How to break the rules and build a category - John Stapleton

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Uncharted territory is brought to you by MoneyPenny.
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You've got to believe that you think you know what the customer wants before they get it.
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Success is a lousy teacher, and you really learn from failure.
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I'm a great believer in rather than talking about stuff, just doing it, and they go, There you go.
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That's the realization that all this stuff that we had been bullshitting ourselves about up to now is true.
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Welcome back to Uncharted Territory.
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I'm Jesper with Fooster.
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And this is the podcast that explores leadership, innovation, and the future of business through thoughtful, candid conversations with exceptional leaders.
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In today's episode, I'm joined by somebody who spent over 30 years proving that when industry experts tell you an idea is impossible, that's the exact moment you should double down.
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Back in 1987, when the Sioux Isle was completely dominated by those metallic, heavily processed cans, John Stableton decided that tomato soup should actually taste of fresh tomatoes.
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Despite being warned that his fresh cartons would cause mass food poisoning, he pioneered an entirely new fresh food category, scaling his company, new Covent Garden Soup, to over 20 million pounds in revenue before a highly successful exit.
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He later repeated his category defining success by co-founding Little Dish, capturing a dominant 73% market share in the chilled toddler food space.
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He now busies himself investing in high-tech vertical farms, mentoring next generation startups, and championing systemic reform in venture capital funding.
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Let's get into it.
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So, um You an athlete before you decided to do Yeah, well, maybe you're still an athlete.
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Maybe you've we talked about skiing before.
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There's a bit of uh athlete in skiing.
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Well, as you know, if you ski, most of the skiing, most of the time on the slopes is spent in the restaurant or in the pub.
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You know, it's a lot of things.
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Well, I don't know about you.
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I I I spend some time.
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Yeah, yeah, I used to be an athlete.
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I used to do athletics, track and field athletics when I was a kid, when I was at school and university, and I I I got a huge amount out of it.
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I I I mean I did I didn't have nothing to compare it against, other than say, oh, this is great, except that it was great.
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If you're living in the moment, I learned so much about everything at a at a very early age, you know, application, training, winning, losing, uh, you know, all those are things which are really beneficial to business.
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I think I think people make the mistake sometimes of thinking they learn about business and they learn lessons about how to do well at business or relevant stuff to business, only in a business environment.
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And it's not true.
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I I learned so much about that I could apply to a business environment purely through athletics, you know, how to deal with failure, how to deal with winning, uh, and and all the different influences you have, like application and uh focusing on your your performance, focusing on your preparation for your performance because the season is in the summer, what do you do in the winter?
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And all those sort of things you don't think about unless you're forced to think about them at an early age, like you know, like at 10 and 12, and then maybe really get serious at 14 and 15 and 16.
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And I went to university, excuse me, I did, but I also went to boarding school.
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So I had lots of time in boarding school.
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You know, the devil makes work for idle hands, right?
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So I was busy doing something more constructive.
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So all of that in hindsight, of course, was wonderful, and I got a great amount of satisfaction out of it.
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And it definitely prepared me for for life in in business, although I had no idea.
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Primarily the the setbacks, the knockbacks, the the the bits where you think, oh, that's very unfair.
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Uh it is very unfair when you get injured.
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I got injured a lot, I did triple jump.
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Crazy, stupid sport.
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People six times your body weight lands on your ankles every time you do a jump.
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That's a bit of a hammering.
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Well, well, I mean, who invented that?
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It's just not healthy.
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Anyway, I did it and I loved it and I really enjoyed it and I was pretty good at it.
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Um, but I got injured and I didn't win all the time.
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And you have to, you know, you get you get cocky when you're that age because you win, and then you're you're brought down to earth when you lose.
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And all those things, all those things which you take for granted, unless they really happen to you, you you don't you can't deal with them.
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And if you're 15 or 16 learning those lessons, it's a great time to learn because it rubs the edges off you, you know.
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Uh and uh i i if you have to wait till you're 25 or 35 before you're confronted with those sort of things, you're not prepared or you're not as prepared.
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Um, but I did then give up when I left university.
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But also I got into business.
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I got started thinking about business, which is a great thing.
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Well, you already got into business way earlier.
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We're gonna come to that in a second.
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Yeah, well, well, I I started doing business and then I thought I couldn't do both properly.
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I couldn't do justice to both.
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I really put all my effort into well, maybe you can do both in hindsight, but I felt I couldn't do both to the level that I wanted to.
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I certainly couldn't, you know, achieve international athletic standard, which I had, by uh putting all my effort into business.
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This is a whole new thing which I had to learn.
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Uh it was a whole new challenge, and I I felt I couldn't separate the two.
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I I I couldn't do both and separate my input into achieving the same level in both.
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So I stopped.
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High standards.
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I I maybe it was that.
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Maybe I just thought.
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Do you have high standards for yourself?
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Do you think that's a good one?
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I I think so.
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I well I'll put it this way.
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I think if there's anything worth doing, you do it properly.
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Right?
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And yeah there's some examples recently where I thought I was thinking the same sort of thing.
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So well I stopped doing that and I stopped doing even though I wanted to do it because I can't do the other stuff properly.
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And I just I'm kidding myself, I'm spreading myself too thinly here.
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And and and I always think maybe, maybe it's it's focused for sure, maybe it's maybe too one-dimensional approach, but I always find it ser serving me well that if I can't really do a good job there, I'm gonna not do it, and I'm gonna do a good job somewhere else.
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Uh so it's kind of one-dimensional, but I don't think you could achieve the level that I wanted to and had in athletics, for example, by by by by dedicating my time to business at the same time and then do a pretty average job there.
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I didn't know what that really meant, but I you know, I wanted to learn.
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I I once I realized I didn't know about entrepreneurship, I didn't realise about business, but I wanted to do it.
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The minute I got excited about it, I thought, oh, I'm gonna do this, uh, which meant not doing the other.
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All right.
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Um, but that's not quite true, right?
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Because I think there's a story about you starting business already as an 11-year-old.
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No, well, I wouldn't call it a business.
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I I I grew up uh on a farm.
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Well, I think you bought a couple of animals.
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I grew up on a farm and my dad had that well, my my dad was a farmer, and uh I bought a few calves.
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Yeah, I thought it was like a cool thing to do, basically, to buy a few calves.
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Yeah, mostly because it's why didn't you tell your dad about it before you bought the cab?
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I I I I I kind of I don't know.
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I I thought I'd yeah, I'm a great believer in rather than talking about stuff, just doing it, and then go, there you go.
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That's it's it's pretty crap, or it's pretty good.
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I don't know, but it's but it's done and I can do more.
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What do you think?
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Uh as opposed to I got this idea uh and and of course you have ideas as well, but I tend to keep them to myself and then implement them and then go, look at that.
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If I'm proud of it, I'll say look at that, or maybe if I'm not so proud of it, I won't.
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So I kind of thought I'd buy some calves and they will arrive to be delivered and go, Oh yeah, I bought some calves today.
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Um and my dad was like really relaxed about it.
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I thought he might be a bit annoyed.
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He said, You did what?
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But he didn't eat it.
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Oh, cool, right.
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So let's go lab look at them.
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And he said, Oh, they look pretty good.
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I was like, Yeah.
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Quite happy with that.
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Yeah, I was 11 or 12, and and then they grew up and the type of farm my dad had was uh beef farm, um, which meant like they're called store cattle.
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They go they go from calves up to two years of age and then they're sold, and then uh uh a different different beef farmer on the on the east coast of Ireland typically would would buy them in and fatten them up and sell them all to whatever you want to do.
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That's when you can slaughter the cattle.
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So there were it was a two-year horizon, a two-year payoff, two-year investment period, if you like.
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And so, yeah, it worked out pretty well.
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And I didn't think about I couldn't even spell entrepreneurship, I didn't know anything about entrepreneurship.
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I just thought that was a thing you should if I'm gonna be involved in farming, uh should it do it a little bit of interest?
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Uh and that that that was how that was formulated.
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I didn't think it through that much, just did it.
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And is that the DNA?
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Sort of not thinking it through too much, like you said before, just do it, just deal with it.
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Sort of I mean, that's a very reactive sort of approach to business.
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And growing up on a farm might have meant may actually might have helped you sort of get your head around risk, uncertainty, ambiguity, and all that sort of stuff.
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That's a great question.
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And and and I used to always think, until somebody asked me about 10 years ago when I had more time to answer the question, you know, basically, you know, I so are you were you always an entrepreneur?
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And and I go, I don't know.
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And then I started to think about it.
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And and I people don't think of farming as entrepreneurship, although it's a it's a family-run business and you're making decisions and you're you're in the thick of it, and you're on you're on the edge, especially in Ireland, where the weather can do anything and does do anything constantly.
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You're very weather dependent on decisions and harvests and all the rest, but you can you can have a good year, a bad year, and nothing to do with the effort you put in.
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Yep.
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So that kind of realization, it's very very basic, very on the ground.
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You have your feet on the ground, and and I think you can there's only a certain amount of things you know you've within your control, which you which you do, and the rest is kind of hmm, let's see how it works out.
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And the same is true for business.
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Yeah, you can control as many, maybe you control more things, but you can't control everything.
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Uh so so in answer to the question today, you know, were you always an entrepreneur?
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I think in uh by definition, by accident almost, but by definition, I was.
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But I was because I was surrounded by this real kind of um agency-driven.
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If nothing happens unless you do it yourself, and it seems like really obvious, but there's so many people in the world I've come across to believe uh something very much.
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I think it's obvious to entrepreneurs.
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I'm not sure it's obvious to people that just sort of go think about it.
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You go to school, you go to university, you go on a grad scheme, you're sort of in the company for what's happened to you.
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Right, exactly.
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Yeah, uh, it's very passive.
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And I think How would you feel about being in a system like that?
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Well, I think we grew up in a system that that that that we choose.
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Yeah, I I I I But that wasn't the answer to the question, though.
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I I I'm in the system that I choose, you know.
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So I I I struggle myself with with like by the people, and I I I believe that agency is fantastic.
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Uh you fall flat in your face, you might think this and this and stuff.
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But it's down to you.
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You said you were going to do it to yourself, just which is more important than say to everybody else.
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You did it, you did well or you did poorly?
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Um That's the learning in it.
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Exactly.
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So there was the farming, buying the calves, uh, there was the studies, there was being an athlete.
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Like, why food?
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Is that really from the farming background?
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You sort of focused on that?
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That was a very boring answer to that.
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I would like that boring answer.
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Um, I grew up in the 1980s uh in Ireland.
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The 1980s was way before the Celtic Tiger, which meant that there was not there what we didn't have an economy in Ireland.
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We exported people and livestock, you know.
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So livestock was like on the hoof, beef, but there was no value added attached to it, it just sold sold it to England.
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And England had the value-added uh industry of slaughtering and doing whatever you do with meat, putting it into different foodstuffs.
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So it was a very basic economy, it was very agriculture driven.
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And and and we exported our our our our natural resource, which was well-educated uh young people, which was crazy, you because you you never get out of that cycle.
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Uh then the Celtic Celtic Tiber ha Celtic Tiger happened, but much later.
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So in the mid 80s, we were all thinking, What do we do with our lives?
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Yep.
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Now I studied industrial microbiology, which is usually kind of a bit of a conversation stopper straight away.
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People go, Oh, really?
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And since COVID, people have an idea what microbiology is about, because they think about viruses, and but but but back then nobody really knew, including us.
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And we were on the cluster of two big industries, we thought potentially the the news was or the or the pro promise was that genetic genetic engineering and biotechnology could be the future.
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Now, in hindsight, of course, they have turned out to be huge opportunities uh for for for for oper uh for graduates or for industries to be developed around those two concepts.
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We didn't know that at the time.
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We were sitting there, there's not might be a fad.
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But food is not a fad because food is common to everybody.
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People have to eat and drink, no matter what happens, it's not gonna go out of favors, uh nothing's gonna ic economic downturn sometimes food actually increases in in consumption for a whole bunch of different reasons.
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So it was a safe bet.
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That's why it was a boring answer.
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But so I went into food for that reason.
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We're always gonna have that industry, and uh I was unsure about the rest.
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And I was st stopping one thing, which was athletics, and I was doing something else, and I thought, well, if I gotta put my effort into something else, then i i i i it better be, you know, it better be a future in it.
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Sure.
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So food is clearly a safe bet.
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Yeah.
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The new Covent Garden Soup Company, not so safe initially, right?
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So tell tell me about the story behind the soup company.
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So I did this one-year course in in Reading University, food science.
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And uh separate to that, a guy called Andrew Palmer.
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Andrew had this really crazy idea.
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It was his idea to make fresh soup.
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He he was a uh he did no knowledge about the food industry.
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I had very little knowledge about the food industry, a little bit of theory from university.
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But he he was a keen cook.
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On a typical British August bank holiday weekend, he was down on the Soland in on the Isle of Wight, and it was teeming rain.
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It was like you know, horizontal rain.
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Yeah, as I say, typical holiday.
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That sounds like a bank holiday.
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Yeah, typical August bank holiday, and it was like horizontal rain, and he was out in his in his dinghy, he did a lot of sailing, he was a keen uh enthusiast, so that's why he was he had a he was staying there.
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And his mom came to stay uh to uh for for the weekend or just to drop in, and uh she he knew she was coming, so and he she knew where to get the keys, et cetera.
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He was out and he came in shivering and he went upstairs and he was here.
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Oh, I'm here.
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Uh he went up to have a bath.
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So he kind of soaked himself and defrosted in the bath.
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While he was lying on the bath, he got this wonderful aroma coming up the stairs.
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Oh great, mum has ordered in some takeaway.
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That's fantastic, because there's nothing in the fridge, so great.
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Oh, so I get down, there'll be food.
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So when he came downstairs, he goes, What's that?
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I said, Well, he hadn't she hadn't ordered a takeaway.
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She had figured out what was left in, you know, in in in in a lot or or or in in in the fridge.
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And basically had cobbled together some vegetables and made a soup out of it.
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And it tasted delicious.
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Now, of course, he was probably starving and freezing and everything tastes delicious, but he had wow, it really does taste much better than you know, anything you can restaurant, anything I can make, certainly anything buying the can.
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Find the can of soup.
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Precisely, because all liquid soup those days came in a can.
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So that was his kind of moment of inspiration to say, oh, I just wonder would there be a marker for this if we brought it to the market.
00:14:08.559 --> 00:14:20.000
So a couple of months later he was thinking the same and not really making any progress, and he went kind of frustratedly to Reading University to ask those guys about, you know, what sort of technology or or how can I go about making soup?
00:14:20.159 --> 00:14:21.200
I don't want to put it in a can.
00:14:21.440 --> 00:14:23.600
Well, you were a student at the time, so how did you get connected?
00:14:23.840 --> 00:14:24.320
Well, this is it.
00:14:24.399 --> 00:14:24.559
Okay.
00:14:24.720 --> 00:14:27.519
They were having a conversation with these guys in the university.
00:14:27.600 --> 00:14:32.799
I wasn't there in the room, obviously, but he was asking lots of sort of entrepreneurial kind of questions.
00:14:32.960 --> 00:14:36.480
Now, the last person you ask any entrepreneurial question is a scientist.
00:14:36.559 --> 00:14:38.720
Because it's the complete opposite of entrepreneurship.
00:14:38.960 --> 00:14:46.399
Science is based on first principles, little steps, i agonizingly small steps to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that that's true.
00:14:46.559 --> 00:14:55.519
So you move at a painstakingly slow speed and you build up over many decades an argument to say this is this is the case.
00:14:55.679 --> 00:14:57.440
Uh entrepreneurship is exactly the opposite.
00:14:57.759 --> 00:15:06.000
You have a bit of inspiration or a bit of a seat of the pants decision, you make a judgment, you go, I reckon the following, and you've no just you know experience for it, you've got no evidence for it, you just do it.
00:15:06.159 --> 00:15:07.039
And if it works, great.
00:15:07.200 --> 00:15:10.000
If it doesn't work, which most of the time doesn't work, then you go.
00:15:10.240 --> 00:15:18.639
So he was going all the he was talking about all these kind of challenges and opportunities and things that he wanted to do, and they were kind of going, what language is this guy speaking?
00:15:18.799 --> 00:15:19.200
Honestly.
00:15:19.279 --> 00:15:22.480
Uh so and in the end they said, I can't help you.
00:15:22.559 --> 00:15:27.759
And they could give him lots of non-entrepreneurial answers to questions, like it was such a great idea if somebody would have done it by now.
00:15:28.159 --> 00:15:30.080
Well that I'm doing it right now.
00:15:30.399 --> 00:15:31.759
Well, well, well, yeah, exactly.
00:15:31.840 --> 00:15:32.000
Yeah.
00:15:32.080 --> 00:15:36.080
I and I haven't I can't even really define what I'm doing, but I I want to talk to you about it.
00:15:36.159 --> 00:15:37.440
And anyway, they couldn't help him.
00:15:37.519 --> 00:15:41.919
But what they did say is there's this Irish guy here, finishing off his master's, he might be able to help you.
00:15:42.000 --> 00:15:43.600
I honestly think they were just trying to get rid of him.
00:15:43.679 --> 00:15:45.279
You know, and say, like, I I I can't go back to the box.
00:15:45.440 --> 00:15:46.240
Well that was your luck, right?
00:15:46.480 --> 00:15:47.759
Yeah, let's give it to the Irish guy.
00:15:48.240 --> 00:16:03.840
So I was on campus, and they got as we went down to Students Union, it was lunchtime, and we went to the Students Union bar, and we were kicked out of closing time because we spent the entire afternoon, the entire evening arguing, talking, discussing, probing uh fresh soup.
00:16:03.919 --> 00:16:07.600
Like this is 1986, 87, 87.
00:16:07.840 --> 00:16:09.519
And all liquid soup is in a can.
00:16:09.600 --> 00:16:10.799
So fresh soup was not a thing.
00:16:10.960 --> 00:16:14.240
You've got to think back in those days, that these days it's ubiquitous.
00:16:14.320 --> 00:16:15.360
You can't think fresh soup is everywhere.
00:16:15.440 --> 00:16:16.240
It's almost made everywhere.
00:16:16.320 --> 00:16:16.799
Well, no, it wasn't.
00:16:16.960 --> 00:16:18.080
Well, you created the category.
00:16:18.320 --> 00:16:19.120
We did, yeah.
00:16:19.200 --> 00:16:26.320
Uh but but but we had to, in order to create the category, you've got to come up with the concept first, and that's what we kicked around for all those hours in the pub.
00:16:26.480 --> 00:16:30.960
So, like I say, or like I've said in the past, many ideas for businesses start in the pub.
00:16:31.120 --> 00:16:32.240
Typically they stay in the pub.
00:16:32.320 --> 00:16:34.480
Because everybody, you know, you have a few drinks, think, oh, I could do this.
00:16:34.960 --> 00:16:39.360
And we ended up with many more questions and answers, which is the whole point about.
00:16:39.679 --> 00:16:42.159
And and and you're balancing those questions around.
00:16:42.399 --> 00:16:48.480
Well, it was just Andrew and myself originally, and then we decided the only way to answer any of these, even half of these questions, is by doing it.
00:16:48.720 --> 00:16:49.840
Of course, I had nothing to lose.
00:16:49.919 --> 00:16:50.879
I was I was just excited.
00:16:50.960 --> 00:16:53.759
But did you start doing the soup first then?
00:16:53.840 --> 00:16:56.399
Or did you start thinking about how do I distribute it?
00:16:56.879 --> 00:16:58.559
I guess this comes back to the agency bit.
00:16:58.720 --> 00:17:02.720
I mean, you you can't just start tomorrow because you've got to build a factory, which is what we realize.
00:17:03.039 --> 00:17:05.599
But you can begin to okay, okay, what is fresh soup?
00:17:05.759 --> 00:17:07.039
Let's do let's let's figure it out.
00:17:07.119 --> 00:17:07.440
We don't know.
00:17:07.519 --> 00:17:11.279
Oh, well, well, if we don't know, how is anybody else gonna know?
00:17:11.359 --> 00:17:13.680
So our don't know is just as good as anybody else's.
00:17:13.759 --> 00:17:14.480
So let's figure it out.
00:17:14.559 --> 00:17:15.200
Let's just define it.
00:17:15.279 --> 00:17:20.799
We we rented some specs because I found this some sort of like a little warehouse, uh, and we we have bought some equipment together.
00:17:21.440 --> 00:17:27.119
Basically, we managed to beg, borrow, and seal some equipment, which is like a mini sort of maybe version of what we wanted to do later.
00:17:27.440 --> 00:17:30.799
Uh, but we needed a cartoning machine because we were we were machine?
00:17:30.880 --> 00:17:31.119
Carton.
00:17:31.200 --> 00:17:31.839
Oh, cartoning, okay.
00:17:32.000 --> 00:17:32.240
Yeah, yeah.
00:17:32.319 --> 00:17:34.559
The whole point, by the way, is like TetraPak, sort of thing.
00:17:34.640 --> 00:17:37.599
Yeah, it was an Lopak, but Tetrapack we will do, absolutely.
00:17:37.680 --> 00:17:42.000
Uh and and you know, but you probably people recognize Newcoming Garden Soup Company these days.
00:17:42.079 --> 00:17:44.640
It's it's the only fresh soup in a carton still to this day.
00:17:45.200 --> 00:17:51.039
But back then we wanted to put it in a carton for the reason that we we wanted the carton to speak to the consumer and say freshness.
00:17:51.279 --> 00:17:51.680
I am fresh.
00:17:51.839 --> 00:17:52.319
I'm in the chiller.
00:17:52.559 --> 00:17:52.799
Like milk.
00:17:52.960 --> 00:17:55.039
I'm a carton, but certainly not like canned.
00:17:55.119 --> 00:17:55.279
Yeah.
00:17:55.680 --> 00:17:56.240
Like milk.
00:17:56.319 --> 00:17:56.480
Yeah.
00:17:57.119 --> 00:18:00.079
You got milk in a carton, you got maybe juice in a carton back those days.
00:18:00.160 --> 00:18:01.680
You didn't get soup in a carton.
00:18:01.920 --> 00:18:03.279
The soup was put in a can.
00:18:03.359 --> 00:18:05.200
It was even put in a place called the soup aisle.
00:18:05.279 --> 00:18:10.640
So you know the the conventionalism was pretty much established that that's where you buy soup, but you had to put it in a can.
00:18:10.720 --> 00:18:14.000
And that meant you had to sterilize it, had to have 18 one-shelf life.
00:18:14.079 --> 00:18:14.960
We didn't want to do any of that.
00:18:15.039 --> 00:18:22.000
We wanted the soup to taste of the ingredients we put into the carton, not the process used to make it safe, which was the big problem which existed.
00:18:22.079 --> 00:18:24.960
And that's why the guys at Reading went back to Reading to have some few more questions.
00:18:25.039 --> 00:18:25.599
They laughed at us.
00:18:25.680 --> 00:18:28.720
They said, You will kill somebody if you don't put it in a can.
00:18:29.119 --> 00:18:31.440
Well, well, we don't want to put it in a can because it kills the flavour.
00:18:31.519 --> 00:18:34.799
Yeah, well, you will kill, you know, you kill somebody because you have to sterilise.
00:18:34.960 --> 00:18:37.200
That's why the conventionalism said, sterilise it.
00:18:37.279 --> 00:18:39.039
It's already established, don't mess with it.
00:18:39.119 --> 00:18:40.559
You know, there's a reason why it's in a can.
00:18:40.640 --> 00:18:41.759
Haven't you been paying attention?
00:18:43.039 --> 00:18:43.599
Don't break the rules.
00:18:43.839 --> 00:18:44.319
Yeah, exactly.
00:18:44.640 --> 00:18:45.839
Did that encourage you to break the rules?
00:18:46.079 --> 00:18:47.119
Oh, like red rag to a bull.
00:18:47.440 --> 00:18:47.920
I would have thought so.
00:18:48.000 --> 00:18:48.079
Yeah.
00:18:48.960 --> 00:18:52.799
It was like, uh, yeah, well, you're not listening, but they were saying, well, you're not listening.
00:18:53.519 --> 00:19:01.680
And how do you, at that time, how do you distinguish between sort of valuable criticism or consensus or good advice, bad advice, or do you know just not listening?
00:19:01.920 --> 00:19:06.720
Well, I didn't know the time, but now I I realize that that is the art of the entrepreneur in terms of making a judgment.
00:19:06.799 --> 00:19:06.960
Yeah.
00:19:07.440 --> 00:19:08.000
Absolutely.
00:19:08.319 --> 00:19:14.559
You've got to have some semblance of what we call consumer insight or customer insight.
00:19:14.640 --> 00:19:19.519
You've got to think at least, you've got to believe that you think you know what the customer wants before they get it.
00:19:20.000 --> 00:19:23.359
And there's a certain degree of arrogance attached to that, because who might think that?
00:19:23.599 --> 00:19:23.839
Sure.
00:19:24.000 --> 00:19:26.880
But uh so somebody will say, no, no, they want something else.
00:19:27.279 --> 00:19:30.720
Well, well, I can't prove they do it and they do until I do it.
00:19:30.960 --> 00:19:33.039
But but here is a bit of evidence, right?
00:19:33.119 --> 00:19:35.200
So so so you have you have to have an idea.
00:19:35.359 --> 00:19:36.880
So this is a bit about branding here.
00:19:36.960 --> 00:19:41.599
You have to have an idea, you've got to communicate, the brand has to communicate the benefits of your product to the consumer.
00:19:41.759 --> 00:19:46.400
To a very defined consumer, you can't say, I'm gonna sell it to everybody, although that was very tempting.
00:19:46.559 --> 00:19:50.880
Everybody can eat soup, but you have to you sell try to sell to everybody, you sell it to and end up selling to nobody.
00:19:51.039 --> 00:19:58.799
You've got to make sure you are selling uh something that somebody wants, or you identify a customer need and be very specific what that need is, and then knock their socks off.
00:19:58.960 --> 00:19:59.839
The product really delivers.
00:20:00.160 --> 00:20:01.759
So the brand has to work together with the product.
00:20:43.480 --> 00:20:52.840
Before I go to sort of distribution, just on that, like how much of it is them knowing what they need, or you creating a category and you then convincing them that they need it?
00:20:53.080 --> 00:20:54.120
You mean customers.
00:20:54.200 --> 00:20:54.360
Yeah.
00:20:54.519 --> 00:20:59.000
Yeah, well, uh, I mean it's different very very difficult for customers to know what they need until it exists.
00:20:59.080 --> 00:21:03.320
You know, so you do have them along, and then the problem is they might reject it and and by not buying it.
00:21:03.480 --> 00:21:05.240
And if they buy it, then that's that's fantastic.
00:21:05.320 --> 00:21:06.120
You you build on that.
00:21:06.200 --> 00:21:18.200
So it's kind of difficult sometimes to say, oh, uh I enough customers to make this a business, in other words, to make money out of it eventually, will want this before they see it, because you have to be, you know, it has to be a tangible thing.
00:21:18.600 --> 00:21:20.440
So you have to believe that they'll want it.
00:21:20.519 --> 00:21:27.880
Now, you you have to have a uh customer insight means in our case, if we made fresh soup, which tasted really good.
00:21:27.960 --> 00:21:31.560
And once people taste it and go, wow, this tastes like fantastic, it tastes like nothing.
00:21:31.880 --> 00:21:35.160
It tastes what my mother would make, or it tastes what I could make if I could cook.
00:21:35.400 --> 00:21:37.560
Like that smell coming up the stairs when you're in the bathtub.
00:21:37.880 --> 00:21:38.519
That's exactly it.
00:21:38.680 --> 00:21:42.200
But nobody had the time to cook, don't people don't cook even then, they certainly don't cook now.
00:21:42.440 --> 00:21:47.720
Whole idea was a convenient solution to have a really good product that you'd have that you would buy, right?
00:21:47.960 --> 00:21:52.759
Because this is completely uh different and better than anything else you can get in terms of soup.
00:21:53.000 --> 00:21:53.800
So let me move you on.
00:21:53.880 --> 00:22:04.600
So I it this is a parallel actually with another episode we did of this podcast, which was um the co-founder of Good Wipes, which is a butt wipe in the US.
00:22:04.759 --> 00:22:06.519
And um And the parallel's are?
00:22:06.680 --> 00:22:07.640
I'm parallel.
00:22:08.360 --> 00:22:08.759
Here we go.
00:22:09.000 --> 00:22:09.640
Yeah, exactly.
00:22:09.720 --> 00:22:11.800
So the parallel wipes and soup.
00:22:11.960 --> 00:22:12.680
Okay, exactly.
00:22:12.920 --> 00:22:14.519
Well, there could be a collision there.
00:22:14.680 --> 00:22:15.320
There is a collision.
00:22:16.519 --> 00:22:17.560
It's in the product.
00:22:17.800 --> 00:22:25.880
Um more so in you had to move soup from the cold canned aisle into the chiller and create a category.
00:22:26.039 --> 00:22:34.680
Yeah, he had to move the butt wipe out of the uh sort of cosmetic area, pay baby sort of wipe area into the toilet paper.
00:22:34.840 --> 00:22:35.640
How hard was it?
00:22:35.720 --> 00:22:40.680
And I know there was a meeting with weight rows where you sort of tried to convince them to put it in the chiller.
00:22:41.000 --> 00:22:41.800
Can you talk to us about that?
00:22:42.039 --> 00:22:42.680
Well, absolutely.
00:22:42.759 --> 00:22:42.920
Yeah.
00:22:43.000 --> 00:22:46.120
No, this was the whole kind of the this is uh this is where reality comes into play.
00:22:46.279 --> 00:22:51.480
But uh that's all where very well and good what I just said, and have inspiration and in intuition and insight.
00:22:51.640 --> 00:22:52.519
Uh it's great.
00:22:52.600 --> 00:22:55.560
Uh but but but what what are the barriers getting in the way of actually happening?
00:22:55.720 --> 00:23:03.160
And and there was there was a we do what waitress, which I'll come back to, but there were lots of other meetings with with so-called experts in the food industry, because we weren't an expert in anything.
00:23:03.320 --> 00:23:08.279
Well I was just at a university, and Andrew was a stockbroker, and he knew certain things about who loves soup?
00:23:08.600 --> 00:23:09.240
Who loves soup?
00:23:09.320 --> 00:23:10.440
I think that's a great place to start.
00:23:10.519 --> 00:23:10.600
Right.
00:23:10.759 --> 00:23:13.880
But experts tend to be experts because of the stuff they've done in the past.
00:23:14.039 --> 00:23:24.360
They they they've qualified themselves to be experts because they've lived in the world for a while, they've worked in an environment for a while, they are experts in particular subject matter, and they're very good to ask.
00:23:24.440 --> 00:23:25.160
What do you think about that?
00:23:25.320 --> 00:23:32.039
Am I crazy or but typically that doesn't really help you in entrepreneurship because you're not really worried about what happened in the past, you more focus on what's going to happen next.
00:23:32.200 --> 00:23:32.360
Sure.
00:23:32.759 --> 00:23:35.720
The other experts told us that that we'll never get the space.
00:23:35.880 --> 00:23:38.680
Because back then there were no brands in the chill space.
00:23:38.759 --> 00:23:40.600
There are very few now, but there are more than there are.
00:23:40.759 --> 00:23:43.400
Newcomb and garden is one little, this is another, funnily enough.
00:23:43.560 --> 00:23:47.320
But back then it was it was controlled by white labels, controlled by the retailer.
00:23:47.400 --> 00:23:52.920
So Tesco Sainsbury's Safeway, uh, Asda, waitress, all those guys had that chill space.
00:23:53.000 --> 00:23:54.600
And it was very profitable, right?
00:23:54.759 --> 00:23:56.440
Higher margins than anywhere else.
00:23:56.519 --> 00:24:01.720
Uh and it was it was guarded very uh possessively, if you like, by the retailers.
00:24:01.800 --> 00:24:04.920
And no brands, no brands were allowed in, but there were no brands in.
00:24:05.000 --> 00:24:07.720
So we were a brand trying to break into this space.
00:24:07.960 --> 00:24:12.200
And we were told by the experts in the in the field that that won't happen, they won't give you the space.
00:24:12.440 --> 00:24:15.560
And the nice thing is that it was why do you want to put it in the chiller?
00:24:15.720 --> 00:24:19.320
You know, soup there, like I said earlier, there is a destination point called the soup aisle.
00:24:19.400 --> 00:24:19.560
Yep.
00:24:19.720 --> 00:24:23.000
So a consumer walking into the store already knows where they're gonna go.
00:24:23.400 --> 00:24:25.080
If they have pets, they go to the pet side.
00:24:25.240 --> 00:24:26.360
If they have babies, they go to the babies.
00:24:26.600 --> 00:24:28.440
If they want to buy soup, they go to the soup aisle.
00:24:28.519 --> 00:24:29.400
So don't mess with that.
00:24:29.480 --> 00:24:31.800
Like it's a big thing to want to have to reimagine.
00:24:31.960 --> 00:24:33.640
And we go, yeah, but you don't really understand it.
00:24:33.720 --> 00:24:44.519
We we'd have to put a chiller in the soup aisle, that was the case, because already the chiller here, people who want to buy chill soup, chill soup, will already know that it's in the chiller, and there's a little bit of education required.
00:24:44.680 --> 00:24:49.480
So uh experts told us there are lots of reasons, lots of conventional reasons reasons, not to do things.
00:24:49.640 --> 00:24:53.720
So I think experts are good to talk to because they they they give you an insight as to what the problems are going to be.
00:24:54.039 --> 00:24:55.720
That doesn't mean to say you can't overcome them.
00:24:56.200 --> 00:25:01.160
So we go to wait rows and and uh and and and waitress were the very first retailer that we approached.
00:25:01.240 --> 00:25:07.560
Even back then, and I think it's true now as well, many years later, waitress were the retailer that you could approach because they would do something different.
00:25:07.720 --> 00:25:17.960
They were bit they're bigger now than they were then, but they're still small compared to the other guys, and they would they would give new brands a chance because they wanted to have a point of differentiation from the big Tesco's in Sainsbury.
00:25:18.120 --> 00:25:19.160
They wanted to have something else.
00:25:19.320 --> 00:25:21.240
Um so they they did give us a chance.
00:25:21.320 --> 00:25:25.880
Um so we thought we'd have a reasonable chance of getting a listing with them.
00:25:26.039 --> 00:25:33.080
And and we I remember going to Bracknell, Andrew and myself, Bracknell was where they had the office, which wasn't far far from Reading, where we had our factory, so-called factory.
00:25:33.160 --> 00:25:34.120
We were making soup at the time.
00:25:34.440 --> 00:25:35.080
You had a space.
00:25:35.320 --> 00:25:40.039
We had a we had the space which we had cobbled together some loaned pieces of equipment.
00:25:40.279 --> 00:25:42.840
So it wasn't a factory by any means, although we were making soup out of it.
00:25:43.160 --> 00:25:43.240
Sure.
00:25:43.400 --> 00:25:45.160
And that was part of the problem in that meeting, right?
00:25:45.480 --> 00:25:56.360
Well, yeah, they didn't know at the time, but yeah, yeah, they they they they they the advice we had going into it, again, speaking to experts initially, is that retailers never show their hand.
00:25:56.440 --> 00:26:00.120
If they want something, it's like when you're buying calves, they they never tell you they want it.
00:26:00.279 --> 00:26:00.360
Sure.
00:26:00.519 --> 00:26:05.640
They'll string you along and they they'll commit at some point, but they won't come in the first week, first meeting.
00:26:05.880 --> 00:26:09.240
So we're thinking, okay, well, we haven't got a factory anyway, so so we're not ready for that.
00:26:09.400 --> 00:26:11.320
So we went in and they love the idea.
00:26:11.480 --> 00:26:17.240
Well, we we we sold it, of course, as well as you could, all the all the wonderful things about it, and we taste the product with them.
00:26:17.400 --> 00:26:21.560
And if they had doubts before, which I don't think they did, they didn't have any doubts after they sold the product.
00:26:21.640 --> 00:26:23.240
They said, Oh, this taste is great.
00:26:23.320 --> 00:26:27.880
Uh, but it's a whole new kind of revolutionary process of children, so we have to figure all that out.
00:26:28.039 --> 00:26:29.480
I said, Yeah, yeah, I don't know how to.
00:26:29.560 --> 00:26:31.240
So, so when when can you sell it in?
00:26:31.400 --> 00:26:32.759
And this was like April.
00:26:33.480 --> 00:26:37.240
And we said, Um, well, well, yeah, I'm not sure.
00:26:37.320 --> 00:26:40.680
We when we send the center in thinking we need to build a factory, we need to build a factory.
00:26:40.759 --> 00:26:47.320
And our VC investor, the guys who were going to give us all this money, they had said, We'll give you money to build a factory, but go and get a retailer first.
00:26:47.560 --> 00:26:48.680
Which I would have said too.
00:26:48.840 --> 00:26:49.480
I would have said too.
00:26:49.560 --> 00:26:52.200
I mean, I'm not gonna give you money to build a factory, there's no demand for it.
00:26:52.360 --> 00:26:56.680
And even waiters wouldn't have built enough demand to fill the factory, but at least it's a start.
00:26:56.840 --> 00:26:57.880
So that they said that.
00:26:57.960 --> 00:26:59.640
And uh I go, okay, that's pretty good.
00:26:59.800 --> 00:27:04.360
So I'm sitting there thinking, okay, if we get waiters, we can go back to the VC's APACs, we're big guys.
00:27:04.519 --> 00:27:08.519
And we can say we we have a we have it, we have a we have our proper retailer here.
00:27:08.600 --> 00:27:09.720
Uh give us give us some money.
00:27:09.800 --> 00:27:12.200
Give us a million million pounds, which back then was a lot of money.
00:27:12.360 --> 00:27:13.560
Um we can build a factory.
00:27:13.640 --> 00:27:16.200
Um and uh but of course timing doesn't work like that.
00:27:16.279 --> 00:27:21.480
And and waiters said, Um, when can you when can you supply?
00:27:21.640 --> 00:27:31.160
So I said, Well, we could probably get you get get you set for September, thinking they'd they'd they they'd go, well, let me think about it, and we'd have a bit of time to play, and by then we'd figure things out.
00:27:31.320 --> 00:27:36.200
Okay, you can get 55 stores, remember perfectly 55 stores in five months' time.
00:27:36.360 --> 00:27:37.080
Yeah, in September.
00:27:37.400 --> 00:27:39.480
I I I'm thinking, which September do they mean?
00:27:39.560 --> 00:27:40.360
I mean they may mean this.
00:27:40.840 --> 00:27:42.120
So we didn't really react.
00:27:42.279 --> 00:27:44.920
We said, okay, we can commit to that, of course we yeah, look perfect.
00:27:45.080 --> 00:27:45.720
55 stores.
00:27:45.880 --> 00:27:46.600
Can we have some more stores?
00:27:46.920 --> 00:27:47.800
Oh no, 55 stores.
00:27:48.039 --> 00:27:50.920
We were just going, can't believe they said yes.
00:27:51.160 --> 00:27:55.560
Uh so we're doing the high fives down the main street of Bracknell, and then we went to the pub.
00:27:55.640 --> 00:27:56.759
And uh we sat there for a while.
00:27:56.840 --> 00:28:02.360
And the elephant in the room, of course, was how the hell are we gonna sell to Waitrose by September?
00:28:02.519 --> 00:28:10.920
Because we've got to go back now with yeah, we have a listing, eight packs, give us the money, find location, spend the money, build the uh it takes like 18 months.
00:28:11.000 --> 00:28:11.320
Yeah.
00:28:11.480 --> 00:28:13.720
So it was a should have been September the following year.
00:28:13.880 --> 00:28:16.279
It should have been, but you know, don't look at Gift Horseman now.
00:28:17.240 --> 00:28:18.519
We weren't gonna say no.
00:28:18.840 --> 00:28:21.800
Of course, you don't say no, you say yes, and then figure out a way to make it work.
00:28:22.120 --> 00:28:34.120
And the answer is this this little place we had in Reading, we use that as our factory for the first period of time until we have probably so you got you got um the soup delivered to Waitros, things obviously took off in an amazing way after that.
00:28:34.200 --> 00:28:40.759
What was the success that really sort of made um the new Covent Garden soup company so successful?
00:28:40.920 --> 00:28:43.640
If you should boil it down to maybe three things?
00:28:44.360 --> 00:28:45.000
Three things.
00:28:45.160 --> 00:28:46.039
Yeah, you know.
00:28:46.440 --> 00:28:47.560
You can pick more, less.
00:28:47.800 --> 00:28:52.440
Well well, I mean uh we weren't commercially successful on day one.
00:28:52.519 --> 00:28:54.200
I mean, on day one we had a listing, which was great.
00:28:54.279 --> 00:28:55.080
So why did they want?
00:28:55.160 --> 00:28:56.680
They were okay, we started supplying.
00:28:57.000 --> 00:29:03.560
Great, but we were making losses because typically in any any industry, I think, but certainly in the food industry, the margins aren't that big.
00:29:03.720 --> 00:29:07.720
Um and you don't get to a point of you know churning a profit till much later.
00:29:07.880 --> 00:29:10.440
So you need shareholders' funds to keep you going for the interim.
00:29:10.519 --> 00:29:11.240
So we had all that.
00:29:11.320 --> 00:29:11.640
That was fine.
00:29:11.720 --> 00:29:14.039
We're just planning to make a loss for a year or two.
00:29:14.200 --> 00:29:17.880
The other thing is uh we had to build a factory, which is a huge commitment.
00:29:17.960 --> 00:29:21.800
You know, okay, it's capex and you depreciate it, so you don't have to put in the PL.
00:29:21.880 --> 00:29:29.880
But but you know, I found out that it's me really difficult to build a manufacturing facility at the same time as building a brand.
00:29:29.960 --> 00:29:32.279
We didn't really know what was involved in building a brand.
00:29:32.600 --> 00:29:33.720
Building a brand is tough.
00:29:33.800 --> 00:29:36.120
Yeah, because it just sounds all put on the shaft and it sells.
00:29:36.200 --> 00:29:38.920
Well, uh if it sells, great, you have yeah, it's a great start.
00:29:39.000 --> 00:29:40.200
If it doesn't sell, you're dead.
00:29:40.360 --> 00:29:43.000
But if it sells, then a hard work start.
00:29:43.320 --> 00:29:43.400
Yeah.
00:29:44.200 --> 00:29:47.800
But I guess the first thing was get the listing in Retro.
00:29:48.039 --> 00:29:52.279
Secondly, get to get it to work in Ritro, so not only on the shelf, but coming off the shelf as well.
00:29:52.360 --> 00:29:56.519
So you can see people, it's called rate of sale, number of units per store per week.
00:29:57.320 --> 00:29:59.320
It's all about you get the first sale, great.
00:29:59.480 --> 00:30:01.320
How do you how do you know you're gonna get the second sale?
00:30:01.560 --> 00:30:12.519
The first sale, by the way, is the brand, brings in consumers, so the brand is gonna promise the consumer um a a good outcome, and the product delivers on that on that promise.
00:30:12.680 --> 00:30:14.200
And that's where you get your repeat purchase.
00:30:14.680 --> 00:30:25.240
Uh but we were convinced that uh we didn't know how long it was gonna take or what the issues were gonna be, but the product was gonna really knock their socks off, and we're gonna try to whole new category uh and and and and get on with it.
00:30:25.320 --> 00:30:26.759
But it took us a good few years to do all that.
00:30:27.320 --> 00:30:36.600
Um so I guess really when I thought this really is working, when we launched in Tesco's and Sainsbury's, because they were two big retailers.
00:30:36.759 --> 00:30:40.680
So, because there's always an argument that says, you know, if you launch in these days, what do they say?
00:30:40.840 --> 00:30:47.960
Planet organic and whole whole foods or small chains or or farmers' markets, and you see a response, fantastic, but that's just the beginning.
00:30:48.120 --> 00:30:49.000
Will it work in Whitros?
00:30:49.480 --> 00:30:50.759
Yes, okay, get into White Ros.
00:30:50.920 --> 00:30:51.240
Yes, it works.
00:30:51.640 --> 00:30:55.560
Okay, well, will it work in Tesco's and Sainsbury's and as that, which is a different demographic.
00:30:56.200 --> 00:31:01.560
So each time you have to kind of answer a different set of criteria, and it works, but only Lindless Limited.
00:31:01.640 --> 00:31:02.279
That's not scalable.
00:31:02.759 --> 00:31:05.400
So you have to constantly prove the scalability of your business.
00:31:05.640 --> 00:31:11.400
And if you're if you're selling packaged goods into retail, you've got to go through the the demographic chains, if you like.
00:31:11.560 --> 00:31:17.320
And I think Sainsbury's who weren't weren't quite convinced because in Sains is like waitress with scale.
00:31:17.400 --> 00:31:19.880
It's a bigger, you know, it's a more affluent people, if you like.
00:31:19.960 --> 00:31:21.080
Demographics are strong.
00:31:21.320 --> 00:31:28.680
Of course, you start where you think it's gonna do best, and people are gonna be open to new ideas and early adopters, and you qu you go there first.
00:31:28.840 --> 00:31:29.480
Why wouldn't you?
00:31:29.640 --> 00:31:32.600
But you're still at the back of your mind thinking it's just gonna sell in Tesco's.
00:31:32.759 --> 00:31:34.440
And it then sold in Tesco's.
00:31:34.519 --> 00:31:41.320
And then, okay, right, this is a mass market product that people are gonna pay a premium for, which is not contradictory, by the way.
00:31:41.400 --> 00:31:49.320
Uh, there's gonna be enough people are gonna trade up from cans, or they're gonna never bought cans because the quality is so crap, they're gonna buy this stuff, um, and it's gonna be successful.
00:31:49.480 --> 00:31:50.680
That was when the petty dropped.
00:31:50.759 --> 00:31:56.840
Well, that's the realization that all this stuff that we had been bullshitting ourselves about up to now is true.
00:31:57.080 --> 00:32:04.440
Yeah, because we're we we are convincing ourselves and shareholders, everybody else, and and retros and all the that this is gonna be the next best thing.
00:32:04.600 --> 00:32:08.920
But of course, we didn't have evidence, we just have all this potential, which is internal.
00:32:09.160 --> 00:32:10.200
But then we had evidence.
00:32:10.440 --> 00:32:14.200
And then you had an amazing exit um before you went to the US.
00:32:14.680 --> 00:32:21.160
Can we talk by maybe for just a couple of minutes before we get to Quickfire about um the journey in the US?
00:32:21.720 --> 00:32:22.039
Oh.
00:32:22.279 --> 00:32:23.160
You want to talk about that?
00:32:23.320 --> 00:32:23.560
Yeah.
00:32:23.800 --> 00:32:24.519
How much do we have?
00:32:24.600 --> 00:32:25.400
We got we got 20 minutes.
00:32:25.800 --> 00:32:29.640
We got like two minutes to talk about journey in the US because it was less good.
00:32:29.880 --> 00:32:30.759
That won't do it justice.
00:32:30.920 --> 00:32:33.480
Yeah, yeah, I I I I have my business card here, by the way.
00:32:33.560 --> 00:32:34.840
I this is this is this is relevant.
00:32:34.920 --> 00:32:35.320
Don't worry.
00:32:35.400 --> 00:32:40.840
On the front, it's about me today, but on the back, on the back I have my CV on a postage stamp.
00:32:41.000 --> 00:32:41.720
Yeah, I can see that.
00:32:41.880 --> 00:32:43.640
But I call this my shit sandwich.
00:32:43.800 --> 00:32:44.120
Yeah.
00:32:44.279 --> 00:32:47.240
The reason for that is It doesn't work well with soup, though.
00:32:47.480 --> 00:32:48.840
Well yeah, shit sandwich.
00:32:49.080 --> 00:32:50.440
Well, I won't even go down there.
00:32:50.519 --> 00:32:51.400
You said we haven't got time.
00:32:51.560 --> 00:32:54.600
We could have a conversation just all about exactly.
00:32:54.759 --> 00:32:56.279
Um next episode.
00:32:56.519 --> 00:32:57.320
Three businesses, right?
00:32:57.480 --> 00:33:04.759
Newcome Garden Soup Company was first, Little Dish was third, two good businesses, worked well, commercially successful, good exits.
00:33:04.920 --> 00:33:06.920
Uh the one in the middle, a lot of shit.
00:33:07.080 --> 00:33:07.240
Yeah.
00:33:07.480 --> 00:33:08.039
Because it didn't work.
00:33:08.200 --> 00:33:09.000
That's what you're getting at.
00:33:09.080 --> 00:33:09.960
It's it's US business.
00:33:10.039 --> 00:33:12.039
And not just it didn't work, but it really should have worked.
00:33:12.200 --> 00:33:15.000
Because what it was was Newcome and Garden Soup Company Mark II.
00:33:15.160 --> 00:33:22.440
If anybody, I honestly believe we went there and we sold Newcome and Garden in 1998, and I went to the States in 1998.
00:33:22.600 --> 00:33:31.880
And if anybody at the time knew anything about fresh soup, it should have been me, or it was me, because we had made it up, we had dreamt it up, we had we had pioneered it, we had made it happen.
00:33:32.039 --> 00:33:36.279
So all uh combination of thinking about it and doing it, it worked.
00:33:36.440 --> 00:33:38.840
So, you know, there was nobody else who knew much more about it.
00:33:39.000 --> 00:33:51.320
And I went to the States saying this, rallying calls saying, Shahulas, give me money, uh, people come and work for me, retailers list the product, uh build a factory, which probably was a mistake, but build a factory, uh, because I thought the US is quite litigious.
00:33:51.640 --> 00:33:52.519
You you knew about it.
00:33:52.600 --> 00:33:57.240
Well, yeah, we knew all about that, but maybe in hindsight we could have found a different way and outsourced it to somebody else.
00:33:57.640 --> 00:34:01.160
Anyway, long story short, that was a millson around our neck, which was part of the problem.
00:34:01.880 --> 00:34:08.360
Uh a company tried to buy us or wanted to buy us, but genuinely wanted to buy us.
00:34:08.519 --> 00:34:13.880
We were very circumspected about a company, yeah, we were way before we were ready to sell, way before we were breaking even.
00:34:13.960 --> 00:34:17.800
And we thought they were just trying to get our technology and then use it in the way whatever they wanted.
00:34:17.960 --> 00:34:21.719
And then subsequently, um uh I I found out that they were genuine.
00:34:21.800 --> 00:34:22.519
They really did want to do this.
00:34:22.759 --> 00:34:23.719
We had a deal in place.
00:34:23.880 --> 00:34:26.360
We had a deal in place, which is like it was done.
00:34:26.519 --> 00:34:28.519
Now, a deal is never done until it's really done.
00:34:28.679 --> 00:34:35.960
There's a company called called um Best Foods, who owned the KNAR or KNAR brand, and I was thinking we're gonna sell this business way ahead of time.
00:34:36.039 --> 00:34:37.400
They're gonna give us tomorrow's price today.
00:34:37.480 --> 00:34:40.440
All these things I said we needed otherwise it wasn't gonna happen.
00:34:40.599 --> 00:34:45.639
Um, it took us 18 months to work with them to get it, it took a long time at all, because I was sick a long time.
00:34:45.880 --> 00:34:51.480
Um on the 11th hour, literally, we were covering probably a week away from I mean less than a week away from signing.
00:34:51.720 --> 00:34:54.360
Well, it was already signed, it hadn't been uh approved.
00:34:54.519 --> 00:34:56.920
Um, Unilever bought best foods.
00:34:57.720 --> 00:35:01.240
Now, anybody who knows anything about MA, when something like that happens, MA stops.
00:35:01.320 --> 00:35:01.480
Uh huh.
00:35:01.559 --> 00:35:03.960
And when MA stops, it just never gets started.
00:35:04.039 --> 00:35:07.400
Or or you know, a deal never gets comes back from the ashes.
00:35:07.800 --> 00:35:08.680
So it died.
00:35:09.320 --> 00:35:14.680
And it took us uh 14, 18 months to to figure this all out, to get to the point of it not happening.
00:35:15.000 --> 00:35:18.920
And in the process of that 14, 18 months, we took our eye off the ball.
00:35:19.079 --> 00:35:23.639
We were distracted, not from day one, but certainly from day 50% of the time into it.
00:35:23.880 --> 00:35:25.159
We were distracted from running the business.
00:35:25.240 --> 00:35:31.159
So we had a very small team, and at this exactly the right time when you meant to be focusing on running the business and doing all the things to get it off the ground.
00:35:31.320 --> 00:35:35.400
We were talking to these guys based in New Jersey, we were out in California, and we were distracted.
00:35:35.639 --> 00:35:39.800
And 18 months means two soup seasons because it's you know uh seasonality.
00:35:39.960 --> 00:35:40.200
Sure.
00:35:40.360 --> 00:35:46.519
And it was those those two soup seasons which we weren't focused enough to be able to make it work, and that was what pulled the rugs from underneath us.
00:35:46.680 --> 00:35:49.559
We went back to running the business then and get some money together.
00:35:49.639 --> 00:35:56.200
And at the same time as we were doing all this dot-com revolution was taking off in Northern California, and nobody wanted to know about soup, fresh soup.
00:35:56.599 --> 00:35:58.119
It just was did it have dot com at the end?
00:35:59.240 --> 00:36:00.280
You could have done soup.com.
00:36:00.519 --> 00:36:03.480
Well, it's you know so it reminds me of what's happening at the moment with AI.
00:36:03.559 --> 00:36:05.320
Everybody jumping into AI, but that's another story.
00:36:05.480 --> 00:36:08.840
But anyway, we just lost the initiative and we couldn't raise money for the business.
00:36:09.159 --> 00:36:16.200
It feels like we're like right back where we started on focus, which you definitely had when you got Little Dish, but that's for the next episode, I feel.
00:36:16.360 --> 00:36:17.400
I feel that we need to go to the show.
00:36:17.559 --> 00:36:18.840
I gotta come back and do this again.
00:36:19.720 --> 00:36:26.680
If you want to come back, if you enjoy the company, so okay.
00:36:26.840 --> 00:36:27.880
Should we do some quick fire?
00:36:28.039 --> 00:36:28.760
Yeah, go for it.
00:36:28.920 --> 00:36:29.159
Perfect.
00:36:29.240 --> 00:36:31.559
What's the biggest lesson you learned from success?
00:36:31.800 --> 00:36:35.400
Oh, that success is a lousy teacher and you really learn from failure.
00:36:35.720 --> 00:36:36.039
Excellent.
00:36:36.119 --> 00:36:40.280
What advice would you give new founders in your capacity as mentor?
00:36:41.240 --> 00:36:42.360
Oh, yeah, okay.
00:36:42.519 --> 00:36:52.440
Uh consumer insight or customer insight is wonderful, and without it, you don't get anywhere, so you need to have customer insight, but you then have to allow your insight to be confronted by reality.
00:36:52.760 --> 00:36:56.360
If you don't, you're living in your own little bubble of illusion or delusion.
00:36:56.680 --> 00:36:57.639
Yeah, helpful.
00:36:57.960 --> 00:37:01.320
Um, I don't know if you're a reader, but a book you recommend.
00:37:02.119 --> 00:37:06.599
Uh I read a book at the moment called from Jordan Peterson, uh, who is quite controversial, actually.
00:37:06.680 --> 00:37:07.559
I think he's ill too.
00:37:07.639 --> 00:37:09.480
But uh people say, Oh, he's very right wing.
00:37:09.559 --> 00:37:11.720
And I think he is a bit, but he's got a lot of sense.
00:37:11.800 --> 00:37:12.920
I I can't remember the book.
00:37:13.000 --> 00:37:15.960
It's like 14 things to make 12 rules for life.
00:37:16.119 --> 00:37:16.840
Ah, there we go.
00:37:17.000 --> 00:37:17.960
Twelve rules for life.
00:37:18.039 --> 00:37:18.360
That's the book.
00:37:18.519 --> 00:37:18.680
Yeah.
00:37:19.000 --> 00:37:21.240
But so, so, but I I I dip in and dip out.
00:37:21.320 --> 00:37:25.559
I I can't read a book from cover to cover, I can, but I read a chapter every so often, and he talks a lot of sense.
00:37:25.880 --> 00:37:28.039
Um, how do you switch off from work?
00:37:28.840 --> 00:37:29.800
Go to bed.
00:37:30.920 --> 00:37:33.079
I mean, I I it's different anything else.
00:37:33.240 --> 00:37:38.280
Well, no, honestly, I I I I say sometimes, uh, you know, how do you switch off from anything?
00:37:38.360 --> 00:37:43.320
I think and and I my kind of tongue-in-cheek answer is, oh, you know, I'll I'll I'll sleep when I'm dead, type of thing.
00:37:43.400 --> 00:37:45.159
You know, like so I'll deal with that later.
00:37:45.320 --> 00:37:49.880
There's so many things to capture the imagination, to do, to be excited about.
00:37:50.039 --> 00:37:51.800
So many things in such little time.
00:37:51.960 --> 00:37:55.079
I've just got to get on and do them and and let everything else takes care of itself.
00:37:55.240 --> 00:37:58.360
Now I know people say, oh, burnout, but well, haven't burnt out yet.
00:37:58.599 --> 00:37:59.400
Yeah, great.
00:37:59.720 --> 00:38:09.720
Um athletes, um, I don't know, cattle farmer, soup crater, um, US, Ireland, Germany, UK.
00:38:10.039 --> 00:38:12.840
What has remained constant across all of those?
00:38:13.720 --> 00:38:14.760
Is there a constant?
00:38:14.840 --> 00:38:15.320
I don't know.
00:38:15.559 --> 00:38:20.920
Maybe my wife, Julia, has is a constant for the last uh, well, we've been together now 30 something years.
00:38:21.000 --> 00:38:25.079
It's a long like that's probably what is that like that's half my life, crikey.
00:38:25.240 --> 00:38:25.480
Yeah.
00:38:25.639 --> 00:38:27.240
See, she's a constant for sure.
00:38:27.400 --> 00:38:30.599
And and I can't think, I think entrepreneurship is a constant.
00:38:30.920 --> 00:38:33.720
Uh, but for the first 20 years I didn't know what that meant.
00:38:33.800 --> 00:38:34.680
I didn't even know it existed.
00:38:34.760 --> 00:38:38.280
Although in hindsight, you know, like we said at the beginning, I probably lived it a bit.
00:38:38.360 --> 00:38:38.519
Yeah.
00:38:38.680 --> 00:38:45.559
But entrepreneurship is like it's all about agency and resilience and getting stuff done and doing stuff like and then pointing to it, look what I've done.
00:38:45.720 --> 00:38:49.880
And uh it's more tangible when you do stuff as opposed to talk about what you're gonna do.
00:38:50.039 --> 00:38:51.960
I think that's maybe a constant.
00:38:52.280 --> 00:38:52.599
Amazing.
00:38:52.760 --> 00:38:54.599
John Stapleton, you've been an amazing guest.
00:38:54.680 --> 00:38:58.519
I I don't know if I've met anybody that has a resume or CV with uh on the back of the business.
00:38:58.920 --> 00:38:59.880
Shit sandwich, don't forget it.
00:39:00.119 --> 00:39:01.320
Shit sandwich, very good.
00:39:01.400 --> 00:39:05.639
You I think we just earned like an explicit logo on the podcast, but um, there we are.
00:39:05.800 --> 00:39:07.159
Thank you for being such a tremendous guest.
00:39:07.400 --> 00:39:07.880
No, you're welcome.
00:39:08.119 --> 00:39:09.400
Thank you for being on Uncharted Territory.
00:39:09.639 --> 00:39:10.039
Not at all.
00:39:10.119 --> 00:39:10.920
I enjoyed it tremendously.
00:39:11.000 --> 00:39:12.280
What am I coming back?
00:39:12.760 --> 00:39:17.880
That was another great episode of Uncharted Territory, brought to you by Money Penny.