Goals for 2024 - Hitting £10m, Hiring New People & The Next Chapter - Doc the Journey Ep 57

Back with episode 57 of Documenting the journey. And I'm being fairly consistent with the pod because I said I would on the last episode and I meant it. And I'm trying to keep these shorter than they used to be because these were way too fucking long. And I ramble for 25 minutes and I'll try and keep this like sub 10 minutes tops, which will probably be really hard for me because I always ramble on these episodes. But yeah, we're a week into the new year. The dust has settled on the past few months of chasing certain things and achieving certain milestones in the business, which as I've alluded to, I'll reveal soon. Which probably sounds the probably sound way more dramatic than they are and way more amazing than they are. But yeah, my mind was set on a few different things, particularly in Q4 last year, of hitting those milestones, getting X, Y and Z done. Now those things are done, it's time to hit the targets for this year, I guess. And I don't know, I feel like when you hit targets in a business, it's always. Or reach a milestone or a goal. It's always kind of anti climatic and seems to always be the case, no matter what. And to quote Andrew Tate, which is probably not the best person to quote on this, but no particular reason, but I heard Chris Williamson quoted him on the POD recently and he just said, I think it was like the joy is in getting the thing, not in having the thing and like pursuing the thing and then getting it. That's the exciting part, not having the thing or having achieved it. And I kind of feel like how I felt when I ran the sub 3 marathon. It was all cool in the moment. Then afterwards I was like, ah, does anyone give a shit? And do I give a shit anymore? Or is the pursuit of the next thing what's gonna make me fulfilled and happy? And probably to an extent that is true. But I digress. As always, I thought I'd do. I think the screen says top 10 things I learned. I used the same spreadsheet as last time, but thought I'd make a video for myself in like a year's time to look back on and see if I actually fucking did any of it. I mean, some people say you shouldn't share your go. You should just write. You shouldn't share them externally, you should write them down on a piece of paper, whatever, in your phone and then just do them and then share them when you've achieved them. But I think for the sake of this pod and the sake of putting pressure on myself, why not share some of them? And they're not all financial anyway. And they're all business related to be fair, but they're not all financial. So yeah, I'm gonna share my 2024 goals. Might hate myself for doing this in a year's time, but I thought I'd give some context and flavors them as well. And hopefully it's interesting for some people having just done the 2023 roundup video, I guess the first thing and just, just to say, as well as always, I'm not saying I've got the best brand in the world, not saying these are the biggest numbers in the world. I'm not even saying I'm definitely gonna hit them. But they are the goals. And I think they're also quite conservative. Conservative, pragmatic and realistic. It's not a fucking easy econ market. I think a lot of people are still living in sort of fairyland and pretending to each other that everything's super easy and perfect and everything's up and to the right all the time because they're trying to imp people that are also doing that when they're also not achieving those goals themselves either. We live in this strange world where no one wants to have like the honest conversation of shit is definitely harder and consumer than it used to be. So yeah, I guess my goals kind of factor that in. And ultimately I'm building the business in that way, recognizing that it's way harder than it used to be. And with an objectively better business and product and being a better founder than I was three, four years ago, I'm still finding it way harder than it used to be. So yeah, if you're a founder feeling the same way, then you're not alone. So I guess the goal for 2024, 10 million plus. Well, 10 million revenue. 10 million plus would be nice profitably. The reason I put 10 mil is because ultimately it would be a nice story to go 1.2 to 3.8. Not quite 3x, but hitting 10 I think is a massive, massive milestone. If we can do that in the second full year and third year, if you count the first year when I start working on the brand, I think that'll be really solid momentum. No guarantees obviously achieving this, but this is what I'm setting my sights on this year. Because of lack of stock in recent months, we're going to have to re catch up with this in sort of the second half of the year because we're not a 10 million run rate yet. We're at about 7 run rate right now, which is still pretty good. But yeah, 10 million, I'd love to do that profitably. People define profit differently, especially when they get investors on board, which maybe I can mention in a later video. Obviously EBITDA is real profit in terms of subscription business. One way to look at being efficient rather than profitable, which I kind of look at as much as EBITDA in some ways, is contribution margin. And the way we calculate that is pretty standard. And it's revenue minus obviously cogs, fulfillment fees, transaction fees, which gets you to gross margin minus your marketing spend basically. So for me, CM percentage contribution margin, percentage is gross margin minus marketing. Then obviously all your fixed costs such as team software, et cetera, you down to true EBITDA, true profit level. If I can hit 10 million efficiently, that's the target basically. And by that I just mean don't want to be buying bad quality revenue because it's very easy to buy bad quality customers buy bad quality revenue, focus too much on top line. But I want to do it efficiently. I think we could do more than 10 million if we're doing it super inefficiently, but that's not the target. So reach 1 million pound on both Amazon and retail channels. Amazon's way easier. We'll definitely do that. I think retail, it's gonna be hard. We did about 100k in retail in 2023 last year. Weird saying that. I think a million is doable on re with retail because we're in Holland about right now. We're going into Boots, Selfridges, Whole Foods, Planet Organic and Holland about Benelux within the Next, I think two, three months in Q1 this year. And then also have a few new SKUs come in later in the year which could be way, way bigger and better for retail. So yeah, this is kind of one I came up with. Thinking about my goals to be a bit more not just top line focused, business wide, but thinking about how can we build channels that are going to be more valuable later down the line, build a bit of a moat, do things that other brands aren't doing. Amazon feels really doable. Retail, definitely harder, but I'd like to do a million plus on both those channels. LTR to NCPO, LTR's CAC from 3 plus where we are now to 4 plus. I think this is basically the holy grail metric to be honest, in any consumer business, especially consumable subscription businesses, where you're not chasing first order profitability because we're just objectively not or not profitable. First order, maybe I'll do a video diving into like our actual metrics around LTR cohort analysis, subs vs non subs vs blended, etc, etc because we've done quite a lot of work on that to be fair, retention as a whole. But yeah, really focusing on this metric and yeah, like say it's ultimately the fucking being hard of any consumer brand of any brand of any kind to be honest, but particularly subscription consumable online. And it's a thing that potential acquirers are going to look at probably a lot one day and think, well, is it healthy? Are you just buying revenue like I alluded to before? So yeah, Moving this from 3 plus to 4 plus, I think long term to 5 plus, obviously this caveat, this. I'm looking at this on a 12 month basis which is actually fairly short. A lot of brands will look at this on an 18, 24 even 36 month basis which is just not possible at this stage of business with the capital we have. We need to be looking at stuff on 12 month tops really. So yeah, that's kind of a key, key metrics obviously to clarify, for anyone that doesn't know LTR lifetime revenue, that's top line, it's not margin. People will calculate LTV will be margin, which is maybe a better way to look at it. But I'm just, I like, I look, I like looking at revenue top line when I'm calculating this stuff. Obviously if it was LTV on your margin you might be looking at more like a 2 rather than a 3 or 4 at least in my case. So yeah, LTR lifetime revenue to new customer CAC. So for an example of this, LTR being 150, CAC being 3. Your ratios. Sorry, CAC being 50, your ratio is 3 obviously. LTR being 200, CAC being 50, your Ratio is 4, LTR being 200, CAC Being 40. So there's different ways you can go about this. You can increase ltr, you can reduce cac. Ideally you do both, but it's pretty unrealistic. But ultimately, yeah, raising that ratio from 3 to 4 to long term probably even 5 would be ideal. This is stuff that people don't talk about. Everyone talks about marketing spend, basically just marketing spend on like Twitter and so on. I think customer sentiment across the board is a fucking super important one. I think TrustPilot, particularly being UK primary, a primarily UK brand, super important way to measure this and super accurate to be honest, because you can't hide reviews like you can on like Luke's on the website and so on. A lot of people do. I think having a trust pilot, you know 4.3 is when you get the dark green which is class is excellent. I think 4.5 plus really puts you in that. I think it's 4.6 maybe where it actually shows five stars filled with green. But I think having a 4.5 plus trust pilot with 4.2 right now, which isn't the best. We kind of got hammered right at the start of the brand which didn't help. But with 5,000 plus reviews, I think at the time of saying this I think we have about 1800 reviews. So we need about you know, 9 or 10 a day for the next year. So about 3000 plus, 3000 more reviews. About 9 a day based on 365 days obviously to hit 5k reviews. So yeah, if we could get to Trustpilot 4.5 with 5k plus reviews I think it's such a solid asset. I think it's a real reflection of general customer sentiment. I think that's super important, not just marketing metrics especially when you're thinking long term and building a brand that we obviously want. Great retention, great reviews, just generally happy customers which I don't think is spoken about enough to be honest. So that's another goal. This is a bit more I guess lifestyle work style, mental health style. But ultimately I don't just want to build. I just want to be that guy that's working in a Bali co work space, you know, working three hours a day more lifestyle business, more focused on not having to work because I had online income rather than wanting to work because I'm building something that I care about. I think that is a key distinction and again I can make a video on this relative to raising money and long term goals etc, etc which a lot people ask me about, which I think is super interesting. But ultimately now my goal is different. My goal is I see myself being loosely and largely based in London for the next what for the life cycle of the business. I think the business and brand should be based here. And ultimately I'm a bit sick of working from home and having. It's really nice. It's like a. You have the freedom of being able to work from anywhere in theory like I've always had. But actually there comes a point and I think I've reached that point where I don't want to just work from anywhere. I'd rather work with people I like working with proper core team, move more away from just using agencies and freelancers for a lot of stuff, which I've done historically and there's nothing wrong with that by the way. I just think the next stage of the business requires more of a hybrid between core full time team in one place and agencies and freelancers on the side and probably, probably pivoting more towards entirely team in one place eventually. That's not to say I ever think will be five days in an office, but I do think when you start to think longer term, I'll be in my 30s by the time my involvement in this business ends. Realistically maybe mid-30s, which is kind of fucking mad to think, well that'd be like seven years but you know, three, five, seven years. However long it takes to get where I want to go. And I think where you work and how you do it and who you do it with is important. And it's, it's not the main thing, it's not the only thing. But I think it definitely has a big impact on probably performance long term, but also just enjoyment of what you're doing. And as I've got older I've definitely felt less, I guess autistic and adhd, which I definitely am to some extent and kind of random in what I'm doing, but more like I want to be consistent in who I'm hanging around with what I'm doing and how long I'm doing it for. So yeah, this is a goal that I guess would reflect growth in the business but also probably leave me feeling better about what I'm doing every day. This is a bit more philosophical. Said it was just business, but this kind of is just business. Well, it's kind of not just business, but it's relative to business I think. Worry less, enjoy more. Again, this is probably a whole other topic, but I think ever since my previous business failed, which is nearly three years ago now, it's kind of mad. I've been objectively very fucking paranoid and I worry about things which probably do warrant some worrying and it's probably good that I'm slightly paranoid now as a founder because it means that I'll probably way less likely of ever running out of money or doing something stupid again to the same extent, but also does take the enjoyment out of day to day things that catastrophizing in my mind, making up problems that don't really exist. You know, worrying too much about being very linear, thinking this is either going to go really well or it's going to completely fail dramatically because I've had that happen before. So I really Would like to worry less, enjoy more, focus on actually just appreciating the journey. I know it's really cliche, but it's really fucking true. So that's something I'm working on and I guess the last one bit cringe, but as found as you're always living in the future, planning for the future. Kind of dismissive of the fact that the future is just today, but in X amount of days time. And the only thing that ever exists, obviously now. And I read the book the Power of Now and it's very cliche, but it is true. Like now is the only thing that exists, right? The future is anxiety, the past is depression or whatever they say or the cause of. So yeah, planning for the future is huge part being a founder and it's super important. But ultimately live in the present and focus on winning the day. And I think this is a huge like, I just like it. It's a kind of a raw mentality of how to win anything and just win the day. Because the days add up to weeks, to months, to years, to decades. Eventually, if you just focus on doing what you can today, that doesn't necessarily mean getting everything right and putting in 120,000% every minute of every day, because that's not realistic or possible. But it does mean, you know, being impatient in the macro. Sorry, patient in the macro, impatient in the micro. I think that's a Gary Vee thing and again a bit cliche, but it's very true. And it means having the patience to recognize that your big goals might take 10, even 20 years, but actually you should still be like an absolute savage day to day and try and win the day and do as much as you can to move the needle. So this is my ethos, always kind of has been, but thinking about it even more now. So win the day, live in the present while keeping an eye on the future. This was probably a really rambly episode. Loom was chopping in and out, but I'm trying to keep it relatively short. As always, subscribe to the pod. I will be documenting the ups and downs building this brand and hopefully it brings value to some people. And if you're still listening this far, then I appreciate you. Chat to you soon. Cheers.