16:45I'm going to shift the conversation to Forbes. Okay. Forbes under 30. Is this meaningful to you? I would say that it's always nice to have personal accolades. It makes you feel good for a little bit. You know, you can post about it on LinkedIn. It's fun. But I think with most personal accolades, whether it's myself, whether it's Olivia or Daniel, the co-founders, often you're just taking the credit for what has really been a team effort. the only reason that I got Forbes 30 under 30 is because I'm one of the leaders at an amazing business called Trip which is run by an amazing team of now 60 people and so it's fun to be on Forbes 30 under 30 but I personally see it as a more of a signifier of the success of the whole Trip team the wider Trip business and it's because of really the success of Trip that I'm on Forbes 30 under 30 and so because of that I love it whenever trip gets awards trip gets recognition and for me I think it's really great to win awards as a business whether it's fastest growing this whether it's best new soft drink whether it's the best place to work I think that all of these things really recognize the great work that the full team is doing and so I definitely enjoy it but I see it more of a recognition of the work of lots more people other than myself did forbes help trip in any way so perhaps to fundraise or for you to gain credibility in stocking your products with a particular retailer i think that when you're building a consumer brand it's very hard to pin your success on any one factor when someone goes and buys trip from Sainsbury's I don't know whether they saw us in sewer house saw us in a gym whether they saw our tv ad an instagram ad an influencer or their mom told them to buy it you very rarely get all of the right it would be very interesting if their mom told them to buy it happens the whole time It happens the whole time.

1:19:15And so it's really rare that you know exactly all of the combination of factors that have led to your success. And I think we spoke earlier about the importance of consistency and it's the little things that make a difference. There's no way that being Forbes 30 under 30 detracted from success. How much it helped, it's hard to tell, But I think that you have to look at building a brand and business as a cumulative effort of hundreds, if not thousands of small things that end up creating the brand that you are. And so that's why I think that you hear about founders being perfectionists and being annoying to move that piece of text half a centimeter to the left.

1:20:03I really believe it's that caring about the little things that make the big difference. and so I think that Forbes 30 under 30 is probably one small thing amongst a long list of things that contribute to business success.

1:20:21How would you define success? For me, success is being content that you've achieved

1:20:35as much as you can achieve and I think that that's different for each person and each business I think for me success is reaching your potential at that particular moment success is not being the biggest the best uh as a founder you'll know that the things that are most frustrating are not when things go wrong but it's when you think that you personally could have done a better job uh and i think for me it's being content that we've reached our potential at that time that for me is success uh what do you think how is it different for you you're the first person that asked this question back yes um for me success is dynamic um and therefore the definition should change over time so i am right now 28 years old so my definition of success is a set of ingredients that make me feel in this point in time that i'm in the right path in life so i'm 28 so i'm in a seven-year relationship how does the next year look like these are new waters for me are we getting married soon um how is my business growing yeah how is my relationship with my team brother because we've been building this together and that has advantages as we've discussed and disadvantages so the 28 year old version of alberto has different ingredients then perhaps if you ask me in 10 years time i'll be 38 totally different that definition of success will be different but the underlying underlying feeling will be the same am i in the right path in life but the ingredients are different perhaps if i'm a father am i close to my son or my daughter so that is my definition of success yeah i really like that it's i i don't think it's healthy to have like numerical or finite goals that define your own personal success for the business absolutely crucial you need to have goals that are really clear that everyone understands and you're all pulling towards.

1:22:41But I think that connecting your own personal sense of self-worth, which to me is kind of success, to any numerical goals, it doesn't make sense. There's too many other variables. And it needs to be, did you fulfill your potential as a father, as a brother, as a husband, anything? According to your definition of success, would you define yourself as successful?

1:23:12I would say on balance, yes. I think that compared to what I thought we could achieve as a business, I could achieve as a person outside of work, the kind of curse of the entrepreneur is that however well you do, you always think you can do better. But I'm really proud of what we've achieved when it comes to business. And I'm really fortunate that I have an amazing family and group of friends and wife. So yeah, I definitely can't complain. And I think it's important to not set yourselves to higher goals. You have to be pleased with what you've achieved. At the same time, you have to always be striving for more uh but on balance uh i would say yes you think you thank you um in this point in time i think i am but i agree with you i think that we can be overly ambitious and that means that you are staying you're basically pushing away that feeling of happiness or that feeling of success at the same time if you're too complacent then perhaps you know you You won't strive for anything more than what you have right now.

1:24:37So finding that sweet spot of ambition, but at the same time, settling that ambition can determine whether you are successful or not. And in my opinion, my humble opinion in this point in time, I am very grateful for what I have in my life. Yeah, good job. But James, thank you very much for coming. Thank you for your honesty, both personal and professional. at the professional level with Trip I'll be very honest I'm on the second camp and we've been chatting for two hours but if we were chatting for more I would probably finish everything else here I really like your products I love the branding I love all the different partners that you're collaborating right now with I've consumed your products in Soho House in Equinox in Whole Foods in various different places and I love to see it there and like the after feeling that I have.

1:25:31I'm also, as you called it earlier, a flexi drinker. So I don't drink too much. In fact, very little and every year I drink less. And this seems to be my replacement go-to option. So I thank you for bringing this to the market. I also believe that in most cases, cross-industry, being first is more important than being the best. I think in your case you have a bit of both you were one of the first ones in this market but definitely also one of the most premium and best ones so for that I think that your success can be attributed to an extent to this so I congratulate you and then at a personal level today I came to find a person that has a very sweet balance in between being very logical because I can see that you have made very specific method oriented and data driven decisions, being very positive and self-confident.

1:26:33But at the same time, there is a side of you that is very emotional and is backed up by values that are very healthy, like your relationship with money or your relationship with success, with happiness. So it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for sharing all this with me, with my team. and I look forward to doing this at some point soon again so we can see where you are and how Trip is performing. Thanks so much for having me. Loved it. Loved talking about Trip, about things other than Trip, about life and values. And yeah, we'd love to do it. Come back in a few years, see where Trip is and see where you are.

1:27:08Thanks for the time. Thank you very much.

1:27:18Amen.