Recipe for Greatness
Recipe for Greatness
Adam Wills - Gourmet Burger Kitchen & Crosstown Doughnuts Cofounder | Repost
Embark on an inspirational odyssey with Adam Wills, the culinary mastermind who's reshaped London's food scene, as he recounts his journey from a software career to founding food sensations Gourmet Burger Kitchen and Crosstown Donuts. Feel the rush of excitement as Adam, a New Zealander by birth, details the leap of faith that led to his reinvention of the burger experience and the artisanal donut revolution. Our insightful chat peels back the layers on what it takes to make a mark in the bustling metropolis, from conceptualising a unique dining niche to the critical first days of opening a business in a foreign land.
"You got to do it for as much as the memories as the money"
Adam Wills
Joining me, Jay Greenwood, Adam delves into the transformation of the London dining landscape, reflecting on the daring yet simple approach that saw GBK soar in a city divided between fast food and fine dining. Imagine the awe of Londoners tasting a true burger for the first time, a testament to Adam's belief in quality ingredients and his knack for capturing the culinary zeitgeist. The narrative is peppered with personal tales of overcoming challenges, the thrill of customer reactions, and the gratifying journey from novelty to mainstream staple.
True to form, Adam doesn't just rest on his laurels. He shares the wisdom garnered from years of entrepreneurial ventures, offering sage advice for anyone hungry to enter the food business. This deep dive is replete with revelations about sustainable growth, the value of a great team, and how to stay nimble and receptive to feedback. Listeners will emerge with a newfound appreciation for the grit behind gourmet and the real ingredients needed for success in the world of food entrepreneurship.
3, 2, 1, 0, and liftoff, liftoff. Hello and welcome to the Recipe for Greatness podcast with me, jay Greenwood Now. The goal of this podcast is to interview the people behind some of the best food companies in the UK and deconstruct how they did it and tease out the knowledge and skills they used to grow their business, and hopefully it will inspire you to sell up your own. Now. This week's founder is an amazing, amazing founder I've been wanting to interview for ages. That's a dream that he's on.
Jay Greenwood:Adam Ws is the founder of gourmet burger kitchen. They pretty much founded casual dining. He's also the founder of coffee and our sand donut concept crosstown donuts. They make the most incredible donuts. Head over to their instagram and you can see really how good a donut looks. I love this interview. We sat down and spoke about his journey, the amazing things he's been through, and he offers amazing advice for aspiring food business founders on what they should be thinking about now. He also tells a story about how he almost blew up his first restaurant. It honestly was an amazing interview. So please enjoy my interview with Adam Wills. Well, adam, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today. I really appreciate it. Thanks so much for being here.
Jay Greenwood:No problem, thanks for having me Awesome. So I want to start off and talk about when you first came from New Zealand to London. What year was that? When you came here?
Adam Wills:So yeah, look, I came out here in July 1997. And you know, when I first came out here I wasn't in food. A lot of my background in the past had been food. But when I landed here in 97 I was actually working for a software company and that's sort of what brought me to the UK at that time.
Jay Greenwood:And did you always was like software, the plan for the future. Was that the career that you thought you'd be ending up on?
Adam Wills:No, look like many things. You know I'd been in food for a long time. I left school sort of relatively young, so sort of just turned 17. School, sort of, you know, relatively young, so sort of just turned 17 and and you know, went in, sort of started making a career in the hotel, food and hospitality trade, um and um, you know I, uh, by by 20 I I had bought my and built my first business, which was was two retail um, delicatessens and a catering company in Wellington. And so you know, when I look back at you know what 20-year-olds look like when they walk through the door.
Adam Wills:Now it's hard for me to kind of reconcile. You know how young that was. But you know we had two retail shops going. I'd always been in food, always sort of enjoyed people, and you know the idea of the catering and the hospitality space. But when I actually sold that first business I wanted to have a break from it because most of my friends were not in that space and they were all coming out to London and you know, working in banks, accounting firms, law firms, that sort of thing. So I, you know, working in banks, accounting firms, law firms, that sort of thing. So I, you know had an opportunity to come out here with a software company and you know that gave me a chance to sort of arrive on the shores and at that point I really started looking at, you know, the food and drink and hospitality space here.
Jay Greenwood:And just for a bit of context, how? Because we all know what the like London. How, you know, it's packed with amazing restaurants everywhere. What was it like? Sort of 1998, sort of 2000 time? What was the restaurant food scene in London like then?
Adam Wills:Yeah, look, it was.
Adam Wills:I mean, you know people have always gone on how bad the food in the UK is and that hasn't been my experience when I sort of got here in that time.
Adam Wills:It was the time that you had to book three months or six months in advance to get a table to go to somewhere like the Ivy.
Adam Wills:There was massive restaurants like Titanic and the West End there was, you know, michelin Star was sort of at its probably you know one of its most peak periods. So you know, people were sort of going out to these very high-end restaurant experiences but you didn't have the depth of offering casual dining that you do today. And so I guess you know you had very high-end food and you know you were paying a lot of money, very sort of glamorous, to go to those places. But then there was a massive drop down to what you would sort of call you know the low-end. You know kebab and curry houses and that type of thing. So from New Zealand, you know where we eat very well out there, good quality, fresh food. I sort of felt that there must be a gap there between, you know, the highest end and the bottom space, and that was sort of where the idea of GBK sort of started to show Amazing.
Jay Greenwood:And what was that transition like? So you're working in a tech company and then you had the sort of in the back of your mind. You had the idea that you wanted to set something up in London. What was the transition from software to burgers, to restaurants? Was it a quick movement or was it something you'd been thinking for a while, when it was just coming to the fore?
Adam Wills:So GBK started in 2000. So you know, I'd been thinking for a while when it was just coming to this point yeah, look, so GBK started in 2000. So you know, I'd been here three years and you know I spent a lot of time during the week either out of the country or out of London. And you know, I used to come back to London and I used to think, you know, there was if you didn't want to go and sit down in a restaurant and take a menu and have a waiter, you know, come and serve you, or there wasn't a place to actually go and just eat something by yourself that was sort of healthy, relaxed, casual, there weren't really many options. And so, you know, and I sort of was looking, relaxed, casual, there weren't really many options.
Adam Wills:And so, you know, I sort of was looking back at the demographics of New Zealand and I was thinking, you know, look, a lot of what I see here. You know where people have got. It's a sophisticated, cosmopolitan kind of society. They've got money to spend, but you either have to go to a restaurant and be served by a waiter with a menu or, you know, or you're eating sort of out of a piece of newspaper with chips on the side of the, on the sidewalk. So, you know, I sort of thought well, you know, there's got to be something in between there.
Adam Wills:And you know, with our kind of casual approach to dining in New Zealand, where, you know, everything's casual, you don't have the white tablecloths and all of that, you know I felt that we could create something where, in a lot of these neighbourhoods that I saw, you know, which had lots of young professionals, lots of well-to-do people, people who lived in small houses, who, could, you know, were always looking for somewhere to go, that we could provide, you know, a platform for those people to dine out casually.
Jay Greenwood:I remember my first experience of a gourmet burger kitchen. I remember my mum took me there and I was just it suddenly was the first realisation of what a burger actually is, because before I was used to the McDonald's or, like you say, the kebab shop or something. And then suddenly, when you had my first gourmet burger kitchen, I was like like wow, this is actually what birds are like. And it's amazing because now it seems so obvious. But back then, you know, people just didn't really think about it too much like that at all.
Adam Wills:So look, I mean, and it all comes back to you know, you know, just simple, really great quality base ingredients, and then you can go and do whatever you want with that. And you know, probably 75% of what we used to serve was a derivative of a cheeseburger. So you would have a cheeseburger and it would be with bacon or it might be with, you know, blue cheese sauce, or it might be with you know some other accompaniment, but you know what it told you was that you know the majority of people would come in and go, wow, chorizo, wow lamb, venison, all these things, but I'll have a cheeseburger. And so you know what we had to focus on was making sure we produced, you know, amazing cheeseburgers, really great chips, some nice dips and some cold beers and wine. If you did that, 75, 80% of your customers were going to be really happy.
Jay Greenwood:Amazing. And how long did it take you from right we're going to sell a burger place and from the idea to actually getting the doors open? Did it take a long time? A short time.
Adam Wills:Yeah, look, it was probably 12 months. And you know, look, you learn lots in that 12 months. And you know, I mean the two other Kiwi guys that I set GBK up with. They were no more familiar with the planning laws that relate to restaurants here in the UK, restaurants here in the UK, so we didn't know that. You know you had to have an A3 or an A5 land.
Adam Wills:Yeah, it had to be purposed for selling food In New Zealand. We could go along the street and go okay, I like that shop, I'm going to set up a restaurant here, whereas here, you know, you've got to go along and go. Okay, well, that's a hair salon. You know, that's a pharmacy, that's a chicken shop. Okay, you can have a chicken shop, but people can't sit down and eat in there. Okay, this is an A3 site, which means that you can sell food in it, you can cook food in it, you can have extraction and you can have people sit down and you can serve them in it, you can have extraction and you can have people sit down and you can serve them, sure?
Jay Greenwood:and how did you go about figuring it out? You know all these unknowns. Did you reach out to anyone or did?
Adam Wills:you, we just made heaps of mistakes. You know we went to see sites all over london you know which were hairdressers and pharmacies and all these things that once we got there, you know the person said, well, you can't set a burger restaurant up, this is a retail shop. You know, we pretty quickly realized, okay, right, we need to handle on the planning status of these shops, and you know. And then you start looking and then you start realizing all of the intricacies that come with those particular planning styles and you know you start narrowing your search down. But look at time to raise the money. It took time to obviously get that to come together and explain to people who are going to invest in it. We have an idea, we haven't got a site, we haven't got a lot of the things that you need. No, we've never done anything here in London before. But, um, you know, we would like you to give us, you know, a chunk of change that we can go out and hopefully make you some money off.
Jay Greenwood:Yeah, and how did you approach those people? Was it in uh introductions or was it just knocking on doors?
Adam Wills:Friends and family. So, um, yeah, look, I mean, we, we had a group of, as I said to you, a lot of my friends were from working in the city. You know, we raised £250,000 back then to get started, which you know seemed quite a lot of money, which, you know, in today's sort of approach to opening a restaurant. It's, you know, it's nothing, but we, you know, and we sold those. But we, you know, and we sold those. Each of those slots was a 5,000, yeah, I think, 5,000 pound slot. So, you know, we got a group of people together as the three of us. We put in 50,000 each of the 250,000. And, you know, we got the 100,000 off. You know, 20 other people and 5,000 down. That's amazing.
Jay Greenwood:What were you feeling like before I opened? Were you really nervous? I mean, this is like the first bricks and mortar place in London that you were setting up. How were you feeling before I opened?
Adam Wills:Yeah, well, look, we were feeling good. I'll never forget the day before we opened that we were all ready to go cleaning it down and this lady in Battersea came and knocked on the door and it hit. On the front of the building we had our signage up there Gourmet Burger Kitchen. Everybody was trying to work out what she knocked on. She said what is this place going to be? And we said, oh, it's going to be a gourmet burger, you know restaurant. She said, oh, that won't work in this neighborhood. It was sort of that.
Adam Wills:So typically, kind of slightly. You know, if you took everything personally from people like that, you know you would get worried. But you know, look, we opened up and look, it was by no means an immediate success. You know, it wasn't full of diners the day we opened. It wasn't until timeout.
Adam Wills:You know, guy Diamond, who was the sort of a restaurant critic back there, did a review of us and gave us a you know, know, like a five star uh rating, and and then another couple of reviewers sort of started and it was, we hadn't gone out and gone, got pr, we hadn't done anything. We just opened the doors and started trading, um, and and I, I guess. Actually, you know, when you keep things really simple, you have lower expectations, whereas these days, so many people you know want to make this huge splash immediately. They want everybody to say this is amazing, you've got to go here. But back in 2000, it kind of wasn't like that, you know, we were still looking at the paper version of Time Out, which was sort of the guide that you picked up on a Wednesday in London outside of tube.
Jay Greenwood:Yeah, well, I mean I've heard you talk about the story before, about when you guys were first opening up the place, that, uh, you did a lot of the demolition work. Uh, yourself, can you tell us a little bit about that story?
Adam Wills:yeah, well, look, uh, I mean back then, you know, you know, I mean, you know 250, as I said, 250 sounds a lot of money. But we also, when we got the quote and it said, look, you know, it would be, I think, five or 6,000 pounds for, you know, stripping the place out, and we were like, you know, it's an extreme amount of money. Look, we can do that ourselves and we'll save the money. And so the boys went down to sort of the hardware shop, got a crowbar, got a sledgehammer and set about putting a hole through a wall and everything, and we thought we had done a pretty good job.
Adam Wills:By the end of the day we had a skip full of stuff and went off to have a cold beer and congratulate ourselves on having saved a few thousand pounds. But the next day, when we came back, there was hazard tape all over the front of it and we had accidentally ruptured a gas line on the building and it had to evacuate the shops beside us, the people above us, and we had to ring the shops beside us, the people above us, and we had to ring the fire department to get them to come and declare that we could get the builders to start on Monday. So yeah, look, it wasn't a very auspicious start to our first restaurant, but it's one of the stories that we look back on fondly, that's amazing.
Jay Greenwood:I love those stories because you know you're just trying to get things to work and you're just doing all kinds of things that we look back on fondly. That's amazing. I love those stories because you know you're just trying to get things to work and you're just doing all kinds of things and you look back and you think, oh, you know how far things have come. I imagine yeah.
Adam Wills:Yeah, yeah. And look, that's some of the fun. You know, I think I'd say that to everybody. You've got to do this as much for the memories as for the money. You know you've got to enjoy the journey that you go on.
Jay Greenwood:So how long did it take, after it had been open, for you to start to feel like things were working, and it was? You know, maybe there was an opportunity to open up another one.
Adam Wills:Look, I guess, because our goal had always been to open, uh, you know, um, you know I don't like to use the word a chain of restaurants, but you know a series of of gourmet burger kitchens. You know, we um pretty quickly set about, you know, realizing that. You know, in order to support, you know, three people who had left their jobs to set this up, that we needed to, you know, find a second site. It was trading well, so we, by November, so we opened in March in our first GBK, by November, we opened our second GBK and so, you know, reasonably quick succession, we found that second site.
Adam Wills:You know, again, we made a fundamental error of. You know, we had our first site in southwest London and our second site in northwest London and we just didn't sort of think of how hard it would be to travel across town all the time getting to those two sites. And you know, we wasted a huge amount of of time going up to west hampstead, um, and, and it was a slow, it was again it was a slower site to get started. So we were sort of wondering, you know, we've gone and chosen this site the other side of town. No, it's taking a while to to underway, but eventually it did, and that site was probably one of our most profitable sites.
Jay Greenwood:Amazing. And then I know you guys grew and you kept opening and then in 2004, how did the approach come of? You know someone else getting involved in Gourmet Burger Kitchen and sort of taking over a share in it? Yeah, look.
Adam Wills:I mean we after, pretty quickly, after we got underway and you know we were lucky, we had, you know, queues out the door and we had opened you know another couple of sites and you know, and people were taking notice of, of the concept, you know, the food was getting good reviews and people started, you know, asking us hey, what, what are our plans?
Adam Wills:You know, what are you guys up to? And it got to a point for us where it was quite distracting. And then there were people who who were you were just interested in it but not really wanting to pay any significant money for the value we had created. So we appointed an advisor and anybody that came to inquire we just directed the inquiry towards them and that allowed us to get on with running the business and they could be screened by our advisor as to sort of what their intentions were. And in yeah, I think, as you say, 2004 or 5, we accepted an offer from Clapham House, which was some ex-directors from Pizza Express. We were buying up concepts and sort of building a multi-brand concept which they listed on on AIM Stock Exchange.
Jay Greenwood:And how old were you at the time when Clapham House came in sort of with an offer?
Adam Wills:My age? Yeah, my age it would have. Uh, yeah, I've been 33. Yeah, 33 maybe so what was it like?
Jay Greenwood:because you probably, you know, you felt, you know, this is something you'd set up. Was it easy to to let it go, or was it, um, you know, it was kind of a tough decision.
Adam Wills:I, I think um it, for it was being in the operational side of the business, which basically means doing the real graph, the long hours solving huge amounts of problems that you run into, run into. I would have been doing 80, 100-hour weeks and it kind of got to a point where we knew that it was going to be worth something. We knew that it was going to grow into something probably larger than what I saw myself wanting to run. I didn't want to be the guy who sort of ran 50 or 60 sites. I was happy being the guy that had created the staff of the business and would hand it over to other people who really were more designed in what you call a rollout.
Jay Greenwood:Amazing. So you're 33 and this has all come in. What are you thinking at this time? Are you thinking all right, I can go relax at a beach now and just relax.
Adam Wills:Well, you know I guess if you, you know I'll turn 50 this year and when I think about you know how much money that seemed, you know, for a single guy back then. So much to do, see, it seemed a huge-sized check to get. But when you realize at 50, when you've got three kids and you've got houses and all these things to do, it was a great foundation block but you still had to get back in. I think the other thing is that you realize after a break you also want to get back and show people that it wasn't just luck.
Adam Wills:That's probably the, it's probably the, the, you know the entrepreneur and and people which is to have another go, you know, not sit back sure and um, I want to ask when did you meet peter gordon?
Jay Greenwood:how did that relationship sort of?
Adam Wills:evolve, yeah, so, so peter's a obviously a new zealander as well, um and um um. You know, as I said to you when, when we started looking at, you know peter was running the sugar club here in the? Um in the? U in the uk? Um in london, and so you know he had that natural connection to the food industry. So we met him back in 2000 and you know, subsequently, you know, uh, he was involved with gbk and helping us create the menu. He uh, we also subsequently had um kaupapa, the restaurant we had up in the west end. Um after that together and peter um is also a a shareholder in in across town as well amazing and yeah, I want to touch on sort of 2014.
Jay Greenwood:So you'd had the success with gourmet burger kitchen. You had, uh, kapapa opened and then something landed on your desk and it was a business plan, wasn't it? For a coffee shop from your now business partner, jp? Yeah, yeah, sorry yeah, what was it about? Can I imagine? You probably had lots of people, lots of budding entrepreneurs, sending you things, setting new concepts, ideas.
Adam Wills:What was it about that that really took your fancy yeah, look, yeah, I mean, uh, to date I I've never seen anything as complete, uh, a pitch as jp put together, which was, you know, he, he had an idea of you know, wanting to open, you know, a coffee shop concept. He, um, had done a hard covered, bound business plan which sort of set out the style of how he saw the operation. He had identified sort of locations he had, he had done so much research and presented it in an amazing way. There was a little bag, uh with with coffee beans and there was all of this stuff.
Adam Wills:And to be honest, you know you're right, I did get a lot of approaches constantly from people and at first I thought he was looking to sell us coffee at Copapa and so I just chucked it into my in tray. In fact I think I'd sort of said to the manager just chuck it into my intro. And then he sent a follow-up email because I never replied to him and sort of said did you check it out? And so I went down and had a second look at it and had a read of it and then I said, look, I'll meet up with you and have a listen, because I was so impressed with what he had done and really things from there developed and we started to get to know each other.
Adam Wills:He's a very impressive young guy and when I say young the reason why I say you know, as you get older and you get surrounded by people of of a similar age or older people, you know they lose their enthusiasm for a lot of things. And it's just, I guess, like many things in life, as people work their way through it and they you don't want to take as many risks, you don't have as much energy, you know you're weighed down by, you know a variety of of different obligations that you have. You know, when you meet somebody young like that and you know they've got none of those things, he just had so much um interest in getting involved and that that was sort of a really attractive trait.
Jay Greenwood:Yeah, so would you say it was the just. I imagine lots of things, but it was JP's professional approach with putting lots of time and effort into the presentation and everything else that really sort of stood out for you versus maybe some other people who just wouldn't go through that kind of thing.
Adam Wills:Look, the other thing is, I think, another really important. He turned up and he said, hey, look, I've got some money, you know, and I would be interested in investing some of my money, whereas so many people turn up and they go, hey, I've got this idea. What I'd like you to do is spend your money and give me all your expertise and, you know, I'll sort of retain 90% and you can have 10%. You know, I guess JP was just a much more realistic prospect and he had done, you know, a huge amount before coming to pitch, where so many people come and pitch and you read the pitch and you go. You have no idea what you're talking about. And so that was, yeah, certainly something that made me sit up and take notice. Amazing.
Jay Greenwood:And I know it was a coffee concept. How did it evolve into these amazing artisan donuts that you guys do now across town?
Adam Wills:Well, look, I mean, my first question I guess that I put to JP was you know, what is it that you wanted to do? Question I guess that I put to JP was like you know, what is it that you wanted to do? What's going to differentiate your, your you know the concept from every other coffee shop? Um, and you know, there are, you know, loads of good coffee shops where there's one, two, three sites, and you know, but invariably, in a lot of cases, they sell the same thing. Okay, they sell coffee, they sell banana bread, they sell pastries, they, you know, sell all these things, but they're just derivatives of the same food. And I said to him if you are wanting to grow something and sell it, like we did with GBK, you've got to have something that's unique. You've got to have something which is different. You've got to have something where you can have multiple strains of revenue that come in.
Adam Wills:In my eyes, with GBK, we had eating customers and we had takeaway business. I could see how strong online business was becoming and so, you know, I wanted something where we could also sell products outside the shop as opposed to just relying on people to walk through the door, you know, on a daily basis. So we were looking at going, well, what works with coffee, you know? And we came to the conclusion well, look, you know, donuts and coffee, they're natural bedfellows, uh, and you know, they are also something where you could produce them, put them into a box and you could uh, gift them. You could also wholesale them.
Jay Greenwood:But that was the sort of the how we came to that, that point where we amazing and one thing that I would say about you is that you're so good at identifying trends and sort of the way things are going. Is there a particular way that you look at opportunities in the market? Is it you are following trends or is it you know you're actively looking for something like you just mentioned there? That's, you know your unique selling point unique selling point?
Adam Wills:I guess I have it, you know. Look, you could look at it and say I don't think I follow trends. I probably look to always think well, you know, how can I create something that I think the public are going to enjoy? I'm not scared to look at things and go how can I make that better?
Adam Wills:And you know, if you look at burgers, you know burgers were downtrodden Donuts, you know, didn't have a great reputation, and yet you know they were both you know well-known foods and you know, even when they were in their bad form, people still ate them and there was a level of kind of connection to those things. They had been around. So you know, although you know McDonald's it's, you know it serves a purpose, but it's not a great eating experience. And so I always kind of look at things and go okay, how can I turn something into a great eating experience? And I guess the word we use is the premiumization of products which people are familiar with and that people are really comfortable with. That's the perfect way are familiar with and that people are really comfortable with.
Jay Greenwood:That's the perfect way. That was the word in my head that I was looking for. What you, you know, take something that was just considered, you know, not so great, but then turn it into something, a premium product that people really want and you can charge more for it because it is just that good. So that premiumization is the word that I was thinking of in my head. One thing I wanted to ask you about was co-founders. Now I've noticed that you team up with amazing people and you know, with Gourmet Bird Kitchen we touched on there you had Peter Gordon advising on the food as well and then with Crosstown, you know you've got great links with people who have experience in bakeries. Again, peter Gordon is there helping with their flavors and everything. How important or unimportant do you think finding a team and working with them is?
Adam Wills:yeah, look, I love working with other people. You know, I mean, it's my you I wouldn't want to do these things by myself and I think, also trying to find people, when you start a business, who are going to represent aspects, different aspects, that the business is going to need, you know, and so I have tended to be the food guy or the operations guy, and you know I've always needed somebody to do the numbers or I've needed other people to do the brand, and so you know, when you're starting out, you need to. You know there's no point having three food guys, you know, know, because you'll probably have great food but you'll probably be bust. So you, you, you have to to get a team together. Um, and you know I love the excitement of bringing a team, a team together.
Adam Wills:Um, I like the idea of being able to choose those people who are going to be on on the team. Um, and you've got to choose people who you think that you're going to be able to be around a lot, because if your business goes well and you have to work hard, you've got to work long hours, and food is always all of those things you are going to need to be able to stomach each other on the good and the bad days that you'll go through together yeah, and for someone who's maybe thinking about starting a food business, what questions should they be asking themselves, whether or not you know, maybe, whether or not they should do it, or what you know their opportunity is?
Jay Greenwood:do you think there's any real questions that they should be asking themselves to think about first?
Adam Wills:you know, I I think it's quite important to imagine what it is that you think you want your business to be in in. You know, say, five years time, and and you know, um, when I think back to say 2000 and, uh, sort of 12, 13, a lot of places, a lot of food trucks were popping up and people were doing some great food out of these food trucks. But it's a hard life in a food truck. It's a hard life to train. You don't have a central kitchen, you haven't got lights or power or water or any of those things. So it might be great to start off with a food truck, but how are you going to move that food truck into something that you can live with on a longer term basis? And so I think that you've got to really kind of be able to think that through. And you've got to be able of be able to think that through and you've got to be able to get people to give you feedback on your idea. You've got to be open to constructive criticism. You've got to be prepared to listen to people tell you why they think it might not work and in that feedback, you know, really challenge your own idea against what view other people have of it. You know, you just don't want to be that guy who's charging ahead and not listening to anybody, not being so rigid that you can't take critical advice from people. And you know, go and check your idea that, um, the things that you think are going to play out, you know, are likely to have a good chance of playing out.
Adam Wills:So I think, um, you know, with, um, you know crosstown now, you know we knew we were going to. You know, retail, uh, out of our shops. We knew we wanted to do online. We didn't know that, you know, in the first 12 months, um, you know, more than 60 percent of our revenue would come through wholesale and that, and that is what what occurred with us, um, but we were able to to recognize that was an avenue to allowing the business to scale up, because, just making enough product in a bakery for, um, for one or two shops, it's hard, you know, to get the economies of scale which give you margin and all those things. So, um, I think, yeah, being being flexible, being open to opportunity, um, and and being able to um pivot where necessary is obviously also an important thing.
Jay Greenwood:Absolutely, and I was going to ask you if you see any real common mistakes that people setting up food businesses do. But I think it's almost the opposite of you know what you're saying they should be doing. Then you know it's not listening to the advice, it's not, you know, focusing on the long-term goal or something like that.
Adam Wills:Yeah, yeah, look, I mean I think also you know focusing on the long-term goal or something like that. Yeah, yeah, look, I, I mean I, I think also you know making sure, you know I would say to people um, you know, have a go at something when you're younger, um, because you know you're less um weighed down by. You know you know, potentially being married, potentially having kids, potentially potentially putting everything at risk, you know there's a high chance that you might stuff it up and you have to get comfortable with the idea that that may happen. It may happen because you did something wrong. It may happen because circumstances, you know, may go against you and you just can't do anything about it. But and you've got to be able to accept and pick yourself up from that situation and, and you know, dust yourself off and and either go back to working for somebody else or, uh, you know, be able to have another go amazing.
Jay Greenwood:Yeah, I think that's the key. You know, just accepting that you know it may not work and, uh, just giving it a go is the most important thing. I'm conscious of time. I've already stolen enough of your time already. One question I had for you was has there been any books or multiple books that you have read that have helped you at all in your journey? You?
Adam Wills:have read that helped you at all in your journey? Yeah, look, I guess. Look, I enjoy reading about other people. I'm not a great reader of kind of management. You know structure and follow this plan and you know do this and that will happen and you know the 10 steps to effective management and that stuff. But I love reading about. You know autobiographies about.
Adam Wills:You know business people, you know how they went about, you know building their business and you know I look back now say some of the ones that I read. You know, 20 years ago, when I was sort of first thinking about doing a business. You know I read a great book about Philip Green. I read a great book about Luke Johnson. You know, fast forward 20 years and what you see is, well, hey, even those great business guys can get it wrong and things will happen to them. But when you read that book 20 years ago, you thought, wow, these guys, everything they touch turns to gold. Yeah, so yeah, I think read a variety of books, absolutely that book 20 years ago you thought, wow, these guys, everything they touch turns to gold.
Adam Wills:Yeah, yeah, it's so.
Jay Greenwood:Yeah, I think, read a variety of books, absolutely and one last question is if you could go back to sort of 20, 25 year old adam, is there any a bit of advice you'd give him, given the career you've had? Is there anything you'd go back and tell yourself, oh, God, look, slow down.
Adam Wills:All the advice I'm giving you now is, 25 years on, listening to people. I think most people aren't looking for you to prove something to them. You know it's about proving something to yourself, and in a lot of cases you're a lot harder on yourself than other people, than you think other people are. So, yeah, so don't let the weight of expectation of people around you sort of make you make decisions that if you just step back, took your time to review things, in a lot of cases you'll probably come to a slightly different decision than if you sort of rush into things.
Jay Greenwood:Wow, that's amazing. I think that's a perfect time to end the interview. So I just want to say thank you so much, Adam, for making the time. I mean, I'm a big admirer of everything you've achieved, so for me to have you on this is you know, it's like a bit of a dream. So thank you so much. I really appreciate you making the time. Thank you for having me on.
Jay Greenwood:Thank you so much for tuning in. You don't understand how much it means to me. You've listened to this episode. If you liked it, then please hit subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, spotify. We'd love to hear from you and see what you think. If you're interested in learning more about founding a food business, then head over to wwwjgreenwoodcom and there'll be a little bit more information about finding a food business on that. But, guys, thank you so much and be great.