The One with Dip: Real Talk on Scaling From the Other Side of the World

Foreign.

And welcome back to Supply Chain Moves, the podcast, where we take you behind the scenes of what actually makes E commerce work. And today is a big day because we're starting a brand new series on the show. And if you've been here for a while, you know our first series focused on interviewing supply chain talents and experts, the people who make the machine run behind the curtains. That series helped so many DTC founders understand their operations in a way they'd never heard before. But now we're shifting gears. This new series is all about real operators, founders and owners. The people in the trenches building DTC brands every single day. The wins, mistakes, pivots, the supplier headaches, the moment they almost quit, and the decisions that change everything. And we're kicking it off with someone who truly embodies this. Charlie with his team members Daniel and Luke. They are deep from UK is here in the Philippines. Charlie has been a move client for over a year now. And instead of doing this episode over zoom, they flew here to the Philippines and we spent the week doing in person, planning vendor visits, long chats about growth. And now, now we're finally sitting down to record this together. What I love about Charlie is how grounded he is. People don't fully get the brand until they try it, and once they do, they're hooked. And behind that is a founder who deeply understands the value of people, process and community. In this episode we talk about what surprised him on his PH trip. Running a UK brand with Filipino talents for four years, the supply chain challenges he never expected, and the exciting next chapter for DIP as the brand grows even stronger. If you want to learn from real operators and not theories, you're in the right place. Let's dive in.

I am very lucky to be hosting this podcast today. We have our clients from UK who visited us here in the Philippines. So I have here my co host, my operations director Claude and and we have here Charlie, Luke and Daniel from VIP uk. So thank you for visiting us here in Manila. It's a short three days, I think.

Three days? Yes, short three days. Thank you very much for having us.

So we've been working together for years, especially in their supply chain management and also a fan chance to be here in person, talk about their journey and what it's like building DPC brand from the UK and how Filipino calend has played a big role on their growth. So welcome again, welcome to the Philippines and how's the trip so far? So you arrived last night?

Yeah, we arrived late last night. Yeah. So we haven't. Haven't been here very long but it's been great so far. Everyone's been very welcoming, had a lovely lunch area. So yeah, it's been been really good.

And from before here you were in.

Japan for hum, you were there for about a month.

Is there a business development also in Japan?

There's definitely opportunity in the market we think to expand there. When is another question. But from seeing what we've seen whilst we're out there, we think for those.

Who are new, how would you describe the brand and what inspired you to do it?

So the DIP brand is a health focused brand, sustainability focused cleaning brand, focusing on sort of care for the home and targeting the wellness niche. Because we think that there are areas where it comes to cleaning products and everyday products that perhaps people don't know about. When it comes to the health and sustainability that we think they should know about. We're trying to solve that through our products and our content.

You've been working with a Filipino customer service for I think four years now. How was the experience?

It's been brilliant from the start. Super attentive to our customers, always trying to learn more about the brand and always asking questions and just yeah, customers love Shelani. So yeah, can't complain. Thank you, Sean.

And for remote teams, I know that you're going to hire remote talents in the future. What qualities or values are you looking at?

I think attention to detail and willingness to get involved and learn in the communication. Just being part of the team, not just being, you know, a contractor on the side who's doing their thing but really getting involved in the team and really bringing value to the whole, the whole company which is what we found so far. With every talent that's joined it's really been integrated and really starting to build and ethos.

So with the staffing agency that we have, I've seen enough of remote talents being deployed. What I've seen that works is when the client treat the talent as an extension of and not just a remote freelancer that they can come and go anytime. So I've seen a lot of talents for Filipino talents treated just like an employee just leaving separately. So I think that's the experience that your customer service has because been receiving on your end. Because four years is quite long for remote. Right. I mean remote team members, they would shop clients because they have the flexibility to do so. But if the talent is with a company for more than two years, that says a lot about the brand that.

They want to do it.

Yeah, I think, I just think we're really lucky to be living in a time where we can work with anyone in the world and it's not been possible. And from the ground up we've built in a way that where we are thinking how can we source the best talent around the world, not just in the uk. And I think a big thing again working with agencies as well, is that if an agency is really external to the business then the relationship doesn't tend to work as well. It really needs to be an extension of the company.

Looking back at your journey, what supply chain or operational challenges have surprised you the most as a UK brand? And how did our team working with you help make things easier? I know there's a lot of things going on, etc. But how are we able to help.

You with that in terms of operational surprises or difficulties that I didn't realize. I just didn't realize how complex it was and how much brain energy it would take up to try and manage that. Obviously when we started I was managing it myself and trying to forecast inventory and cash forecast and just and trying to get everything right. It was basically kind of just almost plucking numbers out the air and hoping and then when we brought team in from you guys immediately, it just made a massive difference and it definitely took a while to get it perfect. Couple of months of iterating and improving and we're still doing that. But now I almost don't even have to think about it like it's Addie and Laurie on the operations side. It's just been brilliant and just made my life so much easier. And so far touch with we haven't had any issues in terms of inventory sim state, joint. It's been really, really smart actually.

I'm glad that you recognize that it's quite complex because one of the challenges that we face, especially for, you know, when we start the partnership with our client is they always think that especially on inventory they think it's very simple. But we tried to make that complexity to translate into a very simple way for the non operational would really understand it, especially in inventory. They just did. It's just inventory with this forecast. But you know, there is a lot of different techniques, strategies in terms of inventory. There's also different functionality like there is a demand and planning. There is also inventory when it comes to stock rebalancing, stock replenishment, there's other side of the inventory, when it comes to finance inventory, the cash flow, that's also inventory, the cash flow, the assets and all etc. Those are a lot. But I'M really glad to hear that our team, we're able to help you with that Charlie.

Yeah, I think if you want to grow fast and as seamlessly as possible, especially if there are updates to products or new products joining the range or you know, any other sort of what look like small changes create massive complexity when it comes to forecasting particularly as a young brand where you don't have loads of data to go off and you don't have really consistent year on year forecast yet. Trying to manage that all yourself postgres. Well for me I'm not smart enough to do that.

Yeah but, but we're, you know it's very important your feedback as an owner because as I was saying with the team the demand forecasting is very different to the way how we just forecast as an alliance or as a deployee because there are some forecasts that are on the market inside that RT is not aware of. That's why your guidance and collaboration as a brand owner is very important because we can only forecast based on historical. But it's very important that you also instill as a client instill to the operations team what is your vision for this product? What is your vision for this category? Like what you did earlier that you're trying to, you know, you have that kind and patience to explain that this is our vision for this category. This is what I want for the business. So in that way we can incorporate in our operational efficiency. Efficiency. As you were saying earlier before this.

Recording we are discussing for about two hours and what stopped with me is when I shared next steps and things to improve productivity. Charlie mentioned that as long as it will not take away our focus. Your focus in growing the business and the priority one is growing in uk. So that is a huge key takeaway for me because we can be very successful in supporting you if we can help you grow without you having to remove your focus in what you're doing right now. So I think that's something that we will focus on move supply chain as a staffing partner for you so that you can continue working on marketing, on business development and growing. And of course since you're growing what other goals and stocking positions are you looking to hire in the future?

I think in terms of the operations definitely. But I think we're also. With growth comes more requirements on the marketing side and I think Dan, please focus on it. You know the marketing team is small at the moment and we get a lot out of it.

Up until now it's been me and Luke wearing a thousand different hats. And a couple. And a couple editors.

Yeah.

And some graphic designers. But it's mostly been us leading the kind of growth of the company. And with more growth, there becomes a point where you have to hire more talent. I think that's kind of the next stage for us.

We're excited to support you on Lab. Yeah. So what's next for the last question? Any exciting plan plans, upcoming launches? What can you expect?

Lots of exciting plans. We're working on improvements to the core product range. We know what customers want, and now we've just got to improve the formulas to give it to them. I think as we were discussing earlier, there was also the sort of the feel of throwing out that Asia may be a possible market that we could move into where perhaps what we offer hasn't really come. Come to that market. And there's a lower competition threshold. So long as Bokester isn't taken away from what we're trying to do in the uk, that is an opportunity and could. Could be something that we take on. There's also new products coming. Don't want to say too much because. Because some of them are quite innovative and different to what's out there. But yeah, some really exciting stuff that have been put in the plans, and hopefully early. Early next year we'll start to see those come to fruition.

Thank you so much for hanging out with us today. I think you're the first client that visited us here in the Philippines, aside from Andrew Faris, who was here last January. But most of the time we go to us and visit them, so this is such a very overwhelming activity for us. We're so happy that you're here. Hopefully next time, longer days.

Yes. We definitely need to think that's great in the summer.

And also thank you for meeting your.

Filipino team, especially your. Your customer service working for you for four years.

Wow.

This is our first time seeing each other. Yes. Yes.

Amazing.

Yeah. So, again, thank you and welcome to the Foodies. Next time we'll go to.

Yeah.

Uk.

All right.

Yes.

Okay.

So we can eat ballot later.

All right. Thank you so much for listening.

What a way to kick off this new series. Conversations like this remind me why I wanted to shift the spotlight toward real operators and founders. Because when you listen closely, you don't just hear their wings. You hear their decision making, their challenges, their pivots and their mindset. And that's what actually helps you build a stronger business. Charlie's Journey shows something I deeply believe. Brand grow. When founders invest in people, in process and in long term thinking. From working with a Filipino talent for almost four years to partnering with Move, as Deep continued to scale, to flying to the Philippines to plan the next stage of his company, it's founders like him who make this work meaningful for us. If today's episode sparkled ideas for your own team, your supply chain, or your next stage of growth, connect with us@ movesupplychain.com or join our Slack community. You'll meet other operators who care about building brands the right way. Huge. Thank you again to Charlie for joining us and his team, for trusting our team and for setting the tone for this new series. This is Supply Chain Moves. I'm Lara and I'll see you in the next episode.