#3 Henry Sether - Co-founder of Misfits Health

Hello and welcome to Getting To Grow. The podcast dedicated to our nothing stories behind some of the best brands in the food and wellness space hosted by me, Sam and me Zoey. Each episode we chat to founders, experts and industry professionals who each have their own personal journeys. We discover how they build their business, what's next and everything in between. This episode we chat to Hemry, co-founder of Misfits, a fast-growing UK plant-based health and wellness company. We spoke about the gap that they saw in the market and how they adapted to become the brand that they are today. Hi, Hemry. Thanks so much for joining us on The Getting To Grow podcast. Super excited to have you as a guest. So, yeah, we'll get straight into it. Do you want to just tell us who you are and I guess how you, you know, what you did at uni and that kind of thing and then to kind of how, I guess, the beginning of Misfits? Sure. Yeah, also super excited to be here on a pretty manic Friday. It makes for a night of claims to sort of take an hour out and, yeah, talk about, talk about Misfits and. And yourself, because everyone does like to talk about Misfits. Kind of like, I always think these kind of like therapy sessions, but. Yeah. No, so I guess rewind in the clock. So, yeah, my name's Henry, managing director at Misfits Health. We are a plant-powered health brand. Our mission is to make health inclusive. We all share in health. We all try to be healthier and, you know, we create products that are the little steps that help to, you know, lead to those big wins and ultimately create an easier, an easier platform to lead a healthier lifestyle. And I guess, rewinding the clock back a bit, went to uni, studied economics, didn't have a massive desire to be an entrepreneur much lesser, food entrepreneur. Always loved cars, went into the car industry for a few years. You'll get on well then, because Sam is a literal, a petrol head as well. Yeah, we could probably spend the next hour just talking about cars, but. Yeah, yeah, you're food and bed listeners, we'll want that. But, yeah, I went to Astamarton for a few years, learnt a lot about, you know, sort of procurement supply chain, material planning, the sort of commercial side behind the business. And it really opened my eyes up to that sort of side of things. And I just found it fascinating the sort of way that the business just sort of put these pieces of puzzle together to create the product and actually how much of the end product was outsourced and relying on different parties and almost, you know, project managing to bring it all together and just sort of show that actually to bring a product to market, you don't necessarily need to be the one making it or doing it. You just need to know the right people to do it. And so I was there for two, three years, learnt a lot and it was actually based in the Midlands and Warwick and being a Londoner once we get back to London. It was always really into health and fitness, followed a few of the big brands. I guess in terms of timelines to context, this was probably 20 mid, some are 16. So about, yeah, four and a half, five years ago now, that I left come back to London and really wanted to get into health and fitness space. I thought, you know, in hindsight seems an obvious thing, but I thought that this industry is only getting bigger. It's going more mass market, you know, coming back to what midst of its stands for, it's all about inclusive health. And I think there is definitely this acknowledgement and nod from consumers that health is super important and we are increasingly proactively trying to improve our health rather than waiting to get ill and then sort of reacting to it. And actually, yeah, I think that's so true. Yeah, this, this nod to sort of what you put in your body does equate to, you know, what you get out of your body. And it's not just that superficial look that the old sort of exclusive brands used to talk about. So that was the kind of hypothesis that this industry is getting bigger and it's appealing to a broader demographic. So me along with my sort of lifelong friend Jacob and Tara who joined the journey a sort of a few months in, us three set about creating, I guess, I call it the original misfits, the sort of version one, attempt at building a business at 24 and getting it a lot wrong. We sort of, you know, created a brand that was very female focused, very simple product and it was a steep learning curve of, you know, businesses aren't built overnight and if your friends are friends, you know, buy it, that doesn't mean it's going to, you know, you just think, oh, my friend's going to buy it then my friend's friend would buy it and then all of a sudden the whole world's going to be buying it and this was sort of the, the naive mindset and I wouldn't, you know, looking back, I wouldn't change a thing because the original misfits taught us a lot about how to run a business. It also did enough to give us the traction and justification to put pen to paper and say, okay, there's a hell of a lot wrong here, but we still believe in this inclusive health mission, how can we get things right? And so we launched the original misfits, Jan 2017, come here. So that long ago, gosh, it seems like yesterday that we, that I literally went to all those, like I was fresh out at uni, I used to travel up from Bournemouth where I was at uni and go to all like balance and like women's health and like all these kind of, and be fit, like all these events that I went to where I met, where I met Molly. It sure seems like going on a lot of subtle and time ago. It really was, but that was, so it was, yeah, Jan 2017, it was very much me, Jake and Tara for the first, first couple of years. And then Molly was, Molly joined us late at that point, I think we sort of had all acknowledged that this business was not going to succeed at its current trajectory. And we reacted really well. I think, you know, we weren't sort of so emotionally attached that this is the business we need to make it work. I think we acknowledged that agenda focused protein only brand that was all sort of orange and purple wasn't going to, you know, one, you know, keep us as founders interested enough to stay focused and push it and to engage with the customers. And so we spent pretty much, I'd say September 18 summer, summer 2018 through to for the next 18 months, building what, you know, what is now misfits health and a brand that I couldn't be proud of. And that launched officially late December 2019. So what about 15, 16 months go barely. So, and it really is for all its purposes, a completely different business. New name, although it doesn't sound new name, but we dropped an S, which was a big thing. And ultimately, we pivoted the brand to a much more holistic health plant based focused, inclusive health, narrative. It was thematic, sort of says what it does on the team, kind of branding, so sort of immunity boost, full speed ahead, all that kind of thing, if you've seen the packaging. Yeah, I've actually got the sleepy ones upstairs. Great, yeah, sweet dreams. I use them every every now and then when I'm sort of struggling to drift off, thinking about protein bowls and stuff. But yeah, so that's kind of in a very quick nutshell, really wanted to start something in health of fitness. Launched misfits, naively, got a lot wrong, but ultimately pivoted. Launched misfits 2.0, about 14, 15 months ago, and never looked that really. It's been an absolutely mental journey. I think COVID is one variable of that, but ultimately, you know, it's this business has never really operated outside of COVID in a normal world. And three main touch points, e-commerce, health and plant based, and all those three sort of macro trends are speaking to customers. And I think ultimately that's why the business is getting seeing the demand it is for now. So that was sort of up to present day, I guess, a bit of a well-wind tour. What strikes me is when the biggest change, because I actually listened to another podcast that you did, and you were explaining how the biggest, what I understood to be the biggest shift when you did your kind of rebrand repositioning was to move to become a vegan based plant based. Was that, was that always the plan, or was it kind of something you really thought about? Because I guess, you know, on the face of it, it's something that, you know, all companies, or a lot of companies will aspire to be, you know, becoming more sustainable. But I guess in reality, that shook up a lot of your, you know, how you make products, what they're made of, how you get into customers, it makes everything more expensive, and it's, you know, that's a complete shift in from what you were doing before. So, you know, how was it a conscious thing, and did you have to, was it complicated? How did you kind of go about pivoting to become a plant based brand? Sure. So, yes, it wasn't very much a conscious decision. I think by trying to do everything as a company, you can often do nothing. And so for us, it was very important to, to be the plant-powered health brand. And that's our promise and commitment to, to our customers. We will always champion and innovate around plant-based products, and there's so much to go after. We don't feel like we're missing out by not launching a dairy protein or a dairy protein bar, or whatever it might be, or using, you know, fish oils, or there is just, the innovation in this space is just mega, and that's credit to the supply chain and the raw ingredient suppliers, and all the sort of R&D that goes into that, and we as the sort of puzzle that, you know, bring it together, you know, get to benefit from those amazing, amazing ingredients, and ultimately the end customer gets to benefit because often in the last sort of five, ten years is this trend towards, and I think it's now actually ingrained in society, this movement towards a more plant-based, sustainable, eating lifestyle. As people have evolved to that, there used to be this kind of expectation of like, okay, I'll go vegan, but I'm going to be eating crap food, there's stuff that's going to be bland, it's going to be dry, if I, you know, if ever I go from the vegan alternative, it's never as good as the dairy or the meat alternative, meat option that's there in front of me, it's often more expensive, and actually the last, I'd certainly say the last two, three years in particular, that that's completely changed, and now I think people are coming round to the fact, and expectations are higher from customers, that if they're not going to have their dairy bar and they're going to make a swap to the vegan alternative, it better tastes out as good if not better, and it better be natural, and that's a big task, and you know, that's why I love to see competitors in the space, you know, championing the plant-based narrative and doing the same thing, because it just means that, you know, the demand is there, the product innovation is there to serve the demand, so, so yeah, love the fact that we are championing that, you know, I'm very conscious that we're not this sort of preachy, eat vegan, or, you know, you can't sit with us kind of vibe, it's just not like that at all, as a brand we try and be super inclusive, I think sort of of only about 15 to 20% of our customers are actually self-proclaimed vegans, the majority is just trying to find that balance, I know me personally, I don't, I'm not vegan, I just, with all my sort of supplements and snacks, I try and avoid dairy or meat, so I will always go for more plant-based alternative, and that's why, you know, I'm the biggest consumer of my products as well, because they fit my needs and so many others, so yeah, very, very conscious decision and very pleased we went that route. I guess the other thing for me, which is sort of a similar question, but previously you were obviously focused primarily on females or totally on the female market, now it's obviously it's more about, you know, the bigger picture and it's, you know, it's neutral as we were, but have you, have it been hard to kind of change that narrative around your brand to make it more inclusive for men, you know, as a man, myself? I, you know, I guess I would often associate supplements specifically to, you know, big gym guys, you know, those sort of big global brands and, you know, that sponsor rugby teams and, you know, like big sort of gym bunnies, and you know what I mean, and it, I guess it's kind of kind of break down that stereotype, and I think I've seen it over the past few years, not just within supplements, but just within sort of gyms and health and fitness generally, it's kind of moving away from that, as you said earlier, aesthetic kind of for men, especially let's get huge and, you know, what are you building? Yeah, and kind of a move more towards, you know, let's actually be healthy rather than look healthy. So I guess the question for you is, you know, how do you, you know, how did you change your brand to appeal to men specifically, not just women? So I think, I mean, it comes back to the journey of five, six years ago where we just wanted to create a brand that was more inclusive. Now at the time, men, as you say, were just completely dominating the market. So we were like, okay, to make people feel more inclusive, let's go to the female end of the spectrum. And whilst it worked, it did isolate a whole demographic, arguably the leading part of the market at the time. And also, we wanted to be inclusive and almost by trying to be so inclusive to one, we were being exclusive to another, and it just went, went, went against our morals and our beliefs of building, you know, the, the inclusive platform, our health brand. So it was, it was a very sort of easy choice to make the switch. The hard bit, as you point out, was, I guess, executing it. Now, I guess what worked to our favour was that, you know, we'd been going for about two and a half, three years. And we worked particularly big. So whilst, you know, our numbers had grown and we were in X amount of stores, you don't realise how small you are until, you know, you zoom out and see the rest of the world. And even now, even now, we're sort of 15, 20 times bigger than we ever were with the previous, you know, it's all relative. There's still so many people who haven't heard of you and so many, so many first impressions you get to make. So there was kind of two journeys. One, for the sort of legacy misfits customer of old, how can we get as many of them to transition with the brand? And that was actually quite an easy narrative. It was basically saying, you know, we're going more inclusive. This, we're giving you more product offering, better quality products. So that was a relatively sort of straightforward journey. And then, and then the sort of first impressions, you know, we start again, they've never seen the previous brand. And I think sometimes when I have conversations with people about, you know, who see the brand, I sometimes have this sort of almost anxiety in the back of my head being like, shit, have they seen the original misfits. And I get a bit about bit, bit sort of anxious around it because I'm not, not overly proud of that business and what it stood for. But it is why I'm here today. So I can't, you know, I can't, can't look down it too much. But, but yeah, there's, there's so many people out there. And I think we did a good job, but, you know, trying to bring along as many people who sort of were of the progressive mindset and were offered for seeing the new brand. But ultimately, you know, the world is always doing, there was so many first impressions. That's what we were really focused on. It's just really making sure this new brand speaks, speaks to them and sort of executes on what we're, what we're trying to achieve, which I think did a much better job at job at then than the previous brand. And I was thinking because I, we work in obviously very different in some industries, but in the same, obviously sector, and I work with children products, which is so difficult sometimes, you know, I get really frustrated working with children, like, gosh, I was working at like a, yeah, like, for example, a product that was ambient, just go really easily, it completely changes your business model. So, for us, direct consumers to having like a, and on my website is really tough to crack because children is really expensive to send. So, you know, our strategy was always kind of like retail focused rather than having a website. Obviously, with you guys being ambient, how was yours, like, was that kind of your plan? Were you always going to have a, was it going to be based around like a website? And that was your fulfilment strategy, or did you have a retailer in the background kind of now, how did that come about? So, I think if you asked anyone in the sort of consumer good space, what channel they would love to be their biggest channel, they'd probably all say their own website. And it's for this sort of simple reason, if you sort of have, as much, you have the most amount of autonomy in control over the customer, the customer sees and experience. From a commercial point of view, you're setting direct to the customer so you cut out the middle men and their margins. So, it is just, it's a great experience from the seller to the consumer. So, website was always going to be our favourite child to some extent. However, when we were setting out launching misfits, you know, it launched December 19, Jan 2020, you know, in that sort of, that period, this was pre-COVID, you know, remember that world where, you know, we could, yeah, have gatherings and, yeah. So, there was definitely and our hero products, we, you know, we had a sort of feeling our hero product was going to be the protein bar, which is impulse, which is naturally sort of lends itself to retail. So, we as a business were, you know, a forecast, our team, it was very much, let's win the big retail accounts, that, you know, similar to I'm sure that the sort of stress and strains of your data are chasing retailers and satisfying their margin requirements and their, you know, scene requests and their rate of sales and, yeah, sort of bending over backwards to meet their needs and that was sort of, yeah, what we were expecting, but I'm very pleased to sort of look back and say, actually, that's our smallest channel. Well, that's fantastic. If that's your smallest channel, that's amazing. Yeah, it's our smallest by quite some way and that's not, you know, I don't, I love the idea of retail and I think, you know, we will grow in it, but, but website and Amazon to some extent are two, two larger channels. Let's, speaking about sort of misfits.health, our own website, you can't compare the sort of data we can have of customers standing there, their buying patterns, what they, you know, what products they want to see, what products they don't want to see, why they don't buy this, or why they are buying this and it's, you know, without the customer with nothing and to be able to have that direct line of communication with the customer is underestimated, you know, when we, when we, you know, sell in retail, we've got no idea who's picking up the bar in Sainsbury's. You know, unless, you know, there's lots of data out there where these sort of middlemen try and sell you data for thousands and thousands of pounds and they promise you, you know, we're going to tell you everything about the customer, but it's not really, you know, you can't compare to, to, to, you know, our own website and we use Shopify, you know, like, like many brands. But yeah, very, very fortunate that website is our biggest, biggest channel and I think whilst it's, you know, good for us, it's also convenient for the customer. They get a much better price than buying, you know, we get that, we get to give them a good price, rather than having to work with retailers and those sort of middlemen. So it's an amazing position to be and, and yeah, hopefully we can continue to, to deliver like new and exciting and innovative products that's, that's ultimate. Our mission is, is, you know, to be a health brand, you need to deliver holistic health product options and that doesn't happen overnight, but this is not a one, two, three a plan. This is a five ten year plan to, to be the, the champion of the plant-powered holistic health. So yeah, a lot, a lot more in the pipeline in terms of product. So I guess that kind of leads us on to our next question then. So obviously it started with you, Jacob and, and Tara, what does the, how, how much is the team grown? What does it look like now? And what is, yeah, I guess what's, what is in, what is in line for the future? So the teams growing significantly, we launched as a four, the three mentioned and, and Molly, and we're now, I think we're about 16. That's so, that's so cool. So it's grown and with it comes, you know, increased responsibility and new, new sort of challenges, and I guess sort of always found it funny, you know, being like, you know, managing director of a business and, you know, basically, four people of which three were the founders and it's like, you know, it doesn't, doesn't really mean anything. You know, I was, I was, I was always product and ops. And, you know, we were always, as founders, very good at having different skill sets and matching our strengths and weaknesses. And we always, we always work to that. But now, yeah, gone from four to 16, I've met probably 60, 70% of the team in person. So still, still to meet a few people. But it's, it's a weird one in this, in this environment, because, you know, I still don't feel like we've ever had a team in the office because we've just always had a virtual team. So I'm very excited for, you know, hopefully in three, four, five months, whatever it allows to get people back in the office. Actually, yeah, before you finish the question on what's, in it, what's like next? Let's talk about COVID. So how has COVID, like, thrown, and it thrown you what? How has it affected? I think it's difficult to say, I get asked this question a lot, and it's because we launched in two months before COVID here. It's difficult to say where we would be with or without it. I think, you know, objectively, our brick and mortar channels would be doing more, doing more bits. Maybe it's the same. And then they are now, because gyms are closed offices, they can, and retail footfall is down, so, and travels non-existent. So objective be that channel has suffered. But on the flip side, online is more than making up for it, and I think people still want to keep healthy. They still want to eat plant-based foods where possible. And the pandemic is sort of pushing people to buy online. So, yeah, I don't, I don't know as is the honest art. I don't know if if we wouldn't, you know, online would be slightly less, and offline would be slightly more. Who knows? But I almost, you know, I don't want to as much as it is uncontrollable. I think it's so important to try and control as many variables as you can. I'm not going to have a say in when lockdown ends, or when people can go on holidays, or all that kind of stuff. But, you know, what we can control is just continue to create the best shopper experience, the best products, and just just be nimble. And I think that's the benefit of just having a really, you know, small company that just have big ambitions and just staying creative and staying nimble. But, yeah, we're very ready for a normal world on a, on a personal level and on a business level. We're excited to meet the team in person, have socials together, rather than, you know, Zoom quizzes, which getting, you know, reaching the end of. Yeah. So, we're very excited for all that and just seeing the team bond and get to know each other on a more, you know, on a deeper level than just, you know, a Zoom meeting here and there. So, yeah, you mentioned your role specifically as an MD. Now, I know from speaking to other founders, that being an MD or a founder doesn't mean you're just, you sit in a swanky office as a, you know, top of the tree kind of telling everyone what to do. I guess you kind of need to get your hands dirty. So, what does, what does it, I know, no days the same, but a typical day to day, I imagine it's just completely varied for you, right? Yeah. So, I guess over the past 15 months as a business has grown, I've sort of evolved from essentially operations and products to more of an MD as the team has grown and team and strategy and hiring and, you know, managing people's personal development et cetera has become a bigger, bigger priority. So, yeah, no days are the same. I think I'm in the process of sort of finding, building out the arts and product team. So, you've got an amazing product personally recently handing that over. We'll do the same for ops in the next few months. So, but, you know, it's, it's finance, strategy and team. Those, those are the three main things. I can't stress enough. I feel like there is this sort of there's often this over the word too much credit can be given to founders sometimes. I think founders are just, they're just there at the beginning, right? And credit to them, they've sort of kickstarted and been the catalyst, but it just comes down to team and, you know, the last 12 months where we've gone from four to 16. That's never been more present. Some of the people we've hired are just, just phenomenal and they love the business as much as we do and they, you know, they have, you know, share in the same, same journey and it's amazing to be able to share the journey with other people. So, I guess, yeah, moving on to kind of the future, I guess is a kind of broad topic, but I guess a few things for me, it's kind of what's next to misfit, as a as a brand, as a company, where do you see your growth, you know, I think speaking from a lot to a lot of other founders, it's, you know, I guess the logical thing is this sort of two stream. So, there's product and innovation and then there's kind of geographical expansion, which I know a lot of founders are very keen to do and almost too keen and kind of do it at the wrong time. So, I guess is those two kind of you aligned in those two things being where you see your future and then I guess also what's the future for plant-based, you know, and sort of the industry in general. So, the future for misfits, I guess, does align with what you were saying, more product, more territory. I think it is quite a, yeah, quite a vanilla response, but in order to grow, you need to grow the amount of people you are, you are potentially marketing too and that comes, you know, the UK is limited in its, you know, 60, 70 million people in the UK of which how many people are in this age range and, you know, health conscious, etc. Those territories like the US, obviously far greater in terms of population and, you know, arguably a little bit further ahead of that health curve and a little bit more conscious and education is a big, big part of that and as a brand, we always try and educate the customer on, you know, our products and how they help and be honest and, yeah, so definitely looking at the US, we've sort of soft launched there about four, five months ago and we're, we're, it's hard launching, we're launching a warehouse there in four weeks time. So that's another one of our, yeah, big projects, so that's going to be exciting to read. Which part of the US is it kind of more west coast or? I think naturally, so the four, the four or five main states are like New York, California, Florida, Texas, that seems to be the, the sort of four states which are kind of first movers, first adopters certainly in the health space. But, you know, I, I actually looked at the heat map of where we sell in the US a couple of days ago and it's, I think we sold to like 78, 10 at the state, so I've done a, you know, very good start, so very excited about launching the US. And then, yeah, coming back to products, you know, right now I think a lot of people know us for the pro, for the protein bar, product we're incredibly proud of and we'll continue to do that. They are the delicious. They are, yeah, sort of limiting myself to three a day. Dangerously addictive. But yeah, a lot of, it's not bad thing, they're a phenomenal product and we are, we've got some ridiculously good flavors and variations and formats coming out in the next few months. We're launching speculose this very weekend. So, you know, that's, that's exciting to see how that goes. And, but I think more excitingly is, is, you know, how do we transition from, you know, just predominantly a protein bar, but also into this holistic health narrative and touch on all these different needs dates from sleep, defense, body, mind, gut, etc. So we're just working on that and have a lot of, a lot of, exciting innovation in the pipelines to come. And I think, you know, the cool thing about our brand and being online focused is it allows for an environment where we do quick, limited edition drops. Yeah. A work we double down and we restock in a couple months. If they don't, we learn and we move on. And that's kind of our approach and that's what's going to allow us to, to roll out loads of, loads of MPD that pushes the boundaries and learn about our customer. And, you know, our aim is sort of, by this time next year, I don't want to be going a week without, you know, a new product or a new flavor or restock or something to keep, you know, I think customers today, they just, they expect a lot. And, you know, in terms of innovation, service, and it's because of, I guess it's partly because of the likes of Amazon and, you know, places like that where you can almost get same-day delivery. It's like that instant gratification that consumers like just expect, like if they can't get it for free delivery and next day, they're kind of like, well, they're in same day. Yeah, like same day, it's just nuts. It's just, you know, it's exciting, but the rate of growth is, is, seriously, progressive and, you know, we're sort of really, really pushing, pushing the boundaries and, you know, not, not resting on our laurels, so continue to innovate and broaden our reach. And, yeah, hopefully, hopefully, it'll be well received. One thing I didn't ask about, which I meant to, in the earlier stage of this, is around investment and kind of funding. And because we spoke to Zoe's boss James the other day, and it was really interesting to hear him because, you know, he comes from a, you know, he built Boo, sold it for a lot of money, but he had money to begin with and he had investment and, you know, he went through that route. I guess, I mean, I think increasingly now, it's easier to start consuming goods brand, especially within food, without having that investment, but his point was, you know, to kind of create anything that is really going to have significant growth, you need investment. And I was just wondering what your approach to that was in the beginning and kind of how you navigated that. Yeah, I think there's so many variables taken to account, you know, how quickly do you want to do it, how big do you want to go, you know, the big you want to get and the quick you want to do it, the more money you're going to need. So, that money's got to come from somewhere. For us, I think launching a consumer goods brand in whatever field, you know, my experience is more health F and B style, but I have friends who are in the fashion space, et cetera. And, and I think it's never been so low-married entry because of products like Shopify, where you can build a website for a couple of grand, and services like LinkedIn, where you can just find third party manufacturers, and all of a sudden, for such, you know, small upfront capital, you can have, you can have something, you can have your first production run and a beta website, you know, for 5, 10 grand. And, you know, that's not a lot of money to start a business. So, you know, in getting started, you know, you know, there is, it's not massively capital intensive. However, that quickly changes, you know, when you, you know, you've got marketing costs, operation costs, warehouse or stock. So, yeah, in short, you know, if you have big ambitions and want to grow, I think at some stage, especially in F and B where, traditionally, they've been, you know, it's very retail focused and it's very hard to make money in retail until you see the economies of scale. Raising money has been a very sort of logical step in the process of building a business. For us personally, we've raised money, we've done a family and friends round, which was very, very small. It was like, you know, let us try it. Then we did a seed round, which basically took us from the old misfits to the new misfits. And there might be another round on the horizon, which, you know, will be a refreshing round because it's not one that's necessarily out of necessity. It's more, you know, to, after choice because, you know, we're just trying to keep up with the demand and fuel the growth and, you know, we don't want to sort of, yeah, not take on the capital injection and potentially lose out to other competitors and also not be able to deliver on the promise we've made to the Brateter to our customers in this, you know, sort of new and exciting product. So, there's definitely a role for investment. I think some people, yeah, a bit reluctant to give away a piece of the pie, but I always think I'd rather have a, you know, a piece of a smaller piece of a far greater pie than, you know, one whole piece of a very, very small pizza. So, that's the way I look at it. And, you know, the other thing is it's not just capital. If you do bring on the right investors, they can add huge amount of value. They can care about the business as much as you strategic value ads, not just capital. So, yeah, I'd say definitely a role for investment, but make sure it's to write kind of money from the right kind of people at the right time and just don't rush to do it. There's sort of so many founders I know out there who start the businesses at 23, 24 and just gave away massive amount of equity because, you know, back then it seemed like the right thing to do, but yeah, just, you know, if you're going with the right partner, I'd argue that they probably won't take advantage of you in your naivety. So, just make me the right move. I can share the mission. Yeah, you know, each business is different than how much capital it requires, but yeah, in short, definitely a role and there has been a role for us. So, I think we are going to kind of slowly wrap it up just because I know you're super busy, but we do have a quick, like a closing quick far round, which we'd love to ask you. So, I'll do the first one. There's lambda. So, what's your favourite products that you have created today? Definitely. The plant-based protein bar. My favourite flavour being the OG, the Caramel. Yeah, OG's good. I like the brownie, the chocolate brownie one. Yeah, I've got, yeah, it's, I think it's our second most popular stuff. Yeah, it's divine. It has nausea, but it's not. What is the, and you've given lots of good advice during this, but what's the one bit of advice you would give to someone wanting to start their own product or brand within sort of food health fitness? I just want one piece of advice. In the words of Nike, just do it. It's not as difficult to get started as you might think, and then, you know, if you spend all your time sort of overthinking and trying to solve everything before you start it, you're never going to get going. You know, I'm a big believer of just, I'm much more of a doer than a thinker. We were having this. Zoe and I were having this conversation the other day, and I'm, on the spectrum of thinkers and doers, I'm probably more towards thinkers and she's like a massive doer. And so, that's probably why we actually make quite a good team, but yeah, it's an interesting kind of paradigm that there are kind of definitely two distinct types of people, but I think, you know, doers often are the ones that, you know, we made them our entrepreneurs and kind of our founders and kind of sales people and naturally kind of doers, right? And they get stuff done. Yeah, yeah. And I just think just put the time in and think things will work out. You've got to figure out, you've got to be open to pivot and move. Cash is king. You've got to always have cash in the bank to, you know, no problem is insurmountable when you've got money in the bank. It makes things a lot easier. And I guess just if I'm allowed one other piece of advice is, do it with someone, as you just said, who complements your weaknesses. You know, my co-founder, Jacob, is the biggest thinker I know. I've asked him to do something and he runs a mile, but, you know, that's where I'm on the other side of the spectrum. I'm sort of spending all my time doing these thinking and then, you know, often now we sort of having work together so long we sort of meet in the middle and know how each other work. But yeah, it's definitely what we're doing it with someone is a fun experience. Yeah. And what are your favourite food brands at the moment out there? FMCG small large medium? Sure. There's a lot. There's a, you know, I think this comes back to sort of low-variance entry. There's a lot of brands out there. Probably have, you know, coconut gel out of, you know, goes out saying that's up there. I honestly, I don't, I don't have, you know, exclusively eat misfits. Not exclusively, but very much have a bias towards misfits as you might expect. I'm not who else is there. No, you've stumped me. I don't know. I think there's so many cool brands out there. As you say, there's so many now. Like you walk into, I don't know, Whole Foods or even, you know, your local supermarket. There are so many brands and kind of all doing similar things, but different. And it's kind of, I think it overwhelmed and it's like you go to buy like a drink or a chocolate bar and you're like, well, I don't know, you know, they all look really good. I don't know which one to choose. There's definitely a lot of toys. I think my favourite product right now is hard-seltzer. That's one that I find myself drinking a lot less beer and a lot more hard-seltzer. So that's kind of a product. And then I guess white claw, one of the biggest players in that, but actually I don't love the taste of white claws. Copperberg, they're a very good one, but yeah, that, I guess that's not such a small business, but the product innovation in that space that just sort of canned alcoholic drinks, I think is, yeah, something that is going to show up a lot in summer picnics if we're in Ireland. Yeah. I feel like alcohol is an industry, it's one that's changing the most out of like the pizzeria, you've obviously got non-alcoholic, and then you've got the innovation and kind of different new products within alcohol itself like hard-seltzer. So if there are any, we're actually interviewing a non-alcoholic brand at some point soon, soon come. And if there are any hard-seltzer brands out there that want to have a chat with us, get on the list. I think it also speaks to that movement of just the new generation of just being a little bit conscious about how much alcohol they consume, how many calories come from alcohol, what kind of thing, and genuinely wanting to enjoy that alcohol experience. And I think hard-seltzer is a really cool product that I'm enjoying drinking every now and then. Cool. And then it kind of goes similar in the, similar vein to the advice question, what is the one thing you wish you had known before you started the brand? The one thing very honestly, so much I did know, there is still so much I do not know, you know, to get to this point we have made countless mistakes. As you get bigger, those mistakes get more and more expensive. Yeah, that's another thing people always say is that everything. Yeah, I think the main thing is, maybe trust, and I guess I kind of went into it and it's trust in every aspect, trusting your co-founders, trusting your eventual team, your third party manufacturers, just like building that relationship. We work with so many people, so many companies that we work with four years ago with the original mistakes at launch, our warehouse, our manufacturers, the guys who make up a board box is like, these relationships, just they're so valuable, never-ending. So, yeah, you're just, I guess the thing is, you're just one cold getter, in a big will and just trust and respect, everyone has the value to add around you. Well, I guess the next question is again, one that you're going to say there's so many, but what would you say your biggest failure was? What did you learn from it? Biggest failure. I think the original brand of, I think I picked it now, that sort of orange misfits, nutrition, female focus protein powder, definitely not like an overarching failure. It was a success in it. I was going to say, because at the end of the day, you wouldn't have had what you have now if you kind of don't do. Absolutely. So, like, not a failure in the slightest because of where we are now, but at the time, it wasn't a success. Let's put it that way. So, yeah, but I'd argue that nothing, it's only a failure if you don't learn and improve from it. So, I'd like to think that we've got a lot wrong, but we've always learned from it. And I think we'll continue to get a lot wrong, but as long as we learn from it, then we're doing something right. Cool. That's a nice positive note to end on. Thanks very much for your time. It's been awesome speaking to you. And yeah, make sure you listen up for the episode when it goes out. And just thanks so much for being a part of it and some really key key points that you said. And yeah, I think it's a great one that people will love to listen to. Great. Well, thank you very much for having me. Please remember to follow, subscribe and leave a review as it really supports what we do. See you guys next time! [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO]