Launching A Successful Multi-Million £££ Fashion Brand - Jordan Jones | The Midnight Pod Episode 63

Foreign.

We're back with episode 63 of the Midnight Pod. We have. Oliver Hudson is back from his trip to Mexico and one of the og. This sounds weird. I'm taking this off. One of the OG guests, Jordan Royce Jones, founder of Mobay, one of the UK's prominent. I guess men's. Is it women's as well now?

Yeah. Launched Women's March last year. Started quite slow, but we're starting to get a bit of traction on them.

And you've gone mad in America, right?

Yeah, well, definitely, like two years ago, the American market really grew for us, but UK is picking up massively now as well. So it's starting to even out a bit more. Although us is still about 65.

Split us newer episodes. I'm trying to find six.

I think about four.

Yeah.

One of the OGs, like the first month. And on the night. I'm just gonna fucking say it. On the night that we did the episode, it was like mid to end of October 2021 is when, for reasons I won't go into, my ex girlfriend broke up. I guess technically with me, I would say the ball was in my court. I just didn't execute it. I didn't execute it cleanly and I do regret what I did, but I didn't cheat on her. It was just bad. That was a strange night. I was 2 1/2 stone heavier back then. It was a dark place.

I saw someone used a picture of you. Or was it Twitter? Someone used a picture of you for an episode.

Yes.

They pulled you and you were like, obvious.

Darren Lee, I think. Was it Darren Lee? Yeah. I went on his pod and then he used a picture of me, like 102kg. I was like, come on, bro, please use a better picture. I look a lot better now. Come on. Yeah, he hasn't changed.

It has.

He hasn't changed it still. I was like, fuck, he can't be using that. Someone asked me for a professional headshot the other day as well. Some like, article and they tried to pull that. Cause it had been on that podcast.

Humble moment.

Shocking. But yeah, I guess we're back 16ish months later.

Yeah, I remember. It's funny, when I done that podcast, I remember waking up next day because obviously he'd sunk a few vodka lemonades. I couldn't remember what I'd said on the podcast.

Scrambling. I was heavy.

You drank on that one as well, didn't you? Yeah, I had that fear. When we did our first episode, got to the end, it was like, don't remember the last 30 minutes of that.

Is that a real beer? Yeah, because just for the record, I'm having a lucky saying. I don't even like beer. I just kept seeing this non alcoholic beer brand and I thought I'd rip was in the fridge. Where do we want to go with this episode?

I think we should go through. Well, last 16 months, obviously I've seen you've had loads of mad celebrities wear your clothes. Obviously we've worked with you a little bit on Tik Tok and stuff.

So about a year now, isn't it? Yeah, pretty much.

It's going be good to hear about everything that's gone good, good and bad through that process, I guess.

Yeah.

And trying to think back also how you got those, whether that was just organic, because that's pretty nuts. Jamie Fox at his birthday party wearing your arms. It's like all, pretty much all the.

Influences that we've used, like celebrities have been organic. So like Jamie Foxx like followed. I was actually on a woman on one of the women's shoots and then I see on the move Instagram that Jamie Foxx followed and I was thinking, oh, do I, do I message or not? And I just thought I'd leave it, just see what happens. And a couple weeks later he sent a dm. It was like around the Black Friday time and we were doing all the kind of promotion for the, the build up to that and he sent a DM saying he wants to get in on the Black Friday hype or something. He's obviously wanted some clothing, sent some bits out to him and then I think a few days later, obviously it arrived and he put on his story and then like, luckily he's shooting a film in London, so he's like been in London loads. So then he.

Have you met him?

I've not met him, but I've FaceTimed him.

Really?

Yeah, I was in the office and well, not fate. It was like, you know, Instagram, you can do like the video call. Yeah, he's like, movie. I went onto the Instagram and then he, he was like, just ring. And I, I was like, oh, James Box is ringing. Like what do I do? And there's obviously a few people in the office and stuff and I missed it and I thought, oh no, I'm gonna, I'm gonna miss the opportunity to speak to him. And then I called him back, he didn't answer. And then he called, called again a couple minutes later and he was basically saying that he, he loves his stuff but he wants some more bits Sent out because he was, he was going to Paris the next morning. So he's like, this must be about 3pm he's like, can you just send stuff tonight so then I can take it to Paris? So I got it on like our warehouse in Leighton Buzzard. Now it's like kind of around like that, not quite close to Milton Keynes. It's about an hour away from where. Where he like lives and stays in London. So we got it in like an Uber or Addison Lee or something to him.

Proper first class service.

Yeah.

And then he.

And then, yeah, he wore it the next day, like for his birthday. It was like his four. It might even be 50 or so 50th or something like that.

He's older than he looks. Yeah, yeah.

Do you notice like an uplift in traffic and sales when he walks out somewhere in that?

Not really. I think it's more of a brand positioning thing. It's like the perception of when someone like that wears it, then when other people might come on onto our Instagram and see that Jamie Fox has worn it, then it will help like cement the brand is like a real brand because he's. He's not actually done a, like a promotion as such. Where he's posted on his Instagram or anything like that is. We've not seen it. We didn't. You wouldn't see like an immediate uplift in sales on that product. But I would say that the week after we did see that because obviously we put it on our Instagram. That got loads of views, loads of engagement that that product was in like the top 10 bestsellers that week. So it had some. Something happened, but it's not like all of a sudden you see a huge.

Like, I think, I think there's a level of influencer where that does happen. Like there's been. I can't remember which one of the Kardashians, when she wore that Gap, like brown Gap hoodie. And it sold out everywhere. Yeah. And there'll be some people, like some NFL player will get out of the super bowl in some shoes and just sell out everywhere. But I feel like he's not quite that. That's like proper next level big.

Yeah. I definitely find nowadays it's not like back in 2016, like the whole influencer thing doesn't work in the same way where you're going to see huge bikes and sales and things like that. But it's definitely good to have him wearing the stuff and he still like reaches out. Like he like voice noted me like the other Day. So he wants like the new tracksuits and stuff. So it's just building that relationship with him like being quite like not trying to be a fanboy or anything because obviously he does know everyone in those kind of circles where if he wears it, you never know who's gonna then spreads.

Yeah. He might even get to the point where he does do a shower if you.

Yeah, exactly. I mean he kind of said it. He would do something like that. So I'm just waiting to kind of. For the right time for that. Obviously that was. That was sick. Yeah. Then had Damien Lillard, I think his name is one of the top players in the NFL. Not. Sorry, not NFL. NBA. And again he was just a customer. So he. Someone actually sent me. One of the guys we work with who's a content creator in America actually sent me. It said is this, is this your stuff? And then I had no idea he wore it and it was just, just random. So that was. That was that. And then we had like. I can't forget his name now. A Chelsea player. He's one of the. One of the top Chelsea players.

Mason Mount Hav.

Maybe I'm a Chelsea F. I should know this.

He used to play for Barcelona. I feel really bad. I can't remember his name.

Don't even know.

But my best mates. One of my best mates, a Chelsea fan. He said he's one of the best players. But yeah, I forgot his name. He. He like just wore it and he's Instagram zh.

I'm going to show that I'm not a big football fan.

I should know this. I'm a Chelsea fan.

Maybe he didn't even play for bar. It might have been like threw me.

Off with that or something threw me off with that. I don't know.

I can't remember who it was. But yeah, he, he wore it on his Instagram again he was just a customer. So it's like these things just happen quite organically and we've not really reached out to many people to. To say wear our stuff. We just. What happens is sometimes if we do see someone wearing our stuff that is a customer, they might reach out to them again and be like we'll send some bits out to you for free and just, just see what happens really.

Were they all twin sets?

Damian was a twin set. I think Jamie Foxx kind of wore a bit of a twin like wore like a long sleeve polo and like a smart pair of trousers. And then the Chelsea player was just like a random T shirt that we had Nice. Yeah, yeah, that's been super cool. But yeah, the last 16 months or so, I've just been kind of building out the team a bit. I think probably when the last time we spoke probably was only it's quite early on in the journey of me building team. I think we only had about maybe four people, five people at that point. So, yeah, just spent like the last year and a half just trying to bring people in that can help build a brand where I'm in areas I'm not good at. So I've always felt that I lacked being organized and analytical and understanding that kind of stuff. I've been trying to bring people in a bit better that than me and trying to find people who been in bigger companies who have been taught things and understand like some systems and stuff. Like when I f. My first employee, I didn't even have anything like there was no like folders of things and stuff like that. Of like the whole work environment was just a mess. I've had people at least can in the right way. Yeah. Still a work in progress.

I think 2021 compared to 2022. Like how. How big was 22 compared to 21?

21, I think we grew. We grew about 22. We done seven and a half million. And 2021, I think it was five. But then the year before we ended on a million. So it was. We grew massively from 20 to 21. And then it's obviously still grown, but it's obviously slowed down on that year. Yeah, from 22.

Well, I was gonna ask numbers, but you gave numbers, so that's what the viewers want. Yeah.

It's harder to do 150 growth on 5mil than it is on, like.

Yeah.

So how much bigger do you think 23 will be? 22. Or do you think it's a more difficult market now, which a lot of brand owners are saying?

We've, we've like forecasted a 30, 36 uplift, so we want to do just over 10. Yeah, we've definitely found it's definitely been difficult. I think it's to understanding the. The way the market is and there's lots of obviously external factors, like we're definitely in certain areas, not at the traction we wanted, but I think, I think this year particular, whereas in previous years, because the growth was quick, but obviously it was smaller numbers. Who can say I'll brew 500 and stuff like that. Maybe I was a bit arrogant and thinking I can grow this business to like whatever, like huge numbers in really quick period of time. But I think this year I've wanna rather than chase growth in revenue we were just trying to get more efficient in some of the things on the bottom to improve the bottom line. So all kinds of stuff like the shipping like we've been working hard to find like do deals to get their best shipping. America which will spend a lot of money on that. Just really understanding the numbers and trying to get that as safe as possible. And also not over forecast where we have lows too much stock where then we could when we then too much money is tied up into cash. I think that's one of the biggest things this year. Just playing a bit safe. Not taking too many risks. I think especially when we not don't know how the year is going to go with the all the kind of stuff about cost of living and all that. All that bullshit.

That's the general vibe I'm getting from a lot of. Yeah well investors I have now investors I don't have that speak to other brand owners. So it's kind of like 2023 is like if you can just do the same as last year that would be a big win.

I think you should always forecast some growth and I think you should always set like or some improvements like two or three times. Like you should have like an ambitious forecast and like we're gonna be ecstatic if we reach that then like a forecast where we're like this is what we should hit.

Yeah.

And then like a reserved forecast of like a tiny bit of growth. That's it like from our cross section.

Yeah.

It depends on your position in the market. Like some people have like tev's grown really well because it's a product that's a cheap version of an expensive like the essence of all it's like a cheap alternative to something that's a luxury good. So I'm like right now to Connor I'm like we should be the best times we should be going. Everyone else is pulling back. We should just go as hard as we can right now.

Yeah.

And like make slightly less margin at the front. But like auctions are getting cheaper so we should just spend. But then like we've got a lot of brands agency wise that it's the unknown. Like it's not even like.

Message him right now I can spend more can.

It's like it's not even like it's just the unknown. Like even, even if it's like because some brands, some brands we work with where we've expect them to drop they don't and then Some brands that we expect them to just continue to fly, they drop off. It's like so, so hard to predict a market of that size.

Definitely. I definitely still think that it is still possible to, like, as, you know, you can have one good ad and all of a sudden things can go mad. So I think it's just like, yeah, keep trying to try new things and then, although maybe one, One month you might think, oh, we could have done better, then there might be something that just like, clicks and then it starts to scale. Especially like, we done really well last summer with a couple ads and it just really done well. If. If we had that throughout the whole year, we could have probably done a lot better.

It's. It's just. I think, yeah, it's a mixture of like, plugging all the right things in at once. Loads of people we work with haven't built the content data feedback systems to be big enough. And that's why we're working with Charlie. You brought in on the last few weeks, like, just getting that set up. Because if we get that set up, that does half the most the work for you.

Yeah.

That's where you get the leverage. You don't get the leverage out the media buying that. We do. But media buyers are now more like creative strategists and data and feedback loops and landing page. It's not just like, oh, we're going to target someone better. Okay. Run a lot of cost caps and see if that works.

Yeah, yeah.

What you said about bottom line is definitely true. Like, too many people chase being like, busy fools. Like, I'm gonna make. Yeah, 10 million. Gonna make 10 million. Yeah. You're gonna sell 10 mil and make 1 mil profit or sell 5 mil and make 1 mil profit. I'd rather do the 5 mil just because it's like, well, personally, I just rather would rather do the lower number. It's less stress.

Yeah. Do you know. And you know what? Sometimes your story scares me and I'm like, I can't. I can't do that myself.

So that's what still scares me.

Y.

It's that there's. There's other ones. Like, you know, like Hera. The Hera story and stuff.

Like.

Yeah, so yours and her story.

Do you know what, though? The one thing I've thought about, I mean, I was on a Frankie Lee's pod two nights ago and he brought about loads of PTSD because he went deeper than we've ever gone on that story. I was like, for sake. But I mean. Yeah, like, the fundamental flaw in that business model, it was basically drop shipping. We were making shit to order.

Yeah. He didn't build ops around it.

That would never have happened to Midnight City or if I was running Harrow London. No offense, Ash. He's coming on the pod next week. I don't know what happened with that, but you get the point. Like it was a major problem. But that couldn't happen with my current business.

Yeah, yeah.

It's complex as well.

Yeah.

You didn't just, you just didn't hire and you didn't have people around you.

Yeah.

Whereas there's people. You've got a network of people.

Yeah. I'm also so scared of that happening again. So from day one I've put things in place that, that can't happen again.

I think that's the problem of being like an entrepreneur and like just thinking, I learned the hard way, take over the world. Like for me, like in like before, thinking I'm going to grow 100 year on year, like every single year. Then if we were to buy a stock for like to grow this year, 100, it would be, would have all our money being in stocks. It's that kind of thing where you can, you can have a growing business but if you've not done the right things in the business, you could still up. So it's that it's just getting the balance right, I think so to not over leverage things to the point where, yeah, you could. You're kind of taking too many risks, I think.

I think there's an element of that financially, but. And personally, like you become a slave to it if you try and build it without putting that in place. Like you're just like there all day, every day. Either either physically or I'm a slave right now or just stressing about it even. Like you might not be sat at your computer, but it's just in the back of your mind like, yeah, this is stressful. I should be doing this right now. Yeah, I've had that before.

Yeah. I had a dream last night about. I was on an A380 Emirates plane and it was doing like front flips and shit. And I woke up thinking, what the fuck is going on? I'm too stressed. I don't know what being not stressed feels like. I haven't known that for years.

Yeah. But I think you just live.

Like for me, I'm immune to it now.

I don't like, I don't really even. I'm always stressed. I'm not like too stressed or not stressed. It's just Almost like it's always there.

Like it's just kind of underlying crippling.

Anxiety that most of the people would find just horrendous.

Yeah, yeah.

How about you? How did 2021 compare to 2022 at Saw with us for you, Agency empire.

For you started in 2021, we've now got 22 people. So that's like pretty fast growth.

What the is this? Space goods spacegoods.com Rainbow Dust version 1. 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 1000 plus plus 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 the shit to the moon. Spacegoods.com get on your rainbow Dust subscription.

And see how you fucking feel. Let's do it for the boys. Spacegoods.com. Wait, so just to clarify because it was fucking confused me, I have like 17 agencies. Two mate for you is TikTok ads and content.

TikTok ads content.

And we're probably gonna saw with us is everything else.

Ye basically my bookkeepers like get so confused as well. She's like this is. There's an invoice from this one and there's an invoice from this one. Are they the same company or not? And I'm like yeah, they're the same.

No, they're different companies. They're different. They're different, like completely different.

You know, you work at the same office or how does it work?

One's fully remote and one's fully in person, which is also.

And it's you and Joe at Saw and it's you, Joe and Lucas at.

4, you and Liam.

Yeah, because we set up for you, like even split.

Yeah. No, slightly, Slightly uneven for you.

Was Liam wasn't in before, was he?

No, he got us on.

He seems quite, I think for that one creative workshop. We done with him. I think it seems pretty switched on, doesn't it?

It's just. Yeah, we've all got the right seats. Like Joe does sales, I do like marketing and like Media Buy and Lucas does and Liam do like creative. And then Liam's really good at team management and he really deep into the platform, like really understands, like always on top of trends, like you have to be for that platform. It's not like Facebook, it moves so fast and like that just. Again, that's just means that like we can just focus on what we need to focus on and it works pretty well.

How does he understand it? Is he like just on the platform as a consumer all the time? Is he like reading up on things.

Or a bit of that? Yeah, we get, we get quite a lot. You get a lot of insight reports from Tick Tock. They're so much better than Facebook for like support in every area. Like, it's ridiculous.

It's a shame I can't make it work. You're still running my TikTok ads. Been spending 51 pound a day for a month.

I was ill for ages.

I just. I just haven't turned it off. It's doing something.

It's working. Actually. I just need to get in there. I need to have a call with you. I was doing your content. You should scale down your content output massively down.

Yeah. Why?

Because I've gone in that Google Drive folder and so much of it's rubbish. So you could just make like, I.

Feel like with your brand though, like it's, it's, it's quite visual and you probably should be doing really well on TikTok.

Yeah, definitely. That's what I mean. Sorry, rubbish was the wrong word. Wasn't. Isn't structured to work well.

Yeah, I mean it's. We can get onto the content system because. Yeah. I mean, I don't even look at it. Lucy manages it, but it works for Facebook. I think that's what they're telling me.

It could work better.

Oh, yeah. Well, we need More tiktoky stuff, which is what I was saying to Jordan before.

Yeah.

I'm going hard on, like, organic content. We're doing, like, shoots, like, basically every day.

Yeah.

Zara, who I just hired, is doing it all. You just need to be listening. Yeah.

If Tick Tock. You know how everyone said Facebook golden area was like 2014 where people could grow massive for like.

Yeah.

Like, it's an opportunity for people now to do the same on Tick Tock, isn't it?

Yeah.

Still in an early part of its, like. Yeah. How long it's been going around for. And if you make the most of it now, then you can only be winning in the long term.

It just can't support the same smart spend. Like, caps out. Caps out way lower than Facebook because its algorithm's not as mature and it requires you just choose content. That's the problem. And then your content cost gets so high, but then you can hack it down. It's like, I don't think it's as direct. I think it's more brand. I'm taking a little bit higher brand. Like, it's a little bit higher in the funnel. So, like, Facebook's so direct response and people are, like, there to buy. I think Tick Tock is a little bit more like of a middle ground between like, brand and direct response. So it's not quite as efficient, but it still works.

Yeah. I also think it's understanding, like, what part Tick Tock plays, isn't it? Especially our first month we. We'd done last year, it was like. Although maybe the tracking isn't saying it's doing. Doing much actually when you. When you. When you add it into the mix and then you see how it's performing. Like, our MER went down massively that. That first.

It's got like 10 in a month.

Yeah.

It's just so top of funnel. That's what I mean. Like, it might not try. It' track at like 10 roas.

Yeah.

And we. A lot of what we have to do is expectation alignment. Some brands it does. Some brands it can, like, match the roas of Facebook. I'll get like five.

It's got to look at blended in it.

Yeah.

Yeah. I guess with a new platform, though, it's kind of hard to spend way more if you don't see that.

Yeah, that's the thing. You've got to be aligned around expectations and almost just be like. And also, like, what your goals for that platform are as a business. Like, depending on what you're selling, if you're selling some at 300 quid, you're not going to get attributed. Where else on TikTok?

I've got a question for you. I know it's your. You're the fucking guest but Roundtable, because I was saying this, I always basically think you're a pussy. If you're an agency, not a brand. I still think that. Basically hear me out. You know you've got a good agency, but I'm talking about like constant agency and it's literally them in a bedroom, their mum's house, because they bought a certain course of a certain YouTuber. Do you think it's. Is there any risk in running an agency? Because I would say like brand take more balls. Because you buy stock in on sale, you're fucked. Whereas with an agency, you put margin on a service and you're guaranteed to be profitable, basically. What do you think the biggest risk is growing an agency? Like, is it even possible to go bankrupt with an agency? Yeah, you get E Comm stock wrong. Can quite easily happen.

Biggest risk for me is like, I really like. I guess it changes at each scale. Like if you're just starting, like you could make. I think if you're starting, you could make you get 10k a month as one person and just be really good at one service and you can just chill if that's what you want to do in life. Once you get to like, we've got 60, nearly 60 team members across two businesses, it's pretty like it's a lot of people and also that costs a lot of money every month to pay those people. And there's like, yeah, there's a lot of moving parts to that also. You have to develop them as individuals. Like, it's like there's. People will leave. Like it's quite a stepping stone. So there's risk. There's also undervalued, like brand risk. Like if we just don't give people good service, people won't work with us. Like, word travels very fast in this sort of industry and there's obviously been plenty of cases where that has happened, like for multiple reasons, you know, you can't smash out the part for everybody. There's also stages where the, like, you're hiring some stuff in house and like a lot of brands do that. They'll hire us out over time. It's a lot less forecastable because if you think about how many data points you've got, like if you're doing 2,000 sales a day, you're doing 60, 000 sales a month. We're working with like 60 clients, so it's much easier to forecast your demand over a year than it is for us, especially with the way we acquire business. Like, it's so much like. Like it's more based on, like getting in front of the person at the right time, then making a decision over like a three month period. So I think it's like, it's less risky at the start. I think it's equally as risky the further you get in. Although I guess the risk of going truly bankrupt is probably lower because I just. You could just scale down your staff, but, like, that would be grim.

Yeah.

I want to just sit on a phone call and sack people.

Yeah.

But, yeah, I've seen.

I've seen some agencies go by, I.

Think, but maybe that's stretch my legs.

Understand the numbers probably. Maybe not understanding what their actual costs are.

And yeah, we hired a CFO last, like middle of last year off the back of when we went to Marbella, I was asked.

I'm on boarding the same one tomorrow.

Yeah. Is that Seamus? Not a full time.

No. Fractional. Yeah, I asked. I went on. When we went to Marbella, I just asked Adam Reed. I was like, what's the best business decision you made last year? And he was like, hi, this is fractional. Cfo. Yeah, I'm gonna do that.

Is it the same person?

No. Different guy. Yeah.

I mean, I've had one from the start with Space Kids, which I didn't have in the past. That's been a game changer. But we're editing the team.

Editing.

Well, we're just. Yeah.

Just changing the hook.

Yeah. Adjustments.

A year and a half ago, I think about the time I think went on the last podcast because I thought I didn't have a clue what was going in and out.

Neither do I.

And I thought this is the biggest risk to my business if I carry on. And again, knowing your story as well, thinking I can't get into that. I can't not know where I am as a business. Business.

Yeah.

And it's easy to do. Like, I'm not. I didn't go to do A levels and do maths and stuff. So, you know, you can't expect us to understand. All you need is like the P L every month put in front of you so you can see the numbers in black and white. You don't want to be doing all the.

Yeah.

Crappy stuff to get to that. Yeah.

I think it's more than that though as well, Nick, because I used to have like management accounts Even when went wrong. But it was never. It's about looking around corners.

Yeah.

Because like you could be really profitable brand.

Yeah.

And still have cash problems which no one talks about because you buy too much stock. You don't think about a VAT liability, whatever it is.

I was running it off, just cash in the bank. Like if.

Yeah, exactly.

Was going up. I was like, we're chilling.

That's not always the way.

I think what changed for me when we brought them in is, is we went from like passive to like being like act like actively forecasting and looking forward. Right. I feel like we were making like passive decisions. We were like, oh, we've not got any capacity, we should probably hire someone. But then that takes two months to hire and train someone good. So it's like really slowed us down.

Yeah.

Yours is probably a bit different. You've got so much volume going in and out of your accounts, probably it's your way higher transaction volume and stuff.

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I'd be glad to have you in there. Let's fucking go. I've got a really important question. If you're running a 10 million pound business, why have you got a Gucci watch?

You know what I've never been into? What?

I've only say that because you've got more money than I have and I've got a lot nicer watches than you have.

I've Never. I've never thought about buying a watch.

That's probably why you've got more money than I have.

I like one but I just think like what's the point?

Turn that into a clip. That was a good sign.

Get it stolen in somewhere. Get robbed. I think it was the point.

I don't really interested me either. I feel like everybody has advice. I'd cars and watches. Just not asked.

Yeah. See I think I just spend money on clothes.

Yeah. Food I've definitely got. Got bigger on nice food.

Yeah. I love going for nice meals. Yeah.

Yeah.

Especially my biggest expense now other than just standard.

There's just so many nice restaurants there in there.

Yeah.

It's ridiculous.

It's ridiculous how expensive we can get as all right. Like 500 quid for. For a meal.

Yeah.

Going with a girl or whatever.

Oh yeah.

It's expensive huh?

You got a girlfriend?

No, I'm seeing someone cuz I know.

You did at the time. Did you Maybe you didn't.

No, I was.

When you like dating your employee.

No, that was.

No sounds way more like you.

Made it sound a lot worse than it. Than it was. I. I had a. I had a long term girlfriend. That was. That still works for me that. We split up probably a year and a half.

Oh that was it. Yeah. So you still broke up? You didn't get back?

No, I never went back there. As soon as you put up.

Does that work? Her being an employee after that?

Does it make. We make it work. Like we're very civil. Like we're not. There's no bad blood there. She. She's one who designs all women's stuff. But yeah. It's obviously not an ideal situation but here's what it is.

You got a bird.

Yeah.

A new one.

Yeah.

There you go.

That's London for you.

Do you think that has had a net positive effect on your business?

I mean it's very recent.

We're getting emotional way too soon. We're only 33 minutes in.

I think it's the right person.

Yeah. Yeah I agree.

I agree there's a wrong person. No. I'm sure him like Iman's been through this. It's like it's net. You should either you are like having.

Someone who's support the right person it's better but if they're not, it's better to have no one.

Yeah yeah yeah. Just be a dog.

But then again I feel like.

Celibate'S better. Definitely.

I feel like.

But then you break down and realize that you haven't touched a female in four months because you've been in the trenches. That's not me. That's just hypothetical.

I feel like being a dog is not. Is not a good thing either because then you end up being on a date Thursday night.

Yeah. And you drink. Yeah. That's why I'm trying non. Non alcoholic beer, which has convinced me that I'm actually tipsy. But it's entirely placebo.

Because I feel like. Yeah. When you, when you, when you, when you've had a few drinks, the game is. Is just different. Like you can. You can say. You say things you probably wouldn't say so. But I get away. I don't know. I feel like I just flow when I. When I've had a few.

I went on a date the other week, the first time in a while to be fair, and I just got smashed. Like it was fun. I do have a habit of that. If I go on a first date, just go too far.

I do that.

But then the next day I just. Whole day was gone. Didn't get anything done. And I thought, for fuck's sake.

Exactly.

That's why I feel like it wasn't worth it.

I've just stopped. I feel like, you know, been seeing one girl for like a month. I feel like that's a bit better. It's like when I first moved to London, I think I was doing like three a week.

Yeah. My housemates on. My housemate's on that at the moment called Josh. He's on ryer. He's just like. It's on one.

How do you get accepted on his arms?

I've never been accepted under that. He got accepted. He knows ones that work in Tesco.

He knows. He used to work for like. He knows like I haven't tried for.

Like four years but I've never been on it.

I think you gotta got a link up. But yeah, it's just on one. All a tear now.

It's not good for business.

I don't think there's seasons for that and I'm just not in that season. I actually got pitched on a fully managed online dating service and I thought it was so cringe. Within a bit of me thought it's quite smart.

Is that the one where they va it and book into your calendar? Yeah, I've heard about this.

Yeah, it's quite smart. It just.

It's so cringe.

It's like operationalized.

Yeah. So basically they will just deliver you a date with your type. That's like the KPI.

Yeah.

You don't have to do any of the messaging.

The VA is what they're talking on your.

But that's the problem. What if they say something weird?

Well you did then they split test as well.

Yeah.

Google optimize in that account.

It's like you're over. It's so mad. I've seen, I've heard people who've used that as well. Yeah. You give them like and then so you give them like a calendar like you would for work and like a calendar link so they can book it in themselves and you just have open slots however many nights a week and then they just like obviously they on board. You're like they wouldn't then know a bit about you. Then they just message people and then you apparently just get like a document brief about the person booked into your calendar.

Like a podcast guest but it's a girl.

The guy I spoke to said it was working and they. He had one for like every night for like two weeks.

That's a bit intense.

That's mad.

I'd be limiting that to once a week.

Thirsty man mate. That's what I thought it was like two like a couple hundred quid a night. That's expensive.

Bringing it back for a second. Must been the most important person you've hired do you think? Since well ever I would say.

The, the merchandiser who was actually employee number two and that was. That's someone who's just forecasting stock. Yeah. Trying to forecast when we're going to run out of stock when we need more stock putting together like the budgets for. For the collections and stuff. For me that was super important, important job because in 2020 I think we were selling out of stuff a lot and we just. The revenue was just peaks and troughs because we were having big periods and not having the right stock in because I was one trying to forecast and I didn't have a clue what I was doing. But bringing her on it's also meant that yeah the month's more consistent because obviously as well if you run out of stock it has such a big knock on effect to other parts of the business because then you have to. You might become less efficient in your, in your ad spend and. And so then actually yeah those moments like your, your bot mine could be really affected. So I think just having the right bits in at the right time has been really important.

How, how many SKUs do you have now?

Oh a lot.

It's got to be like 300 at least, right?

Yeah, there's a lot. Yeah. I think I kind of think we need to. One of the things I think this. This year is to tighten it up a bit more. To be honest. I think there's too many. I think some of the products just don't sell as well as they. As they could do. I think it's just because our product range is just too wide.

80, 20. I think it. 80, 20 so much in life.

Yeah.

Like team usually like 20 of people produce 80 of the outcome. Definitely stock like so many especially high skew. Like we work with quite a few clothing brands and do you.

Do you.

They'll usually sell more than that 20%. But the 20% is what will pull the person in and then they'll end up buying around that or they'll come back and buy other stuff.

Definitely.

Then it makes all your money.

Yeah. Obviously, if you see like the. What sells for us is it's the same type of products over and over again. It's like, well, we should just channel all our focus on those type of things. And really like last summer where we had some really good months, I think really that it must have the. The. The driver of the revenue was about what, 10, 10 stars, weren't it?

Yeah. But then you. Because you are. No, I think you really, really know them for that. Like they're almost like you look at them and if you're into fashion, like, you know that's your brand, which is a really good place to be.

Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

So I think you can just own it.

I'm excited about this summer. We've got a really good range. We've learned from what. From last summer. What worked well and just built on that. Similar styles, that new new fabrics, but in like a similar way to last year. Some. A few new fits. Definitely went through a big learning curve last year where we'd done some collections which probably wasn't quite aligned to what our brand was and just didn't do as well as it should have done. So I think that now we've got really good focus of where we need to go as a brand and just build on what our customers actually really love and what they came to buy from us in the first place.

I think what a lot of people on the outside won't notice as well is how that stock management. So having cash sat in stock, that's not selling is the most jarring thing.

Yeah, yeah.

For any brand. Like we've had it. We have. I've had it, seen it for loads. It's like you're so much better to sell out if you're not like confident on it. Yeah, you don't have that issue anymore.

Yeah, but I don't. To be fair, I was very intentional. But even now, to be fair, I've got loads of new, like, I kind of. Accessories are different because they're so cheap, but, like, I've got like five new nutritional products in the works. But I'm already thinking, just sell. Am I getting overexcited?

50 moq. Smallest possible moq with the new supplier. I think, yeah, I think that's the best way to go.

So that's what I'm planning on doing, which is why I went to that new supplier, because we can do mad low moqs.

Yeah, he's great.

So, yeah, getting there on like three new ones. But I don't want to go too complicated with it. Like, even flavors and shit. Why do a vanilla when 90% of people that would have bought vanilla will just buy chocolate? Yeah. You know what I mean? It's not worth the extra hassle at this point.

I feel like you could do a cold and a hot. That's my, like my only pain point with space goods.

Right.

In the morning sometimes I just don't want to drink chocolate at like 6.

Yeah, people do say that. I mean, I mix mine with coffee because I'm mad and I have the real stuff as well. But yeah, I've got a cold drink coming and also a cold canned version of rainbow dust.

Yeah, that's cool as well.

That's a good idea. Do you know what, actually, when you. When you iced dust stories saying that, like the can. You know what? I. And I've actually, funny enough, the next day I then went into shop and I thought, you've seen a Rubicon bottle.

Yeah.

And I was like, it actually looks kind of quite, quite similar.

Does it? Wait, hold on.

It's like a scan. It was like.

It was like a gradient in it.

I've actually never seen it until.

Is it can?

Yeah, it was a can.

Hold on. Don't tell me I'm not the only one doing gradients.

Have you seen it?

I haven't seen. I've seen his canton, but not Rubicon.

Oh, this. The raw energy.

Let's have a look. Yeah.

Is that compared to mine?

It does, yeah. It's not. It doesn't look great. I mean, yours looks sick, but I just thought I'd actually never seen anyone do gradient. And then, then it was like, almost like coincidence.

So, yeah, I think you'll get. I think you'll pop in retail for that. Literally, that like people just be like, what is this?

And it, it will taste amazing. It's an iced rainbow dust.

Yeah. But that's all you need to get them to. You need to get the intrigue which you get from the packaging and then you need to give them the taste on the first try and then they're going to come back and buy from you over and over again.

So yeah, your kind of goal to be in all the, all the stores like Asda's and Tesco and all that kind of stuff.

Yeah.

That's weird.

I think eventually serious cash really. I spoke to some big investors recently that they're not investing but they said the only way to get to like 100mil rev with a beverage brand slash supplement is like retail. Ready. Ready to drink specifically.

Yeah.

I look at Huel. Yeah. Most their money apparently, I don't know comes from the ready to drink, not from the powders.

Do you do much? That's just. Well, just touch, I think it's just generally so much more forecastable, obviously. Do you do much retail as in like, do they just like how do you. I don't actually know the process of fashion, like for something like that. It's. Well, obviously, yeah, we did, we used.

To do a lot of retail and I stepped totally away from it in 2020 and a couple of reasons. So we used to work the ASOs. We was in a stores like for Asylum. But I actually found it being a bit more riskier than, than direct consumer because you were very much like your destiny was in the hands of like a retailer. So yeah, what happened is, is you, your credit collection, you then you then have a meeting with someone like asos. You'd have a buyer on their team who would pick out the styles they like and then they would go away and kind of give you a bit of an order, normally about 50 to 100 grand time. But then obviously then you've got. When they go make the stuff, they give you a month delivery window. If you're late because factories get slow, you get cancelled. I remember the last order we had, we had an order canceled. It was 100 grand.

I've seen those kind of horror stories where they just drop it on you.

Yes.

Because it's, it's the buyer going out on a limb really, isn't it? Like it's like they put their reputation on bringing you into that business.

Yeah. And it's very like it's down to the, like if it's down to the personal preference as well of the buyer, if you like it or not. And yeah, I just found it a bit quite difficult and especially at the time as well. With a brand like mine in fashion, the retailers want a nice. Well, actually, no, it's different. Someone like asos, which is online only, they're all about going as wide as they can on SKUs. So Dad's order maybe 30 styles, but they might only order 200 per style.

Yeah.

And obviously they burn at a wholesale cost as well. So actually when you start to break down each style and how much you're making on. On each one, it's. It's not a lot. Whereas a, a big store like Foot Asylum, who have maybe got like 50 stores and only have a set amount of floor space, they go a lot tighter on the amount of styles they might order. Eight high schools a style, so it's a bit more profitable. But yeah, I didn't, I didn't like it. We stopped working with Foot Asylum because they absolutely ripped off our brand as well. Because if you go into that store, most of the brands in there are own brands, so they make them all in house. But they. What they'll do is they bring a brand in that they like look of or is doing well, test the water using their products and then they'll then rip it off and make their own and make more margin. So it's a bit tricky. And also this day and age with fashion, there's not actually that many big players in the market who can really generate loads and loads of revenue. It's not like there's. There's a big store like Tesco, you've got JD Sports, which did not really align to our brand. You've obviously got Foot Asylum and.

But that's again, probably not really.

So all the big brands like Ends, Selfridges, Harrods, they go very small on the amount they order anyway. And it's.

Until they've got proof of concept and they'll rip it like representing stuff.

Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, it's quite a difficult thing for fashion also. A few years, well, maybe like 10 years ago, there'd be loads and loads independent stores, but they've all disappeared now, so there's not that many avenues and go down.

Yeah.

Obviously you've got brands like Zalando you could go into, but I've just tried to not focus on. On the, on the retail side of things. And also as well, you need, I feel like you need a lot of. There's a lot of admin that goes around that kind of stuff, like getting it compliant to go into Their warehouse, even invoicing, like all the way they want the invoicing done.

It's like a team in itself, isn't it really? Probably at your scale especially.

Yeah, exactly. So obviously when I was originally doing it, I was going to. I was. I think the team was like two or three people. Sometime when we first started working, there was just me and it was just. I found it was just so time consuming and it just. I weren't getting the kind of the reward for it. And the other interesting thing is you don't. Being on a brand like asos, you think that the exposure of millions and millions of people, like seeing the brand that you'd see a big impact on your store.

But just nothing.

No at all.

That's interesting. I always think that way. I think for you especially where you put yourself is massive. The perception thing about Jamie Foxx is like the other side of that.

Yeah.

Because you give all of the keys to ASOS. If they want to run a 60% sale on your products, they just do it out there. Come and don't come and ask you to do it first.

Yeah, that's what we kind of. We had that issue like constantly doing like sales every week did 20 off, 50 off and it's just not really great. And then they'd obviously have all your Google shopping running against your brand names then.

Yeah.

You pay any. Every marketing that you do and people, so many people obviously type in the brand name onto Google rather than click a link. You're just sending them to that you're basically paying for their marketing.

Yeah. So definitely, I think for you it's very different. Obviously yours is very, very different. Yours is. I get people to try and then hopefully.

Well, I just look at brands like Tripp, cbd and there's not a fucking shop you can go into that. They're not in there and they're like 4 years old. I don't know what numbers they're doing, but I doubt they're doing much online compared to like retail. I have no clue though. But they raised like 30 million quid.

I don't think just buying a, like buying a drink beverage online is pretty weird.

Yeah. I mean how it is work.

Yeah, yeah. Something like that. Supplements, powders.

Yeah. Like. But then buying a canned drink.

But you're not gonna go on all the coke online. I. It's a bit weird. Whereas I don't like do any. I barely do any clothes shopping in high street shops.

Ever do all online?

Pretty much, yeah. I don't know about you two I'd very rarely go into town and be like I'm gonna go maybe in London.

Literally never anymore. I just I. I personally getting pissed on this, this might be the life hack. You're not actually drinking anything. A few more of these boys.

I like going into like self dysmorphic experience and seeing the product and stuff but like going to like Zara or something. I wouldn't, wouldn't deal.

I'd do the same. I go to end but I'm not going to go to H M in town never. I think a lot of people move probably move that way. Well definitely your target market.

Yeah, definitely.

So is there any brand you look at or just. Well yeah brand and you like that's where I want to be in three, five years or have you kind of. Because I mean I'm not that into fashion. You probably fucking tell. I wear the same shit all the time. But definitely you've gone less like Spice Boy esque, you know like almost I guess like six silk. Jim King. It was never that. But a lot of brands for I think used to fall into that category like couture club.

Yeah.

Fresh couture. Yeah I think couture something else.

Yeah.

A few of those through our door.

Yeah but that market, I could be wrong but that market seems to have faded. Maybe because I don't live in Newcastle anymore.

But I think a lot of those brands, some of them are still doing well. Like six silk. Still. Still. We're doing really, really well.

Yeah.

I want to get the finder on here.

They're all, they're all wholesale though. Most of them.

Yeah.

I used. How did I know I met someone who was aunties was married to the head buyers.

Someone told me six it was doing like 200 mil.

Yeah, they're massive.

I've forgotten who told me that. It could be cap. I don't know. No comment. But that's what they said.

But they were obviously massive like but I remember when I was about 16 or maybe younger 14, about 10 years. Yeah everyone in England wore it but they. They're quite clever because I didn't found.

Aren't they massive in Spain or something?

Yeah, they were. I don't, I don't know about anymore but like a couple of years ago they were massive in Spain and then, and then they've just. They've been quite good at just going to different markets still like do lows in Zalando which is a massive European like retailers basically asos. Yeah. So some of those brands are still doing all right. I Know like Chore Club still doing really good. But I think when I first started I didn't want to go down that route because so many brands at the time it was flooded with that type of brand. We wanted to be a bit more smarter looking like really focused on like the, on the fabrics and stuff. So I definitely look at all like the designer brands and we want to try and get to a point where we're giving that designer luxury like experience but an affordable price point.

You wearing mobile?

This is. Yeah, yeah.

I think that's, that's similar to what they're trying to build at Represent. Little insight, a little free. I think that's similar what they're trying to build at Represent.

Yeah.

Obviously their mission isn't that kind of high quality. It's the high quality fabrics at like a cheaper price. But they're obviously it's catering to a. There's probably some overlap but still pretty different demo.

Do you think MDB are a competitor?

I would obviously they've been going a lot longer. I don't. I'm not really sure actually because actually.

I just read all the funny like Twitter beef around like Reese and stuff.

Yeah, yeah.

It's quite, quite a polarizing character.

I know. Yeah. Well I think when you look at actually his products, I think he's going a lot more streetwear actually now. Whereas actually where if you look at ours we're a bit more smarter. Smarter product. He's like they do lots of like graphic tees and stuff. We don't really do anything like that. But I definitely obviously done. Done really well. He's obviously much bigger than us but he's been going for, for a number of more years than us. So obviously we want to get to that point in our business. Definitely lots of good things he is doing and I do think he's probably doing something similar in the sense that he's been looking. He's been in all the shops in salvages and stuff and looked at some of the big brands and like if you look at is for example his, his collection looks basically the same as that. So is. Yeah, I think he's again finding stuff on designer brands and seeing how you can make it a more affordable price. We definitely are our customer. I think what notice is that our customer like wants to be successful. They. They're wearing the designer like trainers, designer bags and. But they. But if you go into Gucci or Louis Vuitton an outfit is going to be a grand and people can't afford that to wear it once and Then not wear it again. So they could wear something with nice fabrics from us. It's a lot cheaper. But they can still get that designer look because they've still got their nice trainers on and nice bag and stuff. So it's just creating looks for people where they can mix and match with some of the designer brands. Really.

Yeah. I think you've definitely got a unique look, especially those, like, twin sets. And a lot of stuff. A lot of stuff you bring out, I think you don't see. There's a lot of fashion brands. I think I was speaking to maybe Adam Reed about this again. There's so many fashion brands that you just. You see them come across your Instagram feed, it's just like another graphic T shirt. It's another hoodie with a tiny logo on. It's like there must be like 300 of them now that are just like, basically a represent, but a different logo, different graphic.

Yeah.

It's like you need to own your own vertical or, like, carve your own, like, look and resonate.

It's even possible to be unique in fashion because I've seen, like, beef on Twitter, you know, brands say, you stole my design. And I. How can. You can't trademark a. An embroidered T shirt.

No, I don't think so.

Can you? I mean, I don't know the market, but just seems ludicrous, some of these.

Yeah. I think everyone is getting inspired by certain things and that they might change things and. But it's all. Especially like, everyone's looking at the catwalks. Everyone's looking at what's in. In the shops from designer brands, and people are making iterations of that for their own brands. And also there could be times where people have very similar products. Like maybe movie or another brand might have something similar. But it's not because they've covered each other. They've looked at. They've looked at the same reference.

Yeah.

And they've come down two different paths and ended like, some just ended at a similar point.

Yeah. I do remember when I. One of our first collections in ASOS in, like, 2009, 1819, it was a polo that I designed like four months before, and then MDV basically brought out the same polo, but before us. But it's just again, because we probably looked at the same thing.

Yeah.

So it's just that kind of thing happens.

It's like music in it. Like, music distills from. Usually comes from the same.

Yeah.

People end up with similar sounds from same influences. Like. But I think. I think you can get uniqueness in clothing. But most of it now comes from like angle community.

Yeah.

Or like resonance with certain audience. Like cuts clothing have done it really well. You follow them like they've. They're. They. Yeah. What they're making is not that unique. But they've angled it in a really like specific.

Yeah. That's the basic plain T shirts.

Really. Yeah. In it. But selling them for 120 pounds.

What's that other one? True Classic tees.

True Classic teas.

Some way Flower. Then the other day they're saying they're doing like 400 mil.

Yeah.

They're just like, wow.

There's. Then there's the smaller brands. One that I follow called Sporty and Rich. Like that's just like that aesthetic is.

So like she's just right now.

Yeah, she's just Emily Oberg used to be. But she used to work for New Balance, I think or something like that.

Maybe.

Maybe am the on Door.

I do like that though.

I like him. The underground that I like.

Really like the way they brand person.

They're a brand.

They've done well. They're like the brand. Like some of the stuff they put that storytelling is pretty good, isn't it?

But even, even them. The guy who used to be creative director of them left and went to New Balance. And now if you look at New Balance now and how Amy and Door, they're so much closer together. So that's like a really top level example. Like you'll look at the designs and then distill down to what you want to make. They'll just take the stuff.

Yeah.

Then he brings their influence over, then they pull it. That comes through their products and like they've. They've definitely become closer to that brand since he's joined. Which makes sense.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's interesting. But yeah. So everyone, everyone's kind of getting inspired by certain people. We would say we see. I see a lot of people on Instagram like running ads that they've like, they've ripped off our like ad copy and got very similar product and stuff like that. That's why this year I think we want to try and elevate things a bit more and just make everything we do look. Look better. And whereas in the past we've used content creators and had it as images on a website for like that because the barrier to entry is so low for other brands to do that. Want to try and get away from doing things like that this year. And I think that's the way we can step away from any brands that might look similar to us at the minute.

That's a good idea.

Are you like 70America right now then it was just a myth. Is that just because it worked better from the start?

It's just.

Well yeah, we ran ads, had some, some like content creators that just resonated with that audience and just. Yeah, just, just kind of built on that. I think I remember one that we put up. I put one ad live with one guy that was just, just chopped and changed like kind of use a review video and had like some B roll on it and stuff on Facebook a couple of years ago used him and then I think I woke up to like like 15 grand sales something from that one and I was like this is pretty good. And then just, I just basically squeezed, squeezed the life out of that person for like two years running ads. But then he's. I think he's, he's got an exclusive contract with I think boohoo now or something and they've written in there don't work with movie.

So that's ruthless. Fashion's so ruthless as an industry as well compared to, to others because it's probably one of the biggest in it like in terms of sell through rate. But it's like so ruthless. Yeah, yeah.

Like I think honestly I mean I just thought I looked at the supplement industry and was like mushrooms aside, every brand looks the same.

Yeah. Yeah.

Maybe that's because it's relatively early. I don't know.

I also think it's.

But I was like literally every brand is black, brown or white because I.

Think it's because it comes from like a scientific background. Like you start a supplements when you go right to the top starts with.

Like there'll be 20 pink gradient packaging soon. But I did it first. I couldn't believe that. I thought that looked like if someone was in year three and they had to rip off the brand that would be the result.

Why would they send you the date? They're trying to keep it.

No, they didn't send me it. Someone that I know forwarded it to me and sent to them. It's just of kind of funny. They'll probably end up raising more money than I did.

If so you, you obviously you do UK us. We're launching TEV in US tomorrow. Pretty much we're just UK at the moment because it was a faff because yeah, are you. You're not us, you're uk. Have you done Europe yet?

Yeah, just started Europe.

You'll. You'll smash Europe if you launch in Europe. Why is it so cheap?

Is it.

It's like, if you go like, Germany.

Is our second biggest country. We've never run out there.

Yeah. The way. The way I think of the markets is like, US is like forefront of ECOM and Canada kind of similar. UK is like a year to two years behind.

Yeah.

And then I'd say you. You. Europe is like Germany and Northern Europe is probably another year behind the uk.

Right.

And then the rest of it's probably like another year behind that. So it's just like CPMs are cheaper.

Yeah.

Like, it's. It's just like taking Facebook back a couple of years in terms of cost and like.

Yeah.

I think you'd cross smash Germany, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Austria, Netherlands.

Question for me though is like, at what point is it worth localizing the whole website into German? Say, do you know what I mean?

I just get proof of concepts and see where you're at. Like, we. We'll probably. We're going to do it with tev, like straight away. Just because we're working in such volume.

I think it's definitely easier in theory to do a million in 15 different countries than 15 in one.

So it is from. On paper, it's a finance perspective. Yeah. But like on pet. Yeah, it is.

It.

I just think Europe's undersaturated. I think Australia, you probably. You did a bit of Australia, didn't.

Yeah, we're trying to. Well, we're working with globally for Europe because You don't have iOS set up.

I spoke to globally before. Yeah.

To be fair, we've got a pretty good deal with them where actually when you take in consideration what we would be paying for transaction fees and stuff, it's really not much of a difference what we're going to.

What do they actually do? Yeah, they're ruthless. They're ruthless when you first start.

I think we dangle the carrot. They could get us if they give us a really good rate. So, yeah, they. They basically, they. They go onto your. Onto your site, like as plugin and it means that the checkout will be localized for Europe. So like, for example, Germany, it'll be. They have all the local payment options.

I just did that with Shopify payments.

You come with markets now? Sort of. Yeah, it's not quite as good.

They don't have all the different payment options on there.

Ideal.

And yeah, also to sell into Europe and not piss a customer off of loads of hidden taxes and duties, you need to be set up with ioss, which is basically.

I've already done that. Have you not done this before?

No.

Do you have European fulfillment center or.

No, I don't sell into Europe.

Oh. At all.

I don't know really. I will focus on uk US. I wanted to do things, set things up properly. Didn't go down that way. And then globally came around. We thought actually let's just give it to globally and see if gets a bit of proof of concept there. But yeah, what's good is they. They also reckon they can increase conversion rate because something happens on the checkout when it's like cross border where actually they can like payment options or credit cards can like fail your payment or something because they think it's fraud and stuff like that. Whereas they have lots more different data points. Something. So actually you might. You can uplift conversion rate apparently. So they say.

A couple of our clients used them. A lot of them jumped on really quickly after Brexit.

Yeah. Are they good success of it or.

Quite a lot of them. But a lot of them just did it because they had to like straight after Brexit was just so complex and they weren't far. They didn't have enough money to invest into like finding out the best solution that they just had to jump on it otherwise they would have lost like a significant amount of sales.

Yeah.

And it did work. It works. I haven't been close enough to them to know whether it's significant or not.

Yeah, yeah. We can do that for Europe. So yeah, it's annoying. But what we did have, we had. I had. We were. I was running ads into Europe a little bit like a couple of years ago and saw a little bit of success. But just. Yeah, we don't do any ads into Europe at the minute. So I think that's a massive untapped.

Yeah. Because we were just shipping worldwide from the start, which is. I've always done it. It's probably only running ads in the UK but then we were getting quite a lot in Europe. Like 30 of revenue without running ads.

That's how they find.

But all the shipping was. But now I've got European Warehouse. The shipping's fine and obviously the reviews are way better. So we just started doing ads.

How do you.

But we haven't localized the website or anything yet. So it's a bit like one step at a time.

Close it.

Yeah, yeah. I think Germany and Netherlands could be solid. We're doing Germany Amazon.

You just localize a landing page short like.

Yeah.

Just pay someone 50 quid to translate all the trans. And just read.

Yeah, yeah.

Just localize One landing page straight to checkout. And then that's like easy proof concepts.

That's a good idea, actually.

Yeah.

And isolate the landing page so it doesn't link to any of the rest of your website other than like FAQs and shipping. We just installed a lot of. This is a free plug for an app. There's an app called Wonderment. Have you seen that?

Yes. What is that about? I was on the landing page of a day.

It basically moves all of your shipping. So usually if you send shipping notifications, obviously it redirects them to dps. Is webs or dpd. Dps. Dpd. Then you track it. It moves all the tracking into your site. So then you have that whole landing page. It'll allow you put like. It'll have track your parcel. You enter it and then the widget comes up on MOV's site.

Oh, really?

Then the benefit of that is you can up. You can obviously have FAQs there underneath it. You can have like, you can sell. And then also you. You move all of the. You move all of the shipping emails into Klaviyo. So then you can sell in the shipping emails as well. You have to get the shipping emails approved by Klaviyo. I just think it's a much better experience. And it's 39amonth at the moment. I think it's just a good bra. I've literally. We haven't rolled it out across any clients because I'm just testing it on Tev first.

Was it Wonder man?

Wonderment. I'll send you it. I'll send you it. Just. I think it gives a real more of like a big brand feeling. If you've got that internalized into your website, it's probably like just makes them think that they're even bigger than you are.

Do you have like upsells and stuff on there?

Yeah. So we've got like, what the way we've got it set up. I'll send you the. They'll send you the thing. It's like the track. Then underneath we. We have a push to. Our ambassador program is like the thing we had. Sorry. We have the tracking, then the FAQs. So minimize tickets. Because customer service is like long.

Yeah. Yeah.

So like our order volume at the moment, it's like we need to minimize tickets because it just gets to be a nightmare because of the tickets.

You think, is it slow?

No, we're doing like. We're doing like 2, 000 orders a day. Ish. For TEV, which is a lot of obviously that's a lot of volume because it's a low ticket, but not this mid ticket. Like lowish mid ticket. So for that it's a lot of them is just like silly questions that could be those FAQs. I just got the CF CX teams do like a report for 60 days, send me the most answered questions. Then if it's like right below that tracking, it's hard for them to miss it. So just less tickets, less people, less time.

Yeah. Is that. Is that brand the same one that people like? I've seen loads of people on Instagram, like, say, I've got this fragrance and stuff, like the same as.

Yeah, it's just inspired by fragrances. Yeah.

Same company. Or is it like. Was that another thing? It's almost like a bit of a. It loads people up. I know. Keep putting on their stories. Like, I've got this. This thing.

It could be. There's a couple of competitors that we're definitely the biggest in the uk. There's a really big one in the US called Dossier D O S S I E R. But we've not launched the US yet. We're just doing uk. There's one called Noted Aromas. Well, and ours is the essence for world, obviously, Connors. But then I joined to grow that and then the other brands and it's. Yeah, it's just. It's just. Yeah, they are pretty. Not. This is a sales pitch if he's going to put this in. But they are pretty identical.

Yeah.

Like. And most, like, until I got involved, I didn't know that most of your fragrances are like 90, just ethanol, which is like.

Oh, really?

97 of it is just alcohol, which costs nothing.

That's mad.

So they're making. Can you imagine knowing the margins that we make off the products are price. The margins that they make off stuff like Dior fragrance at 200 pound a.

Bottle is because you guys kind of. Is it similar to the designer ones? Did you get in trouble for that.

Or like TikTok tried to take us down two weeks ago, tried to ban us and I've complained and sent him like some documentation and they changed their policy. In response to our email, I was just like, read this and they come back to me. They changed the policy.

So it's like out to make it okay.

Yeah, just. Just. You can't.

Martin is the richest man on Twitter. He's not honestly genius.

So, yeah, you can copy. Like we never mentioned, like some of the competitors, like you go on Dossier's website Biggest in the us. It'll just say like Tom Ford below it, which that's. That's dangerous. Like slapping another brand's name on their product to sell. It is just. Just like a no go. So we don't do any of that. We just. We just say inspired by Aventus, for example, which is bestseller. Yeah.

But even saying that, inspired by the actual.

Not copyright. You can't copyright. You can't. Maybe you can copyright Dream Dust, but I don't think you will be able to.

Well, someone sent me on that. I'm gonna regret saying this. Someone. The day I launched, someone sent me this massive American brand that has a product called Said Name you won't be able to copyright. That's what I thought.

I don't really know.

Having said that, I trademarked Rainbow Dust in the UK and America.

Oh, really? Don't know.

I've just cost myself a lawsuit. We've got a big insurance policy we haven't got into. It doesn't sell as well as Rainbow Dust anyway. And people are saying they don't like the taste. So I'm thinking I've flopped it.

Really.

I've not tried it yet.

I genuinely use it every day.

Really.

But the thing with taste, right. I've noticed this. You can't please everyone.

No, you can't.

Some people, loads of people said Rainbow Dust was too sweet. So I changed it, made it less sweet. Then everyone said it's too bitter.

That's just subjectivity, innit?

Yeah.

Applies to everything. I think the keys for supplements is like that it works. Yeah. And not even that. It works over a long time frame. It's like giving someone a perceived benefit as fast as possible. So like they instantly think they've got a benefit.

I do genuinely think Rainbow Dust is actually a lot better than I ever thought it would be. Yeah.

I only have one qualm with it and that's because I just need one of those stirrers. So you're not. Yeah, well, not dropping next week.

Frothers.

Problem solved.

Would you do a bar?

Bar.

Yeah, bar. Be brilliant. Like the grenade, you know.

Yeah. I've looked into it and these that.

Work is stuff like that.

It's one step at a time in it and that's. It's like the cans, but the cans are more you could do content with in worst case. And you can. You can start as little as 10,000 cans. It's expensive, but that's what I'm doing. But a bar, just a bit risky. Yeah.

Although I did have this Idea of.

Doing like a Willy Wonka bar, pretending it's got real magic mushrooms in it and literally selling it as magic mushroom bar, even though there's nothing in it. No one can tell me off with that. Just like viral spec and put a golden ticket in one out of every thousand bars. And if you win it, you win a DeLorean or some shit.

That's a good idea. Would you play Willy Wonka in the video?

Yeah, that's a good idea. I just get weirder and weirder.

You can be your Umpa Umpers, mate.

Oh, yeah. Well, I need to take some real shit if I can play Willy Wonka.

Yeah.

Christ.

I think would be good because I'm always on the go. Like, I run into Garage by Gray Bar.

I'm addicted to Grenade Oreo. New one.

That Drop had that one. But it's insane.

I say addicted. I'm like three a week. But yeah, I would pay good money for that. Yeah.

So I definitely. Yeah, So I think it'd be a good thing.

Yeah. The thing with products is there's so many things you could do.

Yeah.

I'm just trying to keep it simple because I've not kept it simple in the past and it went wrong.

Yeah.

So powders are the. So versatile. Margins the best by far. Shipping's way better because you're just shipping the pure product. Whereas obviously, like liquid and shit, it's way heavier.

See, cans been a pretty good route into retail as well, with how they look.

Yeah. Cans is definitely strategic.

Yeah. Do you have a.

Then I've got Gummy coming as well. So that's more like just a cheaper price point upsell and a product. It doesn't actually work that well.

What is your sell by day? Is it lengthy? It's pretty lengthy.

Two years also.

It's not too bad then. It's not like something. So it could be like a couple of months or whatever.

Yeah, no, that. Yeah, it's good. It's good.

Do you need any. Any, like, food licenses or anything like that?

Hopefully not.

Loads of. It's funny because I got invited on some. I had like an interview by the Evening Standard of some the other week. Posted it yet? So if you haven't posted it, it's not. But you know what I mean. And he asked me loads of complicated questions and I just didn't know the answers. Like, customers would know more than me in many ways. But when you don't know something the best. The best answer is just to be honest and say you don't know it. But I just took the piss out of myself and was like, it's not my strong point.

When's that coming out?

I wonder what headline with, yeah, clueless but educated idiot launches mushroom brand poisoning 10,000 children or something.

Is that what you. Insurance as well, like, if anyone.

Yeah, I've got like a 10 million pound insurance policy.

Yeah. What, in case they take something and then.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, it's like a grand a month. It's not that expensive, but I didn't have that in the past.

Right.

Whereas if someone says they had a heart attack because of rainbow dust, we've.

Had to get that for Tev. Like, apparently shipping 100 mils of perfume is classed as a bomb into the us, so you have to manually sign off every single order individually. How fucking long is that?

So long.

Not our problem. But so many tick boxes for stuff like, it's probably. You don't have to. Food standards in the US just don't really exist compared.

I did get a trading standards case about fucking five months ago because they claimed that some customer had said we were selling actual psilocybin. And I just spoke to them and said, that is utterly ridiculous. And they off. But, yeah, here's something to be aware of. And then the ASA sent me a thing because we're running an early Tick Tock ad that mentioned psychedelics. Obviously I've stopped speaking about psychedelics at all, which is really annoying because that's where I want to go with it.

But what do they say?

They said, you can't run this, so you go, you. Oh, really? I stopped running it. It wasn't doing anything anyway. It was just one part of the creative mentioned psychedelics and microdosing.

Some of your landing pages were pretty loose. Early days, though. I remember trying to get Tick Tock.

Yeah.

Trying to get him.

Basically.

We just had to get rid of.

Just like when it's like. Just some of the claims were just like the boldest claims they've ever heard in their life. But it was funny.

Anti cancer.

Yeah.

Yeah. I actually paid a consultant to look at all that and I learned a lot.

You can get in some trouble for making claims that aren't. Aren't, like proven, can't you?

Yeah, there's a lot of stuff like that. So now to get everything looked at before I put it up and I just know what I can and can't say.

You can also bend them. Like, you can be pretty loose.

Most brands are breaking the rules.

Yeah.

But you just. You're not gonna get done for it you just get a slap on the wrist. That's the advice I've had. But it's better not to. I mean especially at this scale. If you're doing 100 mil, it's pretty different.

But yeah, I'm not interesting.

So yeah, it's fucking a whole new world.

How many do you have employees now? How does it work?

Yeah, I got a team of six now I'm trying to. None of them are actual pay employees technically and half of them are outside the uk.

Right.

So. Well six including me, core team. But then obviously we lean on a lot of agencies.

So how do you find other people outside of the uk?

Well it's not ideal and I'm working out how to change that over time.

Yeah, I asked team structure, what's your team structures? Obviously mine's.

I'm actually. I've learned from you. I'm actually getting better at this shit now.

Yeah, it's the most important thing about going to business beyond the.

So then I'll tell you how I'm trying to hire. I mean currently it's me. Then I got Florian who's full time, who does operations broadly, which right now includes customer service, stock management, everything, warehouse, everything where website, back end, like all that shit. Lucy was in fucking Hong Kong but it's amazing. I just wish she wasn't in Hong Kong. She manages all the paid content, just the whole system and the pod but the pod separate. Then Brad, he doesn't do enough because he's got other clients and upsets me. He makes the movies and does all the cool brand. Then I recently hired Zara who's doing all the organic and influencers. It's very broad. I feel like at this stage every person that is in the business is doing a lot of stuff. You ain't getting a like specific job title. Then who else? Simon is the fd but so two days a month. Yeah, that's six. But then there's loads of agencies. Amazon agency, PR agency. That was a scam. Not doing that again. Affiliate network agency. That's actually quite good. Start doing a winning shit.

Does that work?

Yeah, but it's just. It's like profitable but the scale is so small. But it's just a long term thing. Then obviously AKM running the ads. Sorry.

So I'll get over it but I'm.

Now trying to hire an MD basically which I thought was too soon but then loads of people came to me and as I started speaking to them then I was like hold on, if they're actually as good as they're saying they are. It would change my entire life.

Well where are they coming from? I think the key to that higher eyes. You don't.

Well one of them is coming from one person potentially from this one here.

You want someone speaks about that after. You want someone who like comes from. You don't want someone coming from a fat business where they've just had to do like very like top level shit. You want someone who's gonna be. Who wants to to be in the weeds far enough so that they can. And someone that understands detail.

Two of the five I spoke to so far I've speaking to a few more and most of them came to me organically. Some of them have come from a recruiter but then don't want to work with a recruiter because then they'll charge me 40 grand fee. Yeah. So I'm just kind of learning by speaking to other candidates.

But your next stage is going to be making them all sync together. Well yeah two of them between all of those team members making more joined.

A business pre million revenue and they were there all the way to a multi eight figure exit. So that's on paper the sort of person you want. But then some of them I spoke to so one of them was the ex CEO of Sneak Energy which shouldn't say but they sold to private equity after like four years. I don't but he was very. It seems that operations only whereas this other guy is at operations but growth first which I think has to be the case. Yeah and then there's a few others.

If he's watching connection to that. So.

Yeah I know you do. Yeah. The founder. So yeah I mean if they're as good as they say they are the salary is not even that much when you get it down and like obviously they'd want equity vested over four years probably with a one year clip. All that protect yourself. It's cheaper than a agency in a way.

Yeah.

By the time you actually do the.

Maths on it it's not that expensive to pay someone like 75 where it is in the grand scheme of things.

It'D be a bit more than that. But yeah.

100 or something like that or not.

Yeah about that. I mean it depends who it is but around that like 100k a month broken down a month at eight and a half grand.

Yeah.

It's really not that much. Think about how much you spend on other stuff that isn't moving the needle. So that's true because I just don't want to be in charge Of. I mean, ultimately I still would be, but I'm way better spent just on products and brand broadly. Yeah.

Put yourself in the right seat and hire people better than you and leave them alone.

Yeah. And I think I'm at the stage where actually would make sense.

So you're like, you and then one layer, but that person will probably be the bridge between you and that second, that layer of people. Where are you at? Like, do you have. Because we have more. We've just started to move into like next year of organizational structure. So we've gone from like, me and Joe COO team. We're now going, me and Joe coo, head of paid, head of head of performance, head of ops, head of retention, head of sales and then team. Where are you at? Where's your stage?

I think this year we're trying to build that thing in. Where there's. There's layers at the minute. I think especially with fashion, where you've got lots of different parts. Like you've got.

Yeah.

Products, you've got like buy in merch. Then you've got a customer service. What else? Like it. It's. I've been hiring. It's like. There's only been one person in that, like team.

But horizontal.

Yeah.

Yeah. But just started to, like, now that we've got like a customer service manager, then we've got someone below him. We've also got obviously Rosie's merchandise. Then we've got merchandising assistant below.

Excuse me.

But I think, yes, this. This year, trying to put something better in place. I've started bringing a couple of people like Charlie and stuff are a bit more senior who I wanted.

Yeah, he's really good. He's switched on. He's a great guy.

Yes. There's a couple of people there that I can kind of have as like the people below me to start with and then have people blow them.

Are they all pay employees rather than like freelancers and contractors all pay?

Yeah. I want to build the team. I want to build the foundation properly. Obviously we do have some. Ain't seen stuff like, obviously work Ollie and that. But majority is. And we. We do have this consultant that also kind of slots in and helps with the team a little bit in there. Is that where we don't have staff in slot CRM. Obviously we've got a company we use that basically come into the team and almost act like a bit of an. Like they're part of the team but aren't actually part of the team.

We've just partnered with them. Properly.

Have you?

Yeah, I've met him.

Who's that?

It's called the Growth Foundation. It's a guy called Rich Chapel.

They're based at 180.

Yeah, I got intro to him through Tick Tock. But then it was coincidence that you also worked with him.

Yeah, I've seen them all over LinkedIn. What's the deal?

So he used to work for the Hook Group he founded. Yeah, he found it. But he found it at the Hook Group. Well, he didn't found but he was really early on in their ingenuity, which is their like agency. They've got the Hook Group, then they've got that, which is agency. But then he started that. It's basically an agency but their model is like we'll go in, we'll audit and then we'll, we'll sort in and then they'll either they'll pick up some functions but then they'll try and hire themselves out. So we're, we're partnering with them because. Yeah, just sort on a few bits. They are really. He's just really experienced also when he goes into a business he can. I think when you're going in on that basis you can be a lot more candid. I'd really find it like if, if I was too candid with some of our clients, but about some things that I think they should do, they probably tell me to off. Whereas I feel like if he goes in and tells him something I'm probably going to listen to him or they're going to listen to his team more. I'm only at odds in his mop with his model in a few places. I think there's some things that brands just shouldn't have internally fundamentally just by one media buying.

Yeah, I actually agree really.

I think just because I think like if you think like one person working on your brand or a guy working on five brands similar ilk or similar size or similar performance. Obviously I'm going to say this, but I'm going to, I'm going to counteract that. Say like we do email in house but I actually think most brands should do email in house. We do it. Sorry, we do it for brands but I think beyond a certain size owning your like.

Yeah.

I'm starting to think that CRM internally is probably a good idea because you know your customer more than we're ever going to know.

Yeah.

And you can go way more in depth.

Yeah.

But I think like having a media buyer who's spending 300k a month on four clients rather than just on YouTube is a net beneficial thing. It's just. It is more expensive though because of the way this.

Yeah.

Formatted. But then the person you've brought in brings more than I. I can tell he's very experienced. So like we. Yeah, he's really good and he brings more than just the media buying. Like he's more T shaped. Like he knows he's very much like T shaped. That's when you know a lot.

I think.

You know what, maybe deep on one.

Thing I wanted to bring him because I wanted someone who. Some of the, some of the like the reporting and stuff we set up, it's just moving forward is going to really help us and just having someone who is in the team who can even like pick up with henna and stuff, like influence and stuff.

Full.

Yeah.

Brings everything a bit more full. Sir.

Does anyone have equity?

No. Apart from me.

Would you ever consider that like over the long term?

No, probably not.

At your stage.

You know, I don't, I don't really. I feel like for me the only, only time I would release equity is if I could kind of take a bit of skin out the game myself rather than bringing someone to invest money. I wanna obviously have. Being 100 owner of a business and. And at our stage it's still very risky. Like you could go under like tomorrow and then not be left with much really. You want to be able to secure your future a little bit, don't you? So I think that's the only thing I would do. But I. No, I don't really think so. I just want to keep it running. My Running myself really.

That's fair.

But yeah, going back to the, to the structure. Yeah, we would. I think we're getting to the point this year where we will kind of start having more layers. But we had a chat off convo and I said yeah off camera. And I think definitely one of the biggest struggles for me is as well is similar to Matt in the sense that because so many people are reporting into me, I feel like I'm not able to function in a way that I want to be, if you know what I mean.

I call it cognitive load. Like such a thing, all these phrases. It's such a thing that I've had. So I had. I used to have it. And our COO is going through the same process because he's got too many people reporting to him. So I have to. I've been like. I was like, so you should do this. I think this is how I got him off it. I did it by just like removing. Just telling people to go speak to other people. But like, I got in for two weeks to order every single question he got asked in a document, then also book it them into categories. And then I was like, right, what should not be coming to you? What's like a process that we can build so it doesn't have to go to anybody. So we do like Friday deliveroo for all our staff. And it was like he was having to order it and he was having to get all these questions. I was like, why is that even happening?

That must be quite expensive, that every week it's like 10 grand a month on delivery. Now do the math. 60 times, 30 times 4.

No, but not everybody gets. Not everybody orders every week. I don't order. Joe, don't order. It costs about four and three hundred quid a week. So it's like, it's not. It's not cheap, but it's like, it's good because it gets everybody in the office on a Friday, which is undervalued. Then audit is time. And then it's just like. Because I think that is mass. Like having to think about less.

Yeah.

Is so underrated. I think just not having this comes, like, to stress and it also allows you especially. It's probably more important for you too, because you're even in more of a creative job. I think the more stuff you have in the plate, you're less creative. You can be. Yeah.

So that's why I want to hire someone to run the damn thing, so I can just fucking.

Yeah, yeah, that's right.

Pink rooms and design.

Your leverage comes from big ideas. Like, just remove yourself until you get to that point.

Yeah.

But you'll have that issue with reporting and, like, just questions and like.

Yeah.

Too much complexity that you can't even like, start to have time to make sense of it. So it's almost pointless.

Yeah, exactly. So I've definitely started things that already, like, I've said to people, don't put a meeting in with me unless you ask me first. Because I've. I started to find. We have used teams. I've started to find. All of a sudden I've got like five meetings put in. I didn't agree to any of them.

It's like whacking your calendar.

You waste my whole day. I'm like, I've not done anything. Actually. I've not done anything to move the needle because, I mean, sat in a meeting I didn't need to be in.

What do you think moves the needle most?

It's a good question. I thought, I think, like right now.

To get to the next step, whatever you think that is, what do you think is the most needed moving thing you can do?

I think I need more of an influence on. On the content we're doing and then. And the product as well, I think.

On that bombshell, as always, subscribe to the pod episode 63. It's been a pleasure. Catch you in the next. Sa.