Building a Multi-Million £ Ice Cream Brand from Scratch - Henry Milroy | The Midnight Pod Episode 65

I moved back home, back to my parents house and then was just like, I do not know what to do now. I've gotten zero. We went from like, you know, big revenue to like absolutely zero.

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Cheers.

Right, we're back with episode, I think episode 70 of the Midnight Pod.

It feels weird because I'm doing it in the new flat and it's not the right setup. I was just saying to our guest.

Henry, which he'll introduce in a second.

The first episode ever in the flat. I did 67 episodes literally over the road.

We're about 20 meters from where I.

Used to sit, but it feels very, very foreign.

We obviously brought the pod to a.

Proper studio for like the past month. And I had mixed reviews because some.

People said I was sick doing it.

In the studio, upgrading. But then I felt like it lost the authenticity of the pod, which was just like raw and genuinely involved.

Red wine.

Although it doesn't tonight because it's a Tuesday. I'm trying to drink less. And now I brought it back here to see what the barbs are, but it's the first one I've done, so I feel like it's September 2021 again. But with that said, we. We have the first. I guess, like you were just saying, like physical, retail esque. I would still say, like brand. What is a brand?

Non E commerce focused. Yeah.

Pan and ice. Which I guess. How would you describe it in your own words? This also feels really far away, by the way, because I'm just sitting like next to my guest.

My eyes aren't working either. Yeah, no, we're like a. So we started off as like a physical events business. So we started off doing like festival scene, all the major festivals around the uk and then we went into ice cream parlors. So your traditional where you go up, get an ice cream made and eat it. We got those in like Westfield, Selfridges, Arndell. We've been in Bicester. We've had. We've had loads of locations. And yeah, now we're kind of like. We've got like a holding company which is pad and ice, which is like the main brand. And then underneath that we've got all these different trading entities, kind of like split the brand up. I was just telling you earlier, I get quite like. I've got a very short attention span. So I like starting things and then like getting teams to like carry them through and then I just jump on something new. So now we've got like. Yeah, the retail side, the E commerce side, which I launched because of COVID So that's like at home, ice cream machines and. And the event side still going.

Yeah, but it's.

It's a roll. It's a. How would you describe it?

A rolling ice cream company.

Yeah, a rolled ice cream. So it's like you got a cold pan and then you pour in your mix and you roll it up. And it originates from Thailand.

Yeah. Cause you asked me had I ever had it and I haven't.

In London.

And I'm gonna have to try now.

But I definitely have.

In Thailand.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's where we saw it. Me and my ex business partner, we were literally in Koh Phi Phi and drunk one night and we just saw it and was like, what's that? This is back in 2015. So like back then no one knew what this thing was and we thought it was pancakes. And we were like, what is that? Let's bring it back to the uk. And I kid you not, the next day I dropped out of uni and started it. Oh, what's going on here?

We also have Tokyo. He's fucking humping our guest. As almost always.

He literally does this to every guest.

We might have to remove him. Oh.

Oh, wow. All right, Tokyo. Calm down, boy.

He does about 20 minutes of crazy shit. I have to cut it out usually. And then he fucking just chills out and he'll be asleep on you in about 20 minutes.

But yeah, yeah. So I found Inko PP and then I was on the beach next day, dropped out of uni and that's how Pad and I started.

So prior to that, what were you doing at uni? Like, was this ever even potentially what you were gonna do or is it just completely. You just fell in love with the idea and actually just dived in headfirst? Yeah, it seems kind of random.

No, it's super random. Especially. Cause I was doing mechanical engineering at uni, so my plan was, I think pretty vague. Plan was to go work in something like Formula one. Cause I loved working with like engines or like racing. Like I've always enjoyed motocross, watching Formula one. So my plan was to kind of like go do that. Hence why I went to uni and did mechanical engineering. But yeah, I quickly realized that uni was not right for me. I love the social side. I love like the, like the going outside. But the actual academic side was just a joke. Like it was like maths exams every week. The people that was around were just not inspiring me. And I was. At that time I started reading a lot of books or like watching a lot of like YouTube episodes and like entrepreneurs. And I very quickly realized, like, this is not what I want to do. And then, and then I went traveling around Thailand and saw Panai. So it kind of like all worked out quite well. Gave me a reason.

How far into your new year when you went?

Yeah, but it wasn't like a normal course. I was doing a. I was doing a five year course. So, yeah, I mean, mechan just pretty full On. So I was doing a five year course. It wasn't like I was literally just about to finish. It was. I only just started pretty much. So, yeah, I was quick. Quick to leave.

Was that in Thailand with your co founder?

Yeah.

And you both just dropped out?

No, he stayed on because he had a three year course. So he stayed on, finished off and then I basically. Yeah, for that, for that year I ran the. I ran the physical side of the business and then he joined me after uni.

How do you start a business like that? What did it look like financially, like from dropping out? Did you ever think you'll stay, get it going?

I mean? Yeah. Bear in mind, I was 20 at this point. I had no idea how to run a business. I was naive as ever as I think a good thing when starting a business. We basically dropped out. The next step was whilst in Thailand. We were like, right, how are we going to like physically do this? We were like, we want to go make ice cream. Where are we going to do it in the uk? So first thought was, right, let's do some events, like festivals or whatever. Events we could basically do. So the rest of the trip was spent finding big events in the uk. Most of them turned us down because we literally did not know we weren't a business, we were just an idea. So they were like, let's see your stand. We had nothing, but we have managed to get some, some crappy little events and the next step was like, right, let's buy a tent. Like a gazebo to do this thing in was by a machine. We didn't know what the machine was. So I spent like weeks trying to find out what this thing was that they were making this ice cream on. Eventually found on Alibaba, bought this machine machine ended up arriving the day before. Our first event that summer, like a couple months later.

So you hadn't actually figured out how to make.

No, we had no. We had, we had no. We had no clue as to anything. The machine arrived. So we came back from Thailand end of June or beginning of July. Our first event was booked for mid September. The machines arrived from China the day before that first event. Our first event was called the Osford County Show, Some like random country show. So we stayed up all night in my warehouse just like learning how to make this ice cream. So we, yeah, we had no idea. All we had to go by was our videos that we took in Thailand.

Yeah.

So we were just up all night. It was absolute shambles. Like we didn't have a clue what we were doing. We rocked up to this first event and like, it was like the pitch now just looks so funny. We had like a hundred different flavors to choose from. We had 10 different types of granola. Like, we just like, it was just so funny how we did it. But yeah, we were naive, which I think is good. Otherwise I wouldn't have started it.

Yeah. And how did it go down?

Yeah, how's it going now?

Yeah, how did it go down then?

Oh, how did it go down then? It was. It was rammed, like literally. I think. I think the time we started was perfect because it started going viral on social. Just at that point. I think you're like chewing through my jacket.

I want to get rid of him. He goes absolutely crazy when he gets.

You love my jacket.

Yeah.

It started when we started in September. It had just begun to go viral on social media. Like these Thai people doing it. The videos are going viral. So people that did know about it then. So when they saw that they could have it in the uk, it was crazy. Like the queues in our first couple events, honestly, I think people waiting like an hour to like get an ice cream. That's probably partly because we were really bad at making it and take like 10 minutes each ice cream, but also just because people like the shots that it was in the uk. And yeah, I think those first. Our first like couple summers, mate, was just a joke. The amount of cash that was made, like it was just money on tap because, yeah, we didn't have to do any marketing.

Do you think it was actually the.

First in the uk?

Like, literally we were actually. I think, I think this. I think we potentially might have been just second. There was another company that closed down very quickly after we started. I think may just. Just got before us in London. I can't remember what they're called, but we're basically, I say basically the first in the UK because they pretty much closed down a few months after that.

Yeah.

And then what we've noticed is loads of companies do come up now, copiers, but they seem to have like a six month lifespan. And then realize it's a really fucking hard business to run and then close down.

How much it cost to start a business.

We both invested, think it was like 5k each. So that was like basically family money. Well, I'd saved up money from previous jobs I had. I used to be like a promoter. So I saved up loads of money in my bank. I put that into. So five grand each. I mean the machine was like a couple grand. Gazebo is Like a grand. And then basically was just cash generative. From day one though, there was no like nothing else we needed to buy. We just doing it ourselves. You have to pay any staff. Our mates got involved. So yeah, just. We were constantly just pumping the cash straight back into the business to grow organically. That's kind of been the way I've run it from. Well, most of the business's life.

Yeah.

Apart from up until like Covid, I would say.

And you generate revenue. Like is it purely events? Is that just in summer? Like how is it year round if you're full time on it and it's like heavy events.

Yeah. So events is. Well back then the events was just purely summer because it was just. We were just doing ice cream. Now if you look at our events business, we're like a 360 events company. So we don't just do ice cream, we like basically want to do the whole event. So whether that's like, you know, cocktail bars, any fmb, you know, like highest event spaces, like literally anything to do events, we will. We basically take manage now. Um, so it's mean, it means it's all year round for us. So our rental business is literally. Yeah, non stop. And it's all international now as well. Like we do loads of stuff in America. We do like Coachella US Open. We do stuff with Formula one. We do like the event side of the business for me is like a mass. It does really well performance wise, cash wise. But like as a actual enjoyment piece of the business, it's probably my favorite part.

Yeah.

Because it means I can travel around the world with friends, with amazing work colleagues and like have fun whilst getting paid for it.

Yeah.

So yeah, I love that bit like this, this summer we're gonna do some crazy events. Already know. So I'm pretty looking forward to it.

Do I need to get rid of this dog? Is this gonna rip through your fucking coat? He does this.

That literally.

What is it with the guest?

Does it to every guest, no matter who they are.

What the sleeve?

It's always the sleeve.

What's it with the sleeve?

He's like fully going for it.

You.

Know, in about 10 minutes he'll be asleep on you.

Oh, there we go.

I just don't trust this dog. He's such a crook. He's always been my co host.

Love it, mate. Why is he, why is he never with you?

He just. He never sits on me during episodes.

All right.

Only ever guests. Yeah, it's kind of sad. So 8 years how. I guess just a Whistle stop tour. Like, how has that grown since then? It was obviously fucking two of you. Tiny investment, relatively, compared to some stuff you mentioned. There's like 100 staff now, so. Yeah, I guess. How did that progress? Like, you can give a very long answer, but from then to how it is now.

Yeah, so we kind of started it. It was very organic, just me, my business ex, business partner and our friends kind of doing these events. Early stages, though, we suddenly grew so quickly because back then it was a massive hype, so. And we were naive. We were saying yes to absolutely everything. So within a few summers, I think we had grown to like 10 locations across the UK and that's when we had like over 100 staff. Not all full time, but we literally had over 100 staff on our books. It was absolute chaos. We grew way too quickly back then. Just saying yes to everything, thinking we were like God's gift and could do everything. It was easy. Quickly realized that was not the case. And then, you know, we were nationwide. And Topshop, we did that. We did Topshop Circus Top shop in New York.

How's that work? Like ice cream rolls in the store.

Yeah. So they had. We were like. They were doing these things like in store to like bring in, like change the experience within the stores. So they brought us in there. So we did the top, the Oxford street one and then they asked us to New York. So we did like 5th Avenue, SoHo. At the same time they were doing nationwide and Selfridges, Harvey Nichols, Bicester, Westville was that. We literally had. I think we had 12 locations at one point. And bearing in mind there's like a team of staff at each of those locations. It was just. It was nuts. Yeah, we went through that classic phase of like being naive, growing really quickly realizing that's not the best idea and then kind of cut out, you know, then cut forward to Covid. Obviously, in Covid comes completely. Up until Covid, we were a physical business. So we had like shops and the events business. So that completely. Us, like completely closed down. Pretty much temporarily shut the whole business.

Covid was actually so fucked. You think about it.

In hindsight, May was cataclysmic. Yeah. Actually crazy. So just before that, me and my business partner, ex business partner, like, separated ways. So kind of we went through that.

And then straight into that difference of opinion or what?

So straight. I'm not. We might have to cut this fat out.

Yeah.

Maybe.

Is it complicated?

Yeah, yeah. No, I just, like, just legally not allowed. Not allowed to technically talk about it, but just what did happen then? No, no, nothing, nothing happened. It was just, yeah, change of. Difference of opinions, I suppose when you're, when you're, when you start up a company with someone who's. So me and, Me and my experience partner were best mates. Yeah, we went to Thailand as best mates, literally on a holiday. And you know, we started this thing started together. We'd be doing it for five years up until the point we separated ways. So like you quickly realize you go from best friends to being business partners and being business partners and like living this thing with each other is extremely taxing. Like the emotional roller coasters you go through, the highs and the lows, like it's, it's a lot and I think it changes the dynamic completely. And I think it was fine up until that point. But then we, I think we realized it wasn't, it wasn't working. Like changing like difference in opinions of like what we should be doing, just general bickering, wasting time and silly things that we shouldn't be doing. So I think we realized it was probably best if we separated ways. Yeah, but that was a very long, drawn out process. Not a nice process by any means. And then straight after that happened, I literally then had to go straight into covert, like straight into lockdown where I had to get rid of all of my team, which at that point I had a big team. And it was then just literally me on my own. So it was like. Yeah, it was. That part of the business was so weird for me. It was like horrible. I literally thought that was the end of paradise. I remember I moved back home, back to my parents house and then was just like, I do not know what to do now. I've gotten zero. We went from like, you know, big revenue to like absolutely zero.

What did you do?

So, yeah, I just sat, I just sat home. And I think you're like, what can we do? Like, we've got an amazing brand here. Like at this point we had over a million followers on like social media. So our Instagram and TikTok following are absolutely huge. So, so I was thinking, you know, what can we do? We've got an amazing brand. How can I basically pivot that brand into something that doesn't involve physical, physical life? So I thought, let's launch these at home ice cream making kits. Because at that point at home stuff was going mad. All the restaurants were doing at home making like burger making kits or whatever. So I thought like, how can I replicate that? So yeah, I basically launched these DIY kits, which is basically A metal like tray. I could think of it like an oven dish special for special liquid underneath that you put in your freezer and then you can make our product at home. So I launched that, kind of did it all myself. I got a friend of mine who's a graphic designer called Milo. He like did the original drawings, the packaging design, super simple. And I built a shopify store, got like, I don't know what my first order was like 500 of these kits, I think quite a small number. Got them to the UK and then sold them. It was a really slow start because I'd never done E commerce before. But then there was like a. I don't actually know what the changing moment was. I think we. I gifted it to someone and suddenly like these things just like sold out within days. Like it literally went absolutely crazy. I think it was the period leading up to Christmas. Like literally they went nuts. So I could made another order of like thousands at this time. Like 5,000 was the next order again, which is crazy. And this was when Facebook ads roas was just a joke.

Who was running that? You were on agency.

So originally it was just me. So I kind of self taught myself how to do everything off YouTube videos. Yeah like just like the bare bones and basics of it. But then I it got to the point where I couldn't do everything myself. So I got back my like marketing social media manager. He came back to help me out of COVID to kind of help deal with this and then I very quickly kind of started bringing back a team and getting agencies on board. But as I said like looking at Facebook ads in particular, it was literally so easy back then. I think I took it for granted.

Like was a gold rush in high school.

I think that was like 50 people acquisition or something stupid. Like I was just annoying because you then think that's the norm because that was the only thing I'd ever experienced. Then when you come out of that period you're like paying like nine pounds for conversion. It's like what's this?

That's how I feel. I started running ads in 2016. Yeah, it was so much cheaper.

God, yeah.

Yeah. Different world now.

Yeah. So.

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The whole business moved scale wise. Was that like similar or bigger than what it was before? How did that look?

So yeah, I mean in terms of revenue and like scale. I mean the scalability of that business is definitely in terms of scalability, it's the best part of the business. It's very quickly though become I think in terms of revenue it's probably equaling the other parts of the business now. Yeah, it is a very interesting. That's been very seasonal. We thought we would launch this and it'd be a summertime product. Like people make ice cream or eat ice cream in the summer. But that wasn't the case. We've learned like it's more of a Christmas product. So that's the one thing we're trying to work with at the moment. How do we get this part of the business become all year round? Because it should be a summer thing.

Yeah.

Like we know it works well in Christmas because it's gifting thing. We're now thinking like why isn't this working in. In summer? There's a few reasons for that. We think like it's do it like it's at the moment we're too expensive. So like we're more of a Christmas gift item. We want to be something that people can like impulse purchase on Amazon or any time of the year. But yeah, that part of the business is it. What I love about that part of the business is such a small team. Like it's so easily like controllable. You don't need all these people in different roles managing it.

Yeah.

Like you just need a few very smart people and they can control that whole part for you, which I really like. That's something I'm really trying to focus on the moment. It's like, how can we scale that? We're looking at launching like a few new products in the next couple months. I've just launched a new product actually. It was like, it's like an electric version. It's like an actual ice cream machine which costs, like, it's more expensive, but it's like a physical, professional machine. So, yeah, I'm always looking at like, you know, NPD trying to get new products online and they're trying to. That's. That's where the scalability of Pan and Ice is going to come because, like, as a brand, we've got. We've got over 1.3 million followers on TikTok, like 260k, I think on Instagram. But actually now I've not been on it recently, so we got an amazing following. So like, we just need to pivot that now and like into this.

Where does most of revenue come from then? Like source wise? Like, is it TikTok or is it paid ad? I've never cracked TikTok yet.

No, it's definitely not TikTok. We tried TikTok. It was a complete flop. As soon as you try to push anything on there, we just. Some people say it's amazing. And like we get agencies going, guys, you need to TikTok. It's literally the game changer and I've had so many people tell me that and every time we tried it, it's just, it's not worked. So we kind of keep TikTok. It's just a pure entertainment piece where we're just like putting out fun content.

Yeah.

And then mainly for us, it's mainly like Facebook ads.

Yeah, same.

And then if we occasionally, you know, get. Get it. Get a good influencer on board, he's really relevant. Like we. I want skiff. Like Holly Willoughby. Stacy Solomon. Mom's basically parents basically buy our product. So when we gifted it to them and they post it on their pages, that was just an absolute joke. Like, I think when Holly Willoughby posted it, our website crashed.

Really?

Yeah. And then we sold out.

How did you arrange that? I've only ever had bad experiences with influencers and I've paid them so much money and it's never worked. But I'm still thinking about it again, how I can somehow get the products into some person's hands for free.

And so I'm really fortunate in. Well, my business model is really fortunate the way it works. And we've not really even.

We.

It's almost happened accidentally because of our events business. We have, like, these event carts, ice cream carts, that we go to events with, make people ice cream. All we have to literally say is, like, hey, do you have a party coming up where we can come make you. You and your kids or you and your family free ice cream? And that's how it works. And on the back of that, we bring like a DIY kit or something and then they. They take it from us then. And post it.

Yeah, but it's.

Yeah, like, for us, like, it's very possible. Yeah. Like, we're literally going there and giving them a physical experience. We're not hat. We're not sending a product to them. Like, I'm. I'm literally turning up at someone's door with a car, making them all ice cream for that, for three hours. So, like, there's a massive, like, impression there. So for us, it's like we've got. I've got the perfect product to do it. And we've never ever paid anyone to post anything for us, so it'll be completely free.

But you've just offered them that experience.

Yeah, offer them that experience. And there's obviously as a cost to that to us, but it's the. The net gain you get from it is a joke.

Who's the biggest person you've done that for? Is it Holly Willoughby?

In terms of.

She's such a mum. Influencer. I've never even. I've never even thought of that category of influencers.

I like Stacey Solomon, Holly Willoughby, Amanda Holden. They were good. I mean, we've done some.

She called me out on Instagram three years ago for being a scammer with my neon signs.

Really?

So not me, but the brand. Amanda Holden.

Amanda Holden.

So she did not help that situation. So if I ever meet her, I tell her she can't.

Yeah, no, in la, I did a few. In terms of following. I don't. I don't even know who these people were, but they had like 30 million followers. We went to their house parties in LA. Some Brazilian girls. Yeah.

Did they all post?

Yeah, they all posted us. Yeah.

Yeah.

And like, Taylor Holder, like, there's a big American crowd that they went all to their parties and, like, did all their stuff. We've been to some crazy celebrities places, though. A lot of people, a lot. A lot of the time they take your phones off you, so when you walk in, they literally say, right, put your phones away or take them off you and stuff. So we can't post a lot of stuff. But you know, like as I said, because of our product, it's so easy to be gifted. Like can we come to your house for free and make you ice cream? Everyone always says yes.

Is that just through a dn?

Yeah, it's a DM because we're verified.

Because I want to start doing some weird shit with the giant mushroom.

Yeah, exactly. Just can I come and put this up in your hand?

Yeah.

I don't know how to frame it.

Because it's like can I come and fucking give samples of an illegal product?

Make magic. Make your. Make your mushroom ice cream. Yeah, with the mushroom magic ice cream. And then when you go you can do. I do. And bring the pack of mushroom powder as well.

Yeah, that's a good idea.

There we go. It works. It works.

It is smart doing the offline stuff because you're the opposite to me. You said you started. Yeah, like D2C and E comm was foreign but everything else feels foreign to me. Yeah, but it's like also way more fun I think to actually do real life shit sometimes. Like I spend so much time.

Yeah.

In the trenches on my laptop building websites and all that and that's what I'm good at.

But eventually I think this is a really interesting topic. Like when I listening to people like you, other like amazingly successful people that I like, you know, inspired to be like they always talk about scalability, numbers, financial figures, etc. Etc. Like we're doing well but for me personally is it's a merge between like doing well and also like in the enjoyment side like pan and ice for me is like something I physically enjoy. I love doing it. I've got a big team. Like the events I go to, going to the parlors and seeing a customer actually enjoy your product. There's that side of it that I absolutely love. Yeah.

Fuck. I don't have any of that. Yeah, I never have and I really like that.

But that's like most people I speak to, they don't have any of that. I've got that merge and yes, I'm less scalable probably my original business than most other people and it's, it's more lifestyle y. Even though I'm trying to become not lifestyle y with it. I think I've really enjoyed having that kind of multi aspect of the business. Like the physical, the E commerce, the international side of it. We're like, we're now looking at franchising. So that's just another project. Like there's so many different things happening within the business that cover all different aspects.

How does your day even look right now?

Do you have an office dealing with, mate, like, constantly.

You said you were stressed the other day.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Aren't we all?

We ran out to do this the other day. No, that was a bad day. We couldn't do that, mate. I was. I was gonna be.

Was the ice cream melting or what?

The ice cream was melting. Yeah, mate. I sent one here and it melted on the way. No. So my day's weird. So we've got an office in Notting Hill and that's basically my core team. So that's like the marketing team, the operations team. We call that the head. That's like the head office team. So that's where I'm pretty much every day.

How many people are there?

It's about 12 of us.

Notting Hills. Nice.

Yeah.

Actually considered moving there and I moved over the road instead.

So that's one of my offices. I live in Fulham, but Notting Hill, like, is. Yeah, I love it there. It's where we've been. We had our first. We're in a workspace. So we kind of started with a really small office and now this is our fourth office. So we've, like, grown.

Yeah.

Inside this building. But, yeah, no, it's like. It just kind of varies day to day. I don't really have a set plan. I just go in. I've got some goals to achieve, but then it's like I'm very. I'm quite reactive. So I just kind of see what's busy. Like, what events have we got today? Like, every day we're getting new events, like, cool events. Like, my sales guy, he's amazing. He's like telling me, oh, we've just got an event in America or Formula one or this. So I'm focusing that then putting out fires. And then I spend a lot of my time, like, just new ideas, whether it's for the E commerce business, like launching a new ice cream machine. Like, looking, how can we make this the other week? Well, actually, I think yesterday we just launched this, but we've just launched a brand new. We're the first to do it, I believe in the world. It's like mixing dry ice with ice cream rolls. And we're calling it like a volcano range. And it's basically where. I'm not gonna say how we do it, but anyway, like, dry ice. Smoke comes out of the rolls and she's like, little things like that. That was my idea. I was literally in. I don't know where I was One day, and I just thought about this, like, how can we get. Because, like, we're not. Because our ice rolls have obviously a hole in the middle. A normal ice cream, like, soft serve, is obviously the lump of ice cream. So you can't get any smoke to go through it. Our ice cream. You can actually get smoke to travel through the ice cream and it looks like a volcano. So I just thought about it in my head. I thought about how we're gonna make it work, and it worked. And it's really easy to do for us. So I'm just constantly thinking about new things. As I said, like, I have an attention span of about a week with anything. So I'll think of something and I'll be able to really smash it for about a week. And then just naturally the following after that, I'll just like, be. My head would be in something in the completely different direction. So I have to, within that week, basically kind of start it off myself and then get someone really good on board within my team or hire someone new to kind of take that. Take that idea forward and actually put it into practice.

Yeah. Felt I'm the same. I'll get a. What I think is a genius idea and it has about a few days of legs. Yeah. And I'll think this business.

Yeah. You think it's the best idea. Yeah. It's like, so amazing. And the excitement just goes. And then, you know, thinking about something completely different. I get it all the time. And everyone knows in the office as well, they always, like, laugh at me about it.

It's probably the same as a lot of entrepreneurs. So the actual business model then. So when you're doing events.

Yeah.

Like, what is. Obviously that's one part of the business, but that's the part I don't understand at all. So.

Yeah.

And probably most of us listening don't sign because they're all fucking E commanders. What is the business model there? Like you renting out a day rate to a festival or you literally just. Is it just. Is it just in person? Retail, like.

So the events business, it's kind of split into two sections. So we don't really do any events now where we say go to a festival, pay for a pitch and sell ice cream or sell a product. So we've kind of pulled away from that because it's very risky. Like, if you go to a festival when it rains, you're fucked up. You were selling ice cream or frozen desserts, whatever. It's not gonna work. It's also just the profit level it's just like, you'll make so much money and you think you're doing so well, then you get like the week after you actually like do a P and L of it and you realize, oh, shit, we actually lost loads of money so we kind of stopped doing that completely. And now our events businesses say we're mainly a, like, we mainly work with big like, you know, blue chip companies like Amazon's, you know, the big, big companies, and we do like all their catering for exhibitions. So say if you're like, say if you're a brand launching a new product, an exhibition, you want to like create a bit of a hype around your stand. You'll get us to come on board and we'll like produce like a stand for you with some sort of cool, we call it catertaining treat. Whether it's ice cream, it could be frozen cocktails, it could be like chocolate tap. Something that's like engaging. Gavin creates an audience and we'll do that on the stand and that's all paid up front, so we don't do anything.

What's it with your brand on?

Sometimes with our brand, sometimes co branded or sometimes with their branding, we kind of are quite flexible. A lot of people want our branding on it though. Especially if it's 2 of ice cream rolls. They want our branding. If it's like I was going to an event doing like pizza or something, like weird, like, obviously we're not going to put our brand in it. But yeah, that business is very much like, yeah, it's all like prepaid. They tell us, right, we got this event, it's in this location. Here are the times. What's the quote? Can you do it? Yeah, let me turn up and do it. And it's an amazing business because in terms of cash flow, you're getting paid months and months and months in advance. You know exactly what the event entails, like how much stock to bring, how many staff to bring. There is zero risk. It's in fact the opposite. The less you make, the better it is because then you take more ingredients home and you can use it for a future event. See, that's how, that's how that business does. We do a few private events, so like we do some like birthday parties, weddings, but we try focus more on the business side of things, working with companies because it's, yeah, dealing with private clients is quite a challenging environment.

What sort of like deal size with a blue chip? Like, how big are these events? Are they like ten grand?

Yeah, very. I mean they vary so we've done some. That over 100k. So like when you work with like, we do like mwc, we've done like MWC is a bigger particular tech event in Barcelona. We do stuff at Cannes Lions. They, they vary normally from. Our normal event will be for anywhere between say a, a couple grand to like 20 grand.

Yeah.

That'D be a normal event for us. But yeah, then you get the sum if you know a few massive events a year where they're literally like. When you're dealing with these companies, they, their budgets are just a joke.

Yeah.

And they know, you know, how far can you jump? Basically.

Like, is that like typically heavy summer or is it like spread throughout the year as well?

It's. It's really random, but it's.

Yeah.

Like there's a few big events in the year that we try Target. So for example, coming up soon as Cannes Lions, that's in June. That's like a big tech conference on the beach in Cannes. And like all the big blue chip companies are there trying to show off, you know, who's. Who's got the biggest, best stand.

Yeah.

So that's like events like that we target where they're just trying to like blow everyone out the water with their budgets and stuff. So. Yeah, but we, we get, we do it quite a few of those every year. Like we've got that one. We've got MWC in Barcelona, we do stuff in la. Loads of stuff in Middle East Dubai. We did something. Yeah, we did something in Abu Dhabi and it was like, we've got a Guinness World Book of Records for the most amount of ice cream flavors ever made. It was the 1001 within 24 hours. Handcrafted. So we did like the stuff like that and yeah, like. Yeah, so those events are massive and the budgets are just unbelievable. But yeah, this dog is.

Do you want me to move it? This is a record for him. He's been going 35 minutes.

No, I think he must smell my dog on me or something.

He must do.

Must be the perfume I'm wearing.

He's gonna rip your coat at this point. Right? Should I get rid of him? Is he all right?

No, he's all right, mate.

He needs to come sit over here. He's normally asleep under this all day.

Sleeping. He's sleeping now, but then every now and then he just. Oh, yeah, he's actually bit you. Bit in my coat.

Don't worry, it's not podcast dog insurance. Honestly, he's like, he does it to everyone.

Relax.

If I was Professional.

I wouldn't.

Wouldn't allow him in.

But I mean, that's the character of the pod.

Yeah. Legit. He's fucked. So those sort of. Because I know nothing about this business space. Are you going out? Are they coming to you or are you hard? You like hard pitching to them? They mentioned the sales guy, like, so.

Yeah, I mean, we probably. What's the split? I'd say my current sales guy is pretty amazing, I'm not gonna lie. So before him, I would say the split was 95% inbound, where clients coming to us, 5% if we're on a good day, would be outbound, where someone's actually gone out and got new business, which is testament to our brand. Like mainly people coming in. Now we've scaled up a lot with our new sales guy. So now I would say it's more like 75, 25. 75% inbound, 25% outbound. But now we're just looking to scale that. But yeah, it's mainly companies coming to us. We kind of like once you do an event for someone and do a good job, they then tell all their friends or their colleagues and then before you know it, you've got like a massive influx of people coming to you saying, can you do my event too?

Yeah.

So that's the way it works in the industry. Literally. It's all about word of mouth.

You found that word of mouth is compounded as you've. Because you're like 8 years old.

Yeah.

I've never done anything for more than like two years.

Yeah, I know, it's crazy. Panado is all I've ever known. I've not done anything else.

That's crazy.

But obviously, as I said, it's like I've not kept with one business model is. The business models are so different. There's different branding, they're completely different customer demographics. Like my E commerce business is for parents slash kids. My. My shops are for like kids. Then my events business is corporate, completely corporate focused. So the branding's all different as well. We. It's called PNI Events, not Pan and Ice. Because I've kept it like. Yeah, because it's been a long time. So I'm trying to always do new things. Obviously the franchising thing now.

Yes. The shops, we didn't come on to that.

The shops, how does that.

When did that start?

How does that compare to DTC and the events?

So the shops for us is our brand piece. It's where we can physically display our brand as like our tangible assets. To business. It's as anyone knows watching this, making money from retail shops at the moment is extremely hard. Like feel like everything is against you. Minimum wages, like I mean I used to work at when I was young for like £4 an hour. Yeah, you now have to pay like £11 an hour really for that same like person. It's not high. Yeah, yeah, it's that high. And obviously because we're such a physical process, like each of our machines requires someone behind it making ice cream. So our labor costs so high then got like your business rates. So in terms of profit, like they make profit but it's very hard to make, you know, sustainable profit from them. So we look at that as, you know, we want to grow that side of the business massively. Like we want to keep growing that because what we've noticed is the more values we do we can spread our head office costs which makes them more profitable each. But also like we get way more events. Our e commerce business will definitely improve from it because more people are seeing the brand and going how can I do this at home? You know. So yeah, I mean so it's, it's a hard part of the business as well because it's so staff heavy and you're dealing with people that you're paying, you know, zero hour contracts workers, they don't turn up on time, they steal money sometimes.

Is that like a, is that considered like a specific skill set to do the actual pan and ice?

I mean it's.

Or do you just hire anyone and teach them on the job site?

Yeah, so ideally we want to, we try hire people that are like, I've got a bit about them but like you know, good with customers basically. We try hire people that like outgoing performers, like to chat, high energy people. It's much easier said than done. And then the training part of the actual product doesn't take that long. It takes like a few days and they've got it basically. But yeah, the hardest part is definitely like finding the people that kind of resonate with your brand and like because it's actually irrelevant like how good we are in the office like showcasing the brand. The people actually work with the customers day to day. They're the ones that representing our brand.

Where do you find them? Is that agencies or you actually like directly hire them?

No, agencies are too expensive for that role. So yeah, it's like directly hiring. A lot of people want to work our parlors. So like through social media. Our social media kind of do everything through that. So like guys, we've got some available slots up. Westfield Parlor, who wants to work there. Again though, it's like a hard. It's not like you're going to a Mr. Whipping machine and pulling a lever and ice cream comes out. It's like a physical job. You're burning a lot of calories and it's hard work and then that makes it a lot harder to keep staff, retain staff. So it's quite high burn rate. We're trying to find ways to improve that, looking after the team as much as we can, etc. But it is, it's a hard part of the business. Put this. I wouldn't. I wouldn't recommend it. Same with.

How many shops do you have at the moment?

We've got four. We're opening our fifth in two weeks in Argyll Street.

All on the best.

Oh no. So we're in both Westfield. We're about to open Argyle street by Oxford Circus and then we got one in Manchester Selfridges and one in Manchester Arndale. And then what we do is in summer we do loads of pop ups. So hopefully this summer you'll see us, you know, loads of loads of like 70 just summer locations like Bicester Village.

See how for your leg.

Oh my God. He actually loves me.

Sorry. This is the most.

You better watch out.

This is the most intense he's ever been for years. Yeah, I think it's like the mix of new flat. He don't know what the going on.

What's the problem, mate? Talk to me.

Different position. He's not used to this. Normally he's over here. Well he would be in the old place and he's literally humping your leg on camera. Right, well that's unique.

Are you gonna keep that in?

Probably, yeah.

Fuck it. Why not?

Never edit anything. I've just got an editor that put some fucking clips together and that's about it really.

You're gonna leave it like this?

Well, nah, I'll probably chop out these bits but he's been rude. He's not even falling asleep yet. I actually really want an ice cream now. Have you got any in your car or something?

No, doesn't travel, mate.

Yeah. Do you do them on like gorillas and not gorillas?

Yeah, we did them on Deliveroo. But you would like.

So I could order one tonight. Is it available?

No. Yeah, no, but you're not, you're not near enough to Westfield.

Okay. Limited because of the travel ability.

Yeah. You need to come to come to my office with some space goods and we can actually make one There. Decent. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, I think it'd be good. I honestly think it would taste so nice as well because that chocolatey flavor.

Have you tried Raymondas?

No, I haven't.

I'll give you a bag.

I'll spell on here.

I need to.

It's good shit. Ashes.

Is it? Yeah. And yeah, I need to. I mean, I love. I love caffeine. Like, I love. Yeah, I take. I like drink like. No, cos Every morning. Oh, yeah. So I'm interested. I was actually, Yeah. I was looking into the whole mushroom stuff on how that all works. So I'm intrigued to see it. Hopefully I don't get too hooked on it. Would you say it's addictive?

I mean, I have my product twice a day.

I was gonna say. Do you have it every day?

I also have the nighttime one now, so I have that at night. But I'm definitely more a fan of the Rainbow Dust, which is like the hero product.

Okay.

Because it's kind of mad, really. You just come up with the fucking products in your living room, then people buy it.

Yeah, exactly. The alchemy, that's a weird concept. You literally created something from thin air.

Yeah.

Especially when it's so weird because I just thought. I just made it for me and I was like, ah, the mushroom space is come in next, I think.

Yeah, I know, I think, I think you're right.

I think people send me messages saying it's like changed their life and.

Yeah, exactly.

Okay.

Well, man, I'm excited to try it.

Yeah. For context. For anyone watching, we're going to try and do a collab. You've agreed to it now publicly?

Yeah, at the festivals, obviously. I think it could go down well.

Bring the five meter mushroom, right?

Yeah.

Which is over there in a box right now.

That'd be unreal. I can really imagine what the. Yeah, no, it's gonna look cool.

What the Fuck is this? Spacegoods. Spacegoods.com Rainbow Dust version one. My newest entrepreneurial econ brand venture. I spent six months in the trenches building this shit from scratch. We launched six weeks ago. What's it all about? The next generation wellness brand with a long term vision to essentially consumerize the pending psychedelic consumer goods market. Which might sound absolutely ridiculous. We're not quite there yet. The market's massively illegal. But what is this? Rainbow dust version 1 is an all in one mushroom and adaptogenic blend designed to unlock your supernatural self. Essentially experience a sharper focus, sustained energy, zen like calm throughout the day. It's an all in one powder. Tastes like fucking hot chocolate. Tastes delicious, works great, looks great, feels amazing. Essentially, the broader concept here was to legally imitate a psychedelic microdose and like I said, experience those symptoms. You can mix it with anything. Brownies, bake brownies with it, mix it with your coffee, have it without coffee, replace your coffee, put it into a protein shake. It's super fucking versatile. It tastes great. It replaced the stack of supplements I was previously taking. But you need to try this shit. It would definitely change the way you work, get you into that deep workflow. I obviously think that myself. Plenty of thousand plus first customers think the exact same shit. It's not just a pretty packaging. It actually works really fucking well. Keto, vegan, all that good shit. Trust me, you need to try it for yourself. Let's scale this to the moon. Spacegoods.com get on your rainbow subscription and.

See how you feel. Let's do it for the boys. Spacegoods.com. What was I saying? Shops before you interrupted me.

Yeah, it's a interesting business model. I wouldn't recommend that part for anyone. Like, don't start a rainbow dust.

If you had to just stick with one of the three parts and decide the other two, which one would you stick with and why?

This is actually a. Interesting question. It's very hard because if you asked me this last week, it would be a different answer, but probably. I'd probably stick with the events business. That's such a hard question because I said it just completely changes when you ask me which one's doing the best in the current time. But the events business, for me, I love the way it changes all the time. It's not bound to one product. It's like there's like open, endless opportunities of different things we can do. Obviously there's the whole world, like, literally makes me travel.

Yeah.

More than any other part of the business. And yes, it's very fun. Like, it's. Yeah. You're dealing with more money as well. Like it's. Yeah, it's. It's a really nice business. But I mean, yeah, as I said, if you asked me that a couple weeks ago, maybe I would give you a different answer. The E commerce business is also super exciting because it's the scalability of that, which I've not, I've not experienced. Like, scalability for me has been so hard. Like, it's literally been such a challenge. It's not something I can just tell a few cogs and suddenly we scale. It's been like physically having to do things to. Yeah, physically having to hire staff, like train people, like open stores. Like, we've recently had an absolute fuck up with something in one of our stores where we basically now got to get a brand new kiosk made and like dealing with all of that stuff, like all this stuff that makes it really challenging. But yeah, the event, the events business is so much fun, a lot of fun.

But you think DTC and ECOM is more scalable?

Oh, yeah, 100%, yeah. Because of, because of the hard work I've put in making the brand what it is today with this amazing following. Like, yeah, we are quite, we are very well known within the ice cream world now. Like, if you ask most families, do you know pan and ice, pretty sure they say yes. So we've, I mean we've been here for eight years. We've got such a good brand. So that's now been the first time we can proper pivot that following, which is all around the UK and other parts of the world into a product so that people buy it. So that's, that's the part I'm really excited and that's part, you know, that will take me out of this lifestyle business cycle. I'm probably a bit stuck in.

Do you want to get out of that though?

Because I know I want a part of it.

I also think I should try and.

Enjoy the process more. Yeah, I'm the opposite. I'm so obsessed with this idea of trying to reach X valuation or X revenue.

I've never thought of that.

Really? Yeah, I've never, I've never thought about the opposite.

I've never thought about what I want. I never thought about X. Seeing people say, do you want to sell it? I'm like, no, because like, and people tell you this, like, you need to enjoy the journey more, like. And I have watched so many of these things and I've really started to appreciate that, like 28 now. Like before I was probably more focused on like only rich, rich, rich, like driving those cars. Like, yeah, it's nice. But I can also guarantee if I got a nice car, I'd be bored of it within a week and want something better. So I've become quite happy with. I love the process. I go to work every day, like literally loving it. I don't think about, he's doing, he's doing more numbers than me. Like, I think about, this is sick, what we're doing. Working for sickest people. I have targets in my head, but not like, I want to sell for this, like, da, Da, da. I want it to come a nice business where, you know, I have nice lifestyle from it, bike it. I have to have this. I want both parts. I want kind of like the E commerce business. Be the scalability part of it and drive that forward. I made that scale, make the money come in. But I also want to keep these other parts because they're so enjoyable. As I said, when you do an event, when you go to a parlor and you see someone enjoying your product, it's that you can't put a price on that. It's honestly the best feeling.

Yeah. I need to think. Think more about that. I definitely would like to.

Yeah. Well, but we're entrepreneurs. You always want what we don't have.

Well, yeah.

If you were like in my shoes, you'd be like, oh, God sake.

Because everyone I know is primarily dtc. I've always known like E Com guys and it's so online that you almost become a recluse.

Yeah.

Like I feel weird when I go to. Even when I go to a CO work space because there's other people there.

Yeah.

Even though like where I spent years been a nomad living in Bali and all that shit. But like when I'm in the UK or London in an office scenario, I feel so weird. Cause I'm like, oh, these people work with each other and shit. Whereas my team's always been fully remote and that is. I'm intentionally changing that now.

Well, I think for your business you can do that. I mean, for me, I'm the complete opposite. I have to go work in my office. If I go try work on my own, unless I'm like super amped up on shitload of caffeine, nothing's gonna happen. I'm just gonna procrastinate. I love going to my office and working with my team. Like it's very, very hands on.

Yeah.

And it's very like impulsive. Like we're just shouting things across the room. Like it's. That's all I've ever been used to. We had an office from pretty much day one.

Yeah. That's interesting.

And I found it really. That's the other thing I found hard over lockdown was like then not no one being there, just being me. Like that was a weird, weird concept. Yeah. Here we go.

He's back.

He's back.

And the team post Covid then was.

That a completely new team as pre.

Covid or did you just bring everyone back? So that must have been a mad contrast because when Covid happened, it was the first Time I felt like everyone else for me, it was normal for me and all my mates because we'd always just worked remotely and shit. Everyone else is doing it for the first time.

Yeah. God. Nice. I. Oh, it's horrible. I mean a lot of people obviously, I think naturally were expecting it. They were like, they knew our business was physical and our business was completely just gone. Like all our events were can. We had so many events planned and then they suddenly all canceled within like a week completely to zero. So I think obviously that whole team that were bound to that realized if there's nothing coming in, how are we gonna get paid? So they were kind of expecting it. So they were all put. It was all the furlough scheme, wasn't it? So it was all into the furlough scheme but before that was announced actually, and I remember there wasn't. We didn't know what the furlough scheme was at that point. So I had to get rid of some people just because we. I had no idea what was coming up. So I had to protect the business. There were a few people that stayed on after Covid but yeah, like my social media manager, I think that was a couple of us as well. My, my, my finance guy, maybe a couple others. But then in a way cove me separated from my ex business partner. Then Covid happening was a good thing because it meant that it was a whole brand new start after Covid with a brand new team. Whereas if I kept that other team I think there would have been like, like I wanted it to be a new start, my own team, my own, my own thought process. There's no confusion with them knowing about that history, etc. So I think it was a, it was a blessing in disguise, Covid happening in a way. So it was literally now I've got a brand new team. The way the manager is all so different. The way I manage my team is so different. Like it's the best it's ever been. I'm a lot more like hands off like in letting people just work and doing things. Whereas before we were like so heavily involved in absolutely everything. We would turn up at one of our shops and if anything was wrong we'd like kick off. We had these like ridiculous expectations in our minds so it was like really intense. Then we separated and then Covid happened and then it's completely changed. Like you enjoy it so much more as well if you're not, if you haven't got these ridiculous expectations of perfection when it's not ever going to be perfect. Because it's not you doing it or. Yes, it's way more enjoyable.

Yeah, definitely. Do you run the whole business in terms or do you have like an MBA or someone senior that and you just do the ideas?

I. I'm. Yeah. And I still very heavily involved. I've got like marketing director who's amazing. I've got senior events manager and an events manager who kind of run the events business. I'm still, I still am probably quite heavily involved. I am as of now wanting to start looking for like a some senior people to help me run the business, whether that be an md so I can kind of just properly step back a bit because I have been doing it for a long time and it does get to the point where there's only so many times I can do this thing or say this thing like get involved in that. Like tomorrow I'm going to do. I love it. But I'm going to do like some events, really small events because we've got staffing issues and I love it. But I need to also realize I need someone I shouldn't be doing that. And I think that's my own issue that I've not built at the stage where I'm still having to get involved. So I'm looking for someone now to like an MD or I don't know, something like that to come in and kind of help me build the business a bit in a different way. Yeah, I want a fresh pair of eyes because I'm doing for so long. It's hard. It's. You get stuck in this rut. So yeah, that's, that's my next step. I think finding CEO someone like that. I think you've just hired someone and let me.

That was largely because I, I realized that if I, if I didn't eventually do that I'd be stuck staring at a laptop in 5 years time. Even if I was doing 100mil rev I still be sat in my bedroom. So I brought him in because I was like I need to just. We need to set this up differently.

That's. Yeah, that's what I need to do.

It was like chicken or egg though because I thought it was premature.

But I'm at managing people as well.

Same like I'm way too informal and I don't wait.

Yeah, exactly.

So many stories of that.

But yeah, yeah, I'm wait. Yeah, it's. It's way too like I go into your face like I'm like a mate with everyone but I don't have like follow up meetings like Review meetings. Like what's your progression at like exactly. I am so busy that I want.

So anti corporate is actually bad.

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

It becomes a point where it doesn't actually work.

Yeah. But that it's also. You realize that's really important. Like people that work for you actually need that stuff and I just, I cannot do it. It's just not me. I'll try it for a week. Let's have a weekly catch up meeting. And it's just. It's so unnatural for me. I kind of feel awkward in them and don't know what to say. So I need someone who come in like he's like mag people. I also want somebody who's amazing like getting me into places like John Lewis to sell my kits. I've never done that before. So like it's somebody's experience in that side of it. And then I can kind of take a backward step and be like purely creative. New business ideas dip my toes different areas without having to run a. Run the actual business anymore. Yeah, that's the plan.

It's literally how I.

But obviously that's in a dream scenario. I doubt that's gonna happen first the first person I find.

Yeah, very true. It's also gonna be like a handover period. You're always gonna be more involved than you probably think.

Yeah.

With everything. So I always try and outsource things but then I'm delegate and I'm still.

Yeah. We said this earlier like looking at everything. Yeah.

And are you the only shareholder now or did you have investors?

Yeah. So brought my expense partner out. I was then 100%. My brother has kind of been involved right from the start Pan and Ice. So I'm very much a doer. Practical guy, creative. He's extremely financially literate. Like he went to PwC like so intelligent. That is the opposite of me. I'm not books book smart at all. So he kind of from the start of panel Ice was always helping us. So I gave him. He's got like 9%. I've got like, I think like 80 something percent and then we've got like a share option pool for some of my staff. Just try to keep them motivated. Try give them a piece of the pie as it grows.

So do you have plans to raise money and sell it then if that's all there or is that just.

We have. Yeah. As I said we've. That's more for my brother's side. We have got visions of selling it eventually but it constantly changes that vision when new products come out when new business ideas happen. But I think it'd be full to me say, I'd probably never say. I probably would eventually like to do something new potentially.

Have you ever had businesses or other brands come to you?

Yeah, in Covid, we tried to get shafted quite a bit. I think people used it as an advantage time. Oh, they're gonna be struggling. Let's try buy them out. They're probably in desperate need. So, yeah, I had a few very interesting time wasting conversations with people just.

Too low or what? Not tempting.

Yeah, too low where they're trying to like, completely scaremonger you. Like, say, you need to do this. Like, you're fucked if you. If you don't do this. Like, trying to take complete advantage of the situation, knowing I'm quite young. But yeah, it was just completely too low. And this wasn't entertaining. I was thinking to myself, like, if I sold this, it was good money, but I sold this. Like, what. What am I actually gonna do? Like, I literally thought to myself, what would I actually do? Like, all I've ever known is pad and ice. I could probably start something else. But do I want to do that right now? No. So I just wasn't even. Yeah, I wasn't interested.

But you mentioned, like, stepping back from the business. Is that just so you can look at the business a different way? Is that so you can start something else?

It's so the business can scale. I'm interested to see when someone else runs the business, about me being so heavily involved, how that will affect its performance and how it will scale differently and work. That's what I'm actually really intrigued to see. Have I become the own bottleneck of my own business? I potentially have without realizing. So that's one of the things I'm really interested to see. Like, what bringing something amazing in, what are they gonna do? Because I think there's so much opportunity here. I've been in for eight years. Like, why isn't it at the level it could be? So that could be a big reason. So that's one of the. I'm just really intrigued. And yeah, it gives me time to step back. I've been working so hard in this thing for eight years, like, physically and mentally. So I just want to, like, take a step back, let someone else run it a bit and like me, just do that. The fun stuff, like new, what I love doing, just literally just do that and then potentially that, you know, that might lead to new. Give me time to do something different. I don't know who Knows never had.

Any serious ideas for the next thing or has always been within the realm.

Yeah. Ideas all the time. They're really good ideas as well. I always think of like tech ideas. I think tech for me, like I've realized how much tech helps my business or like how much I love tech. Like that's something that solves an issue for me. So I'm always thinking and I just, just because I've dealt with dealing with so many staff, I'm always thinking of my future business will probably be something where I can scale it to massive amounts with a very small team.

Yeah.

Because it's something so different to me. So, yeah, I think I. I have some amazing ideas and I'll probably keep thinking of some, but definitely I'm nowhere near in a position to do them right now.

I always wish I was like romantically someone that had one business. I started when I was 16 and that's the thing. I ran till I was 70, but I've already had like five or six businesses.

Yeah.

I think it's frowned upon those two.

Like, I feel like I'm a complete anomaly. I feel like almost guilty. Say I've done it for eight years. I'm still going to events and stuff.

I mean, I've had loads of things because I've not stuck with them long enough to really get the fruits of them.

Well, you smashed. Yeah.

That's just the way my brain works and whatever. But I'm trying. I now want to focus on something for like 10 years.

Yeah. Well, I look at people like Ben and Jerry's and stuff like that, like Haagen. I was like, these companies went for absolute ages and then got bought out by a massive company. Like they went for absolutely ages. That's like, I don't see why we couldn't be someone like that.

Yeah.

Yeah. We are an ice cream company. Everyone in the world loves ice cream.

Yeah.

So there's no reason why it can eventually become something like that. Like, I've never done something. I've never actually. We've never done a product in a pot and stocked it on shelves. So that's obviously something we could potentially do. I don't even thought of that. I thought of it, but I've never even like put it into practice. But there's. There was so many more opportunities for us to do this amazing brand we've got.

So do you think you do want to take it beyond lifestyle business, which you maybe looks at, but do you ever have visions of this could be a billion pound ice Cream brand or is that just like.

Yeah, I think, but I just think I'd love to say is, but I think it's just so easy for people to say that. Like a billion pound company. Like I am someone who wants the actions to speak rather than say it. Like, I don't like me saying that and then me falling so short of it. It's just going to set me up for failure. So I don't even think. I try not to think about too much in my head because I'm literally setting myself up for failure and I then won't be satisfied until I make a stupid number. So I try not to. Which is which. Yeah, that's how when we were starting out, we used to go, oh my God, we're gonna be. We're gonna be so rich. Like we can literally have a paradise theme park and like be retired by the age of 27. And you realize that's not quite the way it works out. So. But. Oh. But yeah.

I think it could be.

Very scalable and massive. I think it could be. But we've still got a long way to go. There's a lot of things happening. Like I want some new to come in and I want to work in this E commerce business. I think the E commerce business is the changing point. Yeah, still like a lot. A long way to go.

Mushroom ice cream D2C. How does. So the ice cream deep sea though, like just technically, how does that even work? Are you actually selling ice cream? Are you just selling the kits?

No, it's just the kit. So we sell this plate and then we sell the plate with our ice cream mix and the. I say, yeah, this plate, you last forever. You just put it in your freezer whenever you want to make ice cream and you bring it out and you pour our ice cream mix on, which is like this cream. It's like a sweetened cream, same one you get at Westfields, whatever, and you pour it on the plate. You add in like strawberries or whatever you got in your fridge or cupboard, cookies, whatever, you make ice cream. Then when you run out, you can buy more. So yeah, the idea is people keep. It's a recurring revenue. So keep buying the ice cream. And we also sell like the, the kits of all that, the chocolate in them and all that, the recipe guys, etc. So there is like a life lifelong cycle there. What you call it?

Life Lifetime value.

Lifetime value.

Yeah.

These are all new to me.

Oh yeah. So I fucking speak about.

Yeah. Which obviously is really important. So yeah, that's the way that works. And I said, we've got that model and then we've also got an electric one which is like way more expensive. But, yeah, that's. That's the idea of that model. And it works honestly, so well. It's so easy. It just comes from China, sent to a 3PL Amazon and just gets shipped out. And it's. It's beautiful. Damaged in transit, which happens a lot of time as well.

Yeah, it's fucked up. Do you think you have, like, work life balance as an entrepreneur? Are you bothered about that and do you think you have.

No, no, I am really bothered by it. No, I. So, yeah, no, I don't, unfortunately. It's like, I'm one. I've got better at doing less work and spending more time maybe at home with my girlfriend or family. But what I have definitely pushed aside is a lot of friends, like, going out. My mates, not drink, you know, drinking, having fun. Like, like the social aspect of my life. I feel I still, you know, got friends, but I definitely don't do that nearly as much as I used to and should be doing. I just think all of my, like, my attention goes into my business, my physical energy and then I. By the end of that, I don't want to have to, like, put up this effort to make conversation with small talk with people and stuff. Like, I find it really hard, like, I really struggle to have conversations with people outside of work about random stuff. Like, it just.

Why all my mates are entrepreneurs. I don't know about you. Well, not all of them, but nearly all of them.

Yeah.

Just circumstantially.

Yeah, I mean, exactly. When I'm speaking to someone at business, I'm so confident and so, like, I find it easy and I find it natural. But now when I speak to people about, they go, hey, how are you? Or like, I'm just like, what? Like, why even asking me that? Fine, how are you? I don't know, I just thought the small talk, like, the normal. That side of my life has, like, definitely taken a bit of a battering. But yeah, like just going out to your mates and have a chill drink, like, talking about life, like, I don't. I don't do that.

Yeah. Never do I, really.

Yeah.

So unless we're talking about some fucking mad idea.

Yeah, so, yeah, I mean, I think that's. Yeah, you've got. Having your circle. I said a lot of the people I've grown up with, some of them have been. But I don't have that, like, entrepreneurial circle. All My mates doing the same thing as me. I'm very like different. All of my mates doing something like online or something like my business is just so different from whatever anyone I know is doing.

So.

It is, yeah. It's quite lonely in a way. You don't really resonate with many people.

Yeah, definitely. I also like, I find it unusual. Well, not unusual, but a lot of entrepreneurs I meet struggle with relationships and shit.

Yeah.

How did you meet your girlfriend?

So I. You tell me.

You met her on a hinge now?

No, no. So. So we. We were actually really good mates. So we used to like.

I did she work at an ice cream.

So we're. I'm from. I'm from Henley.

I used to row at Henley. Well really, I used to. I was a big into rowing for about 10 years.

I went Shiplake College.

Oh yeah. Big rowing school?

Yeah, big master rowing school. No, no, no, no, no. I hated rowing, mate, because, God, I.

I quit when I was like 19.

Where did you go?

I was up in York, but okay. I was national champion twice.

Unreal.

Yeah, yeah, a few times.

Yeah. So, I mean, I've never watched a writing there. Go to Mahiki and that's about it. Yeah.

Yeah, it's good. Yes.

She. We were best. We. We were like best mates for ages. Like she went to a school near mine. Like everyone knows everyone and then. Yeah, we were really. I think that's the good thing. We were really good mates, like on a. Literally just a friendship level. So we. I got on well with her just as a person and then it kind of. Yeah. Changed into relationship and I've been moving her for ages and. Yeah, no, it works really well. She's like super chilled, very understanding. She's also super career driven. So like during the day we like. She's doing her thing, I'm doing my thing. She knows like we've been. She's been through so much of me with the business, the ups and downs. So she's like. It's kind of leveled out now. It was hard back like earlier, earlier days but I think we've gone past that now and like honestly having someone like her is actually really helps. So when you're having a really shit day, like having someone like that you can properly open up to or like give you honest feedback about what's generally the right thing to do for you really helps.

I'll just talk to my dog and.

Get dogs sleep when you mate. Yeah.

We finally got there and it took.

Him like 70 minutes and like half on you and Half off.

Yeah. He's beautiful.

Unreal. Do you sleep in your bed?

Nah. Well, like once a week. Although I woke up with a massive scratch on my nose, but that came from. It wasn't in my bed. So something's going on there. I don't know if anyone can see that, but. Yeah. I've always had this debate. Like, people tell me girls are a distraction and shit. And I'm like, but this comes back to the toxic entrepreneurship phase I've been in for a while. So I go in and out.

You struggled with relationships.

I've only ever had one and it was. But I fall in love with girls or I don't give a fuck about them.

Yeah.

In between.

Yeah.

It's really problematic.

Okay.

Because I only like girls that don't like me and if they like me, I don't like them. It's just. Yeah, I'm very weird like that and that. But I'm a hopeless romantic. I almost, like, I just. I don't want something to be, like, healthy. I want it to be the toxic and dramatic.

Same as you and your business life. It sounds like. As well, you always want things not to be the way they are or it's interesting that maybe you haven't found the one, mate.

I haven't been looking for it. I'm just trying to scale.

Yeah.

But it's probably really unhealthy, I think.

Yeah. Now, like, going through that early stage of relationship now, like, learning about each other. That I would hate that, like, I couldn't do that. Like, that. I can agree. That would be so hard. Like someone learning about how fucked up you are. Like, as me, as a person, like, with my business, like, how it. That's my priority and sadly not you. Like, in the early stages, that would be really hard to get a message across.

Yeah. Yeah. That.

That pattern is way more important than you.

Yeah. Legit. Legit. I was. This is the thing, though. I always have this weird view that, like, oh, fucking. I'm just gonna wait until I'm really rich and then I meet someone. Yeah. Then I'll think about it. Because until then I'm not bothered.

Yeah. That's the way.

That's very stupid. Yeah. Definitely with kids. But I think about that whole section in my life.

Yeah.

I'm like, I'll wait till I sell the business for 500 million quid.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then I'll have a life. Although I do have a life now.

Yeah.

And lots of people say I still have a great social life and shit. But in my head, I don't know.

Yeah.

That's all I really think about.

Yeah. I completely get where you're coming from. I mean, it's probably not the healthiest way to.

Definitely not.

Because does that continue? Like, does that ever come to an end, that thought process? Like, when you get there, does it then happen? Oh, well, let me get to a billion. Like, that's. That can easily start to happen. It can scale out of control and before you know it, you've got no one.

Yeah, I definitely.

What does Steve Jobs say? Like he's on his deathbed. That quote. Like that just resonates with me a lot. I don't wait until it's too late, basically.

Wow.

That's quite deep.

Yeah, it's true. Yeah. I do think this generation's fucked, though.

Oh, mate.

Because of social media. It's made the ability to scale a business great, but it's made like everyone is replaceable.

Yeah. I think we're in one of the most fucked up times ever.

It's actually mad. I think I read about this shit and like, birth rates are going down and shit.

Yeah.

For the first time ever or whatever. And it's the first generation who's grown up on social media, basically.

I know, it's just weird.

It's changed, like actual interpersonal dynamics. And then there was a fucking pandemic when no one saw each other for two years.

Yeah. And it's made.

And then people got like, onlyfans became a thing and now like the Andrew Tate era became a thing.

Yeah.

And now there's 5 million genders and no one's allowed to say anything that isn't really safe for everyone.

Yeah. I'm even scared to say anything on this podcast, mate.

Yeah. Legit.

Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy. It's all just. I think it's just the honesty. One of the weirdest times to be alive. There's just so much happening that's just not good for you. Like it.

I don't know what the answer is.

Just I try not not involve myself too much with things I can't control. So I just kind of.

When.

When people get all like hyped up about conversation about politics or like that gender stuff, wherever, I just kind of go with the flow. I don't. As I said, I don't. My energy all goes into my business, really. So anything else is just like very much. I'm just flowing through it. I don't try to hype up too much or like cast an opinion on something that I'm not fully educated on. But yeah, I don't really know what the answer is, man. I just keep on going. There's not much you can do.

Yeah, I always pivot the pod towards some weird fucking philosophical.

That's good. I mean. Yes.

Nah, yeah, that's cool. All right, final question. Because I could go on forever and I ask everyone this. It's become a tradition. If you give three bits of advice to your 18 year old self, upon reflection, I guess to you that's 10 years, which is a nice round number.

Yeah.

What would it be?

Oh my word. Don't go to university.

Yeah, I agree.

Be very like, choose your friends wisely and who you hang around with because it's so true. You, you can easily become like the law of averages or whatever. You become like that, like, like, like deciding who you hang around with a yet younger early stages completely changes. I feel like who you become, that's. That was really, that's really key. Choose your friends wisely and take like jump into it. Don't, don't think about the overthink. Like people that have always good business ideas go, hey, I've got this amazing business idea. My young 18 year old, like they always think about it too much and wait for that perfect opportunity. Like don't do that. Be naive. Except you're naive and realize being naive is really fucking good and just do it. Because even if you fail and fuck it up, you would have learned more that failure than you probably will learn the whole time of going to university. So accept your naive and do it.

Very true.

Yeah. Honestly, being naive. If I was, if I, if I wasn't naive, paradise would definitely not be a thing at all. Because if I was, if I was to go back now, I would never ever start this business ever, ever again.

I feel like I only kind of know what the fuck I'm doing in about the past six months. And I've been doing this stuff like six years. Yeah. But I'll probably feel the same in 10 years time.

Yeah.

So exactly. I agree with that sentiment.

Yeah.

On that bombshell, been a pleasure.

Thank you, mate.

The first ice cream entrepreneur. I'm definitely gonna fucking try some.

Yeah.

Try and make this mushroom collab happen.

100%.

As always. Subscribe to the port. It's been very weird doing it in this fun flat. I feel like it's like a different planet or something because I'm so used to the old cozy setup. But yeah, we'll probably move it back here instead of the main studio. I don't know. It depends if. Depends what the situation is with my contract with that studio. But we'll see. Thanks for watching. As always. Catch you in the next one. Peace. It.