Quitting millionaire investment banking career to start a £ 9-figure cat food brand | Marco Pacifici

How big do you need to be revenue-wise to be the third biggest?

Oh, not that big. Like, realistically, like a billion? I think it's possible.

How many years do you think a billion takes from here?

My life. My lifetime is probably my, like, my life's work realistically. You need to be as JPM defines an ultra-high net worth individual.

What's that, $20 million?

$30 million.

Yeah.

$30 million US dollars.

Why do you need to be $30 million in your opinion?

We basically put the position like we're— we almost basically tried to sell the company by, by Q3, Q4. No, no buyers by the end of it, right?

Before we dive too, too deep into that, we're back on the Midnight Pod. This is episode— episode, I don't know, like I'm gonna say 100 and something. I might be corrected by many people watching. Finally brought the pod back, more trying to be more efficient. I said I'd do one every week. I think one every week is a big ask unless you do like batch filming because it's just fucking hard to keep on top of. I think it's been a month since my last episode. We're here with Marco. How do I pronounce your second name? Marco Pacifici.

Pacifici.

Oh, I've missed like a whole section.

Don't worry about it.

Pacifici. Italian background, right? Founder of Untamed, who I would say you've got to be the biggest cat food brand in Europe now, at least the UK, or certainly the fastest growing.

We're the third biggest, I think we're the third biggest cat food brand in the UK. I think we're probably, you know, other than the big boys, I think there's maybe one or two that are slightly bigger than us in continental Europe. Yeah. So maybe we're like 5th biggest, like, cat food brand in Europe, something like that.

Wearing the t-shirt.

Very appropriate.

Is that just because of the podcast? Is that just your default?

Both. Both. I have very few t-shirts, so I just cycle them very, very frequently. I don't have a big wardrobe.

Yeah. It's either a weird, like, promiscuous looking shirt or it's a black t-shirt. But actually the black polo is slightly new.

I knew you'd wear black, so I wore white instead. I said, if Matt is going to wear black, I'm going to wear white.

And you co-founded with Lenny and Ben. Yeah, yeah. Who I've met both of, but I seem to not get the names as quickly as yours. We don't know them quite as well. And I was first introduced to you through Five Seasons, one of our shared investors.

That's right.

Just slightly deeper into you guys than us currently, but probably because your growth trajectory sounds like it's been far better in the past year. I'm trying to figure that one out. In November 2023, before we closed our first round, And it was actually weirdly, it was with Giancarlo, you're right. Yeah. Who?

It was at some hotel.

I think it was the Hoxton.

I don't remember.

It was central London and I was trying to think now why I was with him.

I have no idea why he's not actually part of FSV anymore, I think. I don't, I don't, I don't think so.

He's not one of the, he's like the food guy.

Yeah.

He's the technical guy. Yeah. And I was going through, it's quite a strange situation 'cause I was like hanging out with him. Yeah, you guys were just going for drinks or dinner or something. Yeah, it was very early in the due diligence, and I'd never raised venture money before, any proper money for that matter. And I was like, oh, are they going to invest, or are they going to find loads of skeletons? And he was like, oh, well, meet Marco. He started this cat food brand. And I remember you telling me the story, high level, which we're getting to, of when you started the brand and how you've been in finance before. I think I joked, and I— well, it's just a fact, like You're probably a more conventional founder.

Oh, for sure.

For a fund like Five Seasons. Yeah. And I don't think they'll mind me saying that. Ex-finance, actually had a proper job, and then you chose to make no money for many years, which probably isn't the case now, isn't the case now, and then going to Stanley Catfood. Whereas I was just never, I never had a proper career. I was just like this fucking founder that gradually sort of started stuff.

And yeah, I would say.

So how did you get into all this? Like, I mean, what's the high-level background?

Well, I will say on the money front, I still don't make nearly as much as I could have made if I stayed in banking.

Yeah.

Hopefully that changes in I don't think it's going to take 2, 3, 4 years.

I mean, as in in terms of—

Yeah, well, yeah, let us see how it all plays out for sure. Yeah. I mean, Italian by birth, grew up in Africa, mechanical engineering in the UK, Warwick. And then I met— I went to work at Morgan Stanley with Ben. So Ben and I met at MS. We were together for— we lived together like we were interns together. So him in London. In London. Yeah. Yeah. We literally sat across, as you and I are now, we sat across that desk from each other for the first internship, and then we lived together for the first 2 years. And so for those first 2 years, him and I were just like bouncing crazy ideas off each other, and we became very close.

About starting something that wasn't in finance?

Yeah, yeah, like we were just chatting the most ridiculous ideas and crap and whatever. And then I think it was like 2020, 2017, him and I met in Jakarta and we stayed at a nice hotel and just again, just did a session of just like 3 days, just intensive thinking of ideas.

I was thinking you'd say 3 days of Ronas.

Sorry?

I thought you were going to say 3 days of Coronas.

No.

The slight dichotomy quickly of the Space Goods oat mushroom latte next to a Rona, and I've chosen the Rona, which I think actually somehow gives you better focus in a podcast context.

It certainly either lowers the bar or raises the stakes. Who knows?

Exactly.

So we met, we did that thing for 3 days. Him and I always kept on talking. And then in December 20th, 2018, Ben had this event with his cat Shan. And I think that that kind of kicked it all off for us. And we're like, okay, well, there actually is something to be done here. Like there is a problem in cat food. And, you know, I quit my job.

You said the event with the cat, what do you mean?

So Ben's cat Shan was sick, like fundamental stomach issues.

Guy or girl cat?

Guy cat.

Okay.

Sean is a—

Sean. It feels like an ambiguous name.

I know, but it's a— this is, you know, we're Italian. So we have weird names. Well, I don't think that's true anyway. But he basically went to the vet and was like, look, vet friend said just try feed him boiled chicken.

And he did.

And health immediately improved. Poo was better. And so that gave us the kernels. Like, okay, is there something here?. And then we also, you know, you do the market research. I think it's like bankers, you're just like, hey, what does the market tell us? So we looked at, we looked at, uh, like market share and just said, look, that's the complete opposite to how I approached this. There could be something here.

Yeah.

And, uh, then I proposed to my wife and quit my job and, uh, and then moved back because I was in Australia at the time as part of working at MS.

Yeah.

So I did 2 years here.

Yeah.

Then Ben went to do his, his startup with another company, and then I moved to Australia. So I was doing investor banking in Australia for 4 years. And then again, we kept on chatting and then I quit my job there and flew back here.

So post uni, you were entire career at Morgan Stanley before this?

Correct.

What do you actually do at Morgan Stanley?

I've had one job before this.

Yeah. People know you make a lot of money, quote unquote, or you certainly there's a path to, but what does that involve? Are you in M&A?

Yeah, so I was in the financial sponsors coverage group. So that means I covered private equity clients. Most of what I was doing was modeling like LBOs, so leveraged buyouts. For private equity or IPOs. So, you know, like an IPO for private equity. So you are basically the, you know, modeling guy or modeling or like presentation. So like, you're either making Excel like models for companies or you are moving logos across the screen to say these are the companies to buy. So, you know, your company and my company will be many analysts, like they're moving our logos across.

Do you think that's happening right now?

For sure.

Even at a company of my scale compared to yours?

For sure, yeah, definitely. Maybe not like one of the big banks, but definitely one of the mid-tier banks, like, I don't know, like Houlihan, Raymond James, something like, I don't know, but like places where the minimum fee would allow a deal like yours to happen.

Yeah.

Or a deal like mine to happen as well. Like, we were definitely on those sheets.

Yeah. Do you think being in that environment is what kind of sparked looking at opportunities, or were you always interested in stuff entrepreneurially then, just Just so happened that there was a cat illness.

Honestly, I think, uh, I, I have, uh, I'm probably more of a doer than I am a thinker. So I didn't know what banking was when I started. I had no idea.

How'd you get into it? What was the trigger?

Um, this is a very funny story. At least I think it's fun. I don't know, other people find it funny. Uh, I think I was very fast at answering what the sum of 1 to 10 was, and I think that really impressed— sorry, 55.

How fast were you when you didn't know the answer? Instantly.

Yeah.

And I was instant because definitely a bit of tism going on a little bit.

A little bit. But every founder, but my tism is because I used to on the calculator do 1 2 3 4 5. And so I remembered what it was, but there is an equation for it. So yeah, I immediately said 55 and the guy's like, oh, how did you do that? And then I have to remember the guy being in an interview. Yeah.

Okay.

And also because I'm Italian fully. But I don't sound Italian.

So when Italians— that international school, actually.

Yeah, I did go to international schools. When Italians interview me, they're like, oh wow, you're so good at English. I'm like, yeah, but because I'm not really Italian. So I think that impressed people. And I think those two facts was why I got the job. I don't think— like, I had no idea. People around me are like, oh, you know, there's private equity you go to next, there's all this stuff you do. And I didn't know what EBITDA was. I had no idea. I did engineering. I did mechanical engineering. Yeah. So for me it was all new. I love that.

Why not go into engineering then?

The interview process was too long. I'm not joking. Like this was my thought. It was like, I can't be bothered to finish.

You didn't even try? Or you didn't finish it?

I did one. I did BP and then I was like, this is too long. And Morgan Stanley replied back before I even got those like done. So I was like, okay, done.

How intense is early year banking in a investment bank like that?

Extremely.

Because you hear stories of always toxic or extremely. Was that, did you find that extreme in a good way or did you think, oh, you burn out and all this? Or do you think that actually sets the foundation?

I loved it. Yeah, I know that many people don't like it. The first year I did 10 weeks in a row, not a single day off. Not a single day off.

When you were how old?

22. Yeah, 22, something like that. 20, 21, maybe 22, probably. Yeah, I did. It was a deal, so I did 10 weeks on immediately.

7 days a week.

7 days a week in the office. Yeah, in the office for sure, because it's the only way you couldn't, you know, it was 10 years in the office on a Sunday. Yeah, yeah, every day, because you just take the car in and you just at the desk. You have your boss calling you at like literally like midnight on Saturday and you're just— at the time I was in bed, I remember I was just on my phone just making the trades.

I kind of like that. I think that builds a person.

Yeah, I loved it. I didn't mind it. I mean, the money was great and you were learning a lot.

How much were you earning at 22 in MS?

So, I mean, maybe I think the starting salary was 45 base and then the bonus is 100%.

And this was what, 13 years ago-ish?

Yeah, something like that. I would have to look back.

I'm 35, so good for 22 though.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and now the salaries are going way up, but basically if you're top tier, your bonus would be 100%.

Really? Even at 22? Yeah. So you're making 90K at 22 if you hustle and do well?

Yep. Yeah, that's what I did. Yeah. Um, that's, uh, that's— and usually about 5% of people will get top tier, but I don't know if this ever changed, by the way. Like, this is all, yeah, old, old knowledge. So, uh, I think what's happened now, my guess is bases have gone up and bonuses have come down. My guess. I don't know, I don't know, I don't know anyone in this anymore, so I'm not, I'm not sure if that's the case or not.

So pre that, had you ever even thought about being a founder? Because for me, like, I don't know where it came from, but when I was 12, I thought I wasn't going to have a normal job.

No, I, I didn't think about it. So Ben, Ben, Ben and I— Ben really kind of pushed me down this path, and I felt that I had enough financial security when I was, you know, I'd done 6 years in banking, so I had a good bit of savings, and I felt like I could float. So I'm like, look, worst case scenario I do this 1, 2, 3 years, I fuck it up, and then I'm out, and then I go back to banking.

Yeah.

Now that story is no longer possible because I've been doing this far too long. So, um, I don't think I could go back to banking.

You honestly think you couldn't? As in you wouldn't get in?

No.

Even out of choice, say you just sold Untamed tomorrow, back to banking?

No, I wouldn't go back to banking now. I would—

you couldn't, or you wouldn't? Uh, would they let you in, do you think? Or have you literally lost the skills?

No, no, I haven't lost the skills. I could do it. But I think, I think now my skills would be more complementary to like VC, VC investing, or, yeah, or like, like a growth fund or something. I think that would be a more sensible place of where to go, more of a blended and rounded skill set, probably.

Yeah, just numbers.

Because, because, you know, like, there's 50 people that I manage. Like, in banking, you don't manage anyone, you just manage your, your immediate team. So, like, the skills that you now needed, like an MD— I would never go in an MD level, they just wouldn't let me. Um, maybe ED or VP or something. I think that would be credible. Then you build yourself back up to, to to the MD level. Uh, if I were in banking, I'm 35, so by now it's possible that if I was good, if possible, that I could be an MD.

How much would you be making?

I think— I'm speaking completely out my ass— I think MD salaries are, depending on the bank, between £300,000 and £600,000 base, and bonuses can be up to 3 times. So like, the best in London, the best MDs in New York— New York makes like 40-50% more than London salaries, so Yeah, so you, you really just want to be in America. Um, so like a good MD, you're, you're clearing a million, you're easily— you're probably clearing 2 million, you're probably like the 2 million mark. If you're great, you're probably—

how many people that come in at 22 that are good at 22 you think make, make it to that?

Very few, because most leave to, to do, to do something of higher value. Yeah, you go to private equity, make more money. Yeah, so, so, so of my class, we were 100, about 100 analysts, whatever. I reckon there's less than 5 remaining in the bank.

You think you just have to be a fucking demon to want to stick at it long enough? No.

Define demon.

Just like fucking love the grind and just love chasing the money.

No, but not, but not, but not. I will insult people if I answer this entirely, but no, not for that. I don't think for that reason is what, is what, is what makes it, makes it to the end. Yeah, I think I think there's also like survivor bias, right? Like, yeah, if, if, if 60% of your class are gone within 2 years, which all go to private equity, you're left behind. Not in a bad way, like you, you just stayed, so the other one to invest in you. But a bank will never compete with private equity on salary. They just won't win.

So why would you stay in banking if it sounds less interesting and you make less money?

It's not less interesting. I mean, I think it's definitely interesting, um, but this is what I mean about survivorship bias. Like Some people are just built for that job. And some people like it. It's just a different, it's a corporate in a way, it's different. I have full respect for bankers. I really love my time there. Like in Australia, you can make a true career out of it. I think it's a very, it's a really cool job. I know that people don't, you know, suffer from it, but I had a really good time. I would be happy to be an MD at a bank.

Would you recommend that start working at an investment bank at say 22 to someone that's just ambitious and doesn't, maybe doesn't know what they want to do today?

100%, yeah, definitely.

It's a good foundation.

100%, yeah. It's like a, people have compared it to like army training because you just learn. I mean, obviously army is hard. I'm not trying to like say that this is hard, but you learn from people who are ambitious, who like teach you structure. You know, my mouse was taken away from me as a joke, right? But like, learn how to use just the keyboard. Or I mean, I actually— Yeah, but like a little bit of a joke, like you can obviously take it back. Like no one's actually enforcing it, but I've taken mice away from, from analysts when I was, when I was a little bit more senior. That was like, you need to do this without, without a mouse. Like, if you want to survive the night, like, if, if you don't learn how to be fast, you're working till 3 or 4 in the morning. So you need to learn to be—

is that many on spreadsheets in Excel?

Excel, yeah. All, all, like, if you're not good at using PowerPoint, like, learning how to quickly move the boxes around, like, logos around— I'm not joking— you will stay till very late at night if you have low attention to detail, your boss is going to make you redo the pages over and over and over again until they're perfect. Like, I had one boss who just looked at one mistake on page like 6 of a 60-page deck, that he found a mistake, say, look over the whole thing, and then didn't bother. So he's not going to look through the whole thing until I've given him confidence that I've, you know, that I, I've, you know, he's part of the first mistake, he's not going to look through the next 50 pages until—

Well, now that's changed with Claude and stuff. Now people must just be churning, probably, or they've banned it.

I think it's probably much better now. It's probably much better. I mean, Claude can do this stuff now. So I imagine it's a lot easier. I just don't know how much those places can integrate, like for security reasons, you know? I have no idea.

So come back to Untamed then. You get to 28-ish, I think you said. What was the final straw in saying, you know, fuck this, I'm going to go build a cat food brand?

There was no final straw. Again, when I quit to my boss, I cried. I was very emotional about it. Like, I loved my job. I didn't want to leave, but I had proposed to my wife. I felt, my now wife, I felt like I had enough security. I felt like the idea was backable. And I'm like, look, you know, you only really get one shot, one or two or three shots in life to kind of try something crazy. So I said, fuck it, let's do it. Let's go for a ride. Like, this feels like a worthy cause. What I remember is when I was like in engineering, I liked the thought of like dealing with like a physical product. And in banking, you don't deal with physical product. Like, it's just a service. And here you were, you know, we are selling cat food. Like, I love that bit of it. Like, I love the fact that we're dealing with like an actual product. So to me— and sorry, I'm Italian, so I feel the need to use my hands.

That's good.

I apologize.. But yeah, I love the fact that we're dealing with like an actual physical product. And I think that is extreme. For me, that is a very enjoyable part of the job. And so I said, fuck it, let's try it. My wife was on board. Thank God for her because she kept on working. So like, you know, like it's not like I had to live in like subsistence. We didn't pay ourselves a salary for 18 months. And then when we did, we paid ourselves basically minimum livable wage in London. When we first started taking money, it was like, 40K. So we were on that salary for probably more than a year.

What do you think was a bigger part in inspiring that? Was it the cat who was called Shan situation, or was it just having the banker mindset and looking at TAM and growth and all this stuff, or was it a bit both?

For me, probably the latter.

Yeah.

For Ben, maybe. I don't know. I don't want to speak for other people. Probably more the cat thing. But you know, it was a little bit of like a meeting of minds because Ben has like 30 to 50 cats at his grandmother's house.

Wow.

I had at any point in time, my grandmother built a fence that went inwards in her house. So she had about 15 cats at any one point in time. So we actually like, wait, this actually makes a lot of sense for us because we have a lot of cats.

Like I've grown up with cats.

I've grown up with cats. Like, but the thing is, it only became a realization when we started. Like, we didn't— we didn't think— you didn't think, oh, we're crazy cat people, now let's do this. It's like, oh wait, this actually all kind of makes sense. Makes sense. Yeah. So then I was like, yeah, actually, this, this is all a very clear picture. But it wasn't— it wasn't— I don't think I'd— I don't think we'd realize that at the time. So at the time, for me, it was like, look, this does seem to make sense. The food is bad, we can make better food. So we didn't think that there was a genuine opportunity to like help cats.

When did Lenny come in?

Immediately. Yeah, Lenny came in immediately. So Ben, you know, yeah, okay.

Did he have a different perspective or was he like, was he plugging something you guys didn't have? Because there's two obvious meeting of minds. You had the bit more of the business and the cat story.

Lenny, Lenny, Lenny is a fantastic co-founder and I'm very grateful to have met him through Ben. So Ben introduced us. Ben and Lenny were working together.

And MS as well?

No, at, um, at, at the other startup that they were at before Intake. Okay, so they were— so Ben left.

Was that in consumer or no?

No, uh, it's in like, I'm gonna say fintech, but I don't know if it is fintech. I'm not, I'm not quite sure what they categorize it as. Um, so they were working there together as founders or team? No, as team, as team, as a team, team. Uh, like Ben was like a director or something and Lenny was like a VP or something. And so Ben was like, you need to meet Lenny, he's very good. I met Lenny, he was very good, and hence he's like, look, I mean, Lenny, Lenny is an absolute, uh, we need to have him. So, so it was like, it was, it was pretty, pretty— I did say I want to meet him in person, so I, I was in Australia. Yeah, I was in Australia at the time, so I said I'll come to London, I'll meet him, and then, and then, and then it was, it was a yes. So like, very quickly it was a yes. But I mean, Ben, Ben was my best man at my wedding, so like, him and I have been basically I mean, best friends for like 15 years. I don't know whenever we first met, but something like that.

I wish I had a co-founder now.

It makes things easier.

You've got 2 co-founders. I wish I had at least one.

It makes things better.

Probably just one, in fact.

It is, it is. I couldn't do it without them. So like without absolute credit to Ben and Lenny, I couldn't do it without them because it's, you know better than me, I think it's quite hard.

Fuck yeah, it's hard. It's also lonely. I think the only reason it's hard, full stop, It's stressful. I think it's, I guess it's statistically unusual, especially in venture-funded companies, which we both are. And investors have said this to me as well, like, you know, because there's bigger expectations. So again, it's statistically harder to get a venture outcome than just, you know, run, I guess, a lifestyle business, which is also fine. But like, they are just different things. And yeah, I kind of realize that now, 4 years in, I'm like, oh yeah, this actually probably maybe wouldn't have been easier. Well, actually, I feel like it probably would have been, but Certainly would have been more fun, probably less lonely in certain parts.

Definitely less lonely. It's also, I think it's also more fun.

And that is solved to some degree by obviously the right team members around you. And some of those I do have, but it's not the same.

Look, I have a bad habit of also, I really feel sorry for Ben and Lenny because they have to listen to my ranting. But like last night we were all on the phone together for about an hour.

Yeah.

And that happens multiple times a week. And it's probably my fault because I talk too much. But I say, guys, you can drop whatever you don't want to hear me talk. But like, we're talking about things. So that has been a consistent feature for, you know, 7 years or however long we've been doing this. So that is the benefit of doing this with someone else is like, look, we're basically married. Like, you know, yeah, he jokes.

He doesn't like me saying quite literally.

Yeah, yeah, we're basically married.

In terms of awake time.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, we spend, yeah, we spend a lot of time together. So we've had disagreements, but nothing that is like Like, there's nothing, nothing is broken, broken, broken anything. So we're just adults, you know, just, you're just like, okay, we talked, no problem, back, back at it. Like, you know, as anyone does in a marriage or whatever. It's a marriage. He doesn't like me saying that, but it's basically a marriage.

Yeah. Anyone give you kind of hate or a lot of doubt when you left a good career trajectory, a more traditional one, to go and start a cat food brand? I guess on paper it sounds a bit dumb.

Oh, it's extremely dumb on paper. Yeah, I mean, I would have a lot of money now if everything— if everything— I mean, it's just a different outcome. I, I think, uh, NPV-wise, this is a better outcome so far. I mean, things can always go to zero, but NPV-wise, this is a better outcome. Um, yeah, um, I, I don't discredit my father for saying this, but my father's like, you're crazy, because of course, like, you know, he has a proper, proper serious job.

Were your parents entrepreneurial?

No, my dad is— my dad was a diplomat. For the European Union. So, uh, that's why I moved, that's why I lived in Africa. Um, uh, so for him it's like, you need to have a job, like you need to, you need to keep doing this. And so, so I don't say he didn't believe in me, but now, you know, now, now it's much easier to see when the business is successful. Yeah, it's like, you know, this is hard. And he's right, like he's right to say you need to provide for your family. Like, he's right, I need to provide for my family. Like, I can't just be jerking around, but it takes time. So I don't begrudge at all. Like, I think, I think it's a very sensible perspective. But that's probably like, no You know, people get it. Like, my wife got it. I said, look, you try this out. If it doesn't work, go back to banking and make up for lost time. Fine, I'll do it, no problem. I have no problem working, no problem working at all. I'm happy to do my bit.

So how does that look then? 3 of you come together. Yeah, you quit your jobs.

Yeah.

What was the time and what did it look like for, I don't know, a few months, whatever it was, between when you committed to doing that as a group and you actually launched? So what was that period like?

So In May, I quit my job. May 2019.

Yeah.

I quit my job.

Just over 7 years ago now.

Yeah, that's right. It's crazy to think that actually, but yes, I moved myself to sleep on Ben's floor. So I bought an Emma mattress. You know the—

Yeah, yeah, I used to have one of them. Best mattress I've ever owned.

I bought a single bed and it had a 100-day return policy, so I returned it. So I am quite frugal, unfortunately, for everyone. I bought and then I returned it because I'm like, I'm only gonna be here a couple days, less than 100 days. And I did that twice. So I basically just scammed the system for a little bit. I slept on Ben's floor until my wife joined, and then obviously we had an apartment. And the first couple days, just working on useless stuff. Like, we could have been faster, but I think we needed the time to figure out, like, we tried to go down the fresh angle. We tried to make fresh cat food.

Like Butternut.

Like Butternut, like Katkin, we tried that. It didn't work for us. Like, for me, my view was, and I think Ben and Lenny would agree, was this is too complicated and the operational and dollar requirements to get this up and to scale this are gigantic. And we didn't know anyone who could back this thing, like who could give us the money that we needed to get this off the ground. And so we dropped the idea. So So we wanted to do something that was, we were trying this from our kitchen, we rented a kitchen. We were trying to do this and said, look, this is, we just can't get the unit economics to work. Like we, even at scale, like you need to believe in some crazy numbers. So we backed out from that idea and said, fundamentally, who is winning in the market? Omnichannel is winning on the market. I distinctly remember myself, Ben, and Lenny were sitting at a cafe somewhere in Shoreditch. I mean, if I look at a map, I can find it. And we're like, what are we going to do here? Said omnichannel must be the way. So we need to find a product that works, like something that we can back, high meat content, no nasties, no fillers, no grains, and start D2C, look to retail, look to Amazon, all this stuff. So basically, I guess our view was that the big, big brands want to buy something that is kind of adjacent to where they are without making like a, a massive leap to something that is completely far more intentional than I was, probably because of your experience.

So do you think that came somewhere else? Because a lot of founders just— well, maybe it's maybe just me, I was like, fuck it, I like the products, I'll make it. Which in hindsight is a really bad way to start a business, or at least— well, at least I wouldn't do that in the next one.

I, I have, I have great respect for what you've done. I think, I think, I think your approach is is different, but I don't think there's a right way to do this. So, uh, you have the information you have available at the time, and you play the cards you're dealt. I've been dealt very good cards, fundamentally, like my upbringing, right? Like, I'm very, I'm very, I'm very fortunate. It's just a fact. I don't think you're as fortunate as me in your upbringing, but you hustled a lot harder than me. Well, you like—

you hustled on a bed for a while. Sorry, he slept on the floor for a long time.

Yeah, but I mean, you know, Yeah, but you know what? You were hustling at like 21-something, right? Like you were doing the other business. I think, you know, I didn't have to do this. I had a very cushy life, so I was able to approach a little bit different. That's just life. Life is unfair. I don't, you know, I don't get to pick this stuff. Yeah, I think we were intentional about it. We were intentional about it. Like we just said, I guess my thought is, our thought is we wanted to do cat food. We suspected that this was, an area of interest for us. Like, we cared about it deeply, so we were happy to put the time in. And then we wanted to build something that ultimately had value.

Yeah.

And for us, we felt that we had higher certainty within, like, a traditionally packaged product. Like, you know, today it's called Pantry Fresh. Yeah, it's, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's cat food that is— that meets all the standards that we're, that we're expecting for our cat food. So high meat content, a clean ingredient list, no, no fillers, no nasties, no sugars, um, but is still in a format that is acceptable for customers. Because I don't know, I don't know if you want me to go into this level of detail, but like cats and dogs are very different.

Yeah, we will. Yeah, before that, did you, you'll quit your jobs before there was anything beyond the idea, or did you kind of work on it? Because a lot of people say, you know, don't quit the job until you've got the first customers, or you you've launched it at least, or did you literally quit the job and it was like, other than idea, blank page, empty room, let's figure this out?

Ben and Lenny did not because they had, they needed the money.

Yeah.

So obviously, obviously I don't hold it against them. I can't do that. I don't, I don't have—

you need the clarity.

I need, I need, I also like banking hours don't allow you to do that.

Yeah. So if there's no evening, weekend, there's no evening or weekend, which is when people typically say to start your side hustle.

Yeah. So like, you know, my dad proposed that, like, you know, why don't you do this on the side? But you can't, like, I'm working all the time. I, I have no other time. So for me, it was easier just— this is a good enough idea. Worst case, if it didn't, you know, if Ben and Lenny, when I was in London, said I don't want to do this anymore, I'll just find a job at an LMS in London. I could do that literally tomorrow. Yeah, at the time, not anymore, but I felt like I could do that. Like, I knew— I knew— I still knew people. So, uh, so I quit with no other plan. Ben and Lenny quit maybe a year in, maybe, maybe 6 months in.

Like, once, once a year, you carry the first 6 months more than them, or did you just manage?

No, I would, I would not. I I would not claim that. I would not claim that. One of our investors said this best, and I really like his framework and how he positioned himself. I think I might be the glue of the company in a sense, like someone who just keeps things together. And probably me quitting did push things to happen.

Made it more real.

Made it more real, perhaps, yeah. But I would not claim that. I think we're all equally— I don't think it would be nice or fair to claim Yeah, uh, that I, that I was not—

any doubt in that period before launch where you thought, oh, this might be a mistake?

Oh, I don't remember, but probably yes. I mean, we've had many— I mean, we've— the company has failed many times, so, so, so many doubts. I mean, there was a time I'm like, if this doesn't— if this deal doesn't close, yeah, I'm out. Like, like, I'm, I'm not coming back to the UK. It was like, like, this is it.

So You know, uh, how did you fund the start then in the context of a deal?

Ben and I put money in, about 50 each, and, uh, and then we, and then we did a SEAS round.

Yeah.

And then, and then another EIS round, and then, and then that got us to basically all the way to, till Five Seasons came in and, uh, and did and led.

But how much did you raise before it was a tangible product with customers? So I think what a lot of founders or people that founders yet but want to be, get stuck on. And it's sometimes the limiting belief that, oh, well, I would be able to grow it if I had a million quid, forgetting that most businesses don't at the start.

250, probably. Yeah, 250, probably. Yeah, something like that.

And then how much traction did you get before you—

Oh, we almost failed right off the bat. We had the wrong product. The first version of Untamed, the one that we launched in September or August or September 2020, was a failure. So we learned our lesson very quick. We had a different— I won't, you know, I won't— I won't talk about manufacturers, but the first manufacturer that we ran with did not have the retention curves required to make it a successful product. So the first 6 months—

But it was the same concept, they just did it badly. Yeah, yeah. And that showed up in retention, you're saying?

Immediately.

Because of what, taste, quality?

Taste. Taste. Cats are extremely sensitive.

How did you get feedback from cats? Did you get on the phone to them, or did you speak to the owners?

Oh, we just look at the data.

Yeah.

We just look at the data. Like, at the time, I'd built a small Excel that could pull the data from Shopify and track trial to subscriber because those weren't available at the time. So I could track like every single day how retention was shaping up over time. And it was bad. Like, you look at these numbers are dreadful. So by December, like, we need a new product. And by February we had a new product.

But how do you clarify that's the cat not liking it versus, I don't know, Karen who's buying it for the cat just doesn't see the economic value in it? Are they kind of the same thing? Ultimately the same thing.

I guess it's a good question.

I suppose ultimately they are, because unlike my product, we just ask the person because they're the one taking it, which is probably good and bad. You get more clear answer on retention, but you also have to please a human, which you might say is actually not as fussy as a cat. But I would instinctively say, well, at least compared to a dog. Dog food must be the best brand because dogs eat anything. Yeah, dogs, you think, is directionally true.

But I think that's true. I think for, for For us, honestly, from what I remember at the time, the data guided everything. So like we just, and we did all stuff customer service, right? So we could look at people saying the reasons for cancellation, my cat didn't like it. It was a pâté product. So I mean, this is getting probably too nuanced for the audience, but it was not a product format that was a large category. So the vast majority of cat food is like shredded or jelly. We were in pâté. So that's like—

And it's still all that now.

It's, it's, it's today it's grave, graveyard jelly, like 96% graveyard jelly.

Yeah.

So we launched with the wrong, with the wrong product and the wrong manufacturer. Like both things were wrong. Now we went, so then by February we're at a different manufacturer. Then we launched a new product. It absolutely skyrocketed. So like by, by March 2021, we had, we had the new product at the warehouse and ready to sell. And that, that just took off. Like that, that was the right product. Like that. That's the V2, the V1, and that absolutely, like, you could immediately— you could sell that retention was 2.5 times better right off the bat.

But how do you know immediately it's better? Are you judging that on retention, which is—

I'm judging it on box one, on trial to box one conversion. Yeah. So you buy the trial and how many people are buying box one.

Has that always been the model? Like, pretty much cheaper trial?

Yes. Yeah, yeah, that's always been the model.

Yeah. Is that just a pet food thing?

I think it might be.

Never works. I see that less in human supplements.

So I would argue, or maybe we should do more of it. Maybe, maybe I can put my Ben hat on, and I think, uh, hopefully I don't, I don't, I don't speak, speak, uh, wrong of his thoughts, but, uh, I think our collective view is, uh, cat owners are so used to food switching that they would be— they are scared by the thought of the price being too high, them having a lot of wasted food. So if you put like a £20 or £30 first box in front of them, like, this is way too much money for me to bet on my cat liking the product or not. So I need it to be like a number that, you know what, I could lose that money and be okay with it. So that's why, you know, we've always had at the £10 mark Trabux. It's like the amount of money you're like, okay, you know what, not a big deal if I lose this money, not a big deal. So small amount, cat does the selling for you because the cat is one who likes the product. They immediately like, you know, I love this thing. And then they buy again. And it's a little bit different to yours because your consumer and the customer is the same person. The customer and the consumer are different for us. And now what we've done is we've obviously evolved our thinking far greater and we have trial lists, cat panels, testing and everything around it. So now we focus really on palatability.

I said something the other day to someone and I wonder if you think it's like, there's some truth in it. I think it was in the context of actually like pharmaceuticals because I knew someone that does telehealth, but, um, I wonder if it's true with pet food. It feels like with human supplements, like what I do, customers need a reason to stay. So naturally it's not that sticky because there's so much— they need a really good reason to stay, or rather a really good reason not to leave almost, because there's so much choice, so much price competition. Certainly in telehealth, like GLP-1 was the example. It feels like, this is what he said, like people need a really good reason to leave because otherwise they'll just stay by default. Whereas in supplements, they'll leave by default unless it's fucking amazing. Where do you think pet food is on that? Because retention, generally speaking, and I don't run a pet food brand, but I've seen some of the numbers, it's a lot better than human supplements.

Yeah.

Does have other challenges.

Yeah.

But have you seen that, or do you still think it's as hard ultimately, and you're fighting for customers and fighting to retain them because it is competitive? And what do you think, because it's not the human eating the thing, it's a bit easier to keep them?

So I think if— I think dogs and cats are very different on this front because a dog will eat basically anything. Cats get more tired of their food faster. So, uh, if the cat likes the food, it's a real slam dunk. It's probably like the example you gave on the GLP-1, right? Like, if the cat likes it, the owner's like, you know what, it's such a big, like, mental load taken off. It's like, done, my cat eats it, that's all I have. Oh yeah, all you ever have to worry about, I just buy this product. On and on again. That's like one big segment of it. I think there's another segment of it which is like, which is the people who, whose cat gets tired of the food, or, you know, yeah, they just get tired of the food or they don't like it as much, and so they just switch out. So I would say it's, for me, it's quite hard to characterize how, how big each one of those kind of, uh, outcomes is. Yeah, they are. We do have some customers that are gigantic in the sense that they've been with us first. They're fantastic people. I love them to bits. They've been with us for so long and they're very consistent purchasing. And then there's others who come in and out. So I think for a cat, it's more about like share of stomach. So how much over a year are you actually going to be contributing to their overall like calories? Because cats get like— if you had to eat the same 4 recipes every single day for a year, would you be happy? Like, probably not.

If I'm locked in at home, maybe. But if you're locked in, generally probably not.

Yeah. Um, I think cats are a little bit like humans or babies in that sense that they get tired of food, and so they need variability. I think someone could argue against me and say, well, you know, why then does Shiba or, you know, Felix consistently win? I mean, they have very good products, and it might just be like the price point is so low that people are okay with wastage. I don't know, I'm not sure. So, you know, like they'll say it's actually okay for me to spend on this product, which is £2 a kilo or £3 a kilo, because it's nothing. Like, you know, that's not a lot of money. Ours is like, you know, more like £10 a kilo. So you really need to be more conscious that you're not actually wasting the money or wasting the food.

Do you ever look back now and think you would have preferred to do dog food? Because cats feels definitely underserved in comparison. Absolutely. Do you think that was why it was better? Because it was less, was it? Well, I think it was less competitive.

I think dog food is hard now. Yeah, I think it's hard. I think it's, I think it's a very—

what you said though, like, it's a very competitive, less fussy. Yes, there's probably more dogs than cats.

There's more cats, but the market, the market is about the same, like market size about the same. I think, uh, Butternut Box is such a, such a winner and a killer. Like, they're so good at what they do that, um, I don't think there's much room for many others. I think it's hard. I think innovation is hard in dog food. So I, I Yes, you might win on taste, but there's so many other vectors that come into play. So I think cat is underserved. I love—

I know you're also a cat guy, so you couldn't have possibly—

Yeah, yeah, it's fair. It's a good point. It's a very good point. Uh, no, we've never really thought about dog. I don't know. Does that answer your question?

Yeah, I guess the next part is, do you think— would you look back and wish you'd done fresh? And you think that was always going to be too hard, given you said that was a blocker at the start?

No, not for cats.

Yeah. No. Why compared to the winners in dogs like Barna?

Because I believe, I don't have the numbers myself, I believe the inclusion rates of meat make it very difficult to have an economic product.

So gross margins too low?

Yeah, fundamentally, yeah, that's a better way of saying it.

So payback's inevitably quite slow and even if the retention rate is high.

I could be wrong, but I think that is fundamentally the issue. Like it's very expensive because Cats are carnivores. Cats must eat meat. Like, this is a fact. So, uh, I'm sorry if I'm doing a little bit of company pitching here. I apologize.

You can get all the clips you want.

But, uh, um, dogs aren't. So dogs, you can get away with like 40%, 50% meat. Cat, you got to go like 60, 70, 80%. So the more meat you put in it, the harder the whole process becomes and the worse economics become. That's, that's, that's my view on it. I can be wrong, you know, Catkin is doing well as far as I'm aware, so, but it's been, it's been, it's been hard yards.

How much do you look at competitors like that? Because I feel like, I mean, you're certainly, you guys and Catkin, I'm not that close to the cat market, but are the only ones I've really seen, given I don't have a cat, but you're very different branding-wise. So I guess, yeah, like how much do you look at competitors? Are they the only real competitor?

For brand inspiration? Almost none. I mean, we're very different because one is fresh and I mean, I like what they do. I think—

Are they fresh?

Are they? They're fresh.

They're like the cat equivalent of Barnet.

Correct. Yes. Yeah. Correct. Barnet Box also has now their cat product, Marrow.

So they have to say that. Have they done cats?

Yeah. Yeah. They have one called Marrow. So it's clearly additional products.

It's a different brand within the group.

Yeah. I think that makes a lot of sense because without getting— I don't know how much people care about pets here, but it's rare that it works for you to have both one brand that serves both cat and dog. You need to have a brand for cats and a brand for dogs. And I think the Butternut Box guys, of course, knew this right off the bat, and that's why they have a different brand for cats, Marrow. And I think, I don't know how it's doing, but I imagine well. No, we never thought about fresh. We tried it, we tried at the beginning. I mentioned that, but we never really, what was your question? Sorry, I think I forgot it.

Well, how much do you think about them? And then also, I guess—

Oh, how much I think about them? Very little.

How much do you look at them and Very nice. You guys are positioned— well, I'm not positioned, but certainly the branding is very different.

Yes.

Yeah, yours feels more mass market to me.

Yes, I bet.

Yeah.

Yeah, so I think my guess— and I'm not trying to put words in anyone's mouth here— my guess would be that they are more like— I think their slogan is 'Love hard, feed fresh.' I think there's a full thing, and it's quite bold. It's very nice. It really pushes out there. It's probably like a little more— probably I would imagine that their audience skew is younger than ours. I think our audience matches the exact like curve of people who own cat, which is like women around 40 years old and, you know, leaders of households. So I think we map the mass market, the like the affordable premium market in a very like precise way. And I think they're probably skewed a little bit younger, I would imagine. I don't know if that's true or not. I think also like Fresh is, more involved in the process. We don't really look at them at all for brand inspiration. Like, literally zero. Literally zero. Like, we have developed our own. We have our own brand identity now. So it's just not really not a thought.

Has your brand changed since you launched?

A lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot.

Like, visually has changed?

I mean, originally the company was called Nala Pets. That's just like the first incorporate. That's like a very small detail, but that quickly changed. Yeah, we have gone through one major rework from the current version to the current version. And then there's been, so I would say that we're probably, Ben might correct me here, but I would say we're probably on like V2.2, 2.3 of the brand.

So did you use an agency for that?

Yes. A bunch of different agencies, Underexposed, I think. Sondra and Tal has helped.

How much difference do you reckon branding has?

How much value or difference?

Well, yeah, like a lot. Do you think doing the rebrand, I guess we'll call it, yeah, um, I don't know how much you spent on it, but assuming you spent a decent amount of money on it, because time, time is a problem.

Time is a real problem.

I don't think we did it very well.

That's the real challenge.

It's had a real financial ROI, or is it basically loosely irrelevant? It's all about retention and it doesn't impact that.

So I would really struggle to tell you how much ROI it has. I would say it definitely has, but brand is so hard.

Like, I don't think it's quite fluffy by default.

It's quite fluffy by default. I think one of our investors was pushing it, and I think they were right to do so. I think they were correct. I think the new brand today is much better than the old brand, so it was definitely the right thing to do. It's— it just took us a long time to do it. I think that is—

that was the most changing things.

Yes, that is the most painful thing, just to align everything, to just make everything kind of round up. ROI, 3 times. If I really had to like, minimum 3 times. I think it was worth it. I have no, I wish we were faster, but I think it was worth it. Like I couldn't tell you, I think we've made millions off of the new brand. Like I think it's millions better, but I couldn't tell you like, how much did we spend? 200 grand? Maybe more. It's definitely made that much and more back. But it's really hard, like, I don't have numbers to track this. It's hard.

How much do you think about what the big cat or pet brands are doing? And probably because I'm very ignorant here, Nestlé Purina is one of them. Mars.

Yeah, Mars. How much do you think about them?

I guess as an investment banker, you probably naturally were aware of those companies in the first place in a way that I probably never even thought about a fucking strategic or even a PE fund or whatever, or even a VC fund when I launched the brand. But Does like what they might be or not be in or like in the future even come into the mind, or are you just focused on let's grow the biggest business we can and stuff like that might become relevant when it, when it does?

So originally the answer was like years and years ago, yes, because we were thinking like at some point it is likely that someone like that would want to acquire some, a business like ours. So we need to build something that can be acquirable or can be, can be, can make sense. Today, honestly, I don't really think too much about it because I think my mindset, my mind has shifted on this. I think today, if we can absolutely nail our fundamentals and our execution, we really can be like a big brand in cat. Like, we could potentially become like— my dream now is I think we can become like the third biggest brand in the world in cat.

Behind who?

Nestlé and Mars.

How big do you need to be revenue-wise to be the third biggest?

Oh, not that big. Like, realistically, like a billion. I think it's possible.

How many years do you think a billion takes from here?

My life. My lifetime is probably my, like, my life's work, realistically. Like, I mean, from It would take 10, 15 years. It would take 10, 15 years to get to a billion revenue. Probably 10, 15 years, maybe less, but something like that. 10 years.

Can you have that? Well, do you see yourself being in the business in 10, 15 years?

Yes.

If you ask me this, like, but can you have that approach when you're a venture-backed business that ultimately will want a transaction at some point?

Yeah, you can.

Is that just a transaction where the early investors might leave but you would stay? Yeah.

Yeah, I think it makes sense. I think it's totally legitimate. Like, look, people want their capital back. Yeah, totally, totally fair.

Yeah, true. Because people often assume the founder leaves or certainly steps back when the business is acquired.

Yeah, look, I'm down to clown. Like, let's figure out what the future looks like. Like, my why is very clear to me. So like, I I don't, I don't have like a— I, I don't, I don't need, uh, like a huge amount of money. I, I'm very comfortable with, with what I have and what I do. And, uh, you know, if this means that this is like a 10-year journey and then at some point, you know, FSV or the others will say, you know what, it's time for us to— this is no longer a good thing for us to stay and we want to leave, someone else come in, that's fine. It doesn't mean I have to go. If they want me out, fine, no problem. But I'm happy to stick around. Like, I don't— I— it doesn't bother me. It really doesn't bother me.

So you brought me to an area I was going to go later, but we'll go quickly. You mentioned something along those lines— you have enough, you don't need that much. How much do you think is enough as a founder?

Oh, and what, and what, what kind of number? Like, you think, like, like dollar number?

Personal liquid, liquid or invested net worth? Not paper net worth, liquid. You need to be an, uh, yeah, it doesn't have to be cash, you know, it could be properties, whatever.

As, as JPM defines a Uh, you ultra high net worth individual, which is that $20 million, $30 million. Yeah, $30 million US dollars.

Why do you need to be 30 in your opinion?

Just to be called—

I like getting specific with this. Everyone talks in loose terms about it. What's the fucking number? You've said $30 million.

$30 million. Yeah, I think to be, to be like an ultra high net worth individual, that, that's how—

what's high net worth? Is it a million, right?

I think it's 5.

Is it?

Okay, I could be wrong, okay, but I think it's 5.

It's a lot less.

Yeah, I think it's 5 or 10. Ultra high net worth starts at 30.

Which is about what, I don't know, £24 million, something like that.

I think that is the, that would be like a good number.

Is £10 million not enough? Because I asked two people I know that founders that both have a lot more than that and they said £10 million is the number. No.

Why? Maybe, enough for what? Define what enough means.

You said it's £30 million, why? Not because it's ultra high net worth, specifically why? You must have thought about it, unless it's just the—

I don't tend to think very much, Matthew.

I think you give me too much credit, I don't tend to think very much.

Um, I don't think that you can buy like a nice house for $10 million. $10 million. I don't think you can live like work-free for $10 million. Are you going to continue working with $10 million? Like, is that, is that it?

No, I feel like you definitely don't need to work past $10 million. And the reason I would give to that—

no, I guess, well, how much does private school cost? How much does a house cost? Yeah, okay, like, this is expensive.

Yeah, I guess the argument is And then my argument disproves my own point because the argument is on, let's call it $10 million, you can comfortably make 4-5%.

Absolutely.

And that's enough income to basically do anything you want. Absolutely. You are right though, that doesn't take into account buying a house or other things. And then you've got less capital and therefore that you wouldn't have that number. So yeah, you probably do need $20 million.

I 100% agree that $10 million, you can live absolutely fine with $1 million.

Oh, for sure.

But, you know, in Bali, yeah, if— yeah, exactly. As in, if you're never going to work, but like, if you want to buy a house, if you want to buy a nice house in Australia— my wife is Australian— $5 million, $10 million.

Crazy. Sydney's crazy.

Sydney's crazy.

It's more than London.

Yeah, $5 million, $10 million, you're, you're like, at $5 million, you're barely getting a house in central Sydney. So like, it's a lot of money. Um, so, you know, I, I would like a lot of kids. I've got two, I've got a third on the way. I'd like another, like, third on the way.

Yeah, popping out.

Yes. So it's, uh, You know, kids are expensive, life is expensive. I don't think $10 million will be enough. Um, I don't need it today, but I think, I think, I think in time, I think, I think, I think, and I think you should aspire to be, you should aspire to be an ultra high net worth individual if you can. $30 million.

Assuming you had that or even more today, would you still want to work on Untamed?

Yeah, 100%.

Why?

Um, I think man must work.

Yeah.

Sorry, I mean, I think man must work.

So therefore you're saying you'd work on the same thing even if you had the money?

Absolutely.

Would you work on something else that was maybe less—

money is not a driver for me, it doesn't motivate me. But, um, yeah, I, I, I'm comfortable. I mean, I, I could stop working and I'd be, I'd be pretty happy, but I don't— I, you know, it's not about that.

But I'm assuming you wouldn't be an ultra high net worth individual.

Of course not, of course not, of course not, no, no. But, but I, you know, uh I think man must work. I think, I think like people die if they don't work. I like, like, I, I look, I look at so many old people, uh, and I just think, uh, it unfortunately— I don't know, people will— I'm sure, I'm sure I might get flamed for this one, but I think people— I think it, I think it's like a mad responsibility to work.

Um, yeah, I do agree. I think I've gone— as you get a bit older, you're pretty mature on this school of thought because I used to have the fantasy of never having to work again. And I still have that fantasy, right? And the money is like being able to never work again, but then choosing not to feels like a nice position to be in.

I think for me it comes from your money.

Yeah, I definitely don't have that security yet. Um, well, compared to some people, I have some security, but you know, compared to what we're saying, nowhere near. Um, I think a lot of it for me comes from a fear place of like, what if I lose it all? Because I've had a business fail, and you said you guys have been close to death, which maybe we can get into in a second. But, um, Sometimes that's a good thing because it's like, are you super paranoid? It's a bad— but other times it maybe makes you make poorer decisions in the long-term frame because you're so optimized that I just can't fail in the short term.

I can totally see that.

Yeah, I think a little bit differently now as to how I did maybe 3 or 4 years ago when I had a lot less.

I think it's—

sorry for interrupting, but that fear, I guess, doesn't go away to some degree.

I, I think if you watch some of the— I've watched some podcasts like the AppLovin guy, I don't know his name, but you're like, there's a certain amount of money where it's like, you know what, now I'm good and I can just keep going. And like, you know, you can't, you can't mess with me. Yeah. And it actually gives you a lot of negotiating power. So to your point, walk away. Yeah, exactly. It's like, you know what, fine, I don't need this. Yeah, you know, no big deal. So, um, I think that is a very nice place to be. Um, yeah, I think, I think that is like an optimal sort of optimum place to be. And as I said, back to— I'm, I'm happy to keep going. Like, I'm, I I don't mind. This is fun. I'm having a great time. I'm very happy to keep going. Like, I don't have immediate need for capital. I don't need to buy like a big boat. I don't need to buy like an air— I don't care for that stuff. So for me, as long as my family is paid for, my kids are paid for, everyone's having fun, I'm having fun too. So I have a very low bar. Maybe, maybe that's my problem. Who knows?

That walkaway ability is interesting. I had a friend— never be careful to allude to who they are— but they're— they'd already sold a business that they had that ultra high net worth, net worth, um, very much self-made as well, which I think really helps. And like, the background was not at all that. Yeah. And they started another brand which people watching this will know, so I'm not going to say who it is. But they basically, long story short, they raised some venture money about a year ago, and we may or may not have one of the same investors as they do, um, or I do rather, you don't. And I think, I mean, if you do anyway, it's an investor in the ecosystem, and they got a term sheet I don't know, a year and a bit ago, and we were talking about it because we had the same investors and we're interested in this stuff. And they had the ability to say, don't need it, kind of. Yeah, I'm not taking it. Fuck off.

I love that.

And then about 3 months later, they closed a deal that was, I think it was 3 times the valuation with no board seat, no pref stack, nothing. Ordinary shares, which is just unheard of for the investor to put the money in. And they were like, yeah, I didn't need the money. I was genuinely willing to walk away.

That is the best position to be in.

And I was like, that very much wasn't the case for me. So it just proves that there is tangible value to that. There is. That's a good example to show it.

There's, uh, if you have something that people want, that's the best, that's the best position to be in. And, and especially if you don't, if you don't need to take the money, you can just say, I'm not interested. Yeah, I love that. I, I mean, I, I, I would love to be in that position. Yeah, I'm not, I'm not there yet, but I would love to be in that position. That's, that's a very strong position. Um, yeah.

So when did you think you were going to die? You alluded to that before.

Oh yeah.

Can you point to one or two specific times?

Oh, for sure.

I think we might have spoken about one of them, but—

I think I'm sure we did because we probably spoke about it when we first met in the Hoxton, I think. Yeah, it was like, so we, it was H2, so like H2 2020. Basically it all started in 2022. We started fundraising in February 2022. And the VC—

what was the run rate at this point? How big were you guys?

$2 million. Yeah, $2-ish million roughly.

So small.

Small.

Yeah, nothing but small.

Yeah, $2 million, something like that.

It feels very small now compared to where you guys are. Yeah.

Uh, um, 2022, we started fundraising February, and then the— by February when we started, the market had basically collapsed. I, I have— I had spoken to about 100 investors I have gotten, you know, I've, I've heard no.

How much did you raise at this point already, or how much did you put in in total with your own money and others?

About a million maybe.

Yeah, maybe less, but something like a million less, or just angel money at this point.

Less, maybe, maybe $600,000, something like that.

Yeah.

So, um, February goes, comes, we start fundraising. I speak to literally every son under, on every fund under the sun. Every fund under the sun in the—

VC funds.

Yeah, across Europe. No, no, no, no. I did a Loom to try like just blast it out. I tried to get every single— That's a great idea, by the way. Really, it didn't go so well.

Well, I never did that. I just got on calls, but actually a Loom would have probably been a better upfront.

I don't know. Nothing came of it. I met Nicolas for the first time in May, I think, at a conference in Barcelona. I had like a 40-degree fever. I went anyway, so I was just popping paracetamol to keep myself alive. Ben and Lenny stayed here because, like, look, we don't have the money, so only I went. I, you know, on the app I booked, I tried to book a meeting with him.

Oh, so you hadn't arranged that up front? You just went to the conference to try and meet him?

Because I knew he was presenting there. Yeah, he was presenting there. So I meet him, I try to pitch him at like a thing, I bring out the cat food, I'm like, you know, dozing off.

You probably did that pitch you did before, assuming you eat the cat food at the end to prove it's human worthy.

Correct. And then, and then I, um, Basically no. Basically no. And then again, you know, we basically put the position like we're, we almost basically tried to sell the company by Q3, Q4. No buyers by the end of it.

But was this just so people understand, was this because you had, obviously you're in the nature of consumables and certainly pet food where payback's not quick compared to others, certainly not first order profitable. You guys are growing. The retention, I don't know what it was at the time, I guess it was directionally good.

The food, the—

But you needed cash.

Yeah, the price was too cheap. The price was too cheap. Like we priced wrong. So in August—

What was the price then?

Like, you know, like a 2-pack was 30, like a 2 tin a day was £38, £38.64. Now it's £55.90. So in August we did an 11.5% price increase. And our net revenue went up like 10%. So basically everyone accepted it. I'm like, look, we just have to do this. And so it was overall something that we just had to do. We had to increase price. And by the time that we closed the deal with Five Seasons, we were break-even. We were, we were break-even slash a little bit profitable.

Yeah.

So January, February, March, those numbers were break-even profitable because we closed by March 2020— 2023. So by December, FSV said yes, and then we were able to cut down, like everyone else kind of became easy money once they said yes. And at that point in time, I had my son, my first son was born, and I had gone to Australia to introduce my son to the Australian family. And I basically went there being like, if these guys, if we don't close this thing, we might have to shut it down and I just won't come back. So it was like, well, you know, if we don't get this deal, company's done. Company's done. Because we were, we have maybe $300K left in the bank. They're just using it just for working capital purposes, buying inventory, shipping out, blah, blah, blah.

You have employees at this point?

No, it was us 3 plus 1 employee, our customer service head.

That was the entire team?

Yeah.

Or you had like fractionals?

No, that's it.

Yeah.

That's it. And then once it was all done, then the climb began. I mean, at that point we were, we closed on like 3.5 million.

How much you raised?

5 million. Okay, we closed 3.5 million, uh, we were at 3.5 million LTM at that point in time. Yeah, so at that point then, then, then we just started to climb. And, uh, I can't say it's been easy ever since, but that was like, look, if, if we don't close this thing— Red Rice called me. Am I allowed to say the name? Red Rice calls me.

Yeah, go for it. It's probably large enough.

And, uh, and, uh, or actually I think, uh, Five Seasons said— oh, Red Rice called me and finds out that I'm in Australia. I wasn't hiding it. Like, I, I was doing all the calls, literally working night shift, hardest thing in the world to do. And it's like, oh, we find— are you in Australia? Are you planning to do Untamed from Australia? I said, no, I have a house in the UK, like, I'm gonna come back.

I had a similar thing. I was in Dubai on holiday, but it's fair, like, I understand, because I didn't plan for 6 months. Yeah, it's like, it just looked really bad because we were trying to close this. I was on holiday in Dubai.

Yes, exactly.

Pretend I'm in fucking Battersea.

Yeah, I was like, look, I, I wasn't, I wasn't even pretending. It was very clear that my background was completely about black, you know. I was like, you know, this is, this is, this is— I'm sending emails at 4 in the morning, you know. And then I fly to the UK to meet Red Rice in person, which I'm happy to do from Australia, like 3-day trip. And yeah, I'll do anything for it.

Did you go back after that to Australia?

Yeah, I flew over. You finished the holiday? No, no, no, we were there for like 12 weeks. We were there for basically 3 months.

Wow, that's commitment to fly back.

So then I flew Tuesday and I came back on—

They wouldn't let you close remotely?

No, no, they just wanted to meet, which I think is fair.

Okay, yeah, because you'd met Five Seasons and Redress followed them.

Exactly, I'd met Five Seasons and Redress, looking, can we just meet? And so I, I, it's no problem, I, I feel happy, happy to do it. And the other guys joined from the UK, they were already there in the UK, so it was just like, you know, I was the only one that was in Australia, but it purely so they can meet, so my family could meet my son, that was the only reason.

Did you understand the venture landscape pre-launching Untamed because of your MS experience?

Yes, or yeah, define understand, like I knew how it worked, I don't know, because I definitely didn't. Yeah.

So I guess it's just, again, a difference. But I'm a fast learner and I ask a lot of stupid questions, which actually are quite valuable. So quite quickly, I've never figured it out, but understood a lot of it.

I think these guys basically want to make 3x return. So whenever they come in—

I get told larger numbers, but that's what they want.

Yeah.

Blended, right?

Blended.

So, so like, you know, 10 or 20x here.

When you have someone come in at, you know, 100 valuation, they're hoping to sell at 300. Like, that's like a good, that's like a great outcome. Quite fine. If they could do it on a blended basis, of course they want you individually to perform better. But you know, if you're kind of growth stage, so 50 million plus, probably, maybe 30 million plus, probably, a 3x return is like a good return. Like, that's a, because you're de-risked. Like, if you come in at Series A or seed or whatever, then you're looking like 10x, 20x, because it's different. Our angels, some of them are up 50, 100, 100x. Good for them.

Because they came in at what, a million or something?

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, literally exactly. So good for them.

Yeah. If you were investing as a manager partner of a VC fund or whatever right now—

tough job.

Yeah, I think it'd be quite an interesting job, but definitely tough. Would you rather be doing seed deals at, you know, 7-figure valuations where it's riskier but you're looking for 100x? Or do you think, well, I say rather, would you think you'd get a better return doing that and getting a few big ones but a lot of, I think, mid or shit ones? Or would you rather come in at 100 and sell at 300?

I think this is a very hard question.

For me, the latter is more like a PE fund, right?

For me, Marco, and my personality type, the latter. I reckon for you, you're probably the former.

It's more exciting, probably more stressful, right? Yeah.

I can see you enjoying that more.

I think it would be interesting. I often loosely say it'd be cool to have my own fund when I'm older. I mean, there's probably lots of people, including Nikolai and others and Tom, that would tell me, don't fucking do it. It's definitely one of those things that looks easier than it is.

You would do much better just joining one of those funds because you have the operator's knowledge. Operator knowledge is super valuable.

I have a good network. I obviously need to get a proper win under my belt first, which is the focus of the next few years.

Not necessarily.

Although a lot of VC funds haven't always done that. I mean, just because they're investors rather than founders. Some have been founders and some are founders of funds, of course, but it's just a different thing.

Yeah, it's different. I would personally prefer to do latter because I understand it more. I think I understand it more having been like, you know, MS was 50,000 employees, something like that, 20,000 employees. So I get a little bit more the corporatization phase of a business.

Yeah, versus the early one where you're, you're probably, probably better at the period that I just start to enjoy it less.

Maybe.

I mean, maybe it's different periods for different types of brains. I think you can definitely learn each, each one, but I'm definitely more of a 0 to 1 guy, I would say. I might be doing myself a disservice.

I think you're doing yourself a disservice.

I think, I think, yeah, I've never really done the next phase, which is where we are now, but I think you undervalue yourself.

I think you're very good. I think you're very good. I'm very impressed.

Yeah, definitely better retention right now, but yeah, I think every brand does in our space, to be fair.

It's life.

Yeah, it's a tricky one. Just tactically, in terms of the growth, well, actually, to finish off that point, like, was there ever another point since then, I guess the last 3 and a bit years, where you felt or were close to death?

Not since then. We've had like fuck-ups, but nothing like that. One time we billed customers to— I mean, this is not a big deal. We built— we billed customers two, two times on the same day.

I should do that. Not intentionally.

It was like, you know, steady, steady, steady, boom. How do you do that? All right, error on the back end. Yeah, they're on the back end. Like, basically we were just moving orders around around Christmas, and we moved them to like Monday the 15th or something. And so it cycled once and then it cycled again and then guess what? It cycled the third time.

So great LTV that month.

Yeah, but I saw the third cycle. I said, guys, what is going on here? Shut it down, shut it down. And then I personally refunded 5,500 orders because like you can only one person can do this. So click, click, click. And yeah, it's fine. It was funny though. I mean, not that funny, but the whole company went on customer service for like a week and a half.

Yeah, just got to do it. I've actually never had a major, like, operational fuck-up like that yet. Definitely have in the past with the previous business that went very tits up, but not with SpaceKuz.

It was just, uh, you know, the, the for loop wasn't closed on the, on, on, on the script or whatever, so it just kept on running. Yeah, insane, insane.

What do you think's been the main— if there was one, I'm sure there's few— but what's been the main thing that's driven the growth, do you think?

Uh, my co-founder Ben. Has been the main thing that has driven the growth.

Okay, well, what would he have done? That's the main thing, other than having a fucking amazing product.

Yeah, I think—

which probably actually is the answer.

So product matters in cat a lot, probably in every category. I think we as a company have taken a while to figure out that we're more than just a product, we're a brand. So there's— that's us just kind of learning how to be like big people or big children or whatever. So that takes time. And I think what we, what Ben got right from the beginning is the low trial offer. I think it works very well. And I think we also have a very special marketing engine that not many people have been able to build. So I think it's quite unique. And, you know, it's probably not something that I would want to disclose for the purpose of everyone else, our competitors, finding out about it. But I think now it's becoming more and more, you know, performance marketing is tricky, and to do it right is hard. And, you know, we have, I think, I do genuinely think we're one of the first few companies in maybe the UK, I don't know, the world, to do the creative strategist role. Like, our team is very good. They're very good at doing this stuff. They're independent. They write their own scripts. They do all this stuff. I mean, again, I don't want to go into all the details because it's a— I think it's kind of our edge. But I think that construct is valuable.

How do you go about hiring then?

Yeah, that's it. Hiring is the hardest thing.

I agree.

Hiring is probably—

How do you approach it?

It's the most important thing. So From my perspective, I'm sure if the Untamed employees, I apologize for saying this, there are only some people who are approved to hire without like me having a final say-off, sign-off. So once they've been around for long enough where I know that they're hiring the right candidate people, then they're okay to hire without my kind of involvement. But basically, I think you need to hire slow and make sure that you find the right people because it's quite Finding the right people is very hard, and once they're in, you know, you really want them to succeed.

So, um, are there a few principles you set as that standard bar?

It's a really good question. Uh, I, I would— I—

was it really case by case?

It is case by case. It's role by role. Um, I, I will always try— you know, we have employee values that I, I will always try as kind of mention during an interview to, to see how they kind of land.

And what are those?

Mission comes first. Disagree and commit. Speed wins. United in purpose. And have fun along the way. So, I mean, I can go through each one of them if helpful.

Speed wins jumps out to me.

I think for us, disagree and commit is probably the one that as founders would probably stand out the most. Like, we argue a lot between us.

Between the founders or between the whole team?

Between the founders and also outside of the founder group. Like, we talk a lot. Arguing doesn't necessarily mean a bad thing. Like, we're not, we're not like arguing just to say, you know, you fucked up. You're none of that stuff. There's— I, if I have to say my guiding principles for looking for people is I don't like people who blame. I think blaming people is a very bad culture. So I wrote out what's one of the, one of the main points I mentioned is we do not have a blame culture on Untamed. I, first of all, it's my responsibility. I am CEO, I'm founder. It is my— if there's anyone at fault, It's my fault. And I hope I have that behavior because I hope that other people will take it on board as well for themselves. No one gets fired over mistakes. We hope that we don't make the same mistake again.

What do people get fired over? Some people don't talk about that much.

I think we're a company that likes— I think we work very hard and we're trying to do something that I believe is valuable. And so You just gotta, you just gotta work. You just gotta, you gotta put in the effort.

That is the laziness.

I, I, you know, none. I think for a startup it's unfair if people aren't contributing to the same level as everyone else. I think that's unfair. Um, this is a small company, we're trying very hard to push, and everyone needs to push. It's not fair if you were just sitting there and, and everyone else here is pushing and you're not pushing, it's like, well, you're not really acting like a team player because we're all working hard, are you? So that is probably the one thing which is like, look, I don't think we all work hard. This is like, we all have to grind. It's just not grind to like on a natural level. Like I'm not expecting people to jump on the call like with Ben and Lenny at 10 or 11 at night, like obviously not. But, you know, in the working hours, please, please put your hours in. Like, if we do— if we— when we do remote days, cameras on, look good. Like, don't— not look good, but, you know, don't wear a pajama.

Yeah, take it seriously.

Take it seriously. Like, cameras on all the time.

How do you think you set a high-performance culture, which ultimately startups and scale-ups differ from, you know, larger blue chips where maybe you can just be a cog in a machine while also not being accused of being toxic, quote unquote? Yes, which is probably something that I think UK culture, I think in America that's more natural. I think it can be challenged more in the UK and it can be perceived the wrong way.

So I, I don't know if I'm good at answering this question. Um, I saw recently a TikTok where it was just basically showing quadrants of where employees should be, and I think I resonated because it said that you basically want to be a, like, a high trust, yeah, low low effort, I don't know, like high— you want people to trust your work and for you to have a lot of autonomy.

Yeah.

With the people who report into me, they're all like that. I hope that that is then filtered down. We have, you know, there's a committee of people. I have 5, I think I have 5 reports. I don't, you know, Ben and Lenny technically reporting, but that's not how it works with co-founders. Not how it works at all. We're equal. And, you know, you set, you ask them to do something and then they do it. Like, that is it. If I think we have high trust, like, I trust that these people will do the work, and if they don't, then we'll talk about it. But I genuinely, I think people enjoy doing the work. Like, I don't want to be, like, I know I'm not answering your question well, but I trust that they will do the work. We have some really good people, and please don't hire my people, but there are some which I'm like, I'm super, super impressed by their commitment. And they're very, honestly, they're very hard to find. It's very difficult. And so in interviews, I am looking for one thing, I am looking for genuinely just one vector, which is, How do they communicate? Like, is this someone who is going to be like shy or withholding or like, you know, doesn't push information out? In particular, if you're like a remote-first company, you should operate on a push schedule rather than like a pull schedule.

Give so you don't have to be asked.

Exactly. Like when you do work, just push it out. Like just tell people you've done the work. Like it's a game of hot potato. Just literally push the work. I've done this.

Definitely agree with that.

So I look for communication, number one.. And I don't like toxic blame culture. Like, we don't blame people. We're just here to do work and happy to try. So smart, someone mentioned like a very interesting matrix that is basically like, it's like 3 Cs, which I can't remember what they are, but you know, smart, hardworking, and willing to learn. I think those are it. We haven't always got it right, but I'm very grateful for everyone.

Is there any hire you wish you'd hired sooner looking back?

What a great question. What a great question.

If so, what and when?

Hmm.

It's also obvious in hindsight. Maybe not to you, but I've certainly got a few.

Hired sooner. Honestly, I don't know. Maybe retail a little bit sooner, but I also don't know.

And you thought you hired too soon, or maybe shouldn't have hired at all given the founding team you had?

You see, we've been very deliberate on hiring because we were 4 people for 3 and a half— we were 3 people for like 3 years and 4 for like the first bit. It took us a real long time to hire people. So, uh, I don't know, man. I, I, I don't think that we really have, have messed up hiring that much at all. Like I think I wish we had found brand sooner, but that took us a long time.

What was the first brand hire?

Head of brand.

We're currently hiring that.

Yeah.

I feel confused by it because I've never done it before.

It's a real difficult hire.

But I do think we need it.

Yeah, it's a very useful hire. I'm very— our brand team is very good. I'm very grateful for them. I wish we had found people sooner, but it took us— Took us, I want to say, almost a year, maybe more than a year to find someone to lead our brand effort.

How do you hire? Is it recruiters or is it a mix? Both.

So we have internal bonus. We give referral bonuses if people hire people internally. So if you like refer someone, quite juicy, quite juicy bonus.

That's a good idea actually. I've never done that.

Quite juicy bonus.

I've never proactively done that.

It's cheaper than going through a recruiter. Think about it that way. One year, one person got 3 recruiter bonuses.

Very juicy. Really?

Yeah. And it's uncapped. I mean, fine. Like, look, we're happy with that. Like, if you know and trust these people, fantastic. Recruiter fees are like 20%, 18% at best.

I think recruiters are, yeah, astonishingly expensive sometimes.

So, you know, if you're paying half that, you're getting value. I mean, that's a good deal. So we have internal recruitment, we have, and then recruiters. It's a combination of the two. So we will do both. I would say 50/50, maybe 60/40 recruiters versus internal, like of the people at Untamed today.

Yeah, I want to move to some areas because we could probably spend 3 hours on a lot of this. It's very interesting, but I'm sure we get kicked out. Um, in terms of the growth, you mentioned there hasn't been another like near-death experience necessarily.

Yep.

Has it been linear or have you got stuck? And I guess Along those lines, what do you think has been the biggest inflection point over the past few years where you really hit something and it's felt like growth was, I don't know, a higher velocity, more consistent, larger? Because it sounds like you guys—

we have had growing and growing. Yeah, we've had continuous growth every single month.

Literally every single month?

Almost, yeah. There was a blip in, um, 2021 when we had a container issue. That didn't arrive on time and we lost, I think, something like 20% of our revenue.

Yeah.

This was very early, early days, so not a big number. And I was up at 4 or 5 in the morning at night, just like rejigging orders to make sure that people were getting the right thing. It's been, I would say, definitely, I'm very confident I can say it's been broadly consistent on a day basis in the sense that every, if you take the day, if you take the revenue that you got that month and divide it by the number of days, that number has consistently gone up. Ever since that point. So like, you know, I say that because like February is 28 days. So you got to factor that in. So obviously February would look like a down month technically, but it's not a down month on revenue per day. Biggest inflection point was about this time last year where my co-founder Ben and the team moved to a different strategy on Meta.

Yeah.

And that caused enormous growth. Enormous growth.

Was that moving to cost caps by any chance? Correct.

Yeah.

Yeah. I've heard that from Perdian Fig as well. Yeah. We've tried it, but not for a while. Yeah. Anyone watching this, maybe going to change their Meta ad account.

Yeah. So I don't necessarily stand behind it in the sense that I don't know.

They're still doing that though.

I can't comment on that. But I would say that it has value, but it's also, there's also risks to it. So. So you need to be careful with it. I think now it's like a pretty well-known problem.

And has your CAC ceiling just got larger and larger over time because retention and product has got better, or have you just managed to keep CAC?

CAC went down like 40% last year.

Yeah. So you haven't seen that rise with increased scale?

It's harder today, but not impossible. It's definitely harder today, but I think that's more attributable to competition in the markets than it is to anything else.

So do you think you've seen more ability to spend more and therefore generally grow more because CAC has come down? Because retention's got bigger, which has allowed a higher CAC?

The former.

Really? That's surprising. Yeah.

So retention is broadly stable.

Yeah.

Um, and, and slightly.

So you're more focused on dropping CAC than you are improving retention? I mean, obviously you focus on both, but like, honestly, does that feel like a big lever?

Yes. Short answer is yes. If I have to hit a kind of reply like that guy who does the short— yes is a short answer. Uh, we are doing a lot of work in retention and we are always handicapped by tech. Like we have, our tech backlog is, you know, would fill this room. And that's not a good saying, but we have a gigantic tech backlog. Like we just got to pound things out. And the reason, like with CAC, there's no tech initiative that slows down CAC. There's a lot of tech initiatives that slow down retention.

But do you not think retention is largely a function of product more than it is a function of a nicer backend on Skio, for example? And I've debated this a lot.

I think you can maybe get, Yes and no.

You know, 10% gains from a nicer email, but fundamentally, if it tastes better, that's going to move it.

Oh yeah, I mean, that is a far bigger lever. Yeah, 100%. Like, palatability is a 10x lever versus—

but it's a much slower one to implement.

Yeah, it takes months, takes months, takes 6 months to get a new product online, right? Like, it's not as fast as you want it to be. It's not that fast.

Yeah, I'm suffering with this right now.

It's just— yeah, it's, it's just, it's just even today supply chains are strained. Like, it's a very difficult environment on supply chain. Having said that, retention initiatives like after-sell or like landing pages. Yeah, we don't do after-sell. Refer a friend, like this is a death by a thousand cuts. Like you can win this battle. It just takes a lot of many small initiatives that scale together because it's a little bit like CapEx. Like you just build the stuff and then it just flows through. For the next 10 years. So you just need to build these functionalities and each one will do 1 or 2% improvement. And by the end of it, you will have, you know, you'll be 10% better. It just takes some time. It takes a real long time.

Looking back now, and I've debated or spoken about this macro topic a few times with other people, do you think most of the reason you guys are scaled to where you are in hindsight was good category selection and good timing, which in itself is a skill? Or is it really good execution? You'd probably say it's both, give a politician's answer. But if you had to choose one?

If I had to choose one, I mean, look, the category was ripe for disruption. But people have tried this and failed.

Yeah. So actually maybe the politician's answer is correct.

I think, you know, I got to put my dad's hat on and say maybe the different— yeah, I think it's I think it's— I, I do think it's both. Look, people have tried this. There's like, if you look at America, there is a, there's a graveyard of companies that have tried cat food.

Literally, what did they get wrong, do you think?

Uh, marketing.

What specifically?

Uh, they don't know how to reach the, the customer in as good as we do. They don't know how to like make good ads, very simply. Yeah, like if I have to just give like one very simple example. Yeah, they don't know how to make good ads, they don't know how to talk to the customer, they don't know how to reach the customer. They don't, you know, like I remember like we talked to Meta agencies in America way, way back when. These guys are expensive, these guys are crazy expensive. Like you think you're, you know, maybe you look today and you think a Meta agency will take somewhere like 5 to 10% of your Meta spend and, you know, That's their fee.

Which is also a scam, by the way, if anyone wants to know.

Yeah, fine, fine.

It's too much.

But you look at America and sometimes it's like 2 times that number and you think, okay, wait a second, like, are you guys 2 times better or 10 times better?

No, they're just living in a more expensive city. Exactly.

And so all of America operates that way. And so it's, cax are higher and it's more expensive. And so you need to be a bit smarter about it. I think the game is a little bit different.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think category, the category is looking for a winner. There hasn't been much innovation in cat food in a very, very long time. I'm very supportive of all the efforts in fresh. It's just very difficult. It's a real difficult category.

Yeah. I want to come into fundraising because you guys have done a fair amount of it.

Too many. All I do is fundraise.

Do you honestly think you raise too much?

No, no. I mean more in the sense that I am constantly fundraising. Like my life is a fundraiser.

And is that just comes with the territory of being in pet at scale, do you think? Because of the nature of the payback and cohort length and so on?

Maybe not yes. I think people take different approaches to this and do bigger numbers less frequently.

How much have you guys raised total, if you're comfortable sharing?

Uh, to date?

20-something.

20— 22?

ChatGPT says 23, so it's close.

Maybe 23 then.

Yeah, I would have said probably pulls it from somewhere.

So yeah, well, it probably pulls it from Company's House, so it's— that sounds, that sounds correct. I, I would say, I would say maybe 24 if I like, like if I think of all the small— just to kind of round it up. Yeah, that sounds about right to me.

Do you think you could have got anywhere close without, you know, say you'd raised a tenth of that?

No.

Or just economically isn't viable in the category you're in without with that kind of financial backing?

No, not possible. Hmm. To achieve the same scale? No.

But to even get close, you know, even to do—

even get— no, no chance. No chance.

And is that just because— I mean, growth payback, growth, growth.

Yeah, because it takes like— your payback is 9 months. Yeah. So are you gonna wait 9 months before you can spend money again? It's too long. So yeah, so your cycle is too long. It just doesn't work. So you need, you know, your meta spend is funded by VC.

Yeah.

Your growth is funded by VC. That's the game that they play, right? Like they're funding your growth, because it's, you know, for every dollar you put in, you get $3 out, because that's fundamentally the way it works, right? Like these guys will look at it and say, $20 million in, $50, $60 out, that's about right.

Do you think you'd want, do you think you'd be shooting for the same? Outcome of the business, at least financially, if you didn't have VCs? Say, I don't know, you'd fund it all yourself, or for some miraculous reason it would be—

No, uh, I think, uh, this is a very—

I think it just puts the pressure on to ultimately get a big outcome, which it does.

Yeah.

And therefore you want that, or is that actually what you would want anyway?

By design, we wanted to do like the VC route. By design, we wanted to do it because, um, we were aligned with the idea that, look, at some point this, this has a home. And quite honestly, if you ask me this question when we first started, I would have said, yeah, for sure. But, you know, my answer today was I said that I'd be happy to do this 10, 15 more years because my mind has changed a lot. Yeah, like, I probably didn't have that mindset 5 years ago, but I do today. Like, today it's really not a problem. Like, I'm, I'm, I'm happy to do this. This, this is, this is, this is fun. So and I believe that there are ways that the VCs can get their money back. Not, I mean, who can make their return and we can find new funders if we need it. But the business is fine.

So there's no number today where you would leave it entirely because you love it that much?

Oh no, of course, of course I would leave it. Of course, like without a doubt, of course there's a number, but—

What is that number? Have you thought about that? I guess it's far beyond the baseline of ultra-high net worth that you shared.

I mean, uh, I don't know, what are you gonna do with yourself? What are you gonna do, like, do it all again? Maybe. But this, I guess, you could.

Yeah, with capital and experience, you're taking risk again.

Like, you know, my incremental dollar here is worth more than is potentially, you know, to your argument actually before around like, would you rather fund early stage or late stage? I don't know, like, have you heard the saying that most of VC returns have been made post-IPO?

That's interesting.

Like, the big winners have become real big winners. So when you have a winner, you're actually better off to not sell it because it can—

It's the power law, really, isn't it?

It's the power law, exactly. Exactly. So are you willing to start it all again from zero? Maybe.

Yeah. I say that's what I like the most, but actually, looking back, do I want to sit in a fucking bedroom by myself with a laptop for another year?

Maybe, yeah. We would probably find it easy to fundraise, but then you're kind of on the hamster wheel again. Like, you know, this is a good position. So I think we, I think there's a chance that we can, that we can do a real, that we can really impact cats. So I'm down to try. I'm down to try. Like, I've got no better idea.

Have you ever made directional strategic decisions because of certain investors or the cap table that you wouldn't have made if it was just you? No. Just you and the founders?

No. Our investors are very— I really like them and I think they're very good. And I do not— they have not done that. They have not been involved in that sense, probably because we haven't fucked it up too bad, maybe, or maybe we have. And they're better— maybe they're better at manipulating me than what I recognize. But there's probably like 1 or 2 things that I feel like we could have done a little bit better. But, you know, this stuff is on the margins. And I think if you spend too much time worrying about it, then, you probably just get in your head a little bit too much. Like, you know, could we have timed some of the fundraisers a little bit better to squeeze out a little bit more value here or there from investor rounds?

Maybe.

Is that—

that's like a retrospective bias.

Yeah, exactly. Like, I have never— like, I would never hold a grudge. Like, this is foolish. Like, this is a complete waste of mental space. Like, I ascribe no value to this. This is just, you know, No, not how about your co-founders?

So have you ever, like, how do you make decisions? Because you're the CEO, right? But ultimately, as you said before, they have other roles, but you're equal as founders. Yeah, I guess there's 3 of you, which means I assume if you disagree, you do a vote between the 3.

Is that how it works? We've never voted. Never voted.

Well, I guess, do you ever disagree? And if you do, how do you decide that? You just naturally cancel?

We just talk a lot, man. Like, no, no, no, we just talk a lot. We spend an enormous— until we're too tired to talk. Like, We probably talked an hour and a half last night. I feel bad for better, listen to me for an hour and a half. We talked probably, you know, Monday an hour. Like this is just, it's just the cadence of how we work. So disagreements, I think probably the biggest disagreement that I remember that at least comes to mind is the one around if the product was good or not. The original one that I mentioned that we launched with. I was of the view that we should keep waiting and keep monitoring. Ben was immediately of the view that this is bad, and he was right. I was more like, let's keep monitoring, let's keep waiting. And basically by December, maybe Ben was right. So we stopped. But I tend to be more like a little bit more kind of like calm and maybe slow and like just even, even, even, even killed. And Ben is probably a little bit more fiery. So, so I think, I think we balance each other out well.

Yeah.

And Lenny, and Lenny, Lenny is very insightful, I have to say. I have to give credit to him, very, very insightful. He's been right about many things, but he probably, he probably will, will be vindicated when he hears me say this. But he, he, he adds, uh, he adds, uh, he adds a lot of value in it. And I was like, yeah, Lenny there was, there was times where we think, yeah, Lenny did say that many, many months ago. And so yeah, that there is, there is value to that. We don't, we never vote on things. We talk about it and then, and then like, look, we say, we just say, okay, this, this one or this one or this one, and then we do it.

We have about 5 to 10 minutes max. Yes, sir. Because I'm looking at the time, which is the problem with these podcasts. I could go so long. You are, well, I don't know if you're anti-personal brand, but you're very, you're relatively low-key as a founder. I'm for some reason accidentally the opposite, where I've put 250 videos on the internet, which I love. It's probably— I'm not sure if it's net positive after a while, but it's certainly unattractive. Is that something you consciously think about? Because a lot of founders these days, no, you just naturally— I don't care, don't give a shit about that stuff.

I don't care.

This is the first podcast you've ever done?

Yeah, I don't care for it. Um, I, I, I made fun of someone recently for trying to started like a LinkedIn post thing.

Do you not think there's any— I'm not saying there is, but I'm just asking your view. Do you think there's any commercial value you're missing out on, even for the brand, with you not being—

if, if it were more podcasts, if it were not cat food, then yes, then it would be different. But we are selling to customers that love their cats, and this is not interesting to them. I am not interesting to them. I am really not interesting to them. Uh, it, it's because it's cats. Like, what, what, what does Marco care about? Like, why do they need to know me? I, I think if the most any terms are I love cats too.

Yeah, it's a fair point.

So if it were, if I were selling like enterprise software, yeah, then I would 100% do this.

And you think anyone that does need to know you, I don't know, someone that might buy the business one day, will know the brand anyway?

Exactly. And anyone that doesn't know, I think I'm well connected in the, in the offline space. Like, you know, I know all the banks, I know them very well. I know, I know, I've talked to many of the, by, of, you know, potential big, big players. I know the VC space. Like, if these people want to call me, they can call me. I don't, I don't— this is not a presence that I need to, to— I think what it can do is it can, it can enhance value so you can drive a better outcome for doing this kind of thing, because popularity matters. Like, people, people care about popular people. So yeah, there's definitely value doing that, but not for the sake of starting the brand.

All right, I want to close with a fairly quick kind of lightning round.

Yes, sir.

Hardest period of Untamed?

Um, year 3.

What specifically?

The almost going out of business.

Yeah.

And not finding fun and not finding money.

Like, biggest waste of money in the business?

Oh, SEO. Interesting. £125,000 on SEO, completely wasted.

Wow, that's a lot.

This was when we raised, you know, just under a million, so it was a lot of money.

Fuck me, that's a stupid decision. Yep. Most overrated startup advice?

Oh wow, uh, can I pass on that one? Because I can't— if I think about it, sure.

Most underrated founder trait?

Um, underrated founder trait, you gotta collaborate. You just, you just, you just gotta collaborate. I think, I think sometimes founders are too, are too like insular. You, you got it, you got, you got to talk to people. Yeah, I don't know if that's a founder trait or not.

Something you believe that most founders probably disagree with?

I wasn't prepared for these, I don't know.

It's quickfire, it's quickfire. Say it again, say it again. Something you believe that you think most founders probably would disagree with? Like potentially controversial opinion.

Don't overthink it. Is that controversial? Maybe founders don't overthink it, that's Matthew Kelly.

We'll take that, we'll take that. Um, one company or brand you're envious of, maybe in an execution sense?

Oh, I think Better.in.box is killer. I love them. So good.

Do you know the founders? I met, I met, I met, um, uh, now I've not met them, but they've been great support. I'm out to get on.

Yeah, you should.

Have they ever given you, like, what's one thing you maybe learned from them, if anything?

I, I think they're like master executors in the space. Like, I think, I think they're, as a company, I think they're extremely competent people. And I think they're low-key, they just do their work. I think they're very impressive people. They're ex-Goldman Sachs. So people have often said that we're the Morgan Stanley duo and they're the Goldman Sachs duo. I was like, yeah, well, they're winning.

There's clearly something in ex-finance bros doing perfectly well.

Yeah, there is.

Would you rather own 100% of a £20 million business or 10% of a £500 million one? Obviously the 10% is a bigger number. But is there any ego attached to owning 100% versus not?

Definitely the latter. I would want, I would definitely, if the two were monetarily equal value, assuming that they're monetarily equal value, I know that in that number they are, I would definitely want the bigger one, bigger company.

Yeah. So like regardless of the equity, you just want the one that's worth more.

Yeah.

Yeah. Okay, interesting.

I think, would you disagree?

No, I guess the only argument to— and yeah, I mean, I don't know 100% of my business either, but, um, I think to be fair, the only people that have hung on that point that I know are people that have not scaled that much, and probably because they've had an ego around owning 100%. And I'm thinking of one or two examples I won't name, and they were like, I'm not getting investors in, when they should have done in hindsight, because they had a legitimate ego around owning 100%, which I thought was strange. I can kind of understand it. I guess some founders might be super protective of—

I think once you break the cap table it's broken. Like, like, you know, once you let one in, it's, it starts like, you know, the flood begins. So, so to me, it's the reason I prefer the second one is scale, and that's a bigger business, so it's less likely to fail. The smaller one, yeah, if I'm gone— like, I know many people who have small businesses. Like, I know someone who's got like a, a 40% EBITDA margin, single business, $3 to $5 million revenue. He's like, he's probably pulling himself home $1 or $2 million. If he disappears from the business, the business, it doesn't exist.

It's a different thing.

It is a different thing. Yeah, totally. And I'm good on him. It's just not, uh, not, not the kind— it's not my personality type.

Yeah. If your kids watch this episode in 20 years, what's one lesson about building a life, not just a business, you want them to remember?

Don't give up.

Is that a lesson or is that a mindset?

It's a mindset. A lesson, uh, yeah, you just got to pick yourself back up. That's my lesson. Like, you're gonna fail. It's gonna make me emotional.

Yeah, we could go on forever, but final question. Um, if you could speak to your 18-year-old self now, what advice would you give them knowing what you know now?

Uh, wow, I wasn't ready for these ones. I would say, um, I would say, I would say try harder. I would probably say try harder. I don't know. I feel like I could try harder. Yeah, I'd probably say try harder. That's probably— I don't know if that's a good answer, but yeah, that's probably what I would say at my 18-year-old self. Buy Bitcoin. Yeah, probably buy Bitcoin at 18. Buy Bitcoin. That's probably what I would say, actually. Yeah, that'd be a good outcome. Buy Apple, buy Microsoft, buy any of these.

Buy everything. Buy Nvidia. Okay. Yeah, for sure.

Those aren't good answers, sorry.

No, it's true. Yeah, we could probably go on for another hour, but yeah, we're going to wrap it up there. I feel like we covered a lot though, to be fair. You're a very good guest for a first podcast episode ever.

Thank you very much, I appreciate it.

I feel after 2 beers it starts to get slightly harder to maintain the articulate nature of the response.

A little bit.

That's why I used to limit it to 2, or we'd have a bottle of red wine and buy a bottle too. It was basically just a fucking bar.

Thank you for having me, I really appreciate it, and congratulations on all your podcasts and your success. I think you're crushing it.

Well, I should be saying that to you as the outro. If you want to follow Untamed as well, @untamedcatfood. Yes. Marco's not really anywhere as far as I'm aware. Maybe LinkedIn, but I doubt he wants you messaging him for advice. Please don't. And yeah, great to have you on. Great story. I feel like you guys are— I mean, we talked about numbers, but you guys are growing a lot and it's very impressive.

I mean, we feed about 100,000 cats in the UK. We're in retail. Retail is like 20% of our business and It's going quite well. I mean, it's, uh, I'll say it's over 50. That's all I'll say.

Yeah, it's big and it's growing quick.

That's okay.

And the valuation's real nice.

We'll try.

Yeah, it's really impressive. Yeah, big inspiration to me as well. Um, yeah, subscribe to the pod. This has been one of the first episodes back in London for a long time, actually, which is quite nostalgic in a way. So it's great to have you on as your first pod. Um, hopefully the start of season 2 of the pod, which I keep promising and underdelivering on. Um, but yeah, I think there's really something in getting founders that actually know what the fuck they're talking about, that aren't necessarily flexing like Lambos and shit online, which was kind of where the pod started like 4 years ago. Um, but yeah, as always, subscribe to the pod. It's been a pleasure having you on, and we'll see you next week.

Thank you, Matt. Cheers.