How One Founder Took On Liquid Death and Won

0:00It was either going to prison or dying. I hate this. I hate myself. I hate my life. Woke up the next day in a rehab at 15 and that kid is kind of dead to me. And there was just everything about it that screamed don't do it. It kind of like pissed us off a little bit that brands like Evian and Coca-Cola were allowing this to happen. And we were just like, why has no one put water in a can? Basically, Cano looked like it was owned by Coca-Cola. It was actually just, we were just doing it in my mum and dad's kitchen. Have you got any inside information about Selfridges? We basically just said yes to Selfridges and we had nothing.

0:34You know, it was petrifying for us. It's like they had everything more than us. A can of water's going to be finished in a year. Like, fuck you. We're going to do this. And within like six weeks, we basically... Josh, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for having me. Thank you for joining us. So we hit you with a big question, okay? We're going to kick off the day. Who are you and what problem do you solve? So I am Josh White, CEO and co-founder of Canna Water. And Canna Water was the world's first water in a can. And the reason we put water in a can is because we saw how much plastic pollution there was in the ocean.

1:11So the problem that we're solving is trying to remove plastic, as much plastic as we can from the ocean by raising enormous awareness and replacing plastic bottles with a more recyclable alternative. There we go. There we go. And so if young up and coming entrepreneurs are listening to this from your journey, what symptoms might they be facing where they might relate or they might learn something? Why should they listen to the rest of the episode? You know, I think that my journey is very unconventional. You know, I was a very troubled child who, you know, I'm riddled with ADHD and addictive tendencies.

1:54and you know I think if you you know if you want to hear about how someone who was definitely going down the wrong path sort of got out and um turned their life around and continues to try and be the best version of themselves even though you know hurdles arise every day then yeah the episode's definitely for you well take us back then so when's the first thing now you look back everything's in hindsight right when you're a founder so when you look back now what are those first inklings of maybe I was going to take an unconventional path in my life? From an entrepreneurial perspective, I never saw myself as an entrepreneur.

2:30I never thought I had it in me. I mean, years and years before every single person in the world was using the term imposter syndrome, you know, entrepreneurialism just wasn't in my DNA because I was such a troubled child. And I didn't think that really that I would, I didn't know where I'd be. you know I didn't really look at the future at that time you know I plan ahead now and I kind of future proof myself and I sort of have a mental map of where I want to be in 10 years and I kind of work towards that whereas when I was a kid that just wasn't me and I just sort of lived in today and expected tomorrow being a different a different day but it's like that definition of insanity you know where like you expect um different results and you're just doing the same thing so you know I think that it was sort of a journey of probably like eight to ten years from where I was sort of 12 years old to 22 literally um where I went through so much trauma and had so many issues that I kind of learned so much about myself.

3:46And also, do you know what? I also made so many mistakes. So I think that, you know, failure, mistakes, all these things, learning from the, you know, the fuck ups and the mistakes was massively important for my journey. So I think that, you know, it was to get to that place. It was, it kind of was when I was like 18, 19, where I sort of, I started a business in music because I'm a DJ, I've been DJing for since I was sort of 10, 11 years old. And this is actually the same with Canna Water as well. It was never started as a job. It was started as a passion, a love, an interest. And I think that's very much where my entrepreneurialism sort of started is that I learned very, very quickly that I never wanted to be in property or banking or recruitment.

4:41I didn't have it in me. I mean, all my friends went into those. I had to do something that I was completely and utterly obsessed with, which is kind of where my ADHD brain comes into it. Because at school, I couldn't listen to English class. I couldn't listen to maths. I couldn't listen to science. But if I was in music or art, I was like, I was wired in. So I learned very, very early on in life um that like whatever i was going to do it had to be something that i absolutely loved and had a huge amount of passion for there's a couple of times that troubled and trauma have come up i don't know how comfortable you are giving us the background very comfortable you know as long as it helps others i think that you know it's important to be open um so tell us what you can tell us then that might help us inform who you are yeah so i think that you know just came from a nice family very dysfunctional family though and yeah didn't you know didn't have a a bad upbringing at all my dad sort of gave us you know everything that he could you know he came from nothing literally and lived in you know a you know a council estate for you know his whole his whole childhood and and similar to to me found a passion and you know was able to provide for for our family um at a very young age probably about eight nine I knew that I was very different to to other people just by like looking around at my peers I was always very miserable very sad um didn't know why didn't understand it at that age like who's sad you just you're just like you know you're you're just a kid and I think that I was always very very confused um and also never satisfied which is something as well that I didn't really understand you know started secondary school got in a lot of trouble always the class clown so always trying to get attention and yeah I always knew that I had a problem but I didn't know what the problem was and then at the age of about 11 years old after getting just you know being on report at school and getting into trouble multiple times I went to see a psychiatrist who basically diagnosed me with a term that I'd never heard of or no one had ever heard of called adhd which like who doesn't have adhd these days it's like the coolest thing in the world at that time um it was definitely not the i mean it was being diagnosed with it and understanding what it was it was actually horrible because at that time like any research you did it was like hyperactivity troubled this this and it basically put me in a category.

7:19And then from there, my whole sort of childhood sort of spiraled out of control, where I was just angry. And anger was a massive part of my childhood. And what came from that was an alcohol addiction, essentially. I started drinking at about 12 years old. And when I had a drink, it was kind of like it numbed all the pain. And there was a lot of stuff going on in my family life a lot of people getting ill um and you know I any single time something like that happened I knew that if I drank the pain would just disappear so I kind of just started drinking and you know I didn't know I had an addictive personality you know at quite a young age I did know that I my family there was a lot of addiction you know one of my cousins is clean off of heroin for and has been for about 30 years and sadly one of my other other cousins passed away of heroin I actually didn't meet her but I was always as a young age my parents were always like don't do this don't do this don't do this and I remember at 13 years old going to a hospital with my dad for just like I can't remember I was ill or I broke or something I can't remember and I saw this drunk guy run into a wall and I remember saying to my dad like I will never ever be that person like it made me feel ill and I'm like always remember that time and like fast forward for the next sort of like from the age of like 13 to 15 like I became that guy um I didn't know anything about addiction and for two years basically my life went from just being a kid who a harmless kid to basically just being like a full-blown alcoholic you know drinking sort of two three bottles of vodka a day not understanding why but apart from the fact that I just hated my life and didn't understand what was going on in my mind um just getting in trouble at school suspended all the time getting in trouble with the police and hang around with the wrong people and that was kind of like it wasn't that I wanted to be that person I was never a horrible person I just was I didn't know what my purpose was in life or I just to be honest with you it was either going to prison or dying like and I didn't care I just I just had I didn't care but at the same time I didn't know why didn't understand why um and yeah uh fast forward 15 years old um paralytic, got home and woke up the next day in a rehab at 15.

9:42And it was petrifying. You know, it was the most scariest time ever. No phone, no one to really talk to in a rehab with 40, 50, 60 year olds who I had no idea who they were, strangers. And sitting in groups and I was in a rehab that was it was the only rehab in the country that basically um adolescents could go to so it was me and one other kid basically and you know I grew up in a nice area and um around nice people and now I'm in rehab with like the worst people literally the worst people that that's sort of what I perceived at that age as the worst people and um you know it was the it was the most difficult time in my life you know and um it was a time where I just yeah I didn't want to be around I didn't see past tomorrow and I didn't want to because I didn't believe in myself and you know essentially I was in there for about a month and I learned I learned everything really I learned about addiction you know I was sitting in in group therapy with with people that were as I said like 30 40 years older than me plus and hearing them talk and I'm sitting there angry not talking and just hating everyone and everything and I'm hearing these people talk about their minds and what's going on in their heads and I'm literally like I'm trying to ignore it but I'm hearing me I'm hearing my story I'm hearing like I can't stop drinking I can't do this I can't do that it's like a I physically can't stop it I learned all about addiction and I also started to hear about like people's superpowers and then people started to also talk about ADHD and things like that and you know I as much as I didn't want to hear I knew at that point that I was an addict and I came out of rehab and it made everything worse because I was just like I did you know at 15 years old when all of my mates are going out and having fun you know I'm just stuck I've got ADHD I've got addiction you know I'm not happy and it kind of just yeah for the next three years from 15 to 18 19 I basically just got in serious trouble I was sober but I just was angry that essentially that was it so yeah three years and um of basically yeah just just getting in serious amounts of trouble and doing stupid things at 18 years old I started an events company um I you know what one thing I will say and I think this is important anyone with ADHD it's like one of the most important things is really to find a hobby um and my dad always he always bought me things that I needed not that I wanted um and he bought me my first pair of decks my DJ decks when I was 11 years old because I'm obsessed with music art graffiti hip-hop like culture of you know real sort of like American hip-hoppy culture and I've always loved that from like a kid and you know I when I within those those few years I was just getting constantly suspended from school and getting into trouble and I I all I had was DJ I like taught myself how to DJ and um I would spend all night literally just DJ and I had no idea what I was doing but I was so obsessed with trying to learn and be a good DJ because I was so obsessed with some like some hip-hop DJs and um you know that sort of took me into the world of music uh started an events company for like under 18s putting on sort of like dubstep and drummer bass events in the UK got into business with like some big grime artists um like boy better know and people like that who we basically did like tours for those artists and it's funny if I look back now like one of the events that we put on in London like the lineup would cost way over a million pounds you know like literally like Skepta, Dizzy Rascal, Wiley like the biggest people in grime this was before grime exploded um and that was the first time ever where I actually felt like oh my god I've got purpose and I'm kind of get I'm I'm still fucked up but I'm like I'm doing something that I love um and I did that for about a year and a half and it was phenomenal it was just I wanted to do this forever and I thought it would last forever um and then just sort of my life was always in like it would always be like something good would happen and then it would go 10 steps back something good would happen 10 steps back um and I always just had this mentality of like nothing's gonna go right but I kind of I would keep going um and I always worked as as a kid and I always wanted to do something but this was like wow this this is it this is me I didn't know that this was entrepreneurialism but I just kind of like was like I love this I had a purpose to wake up to um and then literally within the space of yeah we for about yeah two years um the whole thing just it was it was going up and up we're putting 10 ,000 people into venues and literally overnight the whole business just collapsed because under 18 events basically got shut down in London um and then I had a severe family traumatic experience where my younger brother got diagnosed with cancer basically which was he was 12 years old it was like the worst possible thing that could ever happen um but you know yeah that 10 steps back I was kind of used to it and like we'll talk about resilience within business because by the time I started a can of water nothing could break me I was kind of like I was so resilient um and then yeah my brother was in hospital for a year he's fine now thank god and I kind of like was back in that place of like confusion and um I just was uh I was unhappy but that was it was kind of like nothing can break me what doesn't kill you makes you stronger kind of vibe um there were so many things that weren't going right in my life um but at the same time there was this feeling of I really enjoyed what I did um and I was DJing at this point DJing all across the country I was teaching to hundreds of thousands of people with unis and the biggest clubs in the whole of you know the whole of the country and I was having a lot of fun but I knew that that wouldn't have to satisfy me for long.

16:31So I was kind of looking for my next venture and what I would do because there was something in me. And this is where addiction and ADHD really do work. Like this is where the superpower comes in. It's like, I need something. I need something to make me feel that feeling. Once you felt it, this is like, it's like a drug. It's like, you know, a lot of people in recovery in AA meetings, which I've been going to for the past 20 years, they'll always say like, they're chasing that high, they're chasing that high. And what I kind of learned is that if I can chase that good high, yeah, and, you know, find that feeling that I had when I was doing, had my events company, it could lead to being better.

17:19um and at this point in my life um I was smoking 40 cigarettes a day I was um I was eating I was DJing all across the country I was eating all I was eating was McDonald's it was horrendous and I was drinking literally 10 Red Bulls every day and I would look terrible I was just you know I just looked terrible and I I remember looking at myself one day in the mirror and I was just like I hate this I hate myself I hate my life um and I just stopped I stopped it all I made a rule I'm never going to drink a red ball ever again in my life I'm never going to smoke another cigarette and I'm never ever going to um eat McDonald's literally and I was about 20 I think I was 20 21 years old and um yeah I don't know I think it was the tools that I'd learned to stop drinking um And what I'd learned in my AA meetings and from all the people that have got clean, that helped me basically sort of everything that I'd learned led me to that.

18:22And that was like, that was the turning point of my life. Like it really was. That was a point that I vividly remember, whereas I don't want to be this person anymore. I'm going to put that in the past because I think most people live in the past. And I was like, I'm just going to concentrate on my future. and that was like you know as i said from the age of sort of like 11 12 to 2021 that was kind of just it was it was i say in other podcasts it was pre me like i was born it's like born in the royal navy i was born i was born at like 21 and that's when like i went to thailand with the voice and obviously the idea came about.

19:11Oh God, I'm so tired. I've just been talking to qualified prospects all day without any wait time. How have you been doing it? Because I've been cold calling people on my mobile and I reckon I've spoke to one person. No, no, no. Stop that right now and use Nooks.ai. Why? What does Nooks do? It finds me the right people to call and it calls them and it connects with them over and over and over again. So you're saying it's Nooks.ai and I can just be speaking to qualified decision makers all the time. No other better connection, right? Wow, Nooks.ai. That sounds like an emotional rollercoaster. You've lived more lives in 20 years than most people ever live.

19:51So if we sat down with the Josh just before the idea of Cano, so just the night before, it's not even an idea. What would that Josh be saying about his ambition and his future? There would be no ambition and no future. You know, it was just sort of anger and living in the past. And I think that it's so easy to live in the past. It's so easy. And, you know, I spend a lot of my life helping people with ADHD and addiction and business, whatever. And I think a lot of people find it very, very difficult to forget things that have happened in the past and think that it's going to continue to happen.

20:34And as I said right at the beginning, like that's that definition of insanity. If you carry on, if something isn't working, you physically have to change it. And, you know, we'll get into this, but I, my resilience and my, and the person I am today is all through comfort zones. I'm a massive, massive believer that like, that breaking boundaries and barriers, sorry, and getting through the comfort zone is, is just one of the hardest things ever to do. and once you've done it you become unstoppable literally unstoppable but there's too many people that that just won't they just can't but they can but they they they physically their brain will tell them they can't so that person before that person just they would they wouldn't go out outside of their comfort zone because they just kept on thinking that nothing would change.

21:40I still, to this day, I can't understand how I've got to, where I've got to. And listen, I'm, you know, I have people messaging me the whole time and I always have to caveat this. Oh my God, like, you know, I've heard about your journey and I've got ADHD and I want to be you. Or, you know, I'm an addict and I want to be you. And I always have to caveat it with like, I'm still dealing with it. You know, like, I'm not, like, I'm very proud of where I am. But at the same time, like, I still deal with this mind every day. But it's the comfort zone thing is a really, really important thing. And I think that that kid was broken, bruised, battered, didn't think that he could be anything.

22:32And it's crazy what is around the corner. I don't know if you've seen that picture of the guy digging. You know, he's digging and digging and digging, the gold or whatever is there, and he stops just before. And it's like that is, you know, that is kind of like that is my journey. And I don't allow myself to stop now, really. Sometimes it's healthy to stop, but like I don't allow myself to stop because my, you know, that I look back at that kid. Do you know what I mean? And I'm sort of, I'm my biggest, that period in my life is like my biggest fear. It's my biggest fear. So yeah, that kid would be proud now, but it's kind of like that kid is kind of dead to me, really in the most you know in the most positive way possible because i have to i have to forget the past but at the same time i don't regret anything because i'm a firm believer that i wouldn't be the person i am today without any of that and i you know what my i go on a lot of business podcasts and it's always about business and actually like i wouldn't be i wouldn't even have a business if it wasn't for that period so I don't regret any of that because I actually think that without that I wouldn't even be able to be helping people with ADHD addiction and helping that accidental entrepreneur that basically just never thought that they could ever be you know successful or amount to something it's refreshing because we we interview a lot of people and we listen to a lot of podcasts and a lot of the time it's I always knew I was going to do it so it's like it's a real kind of juxtap um so i've been thinking about the kind of the idea of obviously cano and the way that i imagine it is you've just finished a dj set it's five in the morning the sun's coming up in thailand you walk in across a gorgeous beach a plastic bottle rolls up at your feet you pick it up and you think i'm going to change the fucking world how how how far off is that so far so far what's the i tell us about the ideology of it like didn't care about sustainability you know I always say that I was part of the problem rather than the solution you know like I I grew up in an area where like you don't see any plastic pollution no one cares about plastic pollution everyone's buying plastic bottles um and you know went to Thailand with my two best mates um and you know it's important to talk about them as well because the three of us are quite just like dysfunctional people, dysfunctional kids who basically just never really did well at school, had our own battles, you know, got in a lot of trouble and did some stupid shit.

25:31But we were really creative, always obsessed with like, as I said, like music, culture, fashion, you know, whether it's me with my DJing and art, you know, I went to art school as well. and Perry, my other co-founder, is one of the greatest designers I've ever met. And funny story, at my family home, we just used to literally every year, we would just graffiti my whole room. I mean, my parents absolutely hated us. But it was always a thing that we would graffiti it every year or just do the maddest design of the room. And I think that I look back at those times And even though it was like, what on earth are you doing?

26:17It's like, these were the things that really kind of helped shape us. And then Ariel, my other partner as well, just like, you know, we all just came together as like people that just loved these things and loved culture. And, you know, one thing that we, one thing that is very, very similar to all of us. And when I was a kid, no one could tell me what to do. I was, which was bad as a kid, but like, I always did what I wanted to do. And I was always very like, I didn't care what people thought. I chose what I wore. I chose what music I listened to. I never, ever followed anyone or anything. and I was always an innovator rather than a copycat you know I from the earliest of times like everyone would get this I would get that everyone would do that I would do that everyone would go into this job I went into DJing and I was always there was something about it that I really loved I loved being the there was something I loved about being the different person and doing what I wanted to do so I would I would listen I'd be listening to music a year before anyone would be listening to that music um or i'd be wearing things and i think that it's the same with the others you know and we kind of that's what really brought us together is we would we would find things before they became cool um and talk about it so we went on a lad's holiday you know we just went did a normal thailand trip that most people do and you know just came across so much plastic And it was honestly like, I'd love to tell you that like, you know, it's this glamorous experience, but it wasn't.

28:07It was just like, how is this happening? And why are the biggest brands in the world not talking about this? Like no one's talking about it. It was a bit of like an obsession. Like everyone, we know everyone that comes to Thailand, but like no one's talking about it. And it kind of like pissed us off a little bit that brands like Evian and Coca-Cola were allowing this to happen. but at that point we didn't think that we were going to have a like come up with a business idea out of it we just carried on with the trip we always spoke about it um but as i said like entrepreneur uh entrepreneurialism and environmentalism it was kind of like yeah it wasn't i hear a lot of stories and it was very very different we just sort of gotten with our lives and i do think that 99 of people would never talk about that again maybe at like a family dinner oh have you seen did you see the plastic bottles but we got back and we did kind of get a bit obsessed with like what we saw and i think this is where like the adhd comes in and the the addictive tendencies is we basically just we would we kind of got to a point where we were like we want we we knew that we wanted to build something we didn't know it was about that we we as friends we're always talking about new ideas um and yeah one night we basically just started started talking about how like is there other alternatives to plastic bottles and we started to do a lot of research and you know we saw that glass is it is recyclable but it smashes and it's heavy uh it's expensive we saw that cartons like oatly tetrapak cartons are actually the worst they're the most unrecyclable when you try and recycle it it's like really difficult to recycle it because it looks like it's actually more recyclable but it's got paper aluminium and plastic all fused inside of it so it's actually the worst you can't even recycle it then we saw this stat about cans that 75 of all cans ever produced just still in circulation so any can you've ever drunk from has probably been hundreds of thousands if not millions of other cans so like the cans that we're drinking from today there's there's there's material in this that's been around since the 1800s it's mental it's just mental and we were just like why has no one put water in a can and i think that you know it's easy it's easy to answer that you know you can't see the water you can't close it you know people are going to think that it's taste of metal there's a million reasons why no one would put water in a can but i think it needed three dysfunctional idiots who basically just wouldn't take no as an answer and basically were so naive to basically and who were obsessed with brand to basically turn around and be like you know what we'll do it because we loved that no one had ever done it before that excited us we loved that it was different that excited us um we loved it it had purpose through and through because as i said with my events company it needed that purpose i needed to i needed to see the thailand thing before starting it i needed to fall in love with it and be obsessed with it and we couldn't get it off of our minds um I wasn't I was sober and I was only drinking water at the time and there was just everything about it that screamed don't do it which basically just made us want to do it so you know we we essentially yeah you know we we became completely utterly obsessed of how how do we make this work and how do we make this happen and um you know what it's funny at every single stage you always think that that's the hardest part and i remember being in this stage thinking it was the hardest part because we called up foul like literally like well not actually not thousands that's an exaggeration we called up probably hundreds of different people and met with so many different people and family friends and this and that and no one no one understood what we were doing and why we were doing it um and everyone was telling us it was a really really stupid idea and everyone that we were calling in like the industry like the biggest co-packers who put water into plastic bottles like and and everything were just like we're not we're not going to do it like and if you know even the can manufacturer who cans our cans you know we had to get a minimum of 150 000 for still and 150 000 for sparkling and um that was like 60 grand like we didn't have that money so but there was something that just kept us going and i think it's because we were together and we had the same mission and we believed in it and you know perry had sent us a design that was not too dissimilar to this and we just kind of fell in love with it with the black and the white and um every no that we got spurred us on to like fuck you we're gonna do this that was like our mentality um and yeah like cut a long story short we we every time we we hit hurdle we kind of went 10 steps back kind of like what i said about my journey in life we we we heard the know and then we were like okay what can we do so we went back to the drawing board and then and i you know i kind of like when i when i talk about it i kind of bring my childhood in into this of like let's keep going let's keep going um and it's like it is a mental battle and essentially what we did is our car manufacturer gave us uh some silver cans 500 silver cans that didn't even have water in because we no one would put water in a can at this point and what we did is we uh we we wrapped the cans basically and we after work i was working in events and djing and the others were doing what they were doing and we'd meet up after work we just wrapped these 500 cans and we basically spray paint me and we'd make it look good and blah blah blah and we wrapped it with like a like a film and um we basically created the most phenomenal deck so the coco basically cano looked like it was owned by coca-cola but it was actually just we were just doing it in my mom and dad's kitchen at the time um and we found somewhere that would put water in the can but there was only one place in the world that would do it i'm not even joking and like you know we'd called up so many people and you know it's like that that that knocking down doors and like being so like it was like one of the last places that basically uh that said that they would do it and we could have given up and not got there and we also found this this resealable lid on page 10 of google which the weirdest thing is the only place in the world that put water in a can was literally about 20 miles away from the resealable lid place it was just the weirdest thing ever and things just started to sort of come together and we basically just started sending emails out to like places and we sent emails to like london fashion week and selfridges and a few places but we we were aiming for those those kinds of premium stores that's where we believed it would work um and within like six weeks we basically it was like the stars had kind of aligned self london fashion week basically said to us that they want us to be the main sponsors for london fashion week the year after i think it was like 2015 2016 16 and then like we got this email from selfridges they basically said you need to come in for a meeting urgently so we went in for a meeting and bearing in mind i'm like 21 22 years old at this point i think yeah i was 22 and um the guy basically sits there and he's like have you got any inside information about selfridges and me and my business partner ariel we were like no he was like well i've just moved from harrods i've been there for the past 10 years i've just joined selfridges and the first thing that they've asked me to do is be the first retailer in the world to remove plastic from the shelves and you emailed me that week it was the weirdest thing and he was like and we love the brand he was like we want you to be the brand that we launch with and we were like great yeah we'll do it and we walked around after that meeting i never forget we walked around london me and aria we didn't talk for an hour we were like what the fuck is going on but what what the scariest part is is that we didn't have any cans we didn't have the money we basically just said yes to selfridges and we had nothing um apart from a brochure and a can that basically had sparkling lemongrass in there he was like can i try that we were like oh no no we it's just a prototype at the moment like so we were basically just it was just so like so bootleg like just not like yeah it was just looking back it was so funny but that that was that was basically the start of cano and then you know we got some we were introduced to some some local investors who basically who just loved us who loved the fact that we you know had sort of that naivety and that sort of that drive that they had as well because they were three friends as well and um we basically got some investment from them and um that was kind of like yeah the start of of the cano journey and how you know the uh you know the product was was formulated um and and honestly at that point i thought that was the hardest part and actually it was the easiest wow i think before we move forward with the story i want to just touch on adhd again with this bit because there will definitely be people listening we've had lots of people on with adhd from what we hear there's obviously i suffer in these ways because of adhd and other ways where it becomes a bit of the superpower yeah so in that early stage when you look back now are there things that were only possible because of your adhd 100 so one of the things that anyone with adhd will know is you pick up things and you're upset like it honestly if i told you some things that i've wanted to do like i wanted to be a sax player once i wanted to be like a golfer i want to be this i'm like i'm the i'm the guy that will buy everything i didn't buy a sax by the way we'll buy something and then like Like a week later, I'm just like, there is a real, real thing about people with ADHD is like you get so excited about something and then you just give it up.

38:27And it was a massive pain for me. And there's only ever been a few things that I've kind of, that I've managed to stick at. And what I've learned is that, and I've said this a few times, is that purpose and that obsession and DJing was one of them you know like obsessed and just when I'm DJing it's like I'm like in a trance literally in a trance like I'm completely in love with it and I'll DJ for like seven hours at a club to like thousands of people and it will just feel like um it's been an hour and I think that I you know it was the same with the events company and it was just you know it it was very much the same with the early days of Kano.

39:16It's that obsession that sort of kept me going. So anyone with ADHD, like my main thing is like, as I've said like a few times, is that there's no point picking something that you aren't passionate about because you will literally just give up after a year. Because being a founder and being an entrepreneur, there is very, very, very little glamour. And anytime that there is like a glimpse of hope or glamour, nine times out of ten you're basically just pulled back to reality so i think that you know if you have got adhd and you are looking at doing something just make sure that it is it's something that you're obsessed obsessed about because you know i think that the superpower comes from that obsession this you you find that superpower when you're like when there's a problem and i'm there's I'm so good at this when there's a problem I watch everyone else around the room thinking about oh my god how are we going to deal with this how are we going to deal with this my mind and I can't tell you how this is 100 % an ADHD thing it just goes straight to the solution straight to the solution and most people that hear that they don't understand as in like the people that are trying to think of the solution that don't have ADHD or don't have the mind that I have it's very very difficult for them to understand that like that's not you know they instantly go to that's not going to work without you know how can you get from a to d without doing sort of b and c there's been so many times where like you just don't need b and c just scrap that and go straight there there is a hundred percent times where you need b and c but like i think that when it comes to the early days there are so many things that can slow you down and you don't need to get to z that's like one thing but you can jump just by having this sort of adhd mind and you know some of the maddest shit that we did in the early days it was all because of that you know creative ideas and you know not when someone turns around and says you can't do that it's like no you can do that just stop like you're you can't do that you know I'm not gonna and I think it's like it's the not letting the like you know ironic excuse the pun it's like turning can'ts into cans you know it's like literally is that so ADHD is 100 % an enormous part of my journey but within the past 10 years it's been amazing and also horrendous um so you know which i which i'm very very happy to talk about because i'm actually funnily enough three weeks in on adhd medication which is helping me massively helping me but at the same time you know it's uh the reason i started to take it was because you know i've i've researched it for a long time and there's there are there are times where it's where it's become really tough so in the early days it's when it's really found the lead and really like nitty-gritty it was just like it was like being like in a playground but then when you actually need to run a business that's where adhd becomes really really tough what what do you mean by that where you have to basically where you're not doing like the most creative stuff every day and you're having to you know look over the business and be a bit more uh strategic or a bit more like the way that my mind works from an adhd the perspective is literally like a washing machine it's like imagine hearing a thousand voices in your head and not knowing what to listen to um and you lose focus after literally 15 20 minutes and it's just um you you can't you've got like this brain fog that you just can't think through like there'll be times where i'm just talking i just can't even remember what i'm talking about like these kinds of things and i feel like when i'm getting like a real dopamine high and i'm like running around london doing a guerrilla marketing stunt or i'm at an event and i'm up all day i'm fine but when i'm sitting at a desk i have to write a to-do list and i've got to look after staff and i've to do this or that and i've got to be sort of very very focused without having any of that dopamine sort of hit i melt down and i hear this with so many people with adhd um and it's really really difficult and it starts to actually go a bit backwards that you're just you're constantly looking for that dopamine hit constantly and people without adhd will never understand this because they kind of like, they can't fathom it.

44:08It's the same as like the addictive side. It's like if someone turns around and goes, but just stop, it doesn't work like that. Like no one will understand the absolute obsession that makes someone who's ruining their family over and over and over again, pick up that drink or a drug. And it's real. And I've sadly got both again and I live with both. And I think that I've learned how to live with both, but you know in business the two biggest things is get the best team around you that's I think one thing because you know you've got ADHD and you've got incredible qualities but find people that can do the you know do the things that you can't you know and which most businesses need to do anyway or founders or but it's massively important for people with ADHD because you, you know, you're basically every single day is a battle every day.

45:05And I'll also say something about what I think triggers that as well in this day and age. But, and also the second thing is, is like you, you need to really learn why you're doing what you're doing. I think that's why I've gone into medication because, you know, I went onto medication as a kid and it didn't work for me. The person I am today is a completely different person and people with ADHD if you if you don't hydrate yourself constantly and if you eat sugar and if you don't go to the gym your ADHD is just it's just horrendous like you have to do certain things to make sure that your ADHD is good so the person I am today is a completely different person than I was so the medication for me and I'm it's very early days and it's fascinating but I've felt so different I felt like I can focus I felt like I can listen it could go I could be on a podcast in two weeks and I could be telling people that I'm fucked but it's you know I think that for me like forget the medication for me it's all about making sure that you're aware that you're the best version of yourself and not basically just going into a dark hole like a lot of people do so the medications are relevant that was just where I sort of landed at but I think that so many people are just living in why is this happening to me why is this happening to me and actually you just need to move forward and you know going back to what I mentioned about this ADHD thing you know we live in a in a world where we're constantly looking at our phones and you know I think that this is a massive massive massive problem and I'm horrendous I'm terrible you know I'm, you know, Netflix and chill when I get home and, you know, but we live in a world right now where everyone's getting diagnosed with ADHD.

46:48And actually, I believe that it's screen time that is triggering us. And I think that is just an enormous, enormous issue. And you know what? I can't preach because like I am just as bad, but I've spoken to quite a lot of people and I believe that that is the, well, you know, one of the biggest things and I think that it really kind of is doing something to a lot of minds. So I think that, listen, I, as I said, like today, sorry, every day is a battle for ADHD and I think that that is something that I urge people, you know, find your hobby, find your purpose, try and get as much dopamine as possible, get to understand what makes you like keep going.

47:35It could be an ice bath, It could be going to the gym at lunchtime and getting back. But find that thing because there have been times in 10 years within business that I felt really, really down, really down. At times where I should have felt incredible, but it's a mind thing. That segues quite nicely. Obviously, it feels like there's a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde situation going on. You've got this medicated guy now who can be super focused when it comes to managing the team, but then you've also got this scrappy, disruptive marketeer. I want to talk to you about the marketing side of things. Obviously, the early days, very scrappy, kind of the first guys to do it.

48:21Now you're being disrupted constantly. There's big brands coming over from America. So how do you continue to stay ahead of the curve and continue to disrupt when it comes to marketing? do you know what my marketing view has changed so much after 10 years um and i think in this country it's it's very different to america as well because i think in america like just add like 10 zeros to everything whether it be raising money or marketing or whatever i think when we started the business everything was about being heard being heard being heard and just doing crazy stuff um and i think we got heard but at the same time i think a lot of brands waste time and money doing certain things and i think we did massively but at the same time i don't know if we would be here without doing those things um you know the past year has been a massive eye opener brands have come over from you know the us we've got brands in the UK that are, you know, canned water brands that are, you know, doing everything in their power to remove us off the shelves.

49:31I think that brand and product are the most important thing. This is where my head's at, which I think that marketing is a part of that but I think that brand and how the brand looks feels talks and acts is is I believe one of one of the most important things and I think that's one of the reasons that brands like prime will never be around won't be around for a hundred years um the product has to be phenomenal and the brand has to be brilliant now i think that money is an enormous thing but it's all when it comes to this bit it can confuse things because just because you've got loads of money doesn't mean that you are a great brand but there are brands that basically spend so much money and they pay to play and it creates a bit of a false narrative and I think that's what I've seen over the past 10 years I've seen brands spend so much money more money than us run out of money and then people aren't picking them up on the shelves and then they've gone whereas we've kind of like never had a lot of money and we've just been building like we but but we've always been so confident in the product and the and the brand and what it stands for um and you know a really good example of this is is liquid death you know i'm i'm a massive fan of liquid death i'm a massive fan of everything that they've done i mean they've they've they've you know we we were around way before them but they've created the most amazing they've they've built the category and i'm you know i i can't thank them enough really because the plastic you know uh the plastic people there's nothing more that they'd want for that not to happen but when they came to the uk you know it was petrifying for us liquid death they had millions more like more money than us they had um you know more people than us overnight like they had everything more than us um and i had my staff basically saying to me like what are we going to do what are we going to do i mean festivals were non-existent for us for the first time in in our in our entirety because liquid death were basically giving people stock constantly um for free and we we were we we couldn't we didn't have the stock we didn't have the money um and yeah it was the first time really where we where we had seen like oh like we actually might be in trouble but I was so confident that cano is cano and liquid death is liquid death and I was so confident that the UK consumer wouldn't doesn't want that kind of brand you know I like when I said to you at the beginning I'm obsessed with culture okay the UK culture does not like we're not rock rockers you know and we don't you know we in America and I've been to america many many times they are obsessed with that world that is so american you know it's like rock on and you know fucking skulls everywhere like it's perfect we're not like that we're just not like that so when parents were turning up to uni uh open days and being given liquid death like that's that's not it and if you just become a festival brand which is what they did or just a coffee shop brand for certain coffee shops how are you going to build a global business um you build the best american business possible and i think that you know i had people messaging me the whole time liquid death are gonna you know on on linkedin you know i've actually you know i put it on linkedin someone said like can of water is going to be finished in the year liquid death are here like literally things like that like the most insensitive horrible things you know like I've had my people around me sending pictures like liquid deaths here, liquid deaths here.

53:42They were spending millions. And within a year, they pulled out. You know, they pulled out of the UK. And, you know, that goes back to my point about brand and product is that you shouldn't have to spend millions of pounds to build a brand. I believe that when it's necessary, you do. but when it's like when it's very much you kind of learning and you growing which takes many many years and don't get me wrong some brands they spend millions and they you know they're an overnight success but i think for us it's like the most important thing is making sure that it's like where is the right place that canna water sells and how do we expand that we've spent too many years trying to be the product of everyone and everything and you you physically cannot so you know marketing for us it used to be about turning up at a train station and just doing you know like a guerrilla marketing stunt and like fucking with the plastic guys um and it still probably will be at times you know like kind of what we've done in the past with Wimbledon and things like that.

55:01But what I've learned now is marketing is very much just learning about who is your consumer and where do you sell and then basically going after that. And as a canned water brand, I'm not going to lie, it's really difficult. If we were a flavor or if we were an energy drink or whatever, you kind of go off, you know what audience to go after. With water, it's really, really difficult. um and we've learned that and we've spent a lot of money and made a lot of mistakes and i think that you know one day we will 100 go back to i'll never be the guy that spends hundreds of thousands of like i'd never allow our brand spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on a sponsorship which is never going to do that i don't i don't believe that i've seen brands spend 300 grand on a festival like and it's it's just like you're just like why um but yeah marketing for us is we we protect our marketing budget because you'll just spend it you spend it in a you spend it in a day i mean like if you think about why why would i spend like why would i spend a million to two million pounds on an f1 sponsorship when cano is already you know the water you know behind the scenes for a lot of the teams so it's like those kinds of things that like um the product is there because that's the product that people want that's the premium brand if you want to go to a to a less premium brand that's fine but you're just you're you're lowering lowering the premium quality of the of the thing and that's why cano does very well in hotels in sort of like upmarket hospitality places and you know it's funny when i got here this morning i don't know if you guys knew this i walked into the office here and literally in the fridge is all cano you know like for me like that's like so special you know we don't pay for any of that so it's i think marketing is is something that i've learned about over many many years and i think that i've also we've had people come into the business who are marketing experts who like they only know what to do by spending loads of money yeah and i just i think that there is a time and a place for that but not when you are when you're small sometimes less is more josh i feel like we've only scratched the surface i feel like we could sit here for about five hours and get into all of it what does before we before we leave what what does the future hold for cano so you know it's it's not easy running a bit you know running a drinks business it's really really really hard and you know if I could go back into in time I'm not 100 % sure whether it would be drinks that I'd be going into I think that if I was starting today it probably wouldn't necessarily be drinks personally it's a personal thing I just think that it's uh it's such a difficult time in this country to start a such a cash intensive business um you You know, when we started, entrepreneurial relief was, you know, 10 times higher and there were so many more benefits.

58:17Whereas now it's really, really difficult. I think that, you know, we've got the brand now. The brand's 10 years in and we continue to grow. I think the most important thing for us now is to look at future products, different developments, you know, whether that be, you know, different flavors or different canned variants, different forms of aluminium. You know, one thing that we will always be is we will always be aluminium and we will always, hence the name, can, oh, and we will always be purpose-led. You know, we will always go into things that resonate with the founder's story. So anything that you see from us in the future, it will be something that between myself, Ariel and Perry truly believe in.

59:12And, you know, whether that's around the ADHD side, the addiction side, you know, that's that these are things that within the Cano umbrella we've been working on that are really, really exciting. So, you know, the future is exciting, but, you know, it's funny. I don't ever want to be looked at as a successful entrepreneur. And I can't explain it. I think it is definitely an imposter syndrome thing because I still feel like it's still so early days. I can't explain it. I'm beyond proud. Sometimes I'll think about the journey and it will just be like a wave of emotion, you know. but at the same time we're still we're still grafting we're still like a drop in the ocean and also like we've still got a mission to get as many plastic bottles away from the planet and the big plastic guys are you know are stronger than ever so it kind of feels like it feels like day one every day um and that is you know that's also quite important for me um and you know you You know, I heard someone, you know, I heard someone talk about like, you know, fuck being humble.

1:00:33And I agree and I disagree. I will always try and stay true to myself of trying to be, and I always will be a very, very humble person. Even though there have been times where I've had to make decisions where, you know, I've maybe not. But I think that, you know, for me, it is really, really important to just be true to myself and not ever have an ego of like, you know, you've made it, you're successful. Because, you know, we have got a lot more that we need to accomplish in order to sort of, you know, add anything to the mission and the journey that we started. Thank you for being so open and honest.

1:01:17I've loved this conversation. appreciate it if people want to find you get in touch with you buy a cano what where can they where can they get in touch so like you can find cano in most high streets um or amazon ocado places like that and then me either on linkedin or my instagram josh underscore white one or cano just uh at cano water on any platform amazing thank you so much thank you thanks guys

1:01:49Thank you.