300+ Food Founders Trust This Mans Marketing Secrets - With Dan Pope

0:00You're in the trenches, there's muck and bullets flying everywhere, you're grafting, you don't think it's going anywhere. I host a podcast called Hungry, well interview the biggest food and drink, challenge food and drink brands founders. So if I give you a cold Guinness and I put it in a Costa coffee cup, it is actually the same liquid but it's not the same drink. Surreal at£4.50 versus Cocoa Pops looks abhorrently expensive, right? And they've basically been hammering this on social, being like, yeah everyone says we're expensive but you pay£2.50 for a protein bar versus 50p. It's exactly the same thing.

0:30We're healthier, we've got more nutrition. She's built a huge social following, which is basically authority, so she's got 100k followers. She's got people like Nigella Lawson eating it. You sell Rolls Royces and you change the context and start selling at yacht shows, so they look really cheap. That's kind of genius. How do you actually get your brand ready to exit? Well, that is the actual million dollar question.

0:56Dan, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having me, lads. You're on the other side. On the side of the table. Yeah, it feels weird. I bet it does. No, absolute honour. I thought your pod with Rory was outstanding. I thought it was insane. I love your, yeah, your chemistry. I think it kind of just eases, well, you managed to ease out some of the best lessons from him. So it was a banging podcast. Likewise, likewise. We love your conversations with Rory as well. And I'm sure that we will get into it today. Going to hit you with a big open question. Go for it. Who are you and what problem do you solve?

1:32That is a big question. Yeah, so I'm Dan. I host a podcast called Hungry. So we interview the biggest food and drink, challenge food and drink brands founders. We also do a lot of hospitality, sort of big chefs, restauranteurs, crazy fuckers, basically. um and yeah the goal the goal kind of start i started it during i used to work for a peanut butter business called manny life um was there for six years literally doing doing sales that's why i think i was bang up for doing this um and it got to lockdown i was like okay what am i gonna do i think everyone during lockdown either sort of got pregnant made sourdough or fucking started one of those three things um I took route number three and um yeah so I sort of I was during lockdown you guys sort of know the hustle like I was just like messaging those people like what you're doing tonight and I was like well I know you're not doing anything let's jump on a podcast um so I've always had the the sort of the problem I solved was was ultimately scratching my own itch like trying to learn as much as I could for other challenge of food and drink founders or sales people um and then the byproduct of that is helping you know uh loads and loads of challenge different drink brands um so we've sort of kept kept well i kept going with that we're now sort of yeah i'll be five years in come um come october um and that's sort of the mission the mission is literally like we help challenge different drink brands pour gas in all growth um and it hasn't really changed i think to begin with it was more sort of fmcg founders um i've then sort of always loved my food i love restaurants i think um i almost think it's sort of cinema for the senses restaurants do you know i mean you can go into a restaurant there's just again not so much psychology in it, sort of behavioral economics in restaurants.

3:40I could talk about this endlessly. So I've sort of moved more into that sphere recently, but ultimately it's helping food and drink founders, whether that's more on the brand side or like hospitality side. Nice. Your conversations that you have are so inspirational. like I'll catch myself listening and then on a drive thinking, oh, maybe in like 20 years, I want to set up my own little cold coffee business or a cookie dough company and we'll have conversations with a partner. Those companies that are listening, when you sit down with them or when you get feedback with them, those challenger food and drink brands, what are they typically struggling with?

4:22What are the symptoms that they face that the podcast helps them solve? Yeah, great question. I think world meets a myriad of different like problems. I think I always go into it thinking like I've got, I've got sort of three or four people that I know who've got these brands. One's Bold Bean Co. I don't know if you've seen those guys. She's absolutely crushing it. They're basically disrupting sort of baked beans category that everyone. Dragon's Den. She was on Dragon's Den. So I think about her. I sort of just voice noting her on the way here. I think about a couple of other people like three or four people who get my sort of personality so I think if you try and be all things for people you're just a vanilla vapid vaunting mess so I think of those three people and then it's a match of what they want and what I want to ask right because I think you are your audience in many respects and you can kind of overthink like oh what does the audience want too much but their problems and my problems ultimately there's the with Challenger from Drink Brands, you've got the zero to one million stage.

5:28And this is kind of proven. So that is what they call the, I don't know if you guys have read much of Paul Graham, which is, oh, he's amazing. So he's got Paul Graham's essays. So he owns Y Combinator, which basically built Airbnb, Dropbox. I mean, if you want amazing essays, they're super short. But he calls this thing called the Trough of Sorrow, which I think is the most amazing name. And it's basically the bit when you're in the trenches, there's muck and bullets flying everywhere. You're grafting. you don't think it's going anywhere um that's the sort of zero to one million stage um so the pain there is just getting the thing off the ground getting the thing off the ground um coming up with a brand name uh doing that sort of product market fit stage of like is is what i'm selling working um trying to get on the blower to sort of harrods selfridges um whole foods you're trying to get into those sort of stores right so that's sort of the first first stage so those problems and the podcast sort of encompasses all these problems depends who i'm speaking to right so like last week we did nina parker she's got an amazing brand called saucy one of the best brand names and it is fucking saucy like it's like i literally i put it on everything and anything you slather on everything and anything it's like this sort of mediterranean um i don't know it's like chili oil but mediterranean like honestly you put on anything it's delicious and so that's a lot of solving those problems that zero to one million trough of sorrow stage then you have uh sort of zero to five million which is actually quite an easy journey for brands or not actually that's a that's a lie it's not easy none of it's easy but it's it's you kind of build the momentum the escape velocity happens so you usually get into a waitrose waitrose you prove yourself there then same to me come knocking um obviously this is huge board brush for it's a lot of complexity to it that but then on that stage it's a very different journey for our in terms of those founders solving problems this first stage you're all on your ones and um you're you're just trying to basically get through the day this stage is about raising more money so that's one problem um how do i build a team problem two um how do i get the rate of sale going in these supermarkets which is sort of the million dollar question um how do i uh you know how do i move some sort of founder mode to operator mode because that's a massive switch um how do i like how do i host meetings like it sounds crazy but like one-to-one meetings like and these are sort of because there's a massive difference between a founder and operator founders are very just they've got a thousand ideas in the head but when it which is great to get the thing off the ground but when it comes to like actually scaling a business is it becomes really problematic so there's that there's that stage then you've got sort of stages you know and that's then you get stuck again five to six million is where so many brands get stuck and basically you've you've maxed out a lot of the distribution so how do you how do you kick on from there um so you know a brand that has done that very well is dash you know we're talking about you know jack's been on the pod alex is amazing they've they've sort of crossed the chasms the next stage um so then we do a lot of the sort of third problem is how do you actually get your brand ready to exit right because that's another well that is the actual million dollar question and that's um i mean that's fascinating it's like so the guy dave we interviewed yesterday he's the guy took tyrols from six million to a hundred million he took lily's dog food from you know something similar sort of levels just doing it across a moloka um and the problems there become very different because you've got product market fit which is getting in the supermarkets getting the consumers buying it but then you've also got then then you go brand exit fit which are actually two different things you may have product market fit you're like right off to the fucking races but product market fits uh sorry brand exit fits completely different.

9:28A gorgeous example of this is, you know, Innocent Juices, right? Innocent Juices, product market fit. These juices taste amazing. Consumers are loving it. There was a big one of your five a day thing. And I interviewed, I've interviewed founder of Innocent, but also Giles Brooke, who's done loads of brands. He did Vita Coco. He sold Bear Snacks. He sold, he's done all sorts. And he was painting the picture of the difference between product market fit and brand exit fit so uh product market fit you know they had the innocent juices i don't know if you remember them launching those veg pots back in the day 2015 16 basically a veg pot it's like right and in their head it was like right we want um we've got a juice business one of your five a day our consumers are already loving our juices for five a day we'll give them a veg pot and actually if you look at your basket spend you're getting innocent and innocent juice and an innocent veg pot like surely you know winner winner chicken dinner you're maximizing your revenue when they cut product market fit when they come to exit to coca-cola coca-cola like hey like we don't we're not we want to buy we're a drinks brand we want to buy a juice business so they actually fucked off that part of their business completely which was that was worth millions and millions and millions and millions millions got rid of that and there's now a brand called bowl b-o-l you've probably seen zoom up which is that and actually the guy paul worked at innocent um and they they did that and then they've they've had this massive exit and so at that stage of the journey the problems are very different and it's sort of one zero to one zero to five five to twenty to thirty um so that's kind of a very long way of answering the question i just want to take it back a step from a few different things that you said there, but how do you define what a challenger brand is?

11:22Yeah, that's a great question.

11:27So from sort of the FMCG, so fast moving consumer goods lens, and this is slightly broader in my eyes, but from that lens specifically, it's a brand that's going, a new brand that's going into a category to try and disrupt it or change it ultimately. So it could be going into, a saturated, sorry, a kind of under service category. So something like Oatly and Oatmilk. So, you know, Oatly, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, that was basically at the bottom of the crusty old bogey, you know, shop you'd get in Brighton sort of thing. Do you know what I mean? Like it was people weren't buying it.

12:09Same with alcohol-free, booze, brands coming in to disrupt or change that category. So Lucky Stain would be an example.

12:20Tony's Chocoloney would be an example. That's what I define Challenger Brand in terms of FMCG. In terms of the podcast, I actually think Challenger Founder in terms of food as a bigger thing is anyone who's doing something fucking interesting in food. So we just had Osh on from the Devonshire. Like, have you guys been, how long are you guys in London for? Tomorrow's our last day. Yeah, yeah. Are you tonight or are you podcasting? Neither of us drink. Oh, fair. It's over now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, they do an amazing, amazing Guinness Zero. It's the only Guinness Zero on draft in the UK. Where's that?

12:54In Soho. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's our tube. Yeah, we're like a Guinness Zero. But that's another example. Because I think restaurants are always pushing the boundaries. So those are sort of my two definitions. And then, so you'll be the same as us. I mean, we're talking off air about fascination with behavioral economics and the way people make decisions and stuff. Yeah. How do you then justify how human beings don't like change? Then how do you justify how a disruptor brand is able to create not only change, but good business? Yeah. So, sorry, say that again. So the... So we don't like...

13:28So let's say we're in like a... I'm in a saturate. I like Warburton's. My granddad liked Warburton's. His granddad liked Warburton's before me. And then how does a new brand then disrupt that and get over that behavioral psychology of I don't like change? Yeah, yeah. Oh, for sure. Okay. So I think there's sort of three, two frameworks you can be, and they do, they dance with each other. So I think it's what Rory was talking to you about, which is Robert Kitsi-Aldini's influence. He's got the sixth thing. There's like social proof, liking, consistency, authority. I always get the other two. Reciprocity.

14:04Reciprocity, yeah, that. Whatever that is. And then Seth Godin's, which is, I basically asked Seth Godin, I said, mate, what's a marketing rule that was around 400 years ago and will still be around in 400 years time. Great question. Timeless, timeless marketing. And he said status, affiliation, which is basic connection and freedom of fear or fear. Any one of those three things is going to make people change. And then I think you can use Cialdini's six weapons of influence to create that change. We'll use Bold Bean as an example. so um bold bean maybe i'll show you this at the end yeah uh amazing brand amazing category um sorry dead category i mean who goes down the fucking baked beans aisle i mean this another thing i've learned from the pod is any category you can have a challenge of branding as we were saying earlier about um about um that travel insurance sorry travel agency like that there's challenge band in any category that's why i love this um but what amelia's done she's amazing so she's built a huge social following which is basically authority so she's got 100k followers that's linking this cialdini stuff she's got loads of social and also she's got people like nigella lawson eating it she's got people like um uh loads celebrity chefs using it she's got that's the authority done she's then got the social proof which is loads of um doing these like small supper clubs and intimate events um which is sort of creating more and more people talking about it talking about it talking about it um she's then got what else has she got in terms of those things she's then also very incredibly likable like she's she's amazing super authentic and very affable and like there's no you can you can see from people and they're not being authentic so she is that they're not the other two rules let's just go with those three and then so you've got we've got sort of um uh and also so i suppose the scarcity because sometimes they do limit limited edition um uh merch drops or limited edition sort of supper clubs so you've got those three things in terms of this change and people are stuck in their sort of ways but then it's like how do you use that to make people feel status affiliation and freedom of fear um so if if you're getting your hands on bold beans exclusive merch you're going to feel status and connection to the tribe um if there's enough people um feeling connected by affiliation to uh her supper clubs or her um uh kind of they've just done something like a unique thing with gales i think um and then also the freedom of fear or fear like people fear fear not being part of the gang or part of the part of the crew so i think in terms of changing people's habits um psychologically i think it's either those six things which you see you can see this everywhere it's the same with tony's chocoloney right it's like getting people you'll think they'll be using one of those six things in some some of their sort of marketing or persuasion and those six things will be making people feel feel either either status so rising their status affiliation which is connection or um or or fear like fear is the obvious one so i think and also like if you zoom back you could just kind of see this in yeah you know so many categories like okay oasis tickets right you guys are up in manchester right one of the best i went to uni they're one of the best cities right so they're they do scarcity with these tickets right because they're going to say right we've got a few tickets to go otherwise you're fucked same with Glastonbury um they've got uh there's a connection if you get the tickets there's uh I mean liking him he doesn't like the Gallagher's I quite always forget the other two reciprocity yeah maybe on that's but if you get this if you get that your hands on their taste uh Oasis tickets your status goes up with your friends your connection to the Oasis tribe increases and you're like you're not the freedom of like i managed to get the tickets and i think i've always used those two sort of lens it lenses to see how things change and ultimately those two are always dancing with each other so when when you're so you've you've sat with some amazing people that talk about these marketing principles and the way that we look at behavior what what have been some of the so there's some brilliant examples but what what have been some of the other key takeaways or i guess reframes ways to look at things that you could take to a challenger brand now and say this this and this and then all of a sudden it feels like someone switched the lights on so it's so reframes in terms of just like maybe reframing so i know that rory is a big fan of like inverting the question so like how what other things have you learned through sitting down with some of these marketing pioneers of of saying how do we reframe it how do we change it how do we challenge what we're challenging yeah so so again i love this stuff so like context and framing is again another context and framing is another way to make people feel feel those those things i think

19:26um the the context example i always love which is the rolls um you sell rolls royces and you change the context and start selling that yacht shows so they look really cheap that's just like sort of that's kind of genius um i love the context change i think context changing or genre changing as seth calls it it's like a super it's a superpower um do you know the brand surreal which is the cereal so uh for the yeah they're the like a protein cereal mass there's a there's this category is huge in the states again linking back to change like how do you get people to change cereals a crusty category like well not crusty sorry it's just a very entrenched category it's like people are buying cocoa pops or wheat abix or whatever um and then suddenly you're going to go in to a market where people are used to paying a quid for cereal or two quid for cereal and try and charge them four pound fifty even though it's low carb high fiber high high nutrients and high protein what they've done is they've changed the context so what they've done is they've done they've done a few things actually i think this is um on their adverts on on social and stuff is they've basically um they've said we know we're expensive which i think in terms of sales is answering objections so straight away it's like yeah we know we're expensive and i think mori said it's the the seventh weapon of influence which we basically admit like oh this ain't the best or like you know i think that's really powerful so that's the first thing the second thing and they've changed the context so uh surreal at four pound fifty versus coco pops looks abhorrently expensive right if you change the context to like you buy you spend two you spend four times the amount on a grenade protein bar versus a Cadbury's protein bar suddenly that context is like okay I get that I get that that mental switch is very easy for me and they've basically been hammering this on social be like yeah everyone says we're expensive but you pay two pound fifty for a protein bar versus 50p it's exactly the same thing we're healthier we've got more nutrition um so i i mean i love that sort of context that context switch um which is context and framing is just i mean i think it's like a special effect of persuasion really like you can use it for anything um in terms of restaurants there's the daniel kahneman's peak end rule which is you uh your your memory of an experience is more um when we think of an experience it's the the middle and the end of where the peaks are have you guys heard you yeah and um you know so it's like you go to an oasis gig and if they play some shitty b-side track to end with in heat and park you're gonna be like yeah yeah yeah but if they end with wonderwall you're going to be buzzing your tits off I think in restaurants the restaurants that can leverage this is a real superpower I had lunch last week with Flatiron you've got Flatiron on you so basically at the end of your meal they'll give you a little cleaver for the ice cream but as Charlie was saying to me the genius of that is like one the as the meals who doesn't like free ice cream you're going to go out the experience but he was saying as someone's pouring you're also actually getting the a human interaction as you end um so that's what i love i've also been thinking and again i don't i sort of do these sort of just whimsical kind of a basic load of bollocks in my head it could be it could be this could be some proof in it but i do also think the front end rule i was actually writing this in that um before i had my lion's mane coffee is the front end rule in restaurants and I don't think there's any sort of Daniel Kahn would probably slate me for this but I think how you go into a restaurant or you begin a sales meeting and this again applies with buyers or going to restaurant how it begins and how it ends are super super super important and actually I think people probably focus too much on the middle and neglect those two pillars.

23:42But actually that's where the behavioral sort of economics comes into things, do you know what I mean? So people will probably be curious, and I'm curious as well, Dan. So obviously you host a podcast, so you sit down with some brilliant minds. These principles, when it comes to getting guests, getting sponsorship, building the business, hosting great podcasts, how do you apply these principles to running your own show yeah um okay let's let's start with the because the other side you can you can have all these um hooty flutey lovely sort of behavioral economics sort of um uh sort of pithy aphorisms and stuff like that but also i think the other side in terms of getting the business and you guys will know as much as as much as i do there's also a load of grunt and graft and grit and truffles you're basically always in the truffles sorry do you know what i mean so you best will get comfy um but so there's a couple of things on the business side so i think uh i think if you're hyper niche you can actually build a really small burning hot audience and uh it's actually very easy to monetize if i'm being like well it's not easy to monetize but it's a much easier proposition because you basically you find the companies that are saying do you want access to challenge your brand founders and or uh and or um kind of heads of marketing heads of finance heads of whatever um so and that's why i've only always ever stayed in food and drink so i've said no no to some massive guests because they're not in food and drink so that's one of the sort of the tensions of like oh do i i've had yeah so i will say no to big guests even if because they're off and drink basically but by staying hyper niche um you can kind of uh you can it's much easier to kind of when you're pitching to people say right i may only have only 500 people because we'd monetize at 700 followers on instagram and that was kind of doing good good sort of revenue for for 700 followers but i was like yeah those 700 people could be um uh and this this links back to how I was selling it is it's like you you get 700 people and you almost say well that's half of a maybe not half but like the frame of 5 000 people for example you can show that on like a football stadium you know that's a lot of fucking people so that that's changing people's context um and framing whereas I think when people are um looking at uh looking at 5 000 followers to begin with oh that's small because that's a stadium of people who you're going to sell your agency to or your um uh like service to then that's that's that's burning hot so i think changing the context and framing was was uh was vital in kind of getting um people on board initially in terms of the grit and the trough of sorrows like as i said you guys before we hit record is like sending off 40 proposals 20 20 proposals um i've even now got it on my dropbox of like like x pitch x pitch x pitch x pitch and every single one i was tailoring uh which was now like which was so cumbersome um and time consuming um but i think to get anything going you need that kind of um not like you just need that the no is like i think there was what's that it's again a really corny sort of david brent phrase but um it's like um go to know or something like that i don't know what it is but like um i was gonna say no means yes but but i think there is something in that like the more people you get no nose to the more it's pointing you in the right direction um and yeah so just a lot of just just hustle I think which you guys probably know as much as me um in terms of guests so the guests thing I so again a lot of luck in this as well so I've been writing on LinkedIn for ages and what right weekly newsletters still do and um and it was very serendipitous and fortuitous but i'd been writing for like two years on linkedin and then i'd met a guy called david gluckman who created bailey's he's got an amazing book called that shit will never sell he's probably 87 now this was five years ago uh and he's created so many drinks brands he's created tankery i mean if you want an amazing book i know it's probably he'd be a sick guest as well um wonderful storyteller like the way he created bailey's he was in soho in uh and they were like the irish government had a massive budget for uh an export uh export brand basically he was in a in an office in soho and went downstairs had some whiskey got some cadbury's hot chocolate um you know it's instant hot chocolate and um mixed it in with some cream and then it was like that tasted decent and then hopped on a plane to island and sold it into um oh my god iv a ivd which then turned into diageo so he was basically their in-house drinks guy wow amazing book like he's got 100 if you want creativity and stuff like that anyway long story longer is i've been posting loads and as and he basically said look i love your writing i was like fuck off like literally the day i got his book he sent me that message on LinkedIn.

29:32It's like weird, yeah. Anyways, we had this call on Skype and he, it was amazing. I was like, oh, why don't we just turn this into a podcast, mate? Like this would be sick. And I sort of, and then, and it was a great conversation. I mean, I was awful, but like, as you know, you start anything, you're all over the shop. But I had the bug for it. And then I just started using his name as sort of leverage to basically get next guests and then i was just like and i also i didn't fanny around with small like not not on a um i was just like i was like i always also believe that these big guests that are actually probably easier to get to than you think because people think they're big so they won't bother you know i actually think that's there's true in that so if you write something really crafted um and thought out then you'll you'll be able to get big guests do you know what i mean so that that was the first thing sort of leveraging um leveraging who they know like oh can you introduce me to that person the other thing was writing basically long stories which were like because i think with emails you either go super short or super long don't go in the middle because everyone's in the middle um send it on a sunday night because super successful founders are always checking their emails on a sunday night to prepare send it about 8 p.m they're probably on the sofa with a glass of red watching you know surprise like whatever uh successionals and like that and your hit rates we got julian metcar from itzu like literally got there he'd done two podcasts he'd done he'd done um diary of a ceo and mary portis podcast and um i even asked their ex head of marketing to help me get him on and he was like he ain't gonna do it he doesn't do podcasts i think just literally again it's one of those small things just like you email someone a sunday night your conversion rate goes through the roof um but yeah mainly those three things in terms of getting people on and getting the getting the business off the ground which is which isn't the fun part to be honest yeah what about those times you've had to think outside the box of it to get a guest what can you tell us about those um yes that's that's so i do that a lot um i'm trying to think like some sometimes i'll say um like tell me to fuck off in in the in the in the subject lines of the email um which hasn't really worked um i'm trying to think so we in terms of getting james watt on so so he's the founder of brew dog so we'd and you guys know you'll send stuff out and it's like to no avail right i wrote a piece on linkedin uh which was saying challenger brands shouldn't go into supermarkets too early and my point was one like they don't have the money because you've got to pay to play in these supermarkets uh two they don't have the team to be everywhere and support these listings and so i was basically you don't need to go into a supermarket to build a brand you can build it in wholesale dc whatever anyway so james commented on on the post and i completely disagree with you and so i was like oh great i've got your attention and so then i knew he'd invested in like five or six different brands so uh jack at dash my friend james hickson had worked for him uh early days Brewdog uh Ben Veer at Living Things um I'm trying to think you're also a message who knows so anyway like a few other people voice noted them sent them a screenshot of the links and saying look this is on yeah so I was like please please can you email James saying um I've been on Dan's pod it's great like you should we should make this happen and uh so then I was like right unleash the hounds so i was like you know everyone was everyone was emailing emailing james and um and then i was literally at the alma as i was saying to you like pub there's a great pub up there uh on a friday night outside having sort of a drink and i got the email but like final it was like final like enough people introduced me to him saying and it was like fine let's do it and then here's my pa um and that was great because it's like those ones are um are like just the buzz afterwards do you know what i mean um i'm trying to think who else uh so james smith he's have you guys done him he's a no no no so again i was trying to get chris on salam trying to get chris on um so they've got that new tonic brand yeah was badgering luke like i reckon i sent him 50 emails i think i've sent him a few as well yeah yeah we'll compare later yeah we'll cut this out and send it to him yeah 50 60 emails um and then he was james was in london and and it was again this sort of you create your own luck i think but he um he was like okay yeah james in we'll we'll we'll do it do you know what i mean um and i think that's just just persistence is constantly pinging emails out um i'm trying to think what else i've done to get guests I mean so Dishoom I mean I'd love to speak they're very good friends with Rory um Kavi and um and Shamil you've got good guys been to Dishoom yeah I mean it's unbelievable I reckon I've generally put I'd love to maybe a counter office I reckon I've sent them 73 emails and like and they're like just like we're not we're like they're like we will do it eventually I'm like mate it's been five years bro like but yeah I think ultimately it is persistence and just the other thing is instead of sending emails and this is something I learnt from the challenge a brand thing with going after supermarket buyers so all supermarket buyers are busy they've got a gazillion brands to look after there's loads of internal whole sort of um politics and all that so i sort of said okay well instead of just sending a neggy beggy email like hey come on team nix or like what have you got the samples it's like well they're gonna get hundreds of brands saying that so what i would do is i would create i created something called i did i've done this for a few clients as well which was um but like almost like a news report she sent three pictures send it on a friday at 3 p.m because no one's got everyone's empty then or probably now with working from home it's like do it do it in the morning basically and it could be something like it could be a picture so when it was in the brand sphere it would be something we did so with a chocolate company i did a bit of work with islands chocolate amazing chocolate we created something called behind the cocoa beans i.e.

36:32behind the scenes and what we would do is we'd send a picture of us and the team we'd send um uh like a bit of interesting new i mean it could be something as banal and inane as like someone's had a baby well actually there's not an al but like in the team what are they gonna give a fuck about that and um and then at the end it could be a recipe and be like oh yeah cook this on the weekend and so then basically you're changing you're basically giving them giving them information you're not asking oh can i have can i have five minutes can i have a meeting um and just and then being there every three four weeks and just not asking by just not asking and being the only brand out of hundreds of going into that inbox and just giving information giving giving free stuff saying right here's a link to our website to get free free um you know get a free thing on d2c or whatever um and just constantly give give give rule of reciprocity that links back to um what's his face bobby yeah bobby kialdina yeah um and just give give give be generous and then it comes back done the same thing with guests so when i knew that worked that principle worked sometimes i would just send um like uh just to say oh by the way this is how the pod's doing like these three pictures these are three guests we've had um we've just got some pr like no expectations i think but by just not having the expectations it will it does it does come back to you interesting interesting is there is there a time then when the ass comes or are you just saying, I'm just going to give and give and hopefully you're going to want to come on at some point?

38:08So I've asked initially. Right. So the first email is the ask. And then if it's not a yes, I'll ask again. And then it's like, okay, well, now we're playing the long game. Right. So then it's like, I'm just going to keep updating you every month. And then eventually it will. Has it paid off? I mean, it has in times. It's weird things. We've just done the final of Gales. that took me three and a half years but like it works but it's about playing the long game and it's like I'm trying to think what other ones we've had that are like that do you guys know Riverford the veg boxes another one that took ages

38:57Jamie Smith I was doing that with Luke being like mate we've got these three bang uh so it does work i don't know about you guys but i think i think it's like playing the long long game i like it i like it a lot so i want to talk to you about so obviously you'll you'll sit down you need a bit of consulting as well obviously people either pay with time or money if me and zach said right dan thank you for joining us today we're launching a challenger brand we're gonna we're gonna smash it we're gonna be in waitrose before you know it we're getting out that trough of shit we're moving over to the park guard sorry it's all right you say so um what what the what are the three or five things that founders should know before they embark on that journey okay so the first i mean i would take a step back even further than that right so it's like the first thing you want to know is if you're trying to exit it let's just let's just say you are trying to exit so the first thing is there's there's a real danger to being niche in food and drink right so it almost kind of goes against what a lot of people say is like find a niche right because it's like if you're trying to say you want to know the total will dressable size of the market right so that's the first sort of pillar so i may be able to build the best tasting tomato soup right but the tomato soup category is worth five million so you just not like no matter what you may be able to create the best tomato soup in the world but the total bull dresser or size of the market is um the tam as they like to say is is bugger all right conversely juice is massive burgers are massive um sushi like gyoza is what julie metcalfe's doing with it is massive um like cereals massive right so the first thing i'll be asking myself is okay do I want to exit this and is it big enough is the product big enough then I'd be saying how big is our how are you going to demand a sort of premium niche again I think premium brands I think every category can have a premium brand in it because it's

41:14there's just always space as human beings on a deep level always trying to evolve and basically we will pay more and more and more and more and more um that's the second thing third thing is asking yourself like which channels do you want to build this in so do you want to do more of a dtc play do you want to do more of a um uh a supermarket go gangbusters play do you want to do more of your traditional play which is selfridges harrods whole foods harvey nicks social proof thinking back to coppardini right we're smashing it in these hello waitrose get us into waitrose into waitrose rate of sale sainsbury's like that's kind of you know but i think so what that's what most people try and do but i think step taking a step back and saying like what's the category we're in what's the how are we going to create a premium niche and be different and then three what's what what road do we want to go down um so that's the first thing second thing in terms of like what i do to help so i would be getting into to you try and get into loads of distribution i would if i'm starting a brand tomorrow the first thing i would do is just go into southwest london and i would build the biggest i don't know give me a like sort of food product you guys like like uh i like a a duck and hoisin wrap from Waitrose.

42:42Okay, right. So let's say it's a duck and hoisin jack wrap, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you've created this, right? So I would basically be calling, I'd be going around Wandsworth and Clapham and I'd be creating a burning hot,

42:57almost distribution density. So it's almost like, you know, the swimming pool analogy, if you drop a thing of a pink dye in a swimming pool, the whole thing goes pink. But if you drop it in an ocean, that's what happens. So I would actually get 10 stores in Clapham, in wherever, and be sampling there every single weekend and creating hype about this Dark Hoisin Wrap and be like, we're different, like just becoming the best Dark Hoisin Wrap in those 10 stores. I then get all the data from those stores. I then go and knock on Planet Organic, Whole Foods, Harrods, Selfridges stores. Say, look, we've just got into 10 stores.

43:36This is our data. We can offer you a Dark Hoisin Wrap which no one else is doing and i think of super creative ways to activate so activate means sort of like switch on which switch on the sort of the christmas lights at the store if you want to call it that so i think the other the other danger is brands go on into these supermarkets or retailers and fuck all happens and you're you're out the door quick um so i'd be thinking of really creative ways to take that data and then some some uh so with say you're trying to get into selfies i'd say can we do a a duck hoisin giveaway with some famous Japanese chef who will come in and sort of do a talk there or something like that and I'd get selfridges and then once you've got selfridges and those two things moving, again don't do even more than that mistakes so many brands make is they try and go after everything way too quickly, get those two things burning, the swimming pools pink, filled with dye case studies, again social proof Bosch next one Whole Foods and then again and so I'd always build really really slowly um and that is kind of that as we were saying at the beginning the trough of sorrow that's getting out and that will albeit with a massive amount of graft get you to a good sizable business um those are the those are what I'd be I'd be focusing on um but then obviously like i mean there's there's a thousand i mean there's that there's so many threads to this there's like the team thread like there's there's all sorts um but i think those are enough to sort of drive with get the ball moving yeah i heard you talk on another podcast about the barbell theory yep could you run us through that because i thought that was genius yes yep so that is uh nasem taleb uh who's written or wrote amazing books black swan anti-fragile which is a book i've read like three four times the first time you read it this is a bit of a mouthful it's not the easiest thing to sort of digest um and i think you can have the right book wrong time you know a bit like love right person on time but i think you a book can be is i was like trying to read that 19 um so the barbell theory is it's basically an investment uh theory where you basically you a bit like a barbell you want to be you want the the barbell when you're doing a deadlift to be to be balanced right you don't want to be out of balance if you're if you're out of balance you're you're inherently fragile so it's talking about taking two extreme positions so it could be in investing and i don't do much investing but like it could be having real low risk options so like uh bonds all that sort of jazz exactly i don't but like really low risk things with super high risk things so like investments um sorry if investing in brands investing in bitcoin investing in fill in the blank and he basically says if you're in this if you've got this these two opposing things you're in a really strong barbell and position um and that makes you anti-fragile but that applies i mean i you can sort of apply this to anything in life so i think it's uh seneca who talks about the uh is he the seneca or one of those stoic fellas who talks about intense action left hand side of barbell followed by intense reflection and i think loads of writers have this barbell strategy it's like you write loads in the morning, Hemingway, massive amount of work in the morning, in the afternoon, cigars, chilling, you know, booze, beer, relaxing.

47:21And I think having these, so that's one intense, action, intense reflection. I think a lot of founders have the barbell, and I think anyone who's got type A personality of like extreme self-doubt on the left-hand side with extreme, unshakable, unflinchable confidence in themselves. And if you're too confident, you'll be you're kind of you fuck because you're actually looted it's like icarus who flies too close to the sun right but if you're full of doubt you're not going to get the thing off the ground so every founder i sit opposite sit yeah sit opposite has this insane amount of belief in himself but this super harsh internal critic and that is the magic because the belief is like right i'm going to try this the the criticism and the self-doubt is like i need to relentlessly make this better so you know julian metcalfe at it's soon pre-t-a-monje a huge amount of self-belief huge amount of internal uh criticism of his work but that's a barbell strategy and that's what builds prep that's what builds it because they're constantly making the product better um i'm trying to think of other examples of of the barbell strategy um I mean, in terms of, again, in terms of sort of building.

48:38So another one would be direction versus speed. So if you're going in the right direction, it's better to be going in the right direction, but slowly, versus going in the wrong direction fast. But you can create some tension here. So this is what James Watt did at BrewDogs. So on the one hand, he was like, I want to know where we're going, right? But I'm going to balance that off with moving at relentless pace. And he was basically saying, I'm going to move so fast. This business is going to move so fast that if it, and we will use the customer as almost the rudder to course correct our direction.

49:20So that's another barbell strategy of like, how do we move? And it's something all brands face. is because people want to move fast, but you also need to move in the right direction. The other issue is you move in the right direction, but you're going slow. So you're constantly battling that tension. It's one of those things that I've, it was one of those, out of all the concepts I've been trying to get my head around on the podcast. So I was thinking there's so many paradoxes or so many contradictions and things. It's like the main one that come from the podcast is like how these people I speak to have this insane self-doubt and self-belief like that is just attention and then i stumbled upon the barbell strategy i was like that's it and i'm just basically rinsing repeating it the whole time we um we had grace andrews on yesterday who looks after the marketing for diary of a ceo yep and she was saying that um everything is thought out for the guests so like the car they get picked up in the music that's played in that car the scent that's been sprayed just before they walk into the room like every little budget mate that's a budget that's a budget but i was thinking about from from your standpoint from these different brands that you've met what are the ways you know we're thinking about eating and consuming as a experience happens in your mouth but how are brands using other senses to create a memorable experience or maybe thinking outside the box with other senses great question is this for brands or for restaurants or both let's say for for both but if you've got one yeah yeah okay so i mean brands is is let's start with brands so psychophysics again rory's thing so it's like if i give you a pint of guinness zero now um in a guinness glass i mean i had this the other day i went to a pub right i wanted a guinness and they'd actually put it in a beaver town glass and it just it sent the howling phantoms down me i mean this is just crazy um and and that's an example of psychophysics so it's like what you actually put your drink in will change the taste of it so if i give you a cold guinness and i put it in a costa coffee cup it that ain't the same drink it is actually the same liquid but it's not the same drink so what your packaging is really does actually change how it tastes this is like this is like this is like a full-on thing um first point so the way brands and restaurants can leverage this is is thinking about how to how to package their ingredients bold bean taking beans out of a tin putting them in a glass jar um tony's chocoloni making their chocolate um pieces all scraggly and thicker like that genuinely changes the taste of it and then the wrapper with a story inside genuinely changes the taste of it um what else there's a brand called engine which is again like packaging and innovation is so great like they basically put gin in a in a petrol container yeah genius like straight away it's like that stands out on the shelf um so i think so that's in terms of sort of packaging in terms of um color and flavor i interviewed ashley palmer watts who does the food at the devonshire um he was heston blumenthal's right a man the fat duck they had this thing he opened dinner which became a two-star uh restaurant which they had this thing called i'm gonna butcher this maybe meat pudding or meat fruit, meat fruit.

52:54So they're basically creating a parfait, right? And their job is to make it look like a tangerine. And they've done this. But through relentless, talk about the truth of the sorrow. I mean, pursuit of excellence. And you look at it, it's like a piece of art. It looks like a fruit. And it's all playing with your senses of how things look. there's like the other thing you're talking about is like foods that taste like the words because obviously you know heston did the whole like um uh they got all this sort of professors in and all that sort of stuff um he they i don't i'm gonna sound like an idiot now but like they were saying words the way they sound reflect how they sort of taste so strawberry like those bowab words i think and and like jagged words so like spicy words like there's this there's a whole psychology in this which i think's endlessly i haven't actually edited the podcast i need to um waffling on but like there's a whole thing in this um what's the other one that there's a professor who will put a strawberry sorbet but make it look like a lemon sorbet like the color in the thing i mean it's mad how how uh color and other senses changes are like the way we eat things yeah he's got a thing hasn't he where uh the fat duck where you put headphones on and you can hear the sound of the sea and it impacts the way the food the food tastes so stuff like that's fascinating what where do you see then so you're speaking to a lot of people who are coming up have accomplished something but probably they're not trying to adapt to ever changing market you know there's there's there's ai the way social media has changed is is and it's ever changing so where do you see the trends for disruptive brands and the ones that are going to break through over the next five years yeah it's um so my belief on trends is i kind of don't believe trends in food and drink a couple of things on this so one is this is what seth taught me which is you know we basically have and he's you see these brands it's a moment of magic followed by a long tail of commodity right so um let me think so like uh and there will only ever be one winner so like protein bars do you remember everyone was creating a protein bar and now there's only really grenade left um what other examples kind of juices and juice shots like this is before innocent now there's only really emoji like there's one or two players um and i think i think brands can uh follow trends um be very careful of trends because they do come and go i think um um that even the vegan movement has now sort of uh has has dissipated massively um which was i mean everyone was launching sort of vegan food um actually maybe vegan food's slightly different but like plant-based replaceable meats and basically it's actually worse for you than a mackie's you know so that was all the rage that's dissipated um then you had a protein thing which went on for many many moons that's now going to come back kombucha so i'd be very careful of creating a brand built built on trends i'd be asking the question how how's this brand going to still be here in 10 20 years time i really love the idea of like the 20 30 year business plan um and my belief is if it tastes delicious if it actually genuinely tastes demonstrably better and delicious um you'll be able to survive the wins and the zephyrs of trends coming from left and right is my is my personal belief um in terms of the ai stuff in terms of running your brand well i mean like that's just there's like there's just i mean i don't really know much about it but it's blowing my mind with some of the stuff you can do but in terms of creating content i can't say say the brands i'm not allowed to but there is a very well-known brand that is in supermarkets now that has done their whole rebrand and you wouldn't even notice it and it's all through ai i'll tell you about it i can't say i can't say who it is but it's like a brand that is getting picked up like plus 40 50 million pound brand in most of the supermarkets and their rebrand which looks fucking stunning is in is in ai and i i saw it a couple of days ago i was like I found out, I was like, this is just wild.

57:45Before you'd have to pay people a serious amount of money to go and fly people to X location, do the shoot. Mate, mid-journey, bosh. It's wild what you can do. I don't know, how do you guys use AI? Are you guys using it much in your sort of stuff? We try and think of it as like a consultant. so you can you can me and jack have just finished writing a book oh sick what's that so it's called sales is therapy so it's all about how you can take therapy principles into selling and probably have much better conversations wow but we basically used cord which isn't a tool that can edit the document for you yeah but basically to say imagine you were a harsh critic of non-fiction books rate this book and tell me what's wrong with it and we got it to a point where it's giving you like little bits of like that doesn't make sense that idea needs to be more thought out that one isn't so it's really malleable in that way to a point now where it's like the critiques are getting to this just won't be for everyone so you can almost use it as a consultant in in that way and i think for um like we're in in sales but you can be putting in like transcripts of shit calls that about in the shit discovery cause where you're just like that felt inherently like a bad call but i don't know why and banging it up and saying to tell me tell me what was wrong with it yeah i think again back to framing i think the the word artificial intelligence needs a rebrand because it's like it's everyone thinks oh the war of the world the apocalypse is coming it's like if someone i don't know who i don't know where i listen to this but it's like rebranded to co-intelligence everyone's like that like i'm sweet same thing with hospitality it's like this is what osh was saying to me that needs to rebrand the word hospitality because it's like ultimately hospitality encompasses like i love nando's but like nando's is very different to going to gordon ramsey's world in chelsea but it's the umbrella term you know like hospitality isn't the i think who was i listening to this on brand names have such a like underrated significance in their success and i think like um who was i listening to it was peter till on who you know zero to one you know people he founded paypal oh mate i'll say he's he's got a brilliant book zero to one and he was literally saying on rick rubin's podcast the word pay pal was like there was he said the competitor was so synonymous to its success because paypal is i'm your pal like to help you pay and then also literally the actual meaning of paying your pal um the other example they used was well facebook versus myspace um airbnb and then i don't know what their other competitor was but i think the naming of things is so underrated that's why like your pod wham works and we have you know i mean it's sick thank you um dan it's been incredible to have you here today i feel like we could pick your brains all day i'm a big fan of your podcast i've been on many a drive and learned so much from it if people want to check you out find you where can they find you yes mate i've absolutely loved this um so hungry.poddy p-o-d-d-y on instagram and then on youtube i don't actually know what the handle's called on youtube just search hungry uh and then linkedin dan pope um but yeah thank you so much for having me lads thank you