I was pretty lucky to be invited along to the very first Lick café in Brighton just before they closed up for pastures new, to chat all about their story behind the frozen yogurt.
Those of you with any kind of connections with Brighton will know exactly who Lick are — and if you don’t, shame on you!
Lick sell the UK’s favourite frozen yogurt. They have stockists nationwide, but their one and only shop was based directly in front of the home of happy startups (aka Spook Studio) so we’ve had a special affinity with these guys for the copious leftovers they used to leave outside our office door.
Ky & Owain the founders, have a pretty awesome story behind setting up their business. What struck me when I first met with them was how they’ve built their brand people have got to know and love over the past 10 years, almost entirely through friendship.
Their fro-yo days began one summer when the boys finished school. They looked for ways to earn money to tide them over during the holidays and came up with the idea of making all sorts of frozen yogurt flavours to sell down at their local beach in Tenby, Pembrokeshire. They used their savings to buy their very first shiny trike to sell the frozen yogurts from, and armed with a bunch of friends they hit the shores to share the fro-yo love.
Business boomed, and after a successful first summer they bought their second trike and hit the beach with 12 of their friends to help keep up with demands — some who still work for the guys today (Tom, peeking out of the picture above, takes care of all Lick’s award winning social media, music events and branding. He’s been with them since the beginning).
It was a steady growth for the lads and after their fourth summer, business still thriving, Ky & Owain were keen to expand, applying for a lease of Saundersfoot beach allowing them to set up a bouncy castle, ice cream vans and deck chair hire. They pretty much had the run of the beach, causing rifts with the local ice cream man (he was a bit wound up whilst every one else was having a whale of a time).
In the early days, the frozen yogurts were produced with a good ol’ homemade trial and error approach. The guys (and their mas) would fix up fresh fruit mixed with natural frozen yogurt and dispense it into old ice cream tubs ready to dish out the morning after — very similar to todays recipe, only now with their 10 years more experience, they’ve worked on a secret lick recipe in the downstairs mini-factory to give it that real creamy taste it’s famous for.
As Ky & Owain’s school years came to an end, they packed up the beach and moved to Brighton. They’d visited friends down here on plenty of occasions and loved Brighton’s happy, relaxed and experimental vibe. The North Laine in particular is a hub for independently run quirky shops and cafés, so to them it just felt like the right place to set up their first shop.
“I always thought, you know you’re onto something if you have a cool shop in Brighton — it felt like the right kind of place to set up shop. The North Laines is the natural home of Lick, which is only a product of its environment.” Ky, Co-founder
Their move to Brighton was a pivotal moment for Lick’s success. It was at this point they really started to think about branding the product and spreading the word on the flagship store. Their friends all helped out on making the move and the new Lick HQ a huge success.
“Matt suggested ‘Lick’ as a name, Joby helped with the site and handled the graphic design work, Simon and Marcus from FreshWest designed and built the interior and Dan, (head of Creative at Innocent) gave us brilliant tips on the branding voice.”
Being the only frozen yogurt shop in the UK at the time, word travelled fast and queues were out of the door when they opened (and continued many summers after!)
They always wanted the shop to represent exactly why they started making frozen yogurts down the beach in the first place — to create a place where friends could come and hang out — and this is something they put huge emphasis on when making business decisions. When they hire for example, they only hire people they genuinely like, people that aren’t forced who they’d happily go for drinks with. And similarly with their branding and marketing, they take a down to earth approach.
“With all of our branding and tone of voice, and everything we do, we stick to a simple rule — we just do/say/put out what feels natural without over thinking it. We speak with our customers in exactly the same way we speak with our friends and family. The brand is just an extension of our social life.” Tom, their PR brains
It’s these decisions that make Lick a tight knit team, and make work feel like they’re just hanging out with friends, like it’s a second home.
Wowing customers (and me)
I chatted to the guys about customer service and product development even though I was already a lick convert; they gave me a free lick t-shirt and tote bag when I first met them (legends) so it was really interesting to hear more on how they’ve focused on the quality of their products and in what ways Tom and the gang have built their big fan base from scratch.
“When it comes to customer service, low quality products really effect how we work. We carry out product development in the same way we have developed all aspects of our business — we make things that we and our friends would want, so we’ve put loads of hard work into our recipes to develop that creamy consistency. It’s pretty much the yogurts that sell themselves.”
They place a lot of their efforts in making the shop a fun, cool place to hang out by hosting live music nights and doing online competitions, (their welsh charm even got Charlotte Church in the house do an acoustic set). Tom, Ky & Owain’s bezzy, told me all about the fun ways they give back to their customers. It’s fun events and gestures like these that secure them long term superfans.
“We’re always talking to our customers on Facebook, Twitter etc — and of course in our shop. Quite often someone will write something amazing about us, and we’ll write their name down in our Book of Winners (kept at the till) so they can get a free Lick. Other times people have sent in drawings of themselves eating lick, sent us photos of Lick t-shirts they’ve made themselves, and loads of other things. For efforts such as these we will find a ‘mega-prize’ to send them. Recently we’re been giving away Lick albums — made up of tracks from our Lick sessions. We send out t-shirts, tote bags, vouchers etc — basically to anyone who’s taken the time to interact with us.
Our biggest prizes are sent to the winners of Photo of the Month- we have prizes such as a years supply of books, a penguin (an actual penguin we’ll adopt from a zoo), a years supply of music, (and more) lined up for the coming months. We’re hoping that as we grow, so will the prizes we can blag/offer out. One day we’d like to give away a trip to space.”
The minute I stepped through the door to chat with them (shop was closed for the night, so no customers in sight) they had the music full blast clearing up after a hard days work — and the shop still had such a good atmosphere even with nobody around. During their opening hours they supported local bands by playing their vinyl to promote their music- creating community events their customers and friends could rally around, and on some nights they gathered all their friends/staff downstairs for parties in the secret club under Lick (equipped with their own homemade bar, drum kit and weights, so they can pump iron if the mood strikes them).
Business values
When it comes down to their company core values, a lot of it is left unspoken amongst the team. Being human, talking like friends and leaving egos at the door definitely rang true, and they live and breathe this by working with the right people they trust and can have a laugh with.
“The three people in the office are the same three people eating together in the evening, or hanging out at the weekend — so it’d actually be fairly difficult to separate work from our general lives. There aren’t rules or codes… we all know what needs to be done and how hard to work in order to achieve it — so we just get on with it. We’re friends, so working together is fun.” Owain, Co founder
In terms of profit, the guys are doing exceptionally well. Aside from the shop, their pots are stocked in shops and supermarkets across the country — Sainsburys, Wholefoods, Southern Co-operatives, LEON, Picturehouse Cinemas, National Trust, Ocado, Holiday Inn, Cook and over 100 schools & universities, and every penny in profit gets reinvested back into product development and upscaling production, so that every batch of frozen yogurts is better than the last. Happy customers!
I managed to ask them what 3 things they’ve learned when it comes to building a business, and for such an on-the-spot question they did pretty well and came up with two gooduns to take away with you.
The guys have big plans for hitting Europe with their famous lick fro-yos; they’ve been in discussion with lots of european retailers so watch this space… but with just three of them they’ve had to concentrate on the UK first — one step at a time.
They’ve since closed up shop for pastures new but are still actively engaged with their fan base putting on music events, parties and placing all their focus on retailing.
It was a sad day for Brighton when they closed up, but Sunday 29th September saw almost 5,000 people through the day queuing to bid the place a fond farewell.
Since their closure they’ve started selling in Sainsbury’s stores nationwide, they’ve had various features in the Small Business Network section of the Guardian, have been shortlisted and awarded ‘Great taste’ Gold award & ‘The Best Fro-Yo’ in Woman & Home magazine and have even made their own tape. It’s fair to say closing up was a wise move; business is still booming.
Hope you enjoyed this post! I’ve written more startup stories on the Happy Startup School’s blog, so if you liked this, head there. Or if you’re thinking about one day starting your own business, download our free e-book ‘4 steps to a happy startup’
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