Two New Products, Moving Into Retail & Finding Purpose - Documenting the journey - Episode 13

Back with another episode of Documenting the Journey. The first one I filmed on the weekend and in the morning because I was late and very behind this week. So I did three pods in the evening, which is normally when I record. I want to get on like a regular schedule with this. Probably post on Thursday pods back on Sunday which everyone has been requesting. First one coming this Sunday, provided my editor can do it on time. Hopefully you can. I'm going to try and chop through a few more points I've written down and go through a bit quicker because I feel like 25 minutes, people get so fucking bored. Even though some people like to listen to me what's going on. I feel like it's like deja vu every week doing this. I feel like I'm sat in this exact same place, which I am. And it feels like no time has passed, but loads of time has passed. But I guess that's life. It flies. Money is in the bank from the previous funding round we did. That's all like sorted all the documents to receive legals which by the way, if you're raising money and doing all that sort of shit, recommend C legals. I was trying to find. I'm not sponsored by them or anything. I was trying to find like a good place to sort out cap table, shareholders agreements, everything and beyond in terms of like employment, just general like legal shit for startups. Definitely. You see Lee was. It's fucking solid. So I use that. That's all sorted always feels like an anti climax almost because I'm raising loads more money. This is gonna be a rocket ship thing and then when it happens you're like, and I need to go and execute on the plans that I've pitched to these people, which is obviously what I'm gonna do. But yeah, it's funny what my focus on business wise, I feel like a lot of like, you know, people in the Twitter community, particularly like Twitter, Instagram, you know, kind of the whole online E com community, which to be honest is very. It's relatively like dropshipping kind of greyhat focus in my, in my opinion, a lot of it. And everyone just speaks about marketing and not even marketing, they just speak about like ad spend. Like people only want to know about how to run Facebook ads. No one ever talks about customer service, fulfillment, cash flow products, like brand strategy, finance. It's always just ad spend which is like one tenth of the picture in my opinion. So yeah, like things I'm focusing on at the minute is kind of other levers I can pull that aren't just spend more on ads, get more customers. Obviously we want to grow and get more customers, but it doesn't all come from ads of course. So like one big thing I've invested in the past month is conversion rate stuff. So I've been working with an agency who I think so far pretty good. I'll let you know how that goes. I don't know if they're watching, focusing on conversion rate stuff because you know, if we could effectively double conversion rate because our website's relatively crap. I mean it looked good but I haven't done anything in the past in terms of actual analyzing it data, et cetera, et cetera. So focusing on that because you know, if we can get an extra 50 pence for every pound we're spending on ours, hypothetically, then that's gonna make a huge fucking difference. Focus on subscribers as well. We're over a thousand subscribers now, which is pretty cool, like three and a half months in and then obviously keeping those subscribers. So retention, that's something that starting to get enough data on to like really know what that looks like. Again it's only three and a half months in, it's like 14 weeks. Probably need six months to really tell like what the churn rate is gonna be on average, how many people are staying etc, etc obviously as well beyond that focused on customer service and reviews which genuinely have been very, very good. We've not had a single chargeback in over 7,000 orders now which is, I mean I don't know if that's good. Obviously I had a lot of chargeback issues with Neon beach in the past so it feels pretty good to not have had a single one like literally not one even across PayPal and stuff. So obviously the customer service has been good. I trust pallets looking good and yeah, I guess just I'm really having a much more balanced approach to scale now compared to in the past where I was just like. I think a lot of people as well are guilty of it. Just chasing that revenue number, chasing more profit in the short term. Whereas I'm now thinking, well actually where can I spend money that's going to have an effect long term? And I guess just like brick by brick, a more holistic approach to scaling and like scaling not just in a bigger number sense, but scaling in terms of like how can we scale our customer experience, how is that getting better, you know, focusing on longer term metrics like subscribers rather than just one time orders right now, etc. Etc. So yeah, I'm really focused on building those foundations and looking at the data properly and getting into that sort of mindset. Whereas in the past it was all about just, you know, spend 15 grand a day on Instagram ads. How can we, how can we get to a million a month in month six? Which I did, like I said, but it all broke in the end. So yeah, just looking at things differently product wise, I've now decided that there's two new kind of hero SKUs in the works. One of which is the nighttime product which I mentioned. Another one which I've brought out from previous sampling stages I'm not gonna mention yet. I'm gonna keep some secrets, but that is also pending. So my vision now is to have three primary powder products. And focusing on powders. Cause the margin's way better, they're way more effective product wise. And the way more, they're easier to transport obviously compared to liquids or gummies. Cause there's more, there's more product per cubic centimeter effectively. And also the way more versatile in terms of using like you can obviously blend them a bunch different things, flavors are easy, etc. So yeah, two more here are using the works. Accessory products are on the way for all of those. I'll be getting like samples from UK suppliers because the issue with my main suppliers, they can do like everything. But then I'm waiting like you know, 20 weeks potentially for bottles to arrive. And if we're doing sea freight etc, it's just way too long. So I'd rather pay a bit more in the short term to stuff to test it, get a proof of concept, pay more per unit at a lower moq, but get stuff in like two weeks. I've got a bunch of stuff coming. The first mug, which is like similar to this but not quite the same landing in like a week, which would just be like a nice test of 500 units. And then we got a bunch of other stuff coming, like that Starbucks Star Cup I showed you. What have we got? We've got a colored soft touch gradient mug as well, which would be sick. And then a bunch of other stuff. So the plan is really to build out kind of like an athletic green slash, a Huel offering in the sense that we have like the primary product, Skus, the Hero Skews, I'm calling them, and then a bunch of accessories around that to boost aov, encourage subscriptions, large orders, et cetera, et cetera. And just keeping it really focused and simple for now, not expanding into too many categories too soon. So that's kind of the product plan in terms of like where we're focused ad spend wise and market wise. First three months I was pretty much just UK on ads. I wanted to like just focus on that, get a bunch of data. In the past like two, three weeks, we started to test into into the eu, which I'm pretty convinced is going to be the best market because the US is way more competitive. There's way bigger brands, way more brands in this space already there the uk, there's some, not as many. That's kind of why I launched in the uk. But then the EU has effectively none. At least no good ones that I've seen myself. So EU is looking, you know, CPA is cheaper than the UK and we've not even localized anything yet in terms of languages, et cetera, et cetera. So that's looking good. Gonna run that as a test for the next three to six months before starting to maybe look at localizing it. Localized fulfillment, all that sort of stuff. US testing as well, not looking as good. It's not looking as good as EU or uk, which is what I expected, to be honest. So it's kind of nice to have that hypothesis confirmed by data, but obviously still running it starting to run like worldwide ads as well, just to see what's what. The only problem with ads outside the UK and challenge and same for every business. But I'm noticing it is like import fees into the EU is a bit of an issue. So there's some complicated stuff to do with like consumables. Quite a lot of packages are getting stuck at customs, which I'm trying to figure out. Guy called Flo. He originally was a POD fan and messaged me and he now runs the customer service. Great guy living in Germany. He's figuring all that out alongside me. He's doing most of the legwork and we're trying to figure that out. I was looking at options to potentially. Well, I am looking at options to potentially change the fulfillment to one of my new investors and guys that's been on the POD and he's also big on Twitter, he's got a fulfillment center that's in Northern Ireland, which looks like a way to legitimately bypass import fees. There's like some loophole so looking options to do that, but again, changing fulfillment is pretty complicated and I don't want to do it. I don't want to rush into it if it's gonna potentially cause problems. So, yeah, basically expanding and starting to look at territories outside the uk. Another exciting thing that happened is I don't know if I can Even fucking say this, I'm gonna say it. We. Well, we. I, I was emailed by a very, very, very big retailer. I'm not going to say their name to save face. Like probably the biggest wellness retailer who basically said they really love the brand, they want to stock it firstly, but they also want to potentially look at collaborating and doing like some mad long term, like actual like psilocybin psychedelic product development which has always been like my long term vision of course and I've had to kind of pull back on that and play a bit safer in terms of ads, which has been frustrating. But if there's something we could do with them, they're like a, a billion pound plus business with like 5,000 employees and shit. If there's something we could do with them, I mean it's very early stage of exploring that, then I'm all for it because that could be like some mad scientific lab sort of shit, so. And yeah, also potentially getting the products on the shelves with them, I think wholesale and retail alongside the Amazon stuff which is starting soon. It's been super delayed. I think that could be a great opportunity just to diversify sales channels basically and just starting to build like stronger foundations, not being fully reliant on one channel and one app platform. So looking at doing that in terms of ads then on that as well, TikTok ads and Google Shopping, Google Merchant center, they've both been banned basically since the first month back and forth with reps etc. Trying to fix TikTok is a, is the most frustrating one because we're still running Google search and so on, but we're spending like 100 quid a day like mad roas. But I'd rather be spending a thousand, two thousand a day on shopping and actually scaling. Both of which were problems because of the nature of the products. And then Google's having issues with it being subscription, which I don't understand because I see a million subscription brands running on Google Shopping. But yeah, both seem to be getting nearly fixed and it's frustrating but it's also like. Well, I know we're growing well with literally just Instagram ads to be honest. Right now if we bring in TikTok and Google Shopping, I reckon we could triple scale, you know, effectively overnight within a month realistically. So there's a lot of strings on the bow I guess that haven't been used yet. So it's not like we're flat out on every channel and we're scaling as we are. It's like we're scaling well Consistently. But we haven't even looked into like the other major channels yet because they've been stopped. So it's kind of nice knowing that I have that in the arsenal. So when that's sorted I reckon we can really fly particularly with TikTok ads in terms of content. For ads, I've really systemized this a lot. Like Brady does all my creative stuff. His ads are still the best. So we kind of have like three different sources of content now because I was really conscious of this being super important for scale. I think it's the biggest variable in media buying these days is creative and content. So we have. Brad does a lot of stuff like his, his own creatives. I have an agency I'm working with, ADTalk little shout out. They're doing a bunch of stuff which is cool. I like how managed it is. I just have to, you know, I basically I'm hands off. I don't want to be running, you know, managing creators and then we are testing a few other like ad hoc creatives via like platforms that my agency recommended. So there's kind of like three inputs because I never want to be in a point where we don't have enough content. But similarly I don't want to be spending loads of time on it. So I've tried to systemize it. So that's pretty good. I guess that's kind of the main stuff. Like business wise, I feel like doing this every week is potentially going to be incredibly boring because a lot of weeks are just kind of relatively mundane. Maybe I'll start doing like, we'll do like an in an infield like factory tour or some shit which I definitely like to do with my suppliers. I might try and arrange that and I go to the 3 PL and do some more interesting shit and maybe like get out in the streets and pretend I have an office of 50 people. But right now I guess it's fairly mundane the day to day. So I'm just documenting it as best I can. Hopefully it's relatively interesting. One thing I'm still feeling is like I feel like I'm not enjoying maybe a large amount of the process because I can't be as creative as I want to be. Maybe the initial kind of honeymoon phase of starting a brand, when you first start, when you first launch, it is obviously kind of gone. But I think that's just a necessary part of the trenches and being an entrepreneur is a lot of it is pretty mundane and like a lot of it is me looking at finance reports and budgets and shit. And, you know, paying invoices and replying to emails. It's not all doing 1980s film shoots that I would love to be doing all the time. That's not to say I don't think I could do more of that. I think I'm just at the stage where obviously I'm balancing a lot of shit and the stuff that moves the needle isn't necessarily the most fun. And, yeah, I'm not sure you're meant to enjoy every part of your job and day to day anyway. So as long as I feel like I'm working towards something, which I do, then maybe I should be chasing something. Actually, I read a quote the other day. I wrote it down. It's from Matty Healey from 1975. I don't know where he said it, but it was like, give me purpose over happiness. And I was like, fuck. I felt that because, yeah, I'm not saying I'm like super sad or depressed or anything. I mean, definitely are swings of that in the process of anyone's life, but certainly in scaling a startup. But yeah, I just think as long as I feel like what I'm doing is worthwhile, which I largely do, especially when I read like, sick customer reviews and stuff, and people tell me that the process is inspiring. So I guess that makes me feel like what I'm doing has some sort of reason. And when it's mundane, then actually it's driven by that. So, yeah. Another thing is the pod is back in full swing. I recorded three this week. We're doing two next week. I think that was something missing from my life for like six weeks. And I was in like six weeks. I took off it. But I'm glad to be doing that again because I think that is. I get a lot of fulfillment and I guess joy from that. Elements of that even. That is a lot of work. But, yeah, it's a great way to meet new people, which is what I love doing. That's. That's probably the best part about it. It's a great way to have therapeutic, interesting, insightful conversations that obviously I learned stuff about other people. You know, I get to converse with them. And it's a great way to build relationships. It's. It's a fun way of networking. And also, you know, like I said before, a lot of people message me saying they want the pod, they enjoy the podcast. I don't reply to those messages as much as I used to because I'm trying to stay off kind of Instagram and social media a lot more but yeah, I'm definitely. I decided to go all in on the pod again, season two. Whether I'm doing it every week, every other week, yet to be confirmed, I could probably do every week, to be honest. But yeah, I'm enjoying doing that. I think that is a good thing to have outside the brand. Even though I do consider it part of the business in a way because it like builds my, builds my network primarily, which can always help with the business long term. And obviously, like, I talk about space goods a lot, so it kind of plays into that. But yeah, I think it's a nice thing to have on the side. Another thing I'm thinking about is just the work from home dilemma. And I mentioned this in a few pods and recent ones. It's like, because everything's set up so remote and it's great. It's like, when will I ever actually even need an office? Because even if we got to a million a month in six months, which we probably hypothetically could, or even in a year, and I had a team of 10 people, all those people, at least right now, the team of like, I don't know, it's probably six people, including agencies and freelancers. They're all freelance, effectively. They're not pay employees, they're not all in London. So it's like, even if I got to the scale where that was, you know, financially justified, which it probably could be pretty soon, like, would I need an office? Do you know what I mean? So it's a bit of a dilemma. I'm trying to figure out when that will change, if it needs to change. I've been looking at like Soho work. So just go and mix up my routine and like work like day to day. It can become a bit like, live in the same place, sleep in the same place, do the pod in the same place, literally work. This is my home office and it's a great setup, it's very efficient. But yeah, I just can't see myself doing this, you know, for the next three to five years, however long this process is to build and potentially exit from this business. And you know, and even beyond that, it's like setting up my work environment in a way that is fulfilling and sustainable long term, rather than just purely like, oh, it's more efficient and cheaper to work from here. So yeah, I'm trying to figure that out. I think a lot of entrepreneurs, particularly in e common online stuff, can relate to that because the beauty of it is the freedom. But the downside of freedom is that you don't by Default have anywhere that you have to be. And it's like, well, where do I go? And most people just work from home. And that in itself has challenges. So, yeah, I think the final point is the way I'm trying to approach. Because it often feels like I spent my entire life living in the future. And I've said this on a billion pods recently. It's probably my recent theme that's in my mind. But like I'm trying to be more present. Like I've said before, spend my entire life living in the future. You know, that creates a lot of like, not anxiety. So I wouldn't even say I feel that. But it's more a lot of just thinking about the future, ruminating about, you know, when's this gonna happen, what we do next, what we do next. I'm trying to focus on the day to day, win the day, you know, brick by brick. Stay on that war path. I kind of like that term. And yeah, just focus on winning the day. Because if you win the day every day for a year, then actually you can make a lot of fucking progress. I look back 12 months ago, I don't recognize myself physically or mentally. I didn't know I'd be working on this brand. I didn't have the pod. I was living with a different person at the time. And it's crazy what can happen in a year because often it can feel like the day to day is just the same. Then you look back and it's very cliche, but it's very powerful. You look back over time and a lot has happened. So, you know, with that in mind, it's like, how much can happen in the next year? And I think even more because you start to compound on the same thing. And it's like, it can be like bamboo. It can like really fucking explode based on the stuff you've built up over years in the background. So, yeah, just focus on winning the day. It's kind of how I'm approaching shit. It's how I think anyone trying to build something should approach. It is, you know, think for the future, but focus on the now, of course. And yeah, I just feel like time is flying. I'm 27 in like three months. And that's mad. I feel like there's no time to waste. So I'm all in. Episode fucking hell. It's 20 minutes already. Nearly. I was trying to keep this short. Episode 13 we'll wrap it there. Space goes to the moon. Cheers for watching. Cheers for supporting the pod. As always. Plenty more to come and I'll catch you in the next one. Peace.