SRSLY Low Carb: why we need to STOP sugar coating the truth

We are currently facing a public health crisis. In this episode, you'll hear the story of Andy Welsh, the ambitious founder of SRSLY Low Carb. After a wake-up call, he left the corporate world to enter the challenging world of health-focused entrepreneurship. 

Picture this: You're trying to offer healthier food options in a market that is dominated by six conglomerates producing ultra-processed food. Quite a challenge, right?  

 What's his secret weapon? It's listening to his customers. Their feedback and loyalty have been his guide and his driving force, reinforcing the power of customer-centric businesses. 

Key Takeaways

- Resilience is at the Heart of Entrepreneurship: Andy's experience reminds us that overcoming obstacles, such as personal financial risk and market resistance, requires a strong support system and an ability to adapt under pressure.

- The Power of Quality and Customer Loyalty: Prioritising product integrity and building close customer relationships can lead to organic growth and brand trust, often reducing the need for heavy marketing investment.

- Financial Literacy is Fundamental: The conversations underscore the essential need for entrepreneurs to understand their financials deeply. Money problems in business can't be ignored and must be managed proactively to ensure stability and growth.

Have questions about this episode? Ask our hosts, chat now

Transcript

Unknown: 0:09

And then about a week after, they said, Actually, we're going to drop the product, probably the next six, seven months. And I said, No, no, no, you can't do that. You're listening to find it and grounded with Ollie collard and Dr. Becky sage. The podcast brings you the honest realities of startup life. If you're a founder or aspiring entrepreneur, this is for you. We know running a business can be lonely and tough at times. And we want to help you get ahead with simple tips and sound advice. Every fortnight we hear inspiring stories from an early stage business owner, who's only a couple of steps ahead of you, talking about what they've learned. And as your hosts, we share our insights and experiences as founders. So you can apply this to your own business. Hello, I'm Dr. Becky sage. I'm co host of founded and grounded and I'm here today with Ali and Ali. We're feeling festive today because this is our last episode before Christmas. We

Ollie Collard: 1:16

are indeed I mean, for people watching on video, we do have our lovely festive jumpers on. And yeah, we are releasing this episode on the 18th. in time for Christmas. It's our

Unknown: 1:27

Christmas treat for everybody. And of course, it's our last episode of The Year as well. And I think this is often a very reflective time for people. And I find it really helpful, I've started to realise that reflection is more important than goal setting for me, that kind of looking back and taking the learnings and drawing Insights is how do I then develop and grow? Do you like to spend December reflecting?

Ollie Collard: 1:53

I do, I mean, isn't actually quite a good time to do that within the calendar year and you've got downtime over Christmas to be able to do it. I think it is, like you say so important to take time out to be able to do it. I think naturally, it's hard to do because you don't build in the time. But if you are building in the time, whether that's on a monthly or even a weekly basis. I mean, how often do you reflect back here?

Unknown: 2:16

Yeah, good question. I do small things regularly. So I don't actually daily journal, there have been times when I've done daily journaling. But I don't do that anymore. I think it becomes so built into your brain as a process, that you're doing it as you go along, even if you're not necessarily writing something down. But I'd say I do it on a weekly basis, in small ways. And then I do much bigger reflections probably about every six months. And I like to really look back and really look at what's happened. Why would you? And that forms a much stronger foundation, I think for goal setting for the future. Definitely,

Ollie Collard: 2:56

because you can realise how maybe how ambitious you were or maybe under ambitious and actually, how is that going to influence your next goal? Right? Yeah,

Unknown: 3:05

absolutely. I also think reflection just tells us a lot about ourselves, what we're prioritising why we're prioritising. And that, again, kind of helps to inform us in terms of the realities of going forward. Talking about going forward. Should we move on to talk about our guest this week, Ollie? Who is it?

Ollie Collard: 3:24

So we've got the founder of seriously low carb, a chap named Andy Welsh. And he's built out an award winning consumer brand that is really focused on keto and low carb from the

Unknown: 3:35

products and listening to Andy a really strong theme came through for me, which was that if you care for your customers, they will care about you. And so I really want everyone to kind of keep that in mind as you're listening to Andy's story. We start this journey with his Inception story, and I don't know how he got a lead, but I was a bit shocked to hear and using Inception stories. So yeah,

Ollie Collard: 4:03

I mean, there was quite a few bumps in that road in those early days, which won't give too much away. Yeah, so

Unknown: 4:09

let's jump in and have a listen Joey.

Ollie Collard: 4:14

Andy, seriously, low carb was born from your own need for easy nutritious food. Can you please elaborate on how your personal health journey influenced the inception and ethos behind Searcy low carb?

Unknown: 4:28

It's quite a large question. Okay. So I think probably a tiny bit of background as quick as I can. So my background was corporate sort of footsie 250 companies in sourcing outsourcing 70,000 employees regionalization, that sort of thing. I've been across most industries, whether it be legal finance, bit of military engineering, real estate, never ever in food and beverage market. Oh my god, well again, devolved. So I was commuting to Warsaw for a quite an interesting, quite toxic client and I was commuting to Warsaw for six months, literally every week. And I ended up collapsing on on the plane back, or I was about to collapse and I decided to I fall into the aisle or do I just hold on and I held on I came to as you sort of think about sign comes off. And that was the kind of the realisation being an interim, you never really have a rest as such, because you're looking for the next opportunity, which I've been doing for about 20 odd years. And I thought, You know what, let's take some time off. And I'd been triathlon dads and the moms and dads that enjoy it and committed the paksa type thing. And I thought, You know what, I'd like to take some time off and have a bit of a bucket list and complete an Ironman and I looked around, and that's one of the top 10 ones was the one in Wales, but you swim in the Irish Sea, and you're up and down crimps your hills. And I couldn't find it. Because I've been taking some time off, my wife would kill me if I actually gave up halfway through, I didn't complete it. So I researched and I researched, obviously, you exercise, rest, stretching, lots of lots of trading, but also nutrition, a lot of people fail with nutrition. So I researched into that and found about this thing, this science called keto didn't know anything about it, there was this guy called Professor Dan Plews, who got into the world finals, for the Ironman series, within two years of following this regime, basically a diet and what it does, rather than using your three to 4000 calories of sugar, you can store in your blood. Anyone time that you struggle with when you're running and exercising, you can access through ketosis, you're 30 to 40,000 calories you have around your body, intrinsic fats in your organs, that sort of thing. And yet a healthy person, like you only got about 30 to 40,000 calories in your body that you can access. And if you think about it, it makes sense because when you're in sort of the caveman world who are back in there, and you didn't go Right, I'm off to go and hunt something down. I'll be back by lunchtime class and breakfast first, you could be walking for five days and you couldn't have anything so your body has to find a way to to adapt. And that's basically where the premise comes from. And fidgety, I am dyslexic, so I couldn't just train I was always looking at other things to do. And whilst I couldn't buy a Keto, so just for the for your listeners, you got to avoid the carbs in a big way. So you can't have pasta, rice, potato, you know, bread, all the things that fill you up all the things that are half your plate. Yeah. So you've got to ignore them, or avoid them rather. And so I went online on Amazon or whatever, keto bread keto, it couldn't find much found a few things from Germany, which were really really heavy and leathery rage, sort of northern Europe style breads. There were some things from America I could get, which never went off like a Twinkie and tasted really weird. So I started making my own. And I thought I wonder if I could see if anybody else would want it. And that's kind of the first step of that journey.

Ollie Collard: 8:15

Wow. And I want to hear a bit more about that, that wild journey in the beginning and the going from idea to reality. So let me set the scene at the time. I hear keto and low carb are some of the most Google terms in health and diet for four years in a row in

Unknown: 8:31

America. Not in the UK, not in Europe. Yeah. Wow.

Ollie Collard: 8:35

And your first year in revenue did 1.6 million pounds. Yes. So take me back to those early days of going from that simple idea of making a bread to yourself to turning it into a commercial venture. Right. So

Unknown: 8:51

I it's about six months worth of prep to what I like to say I have no knowledge of food and beverage industry. But my mindset, and I refer to being dyslexic is you don't often find a solution in a logical way, you have to find a kind of a flighty creative solution to the same problem. And therefore there is no problem you can't just solve because you just have to solve it. Some people find things much easier to do. And you just got to just figure away. So I started Googling. I didn't even know what the word was, but commercial bakeries, for example. And after six months of working with some that took me on board, we decided to launch launch the company in January 20. And I thought this is gonna be amazing. And then about a week after, they said, Actually, we're going to drop the product. And we've been working on it for six, seven months. And I said, No, no, no, you can't do that. You got to work on it together. No, it's too hard to machine it's too hard to maintain consistency is is really difficult product to manage. So we're dropping it and that was a sad, sad moment. Managed to get a smaller bakery to support this for a bit to get us up and running. And then about three weeks later COVID kicked in. So no one really wanted healthy options. They wanted to do wine cheese and zoom meetings. And we had to pivot the business and no one could get hold of yeast or flour or anything like that. And because I had access to I was talking to these millers, I could do that. So I was getting a tonnes worth of yeast, and then packaging up in my garage to sell it on Amazon just to survive. Because my interim, think about it, interim corporate world had changed anyway, I couldn't go back into it because of, well, COVID. Yeah. I think it's not for contractors. So we survived for the first sort of two, three months, and also selling three or four loads a day from the freezer. And one day, I think it was like, July the eighth or whatever it was Tuesday, I got 130 orders at Harper seven till nine o'clock. I thought, This is amazing. And then nothing for the rest of the day. Okay, is there a technical system areas? So I actually called up the customer site, calling them up saying, really weird question, but why did you buy our product? And they said, Oh, it's a lady talking about your products with a few Facebook groups. And she's become, she's our legend now. And on the Thursday after that, we sold 300 orders. And then within about a week and a half, we did 50,000 We were on average tracking 350 1000 units, this piece of bread a month, and it didn't really change. So we didn't advertise we it was all word of mouth. The business could have crashed loads of times, and we'll probably talk about stuff, why didn't work? Why didn't it work? I remember one time, we had a bad batch. And I had 300 Odd notes about 173 people complaining emailing in saying my groceries turned out mouldy, my budget and a mouldy. And for me, Facebook was a light bid people complaining. And I thought, oh my god, this is over for it to become. And I my marketing or customer service. Person who joined was actually hadn't properly joined yet. So and they wouldn't be able to manage all that workload anyway. So I started responding to each one of them. I remember starting at 830 in the morning on that, like the Tuesday or whatever it was, and I finished responding at lunchtime, on the Wednesday, I started to work through the night didn't stop one for five minute breaks. Just keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going. And now when we have a huge which we do, we don't we still we fix it, we switch on to it. But our customers are the ones on Facebook going out. Don't wait, don't wait. So they take care of it. We had this problem. And they don't, don't you worry. And it's it's grown from there. So a bit of luck, but really caring as well, the things that sort of probably got to where we are today.

Ollie Collard: 13:00

And one of the things that really stood out for me, your crowdfunding campaign at the moment was 79% of your customers place a repeat order, and 35% of your orders are on subscription. So how do you go about building this customer loyalty?

Unknown: 13:19

Well, caring, you know, and you do the the words of customer service are a word that we've heard 1000 times. But you could be an absolute, you know, bad word, and still give someone good customer service, you know, or you can just really, really care. And you could do absolutely terrible customer service, because you can't fix it. And it's a complete mess. But you really, really care and the customer sees that you do. So that's been really important. And when I've worked in a corporate world where you get lots of pushback from boards and things because you're trying to change their country's structure with the head office initiative. And oh, it's not the head office thing. If you can really demonstrate your understanding of that individual, then they can get buy into what you're trying to do. And they get buy into your vision, and then they actually start supporting you on it, and then next year, start doing it for you. And it's this kind of same sort of principles of of that approach with our customers. The other bit really fell off the way we went crazy on sales as it were. And I thought it is not that many triathletes there is there and and some of their lovely old days that are calling in and asking questions. They're doing now 70 years old running around, but actually we asked what, why they were buying we did a couple of surveys, and 80% of our customers you think about like a Venn diagram 80% of our customers were buying for weight loss. And about 50% of the time we're buying to manage diabetes, we had other medical things. There's been a bit of an overlap some masters and variable like a Venn diagram. And that was the sort of point again, well, why is that? Because I was doing it for keto. In low carb, but actually being on low carb, you don't get the sugar spikes, you don't get the hunger pains, there's a whole thing we can go into in that regard. But that's also therefore, why they came to find it in the first place because it actually works. And we've got so many anecdotal stories of customers I can share with you later. But yeah, it was it to answer your question. It's just looking after those individuals and understanding them.

Ollie Collard: 15:24

Amazing Andy, and you very kindly bought over some of your wonderful products to the studio here. And I was lucky enough to sample a bread and butter sandwich, which was incredibly tasty, first of all, but also felt really light when I was eating it. Can you just tell our listeners a bit more about the range of products that you offer?

Unknown: 15:45

Uh, yeah, certainly. So I started with bread, and it took off. And then we started doing variants of that bread. So the low carb low was a thing we launched with. And then you obviously get roles in hot dogs, and EG variations of it of a highly seeded slightly heavier. And then we started looking at other areas where we can help. So when we initially looked we weren't right, where there's a carb, there's an opportunity, because we want to remove the carbs will remove these badly processed foods that were was that people were eating. And the second largest item that was eaten, that has really high in carbs is pizza. So that was our next one that we launched. And we've just been lifted in America, in 100, advisors doors, so that we got back about three weeks ago. And it's been a long, long journey, but it's been really, really rewarding. And then we have had sort of cakes or other items in the sort of sweet treat side of things, but and truffles as well. But the stage of the early stages of business that we're eyes, we are is it's difficult to put such a capital outlay to try and sell everything every month, where if you're, if you're selling fresh bread, you might get the order paid for before you order the product and then give to the customer and then you've got 30 days to pay it. So the cash flow in that regard works quite well. Other areas, though, and I ate one here, because I thought just sneak one in for quickly was our ready meals. So introduce a whole load of ready meals, we've got condiments as well. So we've got chilli jams, I'd say sweet pickles. It was great. When we had a customer review on our on our brown sweet pickle. They said it tastes exactly like I won't say the name. And we won't get we've done it because there's you know, it's very high in sugars and carbs in ours doesn't have any virtually no calories at all. So it's really, really good for the weight loss and diabetes. And then hopefully I say hopefully collect if she's listening to this or head of product. We're launching our pasture. So we go into our production trials next week, and fingers crossed, we'll be able to deliver that for the January spike of sort of a healthy approach to living.

Ollie Collard: 18:08

Amazing, Andy, and you're talking though about some of the benefits that your products bring about to your customers? So are you able to share any kind of anecdotes or stories about what difference your products are made in your customers lives?

Unknown: 18:20

Yeah. So I take a little step back first at why our products seem to work or not seem to work the way they do work. You take a typical like for bread. And that's usually around about 50% carbs, okay? And those carbohydrates are highly processed. So they kind of think about your chemistry days, they've got a single bond. So pretty much 100% of those carbs will convert into sugar into your body. Okay, so glucose and fructose, and therefore you get a huge sugar spike. In fact, in the GI glycemic index, white bread is the worst thing. It's worse than sugar. White bread has got a glycemic index of 100. And just quick question, where do you think on on a glycemic index scale of one to 100? Where 100 is bad? Where do you think granulated sugar sits?

Ollie Collard: 19:08

As a gas? Maybe 7056. Okay,

Unknown: 19:11

so that shows you how, how much worse white bread is. Yeah. So because of that, you get a big sugar spike. And because of that, you also get through through brain chemistry, hunger pains. So if you think about Christmas dinner, when you're eating lots of lots and lots and lots, you can't physically anymore, and that's the time of year we actually get stomach pains. 20 minutes later, because you're so hungry, and it's your brain going we are in an environment where there's lots of food, I must keep eating hunter gatherer type type of approach to life. Our bread doesn't give you the sugar spike. Okay, so, from a weight loss perspective, you don't get the sugar spike so you don't get the hunger pains so you don't snack so our bread doesn't actually physically make you lose weight, but you don't get the snacking effect or our products don't and therefore you don't snack and therefore you naturally lose. Like, I call Mr some stories in a second, the same for diabetes. So without that constant deluge of glucose in your blood, you can you can reverse type two diabetes, you know, you can manage type one type two diabetes a lot better a lot more easily. To the point though, if you're in a state of ketosis, then there's another sort of deep medical benefits such as people who have suffered with drug resistant epilepsy a lot of children do. And if they're in a state of ketosis, which is much more strict in terms of low carbs, they reduce their seizures up to 90%, which is phenomenal. Not. So it's quite a quite impactful, but the first customer that anecdotal one was when we got a call from a policeman in Jersey, and he called up and said, sending an email, could we speak? And I thought, Oh, God. Yeah, exactly. Anyway, so just wanted to say my wife, and I would like to say thank you, because my son suffers with what's called glute one, and glute one, I didn't know what it was at the time. glute one is where your body can't use glucose to transfer energy through the cell lining so well. And at the end, beat he basically to under the say, thank you. Because and here's a picture, this is the first time my son is eating a cheeseburger. And here's another one of my son eating some cheese on toast. And, you know, it was quite moving moving. Yeah, we there was definitely some tears. But then towards the end, I'm sorry, but we haven't done burned on paper Nutritionals How do you know it actually works. And you trust us we do blood eight times a day. So we know and just wants it. And that's what we got introduced to the daisy garland trust that for the affiliate side of things. And so that's how it's evolved that way. Another Another one was when we were in a smaller unit, and we do local pickups. So people are locally activated for postage. And this guy, I'm sure his name not Steve, but always call him Steve. Turns up with his weapon trousers on you know, and he just said, Alright, Mike. Good morning. 830 in the morning, how you doing? And I'm putting the bins out. And it's absolutely amazing. This is an old chair. Thank you very much. That's pretty good. No, no, this is amazing. Honestly, guys, I've lost three stone, I went, sorry, I guess I've lost three stone, or I can't, I can't have a salad. It was way more outgoing than that kind of salad. Because I'm going to talk all day long. So all I've done is I've swapped my two roles for your two roles. And I've lost three stone in three months. And that was when we went, Okay, there's something going on here. So I've constantly been learning about the science behind it, to to better understand myself and help people. And the most recent, I'm just very, very briefly we had a lady collecting and the customer service. Lady said, Oh, Andy decides with the day Scotland trust for her daughter, I'm an artist. Amazing. Thank you so much. And I also didn't weren't sure if you knew, but we also, we helped with diabetes insurance. I know. I'm my daughter is through Daisy garland trust. I'm type one. So I buy your bread, my husband's losing weight. So he buys your bread, and my mother's wanting to leave, he buys your bread. And that's when you go. This is working.

Ollie Collard: 23:21

I was really impressed with your range of products. And obviously he talks about your head of product and innovation there. How do you go from sort of idea to making a product to reality? What's your process for NPD?

Unknown: 23:38

Be belligerent dyslexic, and just go Yeah, we do that. And then put the head on our hands and figure it out. Basically. We, we if you think about typical foods with the macronutrients, you know fats, its proteins, it's carbohydrates and sugar sources and fibres and things. A lot leaner. I talked about bread or pasture 50 70% carbohydrates. So you remove that, or you put it to its virtual nothingness state. So what do you do? How do you rebuild that product and still be really, really healthy? Now. Without even having to say science has come a long way milling technologies have come a long way. So you know, oat milk, for example, you know, not that we use oatmeal, but we use like fibre to help build our product which is very healthy. We use pea proteins, rice proteins, bamboo proteins, so each one reacts differently, but each one is healthy. And we then rebuild the product now. We we have a lot of troubles doing that. So think about a loaf of bread, for example, when you're when when you're mixing some dough. At that point. It's sort of sticky and broken and horrible. And then afterwards, it starts to smooth off, doesn't it? Yeah. And then it's not quite the can leave it to prove a bit longer, need a little bit longer. with ours, you can't do that you've got like a five second window or three rotation window on it because it's sticky it won't machine. But if you do it too long because we have so typical bread has 10% Gluten good bread has about 12%. Ours is in the 60 to 80% level. And that gluten is the thing that makes it stretchy. It's like it breaks in sticks, breaks and sticks. So you could make ours turned into a like a rubber ball really quickly if you're not careful. So it's a lot of trial and error, a lot of work on it. It's taken us two years to develop. The pastor, for example, is a lots of local pastor out there which I wouldn't knock but some people say it's quite pithy or breaks down not like Pastor doesn't have the Italian sort of effect to it, you know. And we've worked really, really, really hard to give the customer that experience because we want them to not think about low carb they just not think about wants to lose weight not thinking about being diabetic. They're just eating and losing weight or managing their blood sugar's because our product works. And it's it takes a long time to get there. Why a word about our sponsors? The security threat to UK tech startups is growing. Protecting your innovation is crucial to your business success. Secure innovation is here to help. And it only takes a few simple steps to get started. Don't leave it too late, visit NP ssa.gov.uk forward slash innovation. To find out more, and download the quickstart guide for free today. Are you looking to access finance for your business but unsure where to go and who to trust? Introducing hexa finance, providing growth funding to startups and scale ups throughout the UK, Ben and stews started exa finance with a clear mission to make finance more accessible to business owners like you launched in 2020. They know firsthand the growing pains you're facing their fast growth business is the proud winner of the startup of the Year Award, and has recently been recognised for its economic contribution. So if you need funding now, or it's on your horizon, the experienced team at hexar finance are here to help to access your free consultation, simply go to hex A finance.co.uk forward slash contact. For a man who says he's been learning on the go in a particular sector, and who comes across as incredibly humble. And he actually has a really strong finger on the pulse of what matters in his business. He puts a lot of his success down to being dyslexic. And that's given him these great creative problem solving skills. And I think a lot of that comes from the resilient business practices that he's demonstrated from the beginning of the business. We have a bit of a chat about kind of how is it that Andy has built this resilient business, you

Ollie Collard: 28:10

just have to go back to the start to hear about that manufacturer pulling out in those early days and saying that they can work together, because that is a massive blow like he would have spent time doing due diligence, finding the right partners, getting a go to market strategy in place and ready for the launch. And then all of a sudden, his manufacturer says no, we can't do it. And I think that's really a swim or sink moment for the business early on. Let's not underestimate how much of a massive blow that is for Andy. And I think at that point, he really had to swim or sink and he definitely swam, it's safe to say, and you know, he found a solution. He had this big vision. You know, he was solving a personal problem. And you know, he didn't let that initial roadblock stop him and getting the business off the ground. So I think it's about when challenges face you as an entrepreneur, it's about finding those solutions. And I think inherently entrepreneurs are quite resilient because they're always essentially looking for ways to solve problems. So I think it's kind of probably in the in Andy in a certain way.

Unknown: 29:15

I liked with that story as well. He was saying that the manufacturers thought it was too difficult to make, there was something about the recipe and the manufacturing. And he didn't sacrifice what was important just to be able to perhaps work with that manufacturer, maybe they could have modified something, you know, and it would have been easier to manufacture. But he wasn't going to sacrifice that. And again, this is a theme throughout this episode of the quality of the product really, really matters. That's why the customers like it so much. And so I think that that was something that perhaps also plays into what he describes as not really knowing much about the sector as well. This was part of his r&d journey was trying to figure this out and who's going to be the best partner to work with. Now when things have gone wrong, he's had this instinct, or as he kind of describes it, or how it comes across, that he just reaches out to customers is what's his what he's done every single time that there's been some kind of complaint or some kind of problem, he reaches out, and he just talks to them. And that is building these bonds, which have been really, really powerful for the business. So how much do you think this kind of this relationship with the customers also plays into how resilient the business can be? And

Ollie Collard: 30:30

these businesses built on his customer base, essentially, isn't it. So I think it's so intertwined with everything that he does, that it just comes naturally, naturally to him. And I think, you know, in the early days of running a business like he could have hidden, he could have shied away from all of this direct feedback, not taking it on board and just saying, look, I've got this vision, this is how I want the company, direction to go, and just being quite set on that. But actually, by going out in engaging with his customer base, he's learned a hell of a lot. And he's got a deeper understanding about all of its all of his different customers. So I think this is really influenced the business going forward. And, you know, there's, there's an old saying that goes, the customer's always right. I think that and he goes even further than that, and he's like, Well, the customers, right, and this is what they have to say, and this is how we've implemented it in our business. So I think it's so intertwined, and it goes hand in hand with seriously low carb. That's why he's built this resilience, and means that he's so on the pulse in terms of what his customer base want, or need. Something

Unknown: 31:39

he said was, the key thing is to show caring. So you can't always fix the problem. But you need to show that you care about the problem. And I thought that that was really powerful as well, because I think perhaps some entrepreneurs are maybe scared of listening to the voices of their customers. And I've definitely heard people say, Well, what if they say something and ask for something, and we can't do it. And I think Andy addressed that really, really well, which was, it's not about solving every single problem. And it's not about responding to every single tiny request that somebody might have. But it's about deepening this level of trust. And you do that by showing the care for the customer. And that doesn't necessarily always come out in a new product, or a new product feature or solving the problem. But it's there listening is a really powerful tool that he uses here.

Ollie Collard: 32:34

Making them feel valued, essentially, is what he's doing. And he does it very naturally, it'd be interesting to see as the business continues to grow and scale, how much time he can personally commit to doing that, wherever he's going to make that feature off the business or he's employing like Customer Success teams, or actually having a function within the business that has a direct connection with its user base. I think what Andy's done well, he's got that balance, right, because like he says, You can't make every single modification and please, every single customer, but it's about giving them the air time and making them feel valued. I think the danger for business owners is if you're listening to every feature requests or product development requests, essentially, this can have a massive impact on the business a with your time. But also, if you're then developing new products off the back of it, it's got high development costs. Obviously, in a product based business like Andy's, it's got very high direct costs per unit, the products have a limited shelf life. So if he's going out and developing all of these new products, then essentially, it's got a massive cost to it, but also the opportunity cost of not using this money to reinvest back into the business to grow it. So I think he's fine. He's found a really nice balance between the two here. And

Unknown: 33:52

perhaps some of that is because he haven't hasn't had to invest so heavily on marketing as other brands do. Or this is again, how he described it. I was quite amazed with the uptake that he got from word of mouth, essentially. And but he was doing all those things that underpin the word of mouth. It's a best practice practice example really, isn't it of how you build trust, how you listen, how you don't necessarily just give people everything they asked for. But you like you said, you make them feel valued. And then you've got this community feeling that underpins what it is you do as business. And that is a great starting point for an advocacy strategy. And that's what's worked for him is he's had people go out there and speak on behalf of the brand without him even realising without him even asking and that's where a lot of their successes come from.

Ollie Collard: 34:43

Yeah, I mean, turning your customers into champions is what he's done really well. And his marketing spend in the early days wasn't that of a typical direct consumer business. I mean, as a DTC brand, you could be spending like 20 up to As a direct to consumer brand, you could be spending anywhere from 20%, up to 50% of your cost of sales on that marketing. But he hasn't been doing that, because he's actually got inside the head and listen to his customers. And I think that's paid dividends in the long run.

Unknown: 35:15

So for business owners listening in, they might be thinking, What do I do then? Like, where do I put my time because I thought spending on you know, on my marketing budget, and perhaps getting a bunch of ads out there was going to be the right direction for me. But actually look what Andy has managed to do without having to do as much of that. How do How does a business know which inputs are going to lead to those successful outputs? And kind of how can somebody trust that if I'm working closely with my customers, if I'm building these relationships, if I'm building trust, that there is going to be some payoff for that? Ultimately,

Ollie Collard: 35:53

there's no guarantees is there and I think that as long as you've got that, the forefront of your mind, then you don't know the answers. Ultimately, it's a bit of a leap of faith in those early days. And I think, you know, Andy strategy of engaging with his customers has, obviously paid dividends as we've discussed, but it might not have transitioned that way. And I also think that there's not one size fits all strategy here. And it might be different for every business, I think, as long as you're testing and measuring exactly what you do in terms of your marketing or where your time is being invested and looking at the tangible returns on investment, then you know what the best strategy is going to be for your business, it could be that you've got really highly converting ads, and that could be the way to go. But or it could be that you've developed this relationship with your customers, and they become advocates. So it's about learning as you go. But making sure that you're measuring it.

Unknown: 36:49

I think one of the reasons this strategy ended up paying off through Randy is that he got the timing right, and the market was in the right place, in order for him to see the kind of growth that he had. I find it interesting that he mentioned that the stats for the US and UK are quite different, or they certainly were when he started this business in terms of looking for low carb diets for keto diets. So he was thinking, there's this trend that's already kind of happening in some parts of the world. And applying that to the UK where perhaps it hasn't picked up quite yet. And so he was able to kind of start in a smaller space. And he actually started from his own perspective, working with triathletes. And having that focus, which then enabled him to choose Scale. And actually, he that happened very organically for him. How important is getting the market at the right time when we start our businesses.

Ollie Collard: 37:54

Timing is such a big issue, Becky, and I think, ultimately, you don't have much control over it. If the if the market is there in terms of you got those signals coming over from the US. And I think that's a really good point, actually, that founders should be looking at other markets and seeing the trends because sadly, we do lag behind still a bit in terms of our development to the to the US. And so it's a good indicator of where the market is heading. So I think timing is a massive strategy. And I think in terms of what you're saying about really focusing on a niche segment of the market is really important as well, and actually takes me back to a past guest on the show. So quite similar direct to consumer business. That also is in retail as well now, but it was true start coffee, and they started with targeting athletes and going to lots of sporting events and promoting their products. And then obviously it transitioned to be a bigger market, and they've got a big mass market appeal now. So I think that yeah, it's a really good way to start a business, being very specific, and then seeing how wide reaching that appears.

Unknown: 39:03

Yeah, and you've just made me think because I know when to start coffee, it was really they say we were packaging energy. And and I think that it's similar in in this business to where it's packaging, I guess health and I'm just that feelgood factor. And so whilst Of course it's the product, it's the food. In the case of Drew's talk coffee, it's the coffee. But actually, there's something bigger than that. By having the Nish they were able to get started and in Andy's case able to kind of have a focus in order to get the business moving. But because it is greater the impact of it a greater than just this is going to make your triathlon better, or this is going to make you a fastest sprinter. The market itself will pick up on it. And so this is why this organic growth and this diversification came very easily for this business.

Ollie Collard: 39:56

Yeah, I don't think Andy actually knew how big the opportunity was. I think that, you know, these issues that he's solving in terms of healthy eating diabetes, epilepsy, he wasn't aware of all these issues. But actually, he's solving all of these health issues and conditions for his customers, that he perhaps didn't realise that he was going to in the early days, yeah,

Unknown: 40:18

I loved hearing all of his learning that he's getting about these new conditions. And I felt like I learned a lot through the lens of what these products are helping people with. So I thought that was really fascinating to listen to. So in terms of niching, we talk a lot about this in business and kind of finding your market segment finding your beachhead market. So the first market that you're going to go after, do you think it always works for a business to have that tight focus? Or do you think that some businesses need to be more broad in terms of the audience that they're looking at?

Ollie Collard: 40:54

So tough question, Becky, I think that for most businesses, it really does pay dividends to focus on your niche. Like I go through a very bad American accent here. But the riches are in the niches, as they say, over over the pond. But I think it does depend on on the type of business as well, if you've got substantial funding, and you're going after a massive market, then you can afford to spend a lot of money on that marketing, and communicating your message. Whereas most businesses don't have that luxury. But I think if you're developing your niche, and they may change, like you might go after a particular sub sector and realise that actually, that wasn't the best nation, it will come over time. The the market always has the arbiters, and people always vote with their feet.

Unknown: 41:43

And so I think it's more just to get you moving, isn't it? And like you said, if, unless you've got an awful lot of money, how are you actually going to do what you need to do in terms of accessing the market, but also adapting the product to the markets needs as well. It's, it's all encompassing, isn't it? So yeah, unless you're Blitzscaling, and you've got a 40 million seed investment or something, then then having a niche is a very helpful way of attacking of entering the market. As you mentioned, seriously, low carb has thrived as a DTC business. But many entrepreneurs aren't really sure whether they should go DTC or whether they should have a different model, maybe going to retailers or work with other partners. Should we have a listen now to understand better how Andy decided to focus on DTC over working with retailers. When we started, the bakery, we're working with said, don't they didn't know about consumer a knew about retail in the pain, it causes them. And they said going to food service retailers are not your friend, they're going to cause you too much pain. And so that was our mindset. And then obviously, we got word COVID. And we launched with b2c. What then happened is we really understood our customers, we have like a 60% open rate on our emails, so we can really, really understand them, you know, and try and help them and generally, you know, we, when they turn up collection, we're speaking to them, we it's a really good learning experience. We were also selling into 14 European countries, just before Brexit, and have a guess how many think we managed to sell into now after Brexit?

Ollie Collard: 43:41

Not many, unfortunately, zero.

Unknown: 43:43

Yeah. Yeah. So it haft our business overnight, basically. And we've been two years on, we still can't get in there. And we're trying, we're getting a bit of big investment to do that. But it made us go, Well, we still need to grow the company. How can we do that? Let's look at return instead. Okay, so it's gonna be a big journey. And we started on it for nine months. Whilst back in September, we really started started looking at it. And it's been an interesting journey. And it's been, we've got occasionally introduced to a company in America that have just really adopted us. Because our bread tastes better than the American bread. They don't have pizza. So it's really, really good in that regard. It's gonna be a long journey. But the retailers in the UK, whilst supportive, are challenged with the economic costs of products and we're more more like a early stage, gluten free cost of a bread or a sourdough cost. And realistically, we want to help everybody we'd love it to be a pound a loaf, but we just can't do that, you know, we're not allowed to process type products. But people within the UK still see. So I had a really interesting conversation with an investor the other day, they said to me, you have Andy you need to refocus your niche product. I said Yeah, cocktail bar, you guys know you're a niche product, we need to focus as a niche product. I mean, okay, let me ask you a question. Is obesity niche? No. As it is diabetes niche? No. Okay. So just because my product is a small market share at the moment, it's not a niche product that's here to help people. And when you've got a an hour or two in investor, you can have these conversations. When you've got eight and a half seconds with a retail buyer, it's really difficult for them to be able to understand the premise. And for us to convey that across, because could we bring in more? Could we bring in different demographic to their pizza aisle? Pizza category? Yeah, people who are wanting to lose weight go into the pizza aisle, people who have to banish the sugar going into the pizza or oil, people with diabetes going into the bread aisle seriously? Yeah, seriously. So that's where we could add value, but the difficulty to try and overcome that, because of it, we thought you know what we're going to do, we're going to carry on helping our customers and we serve 10 to 1000 customers a month. From right up into the Orkney isles, we have our subscribers right through that Jersey, Guernsey, Ireland mat, you know that we were there. But we're just going to carry on looking after them and doing the best we can. And the number one thing they say is, why are you in a supermarkets when you're going to the supermarket? It's like, you know what we've worked about a year and a bit on this with supermarkets, and oh, my gosh, I think I could add better value to my customers. Rather than sitting outside the door of a retailer. Again, please, please, please, I'd love to work retailers. But wow, it's been a real challenge in the UK.

Ollie Collard: 46:40

What I love is the rapport and understanding that you've actually built up with your customers. And often it's hard to put a price on that, isn't it, but you're obviously doing something right in terms of building those relationships, just

Unknown: 46:55

carrying out and demonstrate, we make all sorts of mistakes, our careers make all sorts of mistakes, but we're just completely accountable for it. And sometimes it nearly kills us to fix that thing or whatever. But if you have to do it, you know, there was a easier way, you know, it would magically appear in there. So for example, our bread stores best or has better shelf life, you put it in the fridge, like with typical in most European countries, we pop it in the fridge because it's so high in protein 22 grammes, and we had that on the bag, and we advise people to do it. And our customers sometimes forget, or they used to put in the bread bin, and they go, let's go mouldy. It's like yes, because your bread bins, the riser radiator? It's no surprise, it's quite moist bread. So it's gonna go mouldy quickly. So what do we do we replace it, we could say, don't be so stupid, but we don't. Because even it's sometimes a third time they don't is pleased. And they go, oh, you know, what if I put in the fridge now it lasted 20 days. Thank you, you know, so it's those sort of things. But we've just got to support our customers. And if it was, if something goes off, you buy something and it has a short shelf life, you sometimes get annoyed from a from a supermarket party. And other times you may open some chicken and go oh my god that doesn't I'm gonna have to throw that away. You don't necessarily get on the phone and go really angrily and assertive at them. Some people do but very few. Because we were posting bread, there's a if there's a little niggle on it, you know, we get we get we get to hear about it. So it has to raise our standards. But yeah, we're just keep going. We keep doing what we do.

Ollie Collard: 48:32

And talking of things going wrong. You talked about the beginning there about the initial commercial bakery, obviously putting the product and I'm sure there's been hundreds of other challenges that you faced along the journey. What is your favourite failure so far? And what was the lesson that you took from it?

Unknown: 48:53

I wouldn't call it a favourite failure. Thank you very much. Basically, the biggest failure that we had was an accounting error, where we had the r&d tax credit that we'd be working on really hard assigned to the account month period, which made it look like we were about 70k better off than we thought we were okay, which allowed us to really focus on our advertising, even though we're making a 40k loss, right? Imagine what that does to your brain when you discover it two months later. So we were burning cash burning on advertising cost of acquisition was screaming through the roof. It was the apple, iOS 14 Wherever iOS 14 thingamajig. And yeah, we were making a serious mistake. I was making serious mistake. We didn't have a finance person on board and I was overseeing that. And it was I like to think of things objectively I like to because of often in a boardroom where there's always the sponsor and someone who's kind of on your side and two or three that just don't want the programme to fail want that other VPS up door, whatever, it's always got that sort of thing. You take a lot of stick, you have to really be. Don't take it personally and just manage it. Yeah. And the biggest failure that I had was at this moment of time where I thought, okay, because at that, just at that moment, or that's what three months, it doesn't need to catch. That's a bit weird. But we're doing really, really well. I know I do. I quickly get 100k loan, oh, I've got to put it against the house. Oh, boy. Right. No problem, no problem. I should speak to my wife about this, but it's going to be no issue because it's going so well, that she signed it money came in accounts were then sorted out, and I went, Okay, I'm gonna lose the business. And I've just decided to lose the house as well. And I got. So I went from being objective to I was gone, you know, as a doctor, and all sorts of things. It was a bit it was a blip for about, you know, you can imagine, and the biggest learning I've got from that is how to get back out. Because if you haven't got anyone that's doing it with you, like at that moment of time, you're just jelly, you cannot do anything. And it's really easy. In hindsight, it's really easy to tell someone about their business. But when you're in that moment, you're gone. And that's like, it's, we've got through the day, that was 18 months ago. But the that point of time, I was physically unable to think of what I could do. And our solution. Yeah, and although my wife was incredibly supportive, and the two guys Jack and Colette, who think the leadership team, basically carried me for that period of time, it's amazing. You are still like a zombie, it was really difficult. And then the biggest learning is it's just a problem. You know, if I was really calm, it would just be a problem that I have to fix. But because it seemed to have such an impact in my life, my family, my wife, my kids, my everything. I couldn't I physically couldn't think so the learning for me was how to get out of that. And talking, not talking, talking about it, just talking through it with people rather than going What do I do and making a decision just going I'm in the beam, what do I do this is just keep talking keep and eventually you sort of, the more you talk about it, the weaker, almost that sort of that monster becomes and you then sort of rise above it. I did have some sort of medication as well to sort of help me on that stabilisation bit. But yeah, that's the biggest, what do you call it most enjoyable failure, whether you call it

Ollie Collard: 52:37

favourite failure? Or failure? Yeah. Well, thank you for being so honest that Andy in terms of your your response and just thinking about, you know, other founders, they might be at a time point at the moment where they're literally in that coalface. Some people don't have that network around him, though. So what advice would you offer people aside from talking to others,

Unknown: 53:01

get away from it, if you're in there, so it's like when you work really hard on something, and you come in with lots of energy and 10 o'clock at night, you're kind of not doing as well as you should be doing. And sometimes I've had dinner at eight, and I've gotten away from it for just an hour, and I come back and I've got an hour's deadline, it's 11 o'clock at night, I think I'm going to do it and you get the best piece of work out, but you've been working on it for seven hours during the day, this has been rubbish, just stepping away. So I used to obviously my triathlon efforts dedicate for a half hour in the morning couple of hours exercise etc. And that obviously went out the window all through this journey. And it took a while but part of my mental improvement was and rebalancing was to do the thing that I felt safe and enjoy doing. Now for me that was running in the rain or whatever. It's not that's not necessarily what other people should do, you know, do an excuse I haven't an Excel 20 years. I'm running a business and you're telling me to do some exercise. You know, if it's have a cup of tea, if it's read a book, listen to the radio, if it's what the dog whatever it is that you remember, you enjoyed doing, go and do that even if you feel empty, hollow numb. And then when you're doing that, think about it, don't think about it but just do something that's not the thing that's thinking use it we're

Ollie Collard: 54:21

building a business can be all consuming and they as you've alluded to there is there any sacrifices that you've made either consciously or subconsciously you talked about obviously fitness and doing your Ironman activities that maybe knocked on the head for a bit, but is there anything else that

Unknown: 54:41

finances sanity, dignity, Sophie knocked on the head face. From a corporate interim world you're working for the top footsie 250 companies, you can kind of get an idea of a fair day rate that allows you to justify leaving the kids for sure. every four weeks and then flying back in wherever around the world, etc, that stopped. And I'm selling bread at three pounds 50 life and selling five, you know, a day so you could the the scope of the lovely holidays etc change differently that put massive impact on my not massive how that put direct impact on my family that she supported me. One of the things I didn't expect out of this was my wife, who was doing two days a week as a teacher is now doing five days a week as the deputy head. And that was partly for a fantastic opportunity that she kind of wanted but didn't want, if you know what I mean? Yeah. And partly, we kind of need to pay the mortgage. Sorry, I know I said it's going to be 12 months before it all worked. But it's kind of not quite working yet. You know? So she's been there now for nearly two years and often says, so is this going to work? And when is this gonna work? So yeah, it's all sorts of things, I've had to give up. An increase, actually, I can't see on the camera. But I've got a little belly now as well. But I didn't have one of those beforehand. Why I find Andy's transparency about money, really important for other entrepreneurs to hear. It's rare that entrepreneurs actually speak with this much honesty and openness around money. It's the biggest challenge area in business. And yet, it's still this kind of secret. And I think there's a lot of shame associated with money. And there's a lot of embarrassment. And so we don't always hear all the stories around money. So I'm really thankful that Andy went into depth and had that vulnerability, so that other people can learn from it, and maybe feel less alone as well. So the first thing I want you to pick up on, is, of course, the story that Andy told us, he put 100k against his house, there was no finance person on board. And actually, as it turns out, there was this accounting error. So they were in a position where they were spending lots of money. And then they've realised they shouldn't have been spending quite so much money. And what I found really important, was kind of high, Randy described that he hit this point where he didn't know how to move on this. And so I just want you to focus on that initially is this physical sensation. And I know for me personally, it is money that's going to make me feel this way, in a business, that sensation of maybe like the life just draining out of you when you realise that some kind of error has happened. And, and in fact, Andy even described having to have some medication to help stabilise those feelings. And so this idea of kind of something happening, and then it being such a physical sensation. And of course, we probably go into some kind of fight flight freeze mode, and we can't make the decisions. But then Andy said something great, which was, it's just a problem. And of course, he we know, he's very good as a creative problem solver. And actually, all of us know how to solve problems. But and he just like, don't take it personally just just manage it. Do you think money has more of a power over us than many other aspects of business? And why do you think it kind of makes us freeze up or makes us respond in such a fight or flight way?

Ollie Collard: 58:36

It's a great question, Becky, I think money is misunderstood. I think it probably goes back to looking at our schooling system, unfortunately, where it's not really talked about. And, you know, we can be very British about not talking about money. So I think, culturally, it's probably where a large part of the problem falls. But when you're going into business, you do need to learn about the numbers, you need to understand them otherwise, you can't make real actionable decisions, and you will make the wrong decisions if you're not having your finger on the pulse in terms of the finances. So I think if you are going into business, then you need to learn it. Otherwise, you're gonna learn it the hard way, unfortunately, I think where Andy was with this situation, I mean, that's not beat around the bush, the business was on the brink of collapse here. Everything all the blood, sweat and tears that he put into this business, developing all those fantastic relationships with customers, solving those, you know, real tangible health problems for his customers like he had a lot going through his mind at this point. And it could have crushed the majority of people. And he went into this like you say the the flight or flight mode of just not not knowing what to do and it's it is crippling like there's a fear Is your logical reaction happening over your body here. And unfortunately, you can't think creatively when you're in that mode. So he's had to obviously, assess his health condition, take a step back, look at the problem more objectively, before he can actually come up with a solution, or maybe realise that he didn't want to come up with a solution. And that was, you know, washing his hands of it. But I think because the issue that he's solving and caring about his customer, so fundamentally, he's gone. No, this is bigger than me, I'm gonna roll the dice here. I'm gonna put everything on the line to make this business succeed. And wow, I'm so glad it's paid off. Absolutely.

Unknown: 1:00:46

I think for people listening, there's a few lessons we can take from this or a few things we can actually do put in action. The first one more of a general piece, which is a money mindset piece, like you said, we're not really educated on this, we're very influenced around money, just by those people who are closest to us. So often, kind of the way our family thinks about money is the way we think about money. And even if that was when we were growing up, versus now it becomes very ingrained, very embedded. And so shifting our money mindset, I think is really important is definitely a piece of work that I've done, because like I said, money was this, there was this fear around like not, obviously not having the money. And it's a very real fear. I mean, in in Andy's case, his house was on the line, this is his shelter, his security, like basic fundamental needs, as well as, like you said, his vision being on the line as well. Everything is on the line. But I think that if we shift to thinking more that money is this enabler, it's this thing that allows us to do the things that we want to do. And to be able to kind of step back and have a bit more objectivity around it is really important. And I don't know about you, but somehow, as I've got older, my relationship to money has shifted. And like I said, some of that's been very conscious. And I think part of it is just looking back and going, You know what, it's always been okay. And I know, I'm probably privileged to be able to say that, but even at times, when I think I was particularly stressed about money, or their particular situations, actually, you get through them, you get to the other side, you find a way through, and perhaps kind of the more you have those experiences, the more you realise that, again, I guess this comes back to resilience, the more you realise you're able to make it through those more challenging times. And actually, if you weren't taking the risks, then you're not necessarily going to get the rewards, especially in an entrepreneurial setting. Yeah,

Ollie Collard: 1:02:46

I think money is a massive issue for people. And unfortunately, it's very psychological, it can be linked to lots of things in your childhood that you might not actually be aware of. And also, then that means that you might not be able to overcome it, just by you on your own, sadly. So it might be that you need some professional support. It could be that, you know, your, your upbringing, you know, money was tight. And, you know, I mean, we didn't have loads of money when I was younger, but you kind of you, you see money as a tool, as you say that, and it's an enabler. And I think if you're employing a growth mindset, in terms of anything is changeable. And if you want to learn about a subject, you can, you just take some time, that investment, and taking that reflection that you come back to at the start of the podcast is saying that, you know, you're not going to be a money expert overnight. It's going to be a journey, like anything. So I think if you're giving it time, so in kind of smaller, achievable goals, then you can make it possible.

Unknown: 1:03:56

I love what you said about you might not necessarily do this on your own. And definitely, for me, even as you said that I was thinking, actually, money is the one thing and again, it's a mindset thing. For me, I've been and kind of growing up with two teachers who had kind of very steady jobs, but again, like not necessarily like super wealthy or anything like that. But there was this steadiness to income being an entrepreneur definitely is a shift from that. I think my parents are gonna have much bigger pensions than I have. But that's probably the case for everyone in my generation. And so when it came to kind of the way I think about money, and kind of holding on very tight to money, I guess, and kind of really feeling the need to have that abundance. Working with other people has been really helpful and I have worked with multiple coaches, specifically on money mindset, actually, and then it has really freed me going through that process. So definitely I'd recommend doing that if that's accessible to people. So the other way in which we should get support when we are when we're talking about money, and it's something that Andy briefly brought up when he said, I don't have a money person, and I started to think, with the turnover that they've got, I think if it was me, I'd be getting a money person at this point. I've definitely worked with incredible, I mean, accountants, essentially, but it's kind of accountants plus, I guess. So it's outsourcing. And I know you can outsource financial directors as well. And I found it to be one of the, again, the most freeing things that I did in a business for not that much money compared to turnover, or you know how much we had coming in having somebody who was looking after the accounts, who was able to be the kind of the monthly board meetings, who would be presenting the accounts, who you could have the conversation with, because as well, if if you're a sole founder, or if you're the most kind of commercial founder in your business, so I'm, then not having anyone to even bounce those things off is difficult, I think. And perhaps that's what we're seeing here with Andy is, he's obviously got a grasp of, of money of numbers of data. That wasn't really the issue here, I don't think I think it was probably a combination of kind of everything, you're just running a business, you're trying to get things done quickly. And if you haven't got that other person to bounce it off, or you haven't got the expert coming in to you and saying, This is the position right now. Then that's where mistakes can potentially get made. So I think this is also an example where getting the right support system around you getting the right team around, you can really help.

Ollie Collard: 1:06:45

Yeah, just to share a brief story when I got my first job out of university started as an intern in this social enterprise. And we grew very quickly. And what our business did really well is it had an outsourced FDA finance director, who used to come into the senior leadership team, once a month with the latest in terms of the management accounts. This is a position within the business that enabled the senior leadership team, which included myself to be able to make decisions on behalf of the business with knowing the most up to date, financial position within the company. And I think it's hard to run a business if you don't have that expert knowledge that is feeding into the business.

Unknown: 1:07:25

Yeah. And of course, people if you want to get in touch with us, because we have networks, we have people if you don't know who you're looking for in in terms of this kind of role, then just reach out and get in touch with us because I think we've probably got recommendations that would help people. Oh, and of course hexar finance, you should also reach out to if you have got questions about finances as well. So money definitely a key focus for any business, and really important to learn from Andy's story. But the focus of seriously low carb is quality food. And so I'd really like to hear more about the mission. And the problems that sit behind that mission as they develop their line of products. is a huge uphill battle, even though we have an 8% Repeat ordering, which means people who buy our product, buy it again, we have a 53 it's 48% of customers who buy our product buy again within 14 days, you know so so the customers who want it for a reason it works for them. There was the National Food strategy, which was orchestrated by the government and Henry Dimbleby, which is a really good radio, or the easier version of it is ravenous by by Henry Dimbleby. And there's also, Chris can pronounce his name, Dr. Chris Tolkien puts it much better in terms of junk food, but they're both really leading the charge, which is great, because we've got senior people leading this for and win against the government. And the bottom line is, we have designed a world where we have highly processed or ultra processed products that don't really do us any favour. And I'm going to pinch Chris's little one liner along on this anecdote is back in the sort of 1950s when we had a risk of not being able to feed the feed the population feed the world. Yeah, we did all sorts of things to our weight and all sorts to generate faster, easier, higher yielding products. And the result of that is poor quality products as well. So now, government and food industry are incentivized to produce more at a cheaper rate. The fact that 46% of food is wasted each year is shocking, but it doesn't matter. Because that's what he thinks we're saying push the share price up and someone bought, you know, that's my cynical side of it. Anyway. If you look at Uh, the good example is that it's the corn. So you got to call them a cold. Yep. Delicious. But if you take that corn and you make corn oil, and you make corn flour, and you make corn starch, you can in effect make a vegan chicken nugget, couldn't you with the bread crumbs been made out of corn crumbs and all sorts of thing fried in corn oil? How much bioavailability of good nutrients. Do you think that corn chicken nugget fried in corn made with corn with corn bread Farms has compared to a chicken nugget with, you know, other mixtures of things, you know. So you're just not going to get the same quality of products. And that highly processed impacts that I talked about with the bread means we are consuming a lot more sugar addictive sugar than we are designed to. And the result being since the 50s we have had growth of obesity and diabetes like you've never seen before. Now, we're 70 years ago. That's right, yeah, 70 years later, and we're starting to see people, experts really stand up and talk about this, which is absolutely fantastic. But it's 70 years. And if you look at smoking, smoking was considered a good thing or not a bad thing. And it's taken 7080 years to fix that. And we're still not over that problem. But we're getting there. So we're now starting that journey you're talking about it's almost like doing much this late 60s, early 70s. Ganesh is so freakin bad for you. You know, without saying it, I highly processed foods bad for you. How long is it going to take for the industry and government to change bear in mind we have people to feed, you know. So it's not a negative thing that is necessarily happening. It's unfortunate that we're giving such bad products. So when it comes down to below me wanting to sell products and our customers, SR did a survey, recent data saying 70% of customers look for the healthier option. But there's another survey that comes out that says although people don't have the option, and it's increased in terms of health choices, it's still on the last decisions on purchase. Its value brand and all these other things so so it's going to be a long battle. Now there's a really, really easy way in my head, dyslexic whatever way of fixing it that if you had a loaf of bread in front of you, yeah. And you had what's called the you know, the sugar line, the hidden sugars line. And it said, we guarantee that. So loaf of bread, 48% carbs, which is basically 100% That is sugar, the underlying thing, everything below this line will turn to sugar in your stomach and you look at and goes, that's half a loaf. Now, there was another life next to it that said, everything on this line. And that was a 46% rather than 47, you'd probably go the same price, I go for the 46%. So the 48% goes, well, I'm gonna make 140 2% and the fullest extent and you end up having this competitive natural approach, not because you've educated the customer and said you must do low carb, they're doing whatever, you've just made it obvious, especially sugar they're eating. And the other bit that gets me in my, in my little brain sometimes is we are called seriously low carb. Yeah, we're not they were just good healthy food. You know, yes, it is lower carb than the crazy high carb products that we've got today. But actually, it's difficult but we're not. It's not a weird fad diet. It's just how we should be eating anyway. So so it's a long journey. I have apparently got an opportunity with a government minister to talk about this later on. I don't know where that is on the stages. So let's Fingers crossed. You know, it's a journey it's a journey. And the other thing actually on a on a knee completely forgot about it is we got contacted by two NHS hospitals to help their ketogenic patients just name is like an outpatient support charitable type thing that we're doing with them. But then we were contacted by NHS supply direct saying we know what you're doing could you supply the whole of the UK and obviously as an entrepreneur you get you get costs and actually we can do we have you know got logistics and their capability if anyone's listening but it took they invited us to an open tender and took about five months four or five months to sign it I get it all through and approved so troublesome Jake pages all signed, best day of my life. And oh my god, we now need a dedicated team to work with the NHS to get it implemented properly because the the process is going to be quite red tape. Yeah, yeah. In a in a kind of a nice way. It's just the catering manager doesn't know about it. But the but the dietetic nurses nobody else wants it. So there's a education piece and then they could create an RFP and Angelo hang a second. I'm a startup tremendous cash flow and everything else that's going on in my life. So what

Ollie Collard: 1:14:59

metrics The look at within your own business.

Unknown: 1:15:03

So I look at a number of metrics. So I'll go through but I would I would always put the emphasis on benchmark. So what is the industry average? Because when you've got a metric looking at, let's say conversion, so commerce, people come to your site, and and they convert, you know, when they're when it's done like 2%, you think you're a complete failure in food and beverage, but it's actually the industry average. So you're not doing a bad thing? Yeah, I was pleased to say is about 12%. Because you have that repeat purchase rate. So they have that strong intent. But things like bounce rate on your site, so how, how well, is it working, you know, in your 45% seemed awful, you know, but people are bouncing, but actually, that's quite good. So there's, so there's lots of things we could do. But I think for for the ones that are really helping us operate from a b2c side, there is the ARV, so the average order value because if somebody's completing a transaction, the more you can put that up a tiny bit, that just helps on the cash flow helps the penny the penny really do look after themselves. Then there is obviously conversion rate, there's lifetime value. So the repeat purchase rate, and most websites now like Shopify, etc, with this software within there that you can see what your lifetime value is. The other bit would be cost of acquisition and row as So, Rose is return on adspend, which people know about. So if you put a pound on advertising in, you get eggs out, we've had some really good results working with some AI companies where we've got up to 26% row as 26 times ROI as rather, which is absolutely phenomenal on Google searched and the likes. But it's difficult to maintain. It's it takes work, and the cost of acquisition to acquire the customer. So if you spend 10,000 pounds on advertising, and you get one customer, the cost to acquire customer is 10,000, you get 10,000 pounds, and you get 10,000 customers, your cost to acquire customer is one pound. But then after you done that acquisition cost, you then look at your average order value to see what your spend is. So you're saying it is and the way I kind of quickly do it in my head when I'm when I'm on the move, we should probably what I need a financial guy working closely with this lady is we have a we have a 30 pound average order value. We know what the percentages of gross margin, we know that you can work out what the overhead percentage is and the cost of acquisition and without advertising. We're always profitable. Yeah, but it's quick, it's really quick for being profitable with advertising to making a lot of advertising. And that flex on that cost of acquisition to acquire those customers is difficult. So we're changing our strategy quite dramatically in terms of paying the big companies out there just to churn stuff out to being a bit more clever. That's

Ollie Collard: 1:18:07

amazing. And talking of money and finances, and you are crowdfunding at the moment. Just finished. Just finished. So you had well last time I checked it was 141% funded of your turn. Okay, target. So can you just talk to me a bit about your crowdfunding experience?

Unknown: 1:18:27

Well, really hard work. exciting, fun makes you really reflect on a business. You get a few. You open up the doors to everybody, basically. And you've got people that will ask you 1000 questions go, I'm definitely gonna invest at 10 pounds now spent Thanksgiving two days with me. And then you get other ones that ask phenomenally intricate questions that make you think I wouldn't respond back here. This person has got the little star saying they're highly recognised investor. And you go back and people say that's a fantastic answer. And you're like, Wow, this is a really, it really helps you validate yourself and the business you're doing. But don't underestimate the work that's required, because whilst I had an agency to support me, whatever the final review is, I'd say I picked up about 90% of the workload. And that wasn't the plan. So but it's only going to fail on you. So just like anything else, whether you doing customer service or anything. Be careful. It's a lot of work. But the rewards are great. The support you get from your customers, I think we had about 60% of our investors were our customers.

Ollie Collard: 1:19:42

And one of the key parts of founded and grounded is asking our featured founders to distil down just one piece of advice that they would pass on to somebody either thinking of starting a business or an early stage founder. So I'm going to put you on the spot here. What would be your one piece have advice.

Unknown: 1:20:03

Be passionate. And with that comes continual learning. That doesn't that's like a piece. But to put some sort of meat around that is if you really care about your product, someone could ask you why. And you can say, because it's better. You know, people often talk about this a salute, you know, you're finding a solution to a problem. I think that's too generic. If you're just finding something that's better than people, and it's really is better. And you're really passionate about being better and bigger, whether it's a biscuit or whether it's a car, or whether it's a experience, whatever it happens to be, it truly is better. People come to you. Yeah. And if you do everything you can to be as passionate about it and understand everything, you everything that can happen in a business, just be really, really passionate about it. And for me, the best way of being passionate is to jump in. So if you have to do finance, or HR, or marketing, or it or payroll, or logistics, or anything at all, yeah, do it yourself, you'll quickly figure out how incompetent you are doing it. You'll also figure out the things you don't know how to do, but the damage will be early and minimal. And then when you bring someone on board, you know what you want, rather than the agency saying, Oh, we do this for 1000 pounds a month, then you go? Well, it's not work, does it? Oh, you want me to do that as well do or whatever. So you can be very prescriptive. So and you can't do that without being really, really passionate.

Ollie Collard: 1:21:35

Love that advice there, Andy? And where can people find out more about your business online?

Unknown: 1:21:41

Thank you online because the retailers are still dragging the hills. Now you can go to a seriously low carb.com, which is SRS ly local carb.com. And we will be there next day delivery. All yours.

Ollie Collard: 1:21:56

Andy, thank you so much for your time, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on the show.

Unknown: 1:22:00

It's been an absolute pleasure for me to thank you so much. I really enjoyed it. Thanks. It's no surprise to me that passion is the main piece of advice from Andy, his passion is so clear. What I really liked is his point about how passion drives you to get stuck in across all areas of the business. And then that enables you to have a better insight as to where the gaps are maybe where your strengths are weak, where you want to keep playing with the business and where you might want to delegate. Another thing that has given Andy great insight into what the business needs is the data. And I really liked how he described his data driven strategies. So this he uses data to dig into problems, to work on the day to day running of the business, I got really excited, because I definitely geek out about this kind of stuff when he was talking about ROA, so about cost per acquisition, about the average order value, the gross margin, the balance, right, you know, all of these things, all of the different sources of data, which of course, are just so helpful in terms of looking at where the business is, again, going back to our point about reflecting using the data to reflect on where the business is, and then how you might go about solving problems or moving forward in the business. So that's allowed them to be really smart about kind of new customer acquisition, new product lines. What do you think about data driven strategies? Do you like to be in the data? I

Ollie Collard: 1:23:38

think he needs to be in this day and age, I think you need to have a very clear handle on all of the data that's available to you to be able to make those decisions. I think what Andy's done really well is he's, as you said, he's used his passion to get really excited about every single area, every nook and cranny of the business. And I think in the early days, you have to be a bit of a generalist, you have to be wearing lots of different hats and understanding the different areas of the business, what their requirements are. And also learning like you say what you're good at and what you're not so good at. So when the business is in a position to be able to hire and outsource areas of the business, you've got a fundamental understanding of how that area of the business works. Which means you can be very specific when you're working with maybe somebody a freelancer, or outsourcing something to an agency, because you understand the nitty gritty of it. If you don't, then you're probably going to be taken for a bit of a ride. And it's going to cost you a lot of money. So I think Andy's understeer of the business in terms of looking at the data just comes from his his learning on the job of understanding every single area of it and yeah, like you excited to hear about all of the rollout and, you know 26 time x times on his investment on his market. thing, which is incredible. And I think, and we're gonna come on to this next, but how integral that is, when you're raising funds, you need to have a stare on all of the numbers and the data, which undeclared Lee does.

Unknown: 1:25:14

And with that in mind, not to underestimate the value of data as a communication tool. If you've got the data, then like you said, if you're going out to embed investment, you're able to provide that it's so objective. And it tells such a story that it does a lot of work for you. And the same goes for your teams, if you've got the data, and you know which relevant data points are related to specific pieces of work, you're able to use that as part of the way to set expectations and to help your team get an understanding. So I think I certainly find that data provides this amazing communication tool, as well as just this knowledge piece that you're using to drive the business. Yeah, I

Ollie Collard: 1:25:57

love what you said there, Becky, it can be very helpful in a couple of areas. Like once you've got the investment actually doing your investor updates, you know that they want to know the the story of the business. And that's obviously communicated through the data. But also in terms of, like you said, managing your team on a, you know, weekly and a daily basis in terms of if somebody perhaps isn't performing at their job. It's taking out that personal relationship and just saying, here's the data.

Unknown: 1:26:23

Yeah, absolutely. And of course, data always has to be used in a smart way, we have to make sure that it is there as part of the bigger picture, like you said, I mean, in that particular scenario, it might just be that it's market factors that have caused somebody not to be able to maybe hit certain targets. But the data helps paint that wider picture. And it helps us to work with one another in that way. Something that I thought was really interesting is that Andy has chosen to do a crowdfunding raise. And it makes perfect sense in the context of this business and everything that we've already spoken about, because it's all built on this, on connecting with people on building a community, on getting people who really love the product, and how amazing that so many of their investors are actually their customers. What do you think you we can attribute to this? I mean, I think we've already talked about a lot of it already. But yeah, say a little bit more about that.

Ollie Collard: 1:27:32

Yeah, I mean, a crowdfunding campaign was like a match made in heaven in terms of a fundraising strategy. Obviously, if you're doing a crowdfunding campaign, the first word crowd is fundamental that you need that audience to be able to connect with them. And I think obviously, his his round was oversubscribed, I think 60% of his investors were from his customer base, which, which obviously doesn't surprise me based on all of those early customer interactions that Andy was doing. So it makes complete sense. And I think that one interesting thing that Andy said was about don't underestimate how much work it's going to be. If you're, say, running like a three month crowdfunding campaign, it can be like, you know, three months planning the strategy in the campaign, and the communications prior to going live, that it's about managing the campaign, managing all the questions that are raised throughout the campaign, and then obviously, post campaign, you've probably got another three months of sort of fulfilment and delivering on your promise. So, you know, that's nine months out of the business.

Unknown: 1:28:38

Yeah. And I think it definitely isn't something that you can think of as an easier option than doing an institutional raise, for example, it is exactly the same. It's just whether it's a good fit for your business. And like you said, in this particular case, it just, I think anyone listening probably can also see that it was a really clearly a good fit. The other thing I loved about what Andy said, in terms of his tips for doing crowdfunding was, it's fun, you get to engage with your audience. And I think this says it all, doesn't it, it, he actually enjoyed it. And he's enjoyed aspects of the business all the way up till now, particularly these aspects of the business whereby he's interacting with the customers. And this is just an extension of what he was doing already. So again, really good fit, but also just a really good piece of advice. I think we can get again, especially around money, we can get very stressed out, we can get very, we may be turned into this sort of regimented version of ourselves, when actually why not have fun with your customers with your audience and use that as a way to drive the funding of the business? Yeah,

Ollie Collard: 1:29:47

I think it's amazing. I think when you're doing things that make you happy, the joy comes very naturally and you know, Andy is very outward going and engaging with his customer base and his crowdfunding video he was there in the water. They're doing his swimming. And I think, you know, he just loves it. Like, that's the thing. He loves it. And it makes him happy. He's makes his customers happy, and it's a win win for everyone involved.

Unknown: 1:30:10

Wow, what a great story. I've really enjoyed listening to Andy's story and learning more about seriously low carb. But now Andy has a question for you. So let's go over and hear from Andy, what's his question? Should we ever again to UK retail and you're and you're wandering along and you say, oh, that's seriously low carb. Certainly there are devotees there waiting for you. Will it be our bread or pasta or anything like that? What would make you act on a buying decision? And I've got a couple of options, you know, would it? Would it be the sort of the scientific medical message that says, it slaps you in the face as it's keto it's low carb, it's, you know, no sugar? Or is it more of a health? lifestyle perspective? You know, is it diet friendly? Is it weight loss friendly? Is it diabetes friendly? Or is it something more generic, but you know, healthy and cheap? You know? Or is it something else? We'd really love to know. So don't forget to head over to our socials to answer Andy's question. So now let's go back and check what you're saying about the question that you got from Matt from Greenworks. Ollie, what are people saying?

Ollie Collard: 1:31:27

So Matt wanted to know how green is your job or your business? So he gave four possible answers. Firstly, was a you're directly working in the green sector? B, not in this sector, but you're very curious to find out how to move into it. Thirdly, what is a green job? So just a bit confused about exactly what a green job entails or a green business? And then we did give one other option, which was other. If people were wanting to give something else in the comments, the early results show that the biggest response was 60%, which was not in the sector, but curious, which I think's really insightful. Obviously, it's a growing industry Greenworks are looking to create 10 million jobs in the sector. So I think people are definitely it's definitely on people's radar in terms of what they're thinking about. So I think that's quite interesting. And then that was followed by 20% already working directly in the sector, and 20% just not knowing what a green job was.

Unknown: 1:32:35

Well, that sounds like a lot of people who could be getting opportunities through Greenworks. So yeah, make sure you, you go and check out what they're doing. Get in touch with Matt, and maybe these green jobs are on the horizon for you as well. So Ollie, tell us who have we got coming up next. So

Ollie Collard: 1:32:56

this is what I love about the podcast back is that we feature such a wide range of guests. So obviously talking about Andy from a consumer business today. Next up, we have a completely different business. It is a business called phase craft. So phase craft are a quantum software company focused on developing algorithms for quantum hardware processes.

Unknown: 1:33:22

I'm really excited to hear more about that and I'm sure our listeners are just intrigued based on what you've said. So thank you, everyone for listening. If you like what you've heard, please leave us a review on Apple podcasts. And don't forget that there's a big selection of previous episodes. Just search banded and grinded on your favourite podcast player. Thank you for listening to find it and grounded with Ollie collard and Dr. Becky sage. Don't forget to press that follow button to help us to grow the show.