Insights from the newest Foodpreneur generation to hit the UK’s stores.

Last week we had a stellar panel of food & drink startups on stage at The Escape School to talk to the current Startup Tribe. Below is a quick-fire list of their advice — some of it is great for food & drink startups but most of it is awesomely relevant to any business. Who was in the house? Ed Smith from Doisy & Dam, Charlie Thuillier from Oppo Ice Cream, Pippa Murray from Pip & Nut, and Jamie Bezencenet from Guns ‘n Rosé.

First up, in his own words >>> Ed Smith…

Doisy & Dam combine superfoods with really high quality chocolate to make a healthy/indulgent product.

I worked in Marketing, Richard (my co-founder) worked in Finance. We were faced with a choice to continue building careers in jobs we didn’t really care for or stop and do something we did care about.

Because we had no history in food, no history in sales, and no history in business-building we started our business with our savings — any investors were going to take far too much equity.

It took us 3 months to get from concept to having the product on the shelf. We finalised product formulations ourselves and found a food manufacturer who was also starting up and we started working together.

Starting a business on a budget really informed our strategy: we couldn’t afford massive production runs. This meant we were producing 500 bars at a time — which was a low-risk and rapid way of changing the product.

Our strategy was to grow up through the independent retailers in London. We used feedback from our customers to iterate our product rapidly. New variations were in customers hands amazingly quickly.

We created our own brand — we taught ourselves how to use design tools and created something that looked cool and appealing — something that would stand out on shelves. This has saved us so much money.

Independent food retailers were willing to take a chance on us and give us direct feedback. We were sampling (handing out our product for free) x4 times a week in the first stores that worked with us.

Because we were doing small production runs, the margins were crap on our products and money was hard. We spent literally no money — no office, no branding — we worked from a domestic basement for 18 months.

Eventually we professionalised… we raised investment based on our solid sales history without getting a bad deal on the equity we gave away. And now we have much better margins on our products too.

Having to start from little money is really tough but it taught us fantastic fiscal responsibility and showed us that pretty much everything you need can be obtained free — through favours, connections, or DIY.

We considered crowdfunding equity investment but decided that we wanted added value from our investors. So we sent the pitch deck to everyone we knew and went with someone who has really valuable expertise.

The most valuable thing we’ve learnt is to have one thing we want to achieve and keep focusing on that. In the early days the founders will always be the best salespeople for their products.

We gained our sales experience came from doing sampling every day for weeks on ends. We are trying to turn our customers into evangelists — playing with “share a selfie” prompts inside our product packaging.

It is incredible how many people you can get in touch with if you just try. You can probably get a meeting with anybody. Just ask. People want to help you — they want to help small businesses succeed. Be bold.

Next in line >>> Charlie Thuillier from Oppo…

Oppo Ice Cream — Guilt-free luxury ice cream. On a mission to create the world’s healthiest ice cream.

I didn’t set out to start an ice cream company. I actually set out to go on a 6 week windsurfing holiday between leaving university and starting a grad job at Diageo.

The best place in the world to windsurf at that time of year, I found out, was Brazil. But then I realised the nearest airport was 1000km away! So my brother and I were investigating how we could travel 1000km, under our own steam. We looked at running, cycling, land yachting…. And then I saw a video on youtube that showed kite buggying. Buggies, pulled by kites, however with no brakes, seat belts, steering wheels. It looked fantastic — albeit rather mad (and didn’t our parents tell us).

We rang a kite manufacturer to share our idea and ask for sponsorship. He asked if we had ever kited before, if there were maps for the area, if we had vehicle support etc etc. The answer to all was no. So he abruptly refused sponsorship. He likened the trip to learning to swim, by swimming the channel and he said we would kill ourselves if we tried. He also told us it would be a world record as no-one had attempted it before. Nice, now there really was a reason to do this!

So we rang another manufacturer, changed our story (somewhat!) and luckily got sponsorship. We raised money for charity and went for it.

We arrived on a beach in remote part of Brazil. Buggies bespoke built for us in New Zealand, Kites from Holland… sponsored from our socks and shoes to our hats and expedition helmets. We were sat on this beach, with 150kg of gear in front of us, wind whipping at our faces, with it suddenly understanding the analogy of learning to swim by swimming the channel, or indeed learning to kite, by breaking a world record. Daunting.

We struggled through the first week, trying to teach ourselves this new sport in challenging conditions. Then we ran out of food. This meant I lost 8kg within 2 weeks. A painful diet! This part of Brazil was so remote there were no maps, yet alone a supermarket! We came across some locals one day who taught us wild superfoods we could live off up the coastline. Not only were these incredibly healthy, but indulgent also. We ended up surviving off these wild superfoods to the finish.

We completed the expedition and went back to our jobs. I was a graduate at Diageo. But I couldn’t shrug off this idea, an idea to make the most indulgent foods, healthy and sustainable — just like we had in Brazil. So in 2012 I quit my job to found Oppo to make this a reality.

It took 25 months and 4 government grants before I created Oppo. An indulgent ice cream that matches the taste expectation of traditional ice cream, yet with only 60% of the sugar and calories. In fact, per 100ml it’s fewer calories and sugar than an apple.

We launched October 2014 straight into Waitrose and Ocado, and are now in over 1000 stores across the country with another 300 launching in January: Co-Op, Budgens, Holland & Barrett, Wholefoods, Compass, Bidvest, Waitrose, Ocado etc.

The best achievement though has to be winning The Guardian Startup of the Year! That, and getting my brother on board!

What have we learnt from this journey so far?

We created the brand about a year before the product was finished. We should have created the brand around the product, not the other way around. Now we’re rebranding to align our brand and product more closely.

The product is everything. You need to make your product remarkable. ‘Remarkable’ means ‘cool’ to most people, but it actually means ‘worth making a remark about’. As tiny startups with zero marketing budget, word of mouth and an epic product is key.

You’re small — great!

Remember who you are, and act like David rather than Goliath. Don’t conform to the norm, but excite and surprise. If you’re a David, embrace David. Don’t try to emulate Goliath. You’ll lose. Here’s a blog post I wrote for Virgin demonstrating how you can embrace David.

Fill up that glass — to succeed and enjoy your inevitably tough journey I believe you need to be enormously positive. See opportunity where others see challenges, and reward where others see risk.

And a final thought about being new to your sector: if you don’t know the rules it’s much easier to break them!

Up next, Escaped the Shed >>> Pippa Murray!

Pip & Nut is the fantastic “All Natural Nut Butter Brand” from Pippa Murray. Launched from Escape the City’s garden shed and at Street Food Markets in London, it is now stocked in 1,200 stores.

The seed of my idea came from doing lots of training for marathons and wanting a natural source of energy fuel. Peanut butter is quite a stable for marathon runners but most supermarket brands have sugar and palm oil.

The healthier varieties were quite traditional and looked almost too healthy. I thought there was an opportunity to have fun with the category — bringing in different flavours to create a brand that wasn’t just about health.

I worked as a producer at the Science Museum — so I had no experience of building brands or creating a food product. I had quite a romanticised idea of what it was going to take. I think my naivety helped me get going!

I started by taking out a small loan with Startup Loans. I made some rough and ready products in my kitchen which I sold at a stall on Maltby Street Market on the weekends — getting lots of customer feedback.

This gave me a small feeling of what it would be like to have my own business. After 3 months of trading in the market I was just breaking even. I realised how hard it was going to be to organically grow the business.

So I stopped and realised I would either have to really go for it or park the idea. I started looking for a proper manufacturer. It’s hard to even meet with manufacturers, let alone persuade them to work with you.

I got lots of “no’s” and spent a lot of time googling “how to make nut butter?” (to find manufacturers). I knew I needed to be able to make my product before anything else (build the brand, market the business).

I eventually found my manufacturer on Google. It was pretty serendipitous — they had just built some new packing lines at their facility — which made it possible for me to start working with them.

Now the question was how could I bring this product to market? I am a sole founder with no FMCG experience and no previous business-building experience! The first next step was to build a brand…

I approached a branding agency called B&B studio to do the branding in exchange for equity in the business. They had also done the branding for other food companies I admire — Peppersmith and Bear Nibbles.

Another bit of serendipity struck when I received an email inviting aspiring entrepreneurs to apply for a competition called “Escape to the Shed”. The winner would live rent-free in a shed in Esc’s garden & work in their office.

I remember sitting at my desk at the Science Museum when Dom (Esc co-founder) rang to say I had won. I remember thinking “shit, I’ve got to properly go for this now.” And then: “shit, I’ve got to live in a shed!”.

So I had 3 months living and working for free. I used this time to properly get the products ready for mass market and to raise the money to scale up the business (I wanted to raise investment on Crowdcube).

I raised £120,000 on Crowdcube in 9 days, giving away 19.35% of the business. By this stage I had also started working with a non-executive director and a mentor (both of whom I listed on the Crowdcube pitch).

We launched in January of this year (2015). We are currently stocked in 1200 stores and we landed a contract at Sainsbury’s this week. We are positioned as a challenger brand — aiming to grow & disrupt the category.

When I started I had no idea of how to structure margins and how to sell differently into wholesalers or supermarkets. I’ve learnt masses along the way and have had coffee with so many different people in the industry.

Through working at it — I’ve now built my own network within the industry. I always have 3 clear things I want to get out of every meeting and I always ask for introductions to other people at the end of the conversation.

You have to sell the dream of growing something together to the manufacturer (for them to take a chance on your). Plus you’ll receive lots of advice (including this!) — listen to it all but only use what you want to!

How have I built buzz around Pip & Nut? I’ve tried to get the product seen in the right places (we launched into Selfridges — which was key — they like helping young, challenger brands) and gyms & health stores.

I have focused on building a brand with personality (I told the branding team that we want the product to be Instagram-able). It’s about creating something that people can love with a unique tone and voice.

I have also made sure I have a clear reason WHY I’m building this product. It’s about having purpose and making sure I communicate it through all channels — natural nuttiness (absolutely no palm oil!).

The Startup Tribe’s own >>> Jamie Bezencenet

Guns ‘N Rosé is Jamie’s an award-winning and delicious Côtes de Provence Rosé which he launched in the summer of 2015 in London.

[Jamie talked us through the mindset benefits of building Guns ‘N Rosé — whilst being really honest about whether he’ll proceed with this business.]

I first engaged with Escape the City when I won a LastMinute.com competition to quit your job and travel the world for a year — it was called the Spontaneity Champion. I subsequently joined the Startup Tribe.

I wanted to build a rosé brand. I heard about a guy who left the city and moved to Provence to start a vineyard out there (he spoke at the Escape School). I went for dinner with him and hustled him to be my supplier.

So I bought a limited run of his product (2,000 bottles) and I created a brand around it: Guns ‘n Rosé. It has sold really well to friends, family and beyond. Restaurants and retailers are now asking questions…

I’m fulfilling all orders out of my 1-bedroom flat (I can’t have the heating on!) so the next step would be to find a distributor. I’m exactly where I wanted to be earlier in the year but I’m wondering whether to proceed.

My brand name is probably an issue — apparently Guns ‘n Roses even sue their tribute brands. However, I love the name and feel that it is one of the best things I’ve got going for me in this business!

Ultimately the business model for wine isn’t great — I make about £1 a bottle. The potential downside is massive and the potential upside is minimal! However, the benefits of making this happen have been huge.

I have been a stockbroker in the City for years. I always thought of myself as an entrepreneur but never did anything about it. My friends would say to me “you’re not an entrepreneur until you actually do something”.

Earlier this year, I got over my paralysis and built Guns ‘n Rosé. As a result of this I have completely changed how I think about startups — I now feel that doing nothing is far worse than doing something and failing.

It doesn’t matter whether this is a success or not… the fear has gone for me. I feel like I have another layer of armour. Failure is no longer not a negative, it’s actually a positive — it makes me way more ambitious.

I have a few more ideas — including starting a video production company. I have lots of questions to answer in terms of my future direction — but I am now thinking completely differently about my future path.

[Not content with winning the Spontaneity Champion competition, Jamie also spied this content production competition in the Canadian Rockies shared in the Tribe alumni Facebook group… and won it! 11 weeks in the mountains coming up… we can’t wait to see where it leads.]