19. Cadence Founder Ross Mackay on Building an Endurance MEGA Brand & Secrets to Healthy CEO Life.

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I think that they have a lot of work to do on the impact they're having on human health and it's embarrassing to be selling products like that. So why do you think you as an individual and essentially two for two off businesses? That's a good question. Yeah this is on with good to go man. Welcome Ross. Thanks. How you doing man? I'm good. Welcome to London more importantly. No direct granny London. Oh mate we've had an absolute shock above us this morning. I've got to tell you firstly how have you found coming from LA which is obviously like a busy place in itself but it's a lot more spread out it feels like to London which is just chaos central particularly this hour. Yeah I mean it's not my first time here about yeah 72 minutes in a car here wasn't great. And you've probably gone about five miles. And I'm the most impatient person in the world so but we've got some work done and I'm happy to be here so no complaints. Well welcome it's good to have you. Obviously the UK has been a big growth point for cadence at the moment and it's great to kind of have like a big activation like we've got ahead this weekend here on like UK soil because that's my part that's my neck of the woods. I feel like I'm growing a little bit tired of London now though. I've lived here for six years. I feel like I'm about to approach myself by date with it. Yeah we talk about a lot of me my way for like we've spent time in York and in a way and we're like should we just go and live in like a ranch with chickens and farms. Yeah you get like the formal because the boys are like in the office and there's so many things but yeah yeah best of both worlds eventually. I had a shock this morning as well. On my way in I was my bus got cancelled and then so I got kicked off the bus and I was like right well I'm going to be late if I get an Uber like lucky I didn't because you got stuck in yours for for so long. Hey I got on a bike some geyser and one of those Casey nice that electric skateboards cuts left in front of me knocks me off my bike he falls off his skateboard and then just stands in the road staring at me. Yeah I was like bro what's going on. There you go anyway. 9am yeah yeah crazy kicking off but welcome I just wanted to kind of like go from the very start really man for those that don't know you for those that don't know your kind of history because you have been in the game not just with cadence but in the business world for so long. Yeah where where did it all begin oh where did it all begin yeah I mean I probably began like quite a young age it's funny my dad's here today and I guess it started like a very young age I've always been like caught on caught entrepreneurial yeah kind of kid who like had a million ideas tested some of them but like my first real for rating to business was about 2018-19 with another business called daring foods. Mm-hmm started that in UK and Glasgow which is not too far away from here and ended up moving to New York with that product and that sample pack that I had after spending a year and a half in Glasgow kind of banging my head against a wall trying to find investors or product market fit or customers for the for the brand and product didn't work out in Glasgow funnily enough which is no surprise because if you know Glasgow like selling a healthy alternative to meat plant-based meat is quite obscure moved over to the US and it kind of took off pretty quickly 2019-2020 we were one of the fastest growing companies in the country we're fortunate enough to partner and raise capital from some of the most prolific investors in the world I mean my cap table was the likes of Peter Teal who started PayPal well we had celebrities like Drake on the on the cap table but you're late so a lot of that just was an incredible learning curve we had about a hundred people two offices New York and LA and I learned you know very quickly what it takes to build distribution across America a mass scale 75,000 distribution points all over the course of about two and a half to three years well so I led that company as founder and CEO and we had a change of control about six months ago which is great it's all the business and then stepped into cadence about a year and a half ago so there was a transition period pre-selling where I stepped down a CEO so I think all that being said second time founder now taking all the learning curves of that into this one which hopefully can result in a great business yeah it's amazing so you said it was like a plant-based alternative for me it's funny because I do actually remember it I my partner isy she is vegan and was like that's how she started in content making like vegan food recipes and stuff and I remember her mentioning because we were watching your Stephen Bartlett episode you were talking with you spoke about it's like I know that brand but that was a massive success and obviously as you said that kind of ballooned for you but that came from a point of use spotting a gap in the market has that always been something that you've had an eye on yeah I think a lot of great businesses out there are born out of real need yeah it's a founder who identifies a problem and then you start to ask why that doesn't exist in the world you know why does this healthy electrolyte in a can beverage that's premium not exists let me look at it let me go and google and see if there's anything else healthy alternative to doesn't exist let me pressure test it and eventually you realize that there may be an opportunity so that happens very quickly for me I have ideas all the time and then summer shutdown very quickly because someone else is doing it or you identify that you could do something better I don't think you ever have to really create something new all the time very new businesses are inventions yeah often the just things done better and to me both businesses were taking something that existed and doing it better I think often in my world which is consumer goods you're taking something that has been existing for tens 50 20 30 40 50 years and has never been looked at in a different positioning for us it's like sports drinks so these relic companies like look as aid in gatorade have been the category leaders in the UK and in America for since I was a little kid I had like a fizzy gatorade visiting my grand in hospital you'd pick it up like why is that not evolved into something that appeals to people like me and you so we didn't invent this but we have positioned it differently and that's often how great businesses are built so when you're kind of coming up with this concept then you obviously in yourself know that these things exist how do you think it was it kind of like a moment where you realize why are we not putting electrolytes into cans because I remember watching your Stephen Bartlett episode it was what is the exact series that he did he kind of goes and chats to people who he's worked with and he came and spoke to you because he was one of the early investors in in cadence he also had the same idea didn't he and he came to you or he went to George Heaton yeah he just explained this story because this is what yeah he texts George being like I'm gonna launch my own electrolytes I kind of mean the exact text I probably haven't my phone George sent me it and George said do you want to speak to him got on the phone with Stephen and then over the course of six months we kind of just went back and forth on his concept and my concept and then eventually he was like well instead of spending X on my own which can cost a lot of money because the way he does things is not half hearted right he's going to build a team around it he's going to invest into branding packaging distribution Martin he's going to put a lot of capital it made more sense for him to potentially bet on someone who's going to dedicate his life to it rather than someone who was going to do it because he identified a gap in the market so great ideas are only like a part of the battle you got to go and execute on them and I was doing that at the time we'd already started to pick up distribution and we spend some time together in New York and NLE and then um yeah I mean we've we've built a great relationship since then the two ideas as well although fundamentally they were same thing you look at the two designs they couldn't be more different if they tried super different like the Stephen Bartlett one was almost like a caricature kind of can it was very bright lots of colors and you come in with this minimalist white can yeah just so different yeah I mean so many products on the market are the same in terms of um composition and when I say like composition I mean like what they are but the positioning is different so you take an electrolyte today the you know the multiple products on the market today are primarily ready to mix so sashay format not many are in ready to drink and there's reasons for that I mean harder to build a drinks business that is to build a powder business generally speaking um but the positioning is super different so while he may have gone after maybe a slightly more female uh Jen pop demographic which is more of own health and hangover and modern wellness kind of like what salt are doing now in that sense yeah exactly yeah um whereas we've gone after like the goal oriented athlete we are not for everyone we don't even know from a functionality perspective everyone should be drinking electrolytes yeah whether you're 15 or 55 or 75 because there's you know there's data to show that everyone's probably a little bit dehydrated um we've gone after you we've gone after me you've got after the individual they got up today and hit 10 by one case, and that's how our brand's positioned because I think it's really important as a brand to be really tightly focused on one customer before you try and be for everyone. Would you say, so if there's someone who's listening to this or watching this and they're thinking, I've got this idea but I don't know who to aim at at, would you say a good start is to aim at someone who is like yourself? Because that's kind of what I do with this podcast I think. If I was to listen to a pod, what do I want to hear? And I sort of think if the audience is like me, then great, I'll always be doing something that I love. Do you think that's a kind of good attitude to have when you're building a market or is that quite narrow-minded? I think some people say like don't build for yourself, I disagree because no one knows yourself better than yourself. Yeah. So you can press your test ideas very quickly, you don't have to go out there and like ask a ton of people's opinions and ultimately this is hard. So if it doesn't come naturally to you where you have a strong opinion on what you're building, whether it be a podcast or cadence or electrolyte drink, then the complexity around the business, the conflict, the critique, it's just easier to do that. So I built this purely for me and George and then identifying there's probably 1,000 people like us, if not 10,000, if not millions, therefore we have the ability to skill the business. It was quite evident as well with George as well, with represent that there were loads of people out there that wanted almost to be like him, and also wanted that kind of same lifestyle, reaching for the same common interest as someone like him. When you guys first met, how did this conversation begin with cadence? Where did that initial idea, because you were working with daring foods? Where did that first kind of conception come from? You know, I don't know if I've said this story, we were in Miami, 2022, I can't remember. It was Water Paloza, and he was doing a pop-up with 247 that CrossFit Games like Event. We were trading in a gym, and if you know George and me, we get up super early. It's not just for Instagram. We trained before the day starts. We were in a gym in Miami, and it was full of these American energy drinks. I'm talking like bright colors, yellow, just reds, super obnoxious day bottles. We'd already had just been from a Starbucks, it was 24 hours, we'd had a espresso, and we didn't want more caffeine, we wanted something else. There was nothing there, and we had just started both taking electrolytes in powder. I was like, "Why has no one done that?" He was like, "I don't know," and it kind of left there, and then fast-forward two, three weeks later, I had gone through that initial. Why has no one done that? Let me search the market, and I came back to George, and I was like, "I'm going to build this." He was like, "Well, let me know," and started to go away on my own and spend time on it, because if you know George, he's so busy with his day-to-day 247 massive company now, and represent, obviously, that you don't want to be distracting him with ideas, you want to come to him with something a little bit more fully baked, and over the course of a year, a year and a half, we started to spend time on it, and I was involved in building innovation and manufacturing and brand, and we were just spending a ton of time together and building the early days. Amazing. So was there, like, okay, obviously, you've come up with the concept, you guys chat about, "Why is no one doing this?" Where did the name come from, and the initial kind of, like, the plans to release this minimalist brand? The name was the name I actually owned prior to identifying when it started a sports hydration business. Okay. I had a cycle law, and was running a lot, and I'm always like, I'm the kind of guy who has, like, 500 domains. Really? Instagram handles that, like, I mean, I mean, never see the, they're like- That's mad. Yeah, yeah. I probably have, like, no joke, 100 domains. All right. What are some of them that you've kind of, like, plucked out a thin air, then you've got that you potentially thought for another business? Honestly, some of them are so random, but we want a lot. There are, like, for example, we have a goal to be a thought leader in hydration. Throughout product, but we also want to build that through education. So if I was to ask you how much hydration, how much sweat did you lose in your treadmill sessions that you probably don't know? But if I was to ask you, identify how much carbs you need on your marathon, you probably start to had a level of education around the fueling guide. Education around science and hydration is still so minimal. So we own a domain called use fuel.com. Okay. So, like, fueling extension to the business. So there's, like, subcategories that we see within cadence, for example, like we own daily discipline, which may be a blog or a magazine around people who are doing great things. I really like that. We've done, like, sweat out, sweat in is a domain that we have. So those are kind of the domains that I've, like, focused in our own extensions to the brand. No, like, and next concepts, but yeah, that's it. Mad. So, like, when you were kind of building cadence, you come up with the name, you and George have gone on board together. Yeah. How did you get to this point where you essentially found your first flavor? Was it, kind of, like, testing situations? Do you know that you should focus on citrus for quite a while? That was the only can available for, I would say, good year. Yeah. Yeah. You're on that development for a pack. So I think it's really great to, when you start a company to not get too horizontally ambitious about the number of products, I always knew I wanted to have a portfolio of products around the athlete and fueling, but we started with one can primarily because, like, capital, you know, to do five flavors, you need five times the money because the minimum order quantities to order one flavor are X. If you want five flavors, it's five times X. So we started with one flavor, it was kind of, like, down the middle. Now we have cream soda and cola and you're going to have an opinion on flavor, but like, citrus is fairly, like, standard. I think it's pretty hard not to like citrus as well. Sprite, sivine up, very refreshing. So we started there and since then we've obviously evolved the can. We've evolved the can size. If you remember, the OG can was smaller. Small can designs are even changing now. We ran this morning. We made five and a half million cans on a new design that you would never see before. As in this morning, as in, they got put into production this morning, yesterday and today, yeah. Wow. So we, but that can you have in your hand, well, that's an old design as of right now. Really? Yeah. So this, which is, like, what, six months old, is now an old design. Yeah, you will see them next week probably right in the same time as this goes live. Yeah, we kind of have a slight evolution to the brand. There's a reason for it, but as we move our product away from only online, pretty much, and in stores, some stores, we're moving into mass retail, the most beverages are bought. Yeah. Like, to buy a can online is very obscure. I don't know any beverages that I subscribe to online. I buy them in the shop. I buy them downstairs at the coffee shop. I buy them at the co-op Tesco's Waitrose, for example. So we have to position our product on those shelves. When you see that can on a shelf, you know the brand. But tell me what flavor this is from six feet away. Yeah. The average American shopper is five foot nine. So you want, how would you know that? That's wild. So you want to be able to, like, I didn't, in a very short period of time, have that person identify what that product is and what for this? Yeah. From what is Core 500? Well, it's 500 milligrams of sodium. But why, if you never knew the brand, that's me knowing the product. Yeah. What is Core 500? Yeah. So like, is that the name of the brand? Is it cadence correct? It's so true when you put it like that, because it's almost like a, if you know, you know, if you know, you know, and that's what we identified and that's what we wanted to create. Unfortunately, as we move into national target in February, we might move into national Walmart, CVS, Walgreens, we have to break mass America and they care about a few things. One is flavor. Yep. Like visually, this is not, this is not craveable. Like, you know it because you trace taste of the liquid. But I want it to represent the flavor better. So we're going to add a bit of color to that. Okay. So with that being said, because obviously this is now in production, is it going to stay as a white can? White can. Yeah. And then the cadence is going to change color. No. Okay. A little bit of a colored rim around the top. Okay. And pretty much everything else will be the same. Nice. So essentially this metal tab at the top that runs around top half inch is going to be more colored rim. Everything will come down slightly. Okay. And then we just compress Core 500 will stay changed to, um, alleged, uh, uh, core hydration. Okay. Cool. And then we'll call out 500 on the side of the can. And when you, because I remember herk saying this to me at start the year, that's hercules. Yeah. Honestly, like, he's smashed the UK. He came to me in, came on my pod. I want to say it was like, well, after we finished cypress, maybe, maybe like two months after he'd done the cypress. Yeah. And, um, we were just talking, he brought me some cadence. I was like, yeah, no, I love it. It's like such a sick brand. And then he reached out to me in April to join as like a UK ambassador. And I was buzzing, mate. I was like, if you would said to me at the start of the year, top three brands you want to work with, cadence would have been one of them. I'm not just saying that just, um, oh, what were the other two? I think I said Adidas because I had a really good relationship with them at the time. Yeah. Um, and then I can't remember the third. But yeah, honestly, like, that was, that was my kind of goal to work with a brand like cadence as like my hydration partner. And when he came to me, he said, we are this year really focusing on retail and breaking into stores and selling physical cans because that's that's the market. That's where you're going to grow. That's, um, people will see the product. Yeah. Um, what, what was the moment where you guys sat. down and realize right, online is great. But if we want to really smash this thing, we need to just break into the stores. From the beginning, it was where my last business was, all B2B and never done direct consumer roof work. George came from a D2C background, so we were able to like utilize that experience to launch the business and launching into retail takes time. If we sit down with a retailer today, probably a need to love the products. The best they've ever tried, they were obsessed with it. Realistically, it takes 12 months to get in store. So you have that period of time from when we launch the brand to where we are now, which has been almost a year and a half-ish, where we've been working with retailers to find the right ones, the right business plan, and now pretty much from tomorrow, you'll start to see us rule into retail. Cans as 86% of people today in America will buy a cold carbonated beverage. That's a lot of people. And 70% of those will buy a four pack. We are pretty audacious. We want to take the business. We want cadence to be as ubiquitous as a Red Bull can. So therefore, we have to be everywhere our competition is. And for us, our competition are not selling online. They're in store. And that's where we want to be positioned. So eventually, every corner shop and every major retailer high street in the UK and also in America. Interesting you mentioned Red Bull. Because like Red Bull's stance, I've always found fascinating, where they're not a drinks brand. They're a marketing route. And not a lot of people know this, but Red Bull was set up as a marketing brand to advertise their company, used to energy drink, which was pretty like mundane. The energy drink itself wasn't anything revolutionary. It was just a way to package their brand up. Have you guys as a brand taken any inspiration from that sort of thing? Because now you've got Red Bull. I know them now. I don't really look at them as a drink. Firstly, I don't drink the drink that much. I don't really like I'm more of a coffee guy. But I look at their activations that they do, whether it's with athletes, whether it's doing these crazy stunts. Have you ever taken any inspiration from the way Red Bull acts? Huge inspiration. Yeah. For sure. I think hopefully we can have a big greater impact on human health. Yeah. But when I think of a Red Bull, I think of like the Formula One team and I think about people surfing 50-foot waves. Yeah. And the Red Bull cap, that if you wear the Red Bull cap and you're part of the Red Bull team, you're like, whether you are a Formula One driver or you're jumping out of airplanes. There's a common theme that you are the best in the world of what you do. And for us, I want Kaden to represent the same within right now and during sport, but eventually Formula One and tennis and jumping out of airplanes too. Yeah. So when we think about this like common theme of like a lifestyle brand, we really see yourself as a lifestyle brand. We are fueling athletes running across Cypress or running across Australia or running Olympic trials or whatever it may be. And we're fueling their goals through our innovation. We always say this as a brand, we work for the athlete. Yeah. And that's ultimately why we build the innovation we do. And we highlight it through our amazing storytelling team, like Alex and so on, which are basically out there telling these love stories about individuals' goals within a sport they obsess over. I think Red Bull do the same. And yeah, of course, like it's less about the product. It's more about the mission that these individuals are on. Do you think there's almost like, do you see brands pop up now which don't have that long term idea? And this isn't no like in no way shade to any brands or anything like that. But do you ever look at those brands and go, that won't last all time? But I also just don't care. Yeah. I like don't think competitions are real. Okay. Why is that? Because I just like you can you can only control the input. Okay. Like I can control the output of this business. I can only control the things that control. And like the just just so many brands now, the barrier to entry on launching any of these things is so low. Like you didn't invent a cure for like it doesn't exist. You could launch up ready to mix sashie business with 6,000 pounds. But like it's you know, is it going to change? Honestly, the this statistic out there that you probably see someone clipping about the amount of businesses that make it. And there's very few. And the inputs I can control are the strategy and the vision, the team I hire for the for the business and the product I create the liquid. And we're doing that the best her ability. But I don't think competition is real. Like what about you has made you into position you are now where you've had to very successful? We still got a lot of work to do. Honestly, I think we the business has a long way to go. We're just early in our in our life cycle. But it's safe to say though it's on the right track. And obviously that's complacency. Like I'm speaking as a third party, but the way I look at the brand and go. This is on like such a positive trajectory that comes from somewhere. Do you want to I mean? Yeah. I think like hard work is a bit of a glorified term, but we we we spend a lot of time on the things we're doing. I think we've identified the a gap in the market. We've gone after it very quickly and aggressive. I think as a founder, like speed is a superpower. And we use that within the team. Like we started as one to we have about 26 people now working across the company. And everyone kind of lives in breeze the culture that we're building. That's still tiny by the way. That's still pretty small. That was blown away when I went to New York office. A small team. Yeah, I was like, whoa, this is around one table. Yeah, we're punching. I don't know if team is really important. I've always identified like find as a founder, your job is to hire the best people in the world. Like find what you want to spend your time on and then find the gaps and right basically make the business and the opportunity is appealing to those individuals to come and join you and help build the business. So we have some amazing people. In fact, everyone's amazing in the company. And I think that's helped to propel the business to where it is today. I mean, we'll grow 500% next year. And we still aren't even really scratching the surface. Yeah. Obviously, you mentioned you're like hard work ethic. What's been for you? Now I'm in the kind of like self-employed game and have been since May. So I've kind of, it's all on me now. So I've noticed my work ethic switch where it was almost like on days that you feel that you can take the foot off the gas you do. We're in the past. But now I'm like, I can never take the foot off the gas because then that's affecting me in 10 years time. How do you balance that? Because obviously you're a father. You're a husband. How do you balance that as an overall man? It's really tough. Yeah. I talk about a lot. I talk a lot on my YouTube. I think it's actually like this podcast I listened to a couple of weeks ago when we talked about it. I think like for me, the purpose of life isn't necessarily always happiness. It's impact. Okay. So I find my happiness through creating impact. So that leads me to like spend a lot of time on the things that create most impact, which therefore leads into me finding happiness. I really enjoy what I do. I really, this air and flow and there's days where you're like, this is going to the world's ending and there's days where you're like, oh my god, this is incredible. I kind of stay quite numb to it all. That switch happens fast as well. Yeah. I think you have to kind of stay level headed. And it's not that we're not happy about the great things that we're doing. But like the day to day is just so up and down. Does that allow you to enjoy the highs though? Um, I would say like to some extent, my wife's always like, you know, this is amazing. Like she's celebrating. I'm like, you know, um, it's probably a level of like where I want to take things and where we are now. I'm always thinking about what snacks, which is maybe good, not bad. But yeah, probably it's probably struggle to identify those highs. But it's probably also because this is what we expect it to do. Yeah. Like if you went and you said, I want to go out and achieve the goal within a marathon, and you did it, but you've been doing that for 16 weeks. You've kind of started to build that concept. Believe it. So the next goal then exists, right? How many people do you, I think I listened to the last podcast and it was like one of the ones you just did. It's like you finished, you finished a marathon and you're like, what's your next race? Yeah. I think you said that. And you're like, what do you mean? What's my next race? Yeah, I know. Let me breathe. So for me, it's the same thing. Yeah. Yeah. I just landed four thousand this morning. We landed seven hundred and fifty seven elevens with three flavors. And I got off the call and I was like, all right, what's the next retailer? I'm not going to like call the team and have a team dinner and celebrate. It's just like, that's what we do. We do. It's just expectations. This will be interesting. As a business owner, when you employ so many people, like what is your biggest tip? Because there'll be people listening that have this newfound, I guess, responsibility for people's livelihoods. And obviously, you know, you actually do have responsibility now for people's livelihoods, which is, which is sick, even if there's people who directly like a below you that kind of all like work for you that control those on a day to day. What would be your biggest bit of advice to making sure you kind of stay tapped in and stay connected as a boss and praise those things, even if you wouldn't praise them yourself. How, how do you manage that situation? Because there will be people that want to have those small wins. Do you know what I'm saying? Oh, yeah. And I think you should still have the small wins and just celebrate the people we have, like we utilize like Slack, for example, every Friday. We talk about like the things that we're all excited about, the things we're nervous about. I think your job as a founder is to make your team feel 13 feet tall. Cool. Make them feel that they can directly understand the mission of the company. Where are you going over the next six to 12 months? Where are you going long term for us like five years from now? And understand how they can themselves drive that impact directly through the work they do. I think when you understand that, like if I do X and Y, we're going to get closer towards the mission. It's really important. And then give them these large sandboxes to kind of fuck shit up a little bit and like allow them to you know experiment and and be entrepreneurial themselves. So when I think about it, think about even like the relationship I have with Alex, you know, we'll be launching any product, and I'm not gonna tell him like, it needs to be this and this and this and this. It's like, this is what it's kind of for. This is the flavor, go away and like build it for us. And then come back and let's tweak and refine it. But the ability to him, for him, to be like super entrepreneurial himself. And that's multiplied across the 28, 29 people or whatever we have today, where they can basically be business owners within the larger business. - Yeah. - It's so interesting, like you mentioned Alex, like obviously you have a vision for the brand, but being able to have people on board that you trust their vision also is super important. I remember chatting to Kay for about this. And it was when I think, I can't remember when it was, I was doing some like filming and stuff with him. I think it might have been when Herc paced me for a sub 20 minute 5K, and Kay came along and filmed it. And I was just saying after he was like, I think Herc said to me is like, I will not even need to give Kay an idea. I'll say we're doing this. And then he'll spitball an idea back at me. And they're just in sync. And they have that kind of like connection. I think that's so important because if you don't have that connection, you're gonna end up just constantly trying to tell people what to do, which isn't productive with your time, and it isn't productive with theirs. - Yeah, we spend a lot of time together from like the early ideation before Kay and launch probably like three or four months before we even launched the business. - Yeah. - We were spending time together through my last company. And the story's kind of funny. I wanted a headshot for a Forbes panel I was doing. And we had each other up on, or he had me up on social media. We did the job. And then I've always had the ambition to launch more content as a founder and storytelling. I've always been inspired by founders that like bring people on the journey. And now we do it as a team. And we work together then. So I was talking about like what I was gonna build and like the vision. And like when you spend a lot of time with someone, genuinely like you probably rub off in each other in good ways. So yeah, as a founder, I am very like visual, very creative. I love that part of the world. But like now the brand is evolved and most people understand who we are and what we do and what we stand for. And it's executed flawlessly. So I'm super proud of that. - Amazing man. It's a connection I think is something that's so on the value when it comes to working for yourself and creating something for the future. And one thing I find really interesting is hearing stories about how people keep their kind of relationships, I guess, healthy. And you're a married man, congratulations. Your wife is American, isn't she? - She's Dutch. - She's Dutch. - But Dutch. - Okay, but you guys live in America together. - We did America in York and then we spend time in York and LA and York and LA. We've kind of been back and forth to the last five years. She spent 10 years in York prior, but grew up in Amsterdam. - Okay, cool. - The awesome city. - Amazing. Yeah, I know, I love Amsterdam, it's sick. How have you guys kept your relationship without asking too many questions? But in terms of working a lot and working on something you're truly passionate about, you've had daring foods and then you've now got cadence. How have you managed to keep connected with your partner? Because I think you hear these stories of people that go, right, I'm locking in with business now and I don't care about anyone in the process. And you hear these toxic things and I've definitely been guilty of it in the past when I've worked for a job and it's affected my relationship because I've cared too much about the work and put it in front of people, in relationships. What's your biggest bit of a vice to kind of keep things in a healthy position, I'd say? - Yeah, it's probably a few answers to that. I think being very honest in the beginning about certain things you want to achieve because when I first met my wife Anna and Estasia, I was building a business, it was very early on. It was kind of like the first few months. So she didn't meet me, I went through a journey of being ex and then all of a sudden I changed to now wanting to start all these companies. So like, for example, we first started dating. There was no like lying in on Saturdays. I was out at 5 AM and I still do that today. So I haven't evolved and changed necessarily. I'm still the same person I was with me first met. I think a lot of people when they start dating, they like try and adapt and mold themselves to be liked by that individual 'cause if you want, if she wants to lie in on Sunday, I'll lie in two and then a year later, you're like, "Fuck this, I want to get off at 5 AM and run." And they're like, "Well, what happened to our lie in Sundays?" You're like, "Well, but anyway, all that being said is we're very good at communicating each other about the things that are important to us and the non-negotiables for me, like business and work is a priority for me and should be a priority for our family because of the things that we want as a family. Therefore, if I slack off there, like genuinely I'm probably defaulting on my responsibility as a father and as a husband. And also, like I said, like work does give me purpose, but family gives me drive. So those two kind of work together. Also, she very much understands it. She's been a supporter and seen the business of all from me and no one else packing boxes, doing our social media in the very early days of my last company to walking into an office in New York, seven story art with a hundred people. So she's seen what hard work can create. And now, again, she puts up with me working, you know, pretty much non-stop, but I do have some non-negotiables. What are some of those? Nice, non-negotiable. Don't call me at 330 to 430. I won't take a call with big Jeff Bezos. I won't do it, I turn my phone off. Really good, man. Yeah, yeah, that's so cool. That's for me and for her, and then on the weekend, I don't work, okay, yeah. I know a lot of people are like, you should always be working, but I don't work at the weekend. I don't take calls at the weekend. If I have to, I will, between the hours of X and Y when my daughter's napping, but you don't get these moments back, so. Yeah, that's something that I'm kind of thinking about. See, I don't have kids, but I look at it and go, time is essentially one of the most valuable commodities we have in life. Where'd you draw the line of being like, and it sounds like you've drawn a nice line in your life, but it's almost like, say someone who is trying to build a hustle on the side of a full-time job, and they've got a partner, and you know, they've probably got a young kid as well, but they're building for the future, and they're struggling to kind of get through to that partner of like, you know, I need to do this for us, and then sometimes communications break down and things like that. It's almost quite difficult to, I guess, get into a good routine because you're constantly in this negative one, if you don't mind what I'm saying. I think the idea of balance is super amounticized. Yeah, I like, you know, balance to me is different from balance to you and different to everyone. I want to be a good role model for my daughter through how I show up, but also what I build, you know, and showing up means more balance, but what I build means less balance, yeah. So I find the two are contradictions, and I probably don't have the best balance. You know, I probably work close to 70, 80 hours a week on my business between the hours of, you know, Andy to Friday, but, you know, you just have to either do it yourself, but I like to share the experiences and the learnings and the moments that we go through with someone else and it happens to be my amazing wife. So yeah, I wouldn't change it for the world. I have been now two businesses in and she's seen pretty much everything, and this shares very hard. So doing it alone is also, I think, harder than doing it with someone else. I do think people tell themselves this story of like, I can't have this if I want this, but it's not always true. You just have to find someone who will support you on your journey. That's all. - Do you think that there's this sort of mindset now that people see people on social media? Fitness has changed so much. Since 2019 when you were, you know, daring foods was like doing really well. From that point to now, we've seen such a change in the way people kind of, I guess, modeled their lives off others through social media, whether it's through athletes or just, you know, day to day people. Do you think now social media has got to a point where it's almost glamorizing entrepreneurship to an unhealthy level because the wrong people are sending out the wrong message? Does that make sense? - Propel Fitness Water with Gatorade Electrolites, Zero Sugar and Vitamins. What propels you? Propel with Gatorade Electrolites. - This labor day it loves. Get up to 45% off, select major appliances. Plus, deals on select materials and tools to keep the job moving. Right now, get a free DeWalk 20 Volt Max battery two pack. When you buy a selected DeWalk 20 Volt Max tool, it loves, we have what you need to keep your job moving. Bella for 9/13, all supplies last. Selection bears by location. Sealows.com for more details. (upbeat music) - Yeah, to some extent. I think, you know, obviously there's just an abundance of like maximumism online, like running as far as you can, as fast as you can, the most you can. 10 marathons in a day, you know, businesses X to Y in such a short period of time. So there is a level of like pressure if you're not achieving those things. Then like, are my a step behind? If I'm not running a sub-tweet marathon, are my even like, is this even worth it? Which is crazy to think that. - Yes, man, so is that. - You know, for me, like the first marathon I did, it was like, I've got to do that because they're all the boys are doing that. But like, that's not. But then again, it's like saying, the first business I have has to be $100 million. No, like the two and two don't work together. So I think yes to some extent, but my opinion is honestly, the more people out there are building brands, doing great things within sport. Like, generally, all ships rise. And a lot of it is, you know, probably. probably for Gaysie and smokes him a smoking mirror. So you can identify the people that are really about it and really know about it within sport or in business. So I don't really pay a lot of attention to other people to be honest with you. - Yeah, that's healthy man. In obviously for you, fitness is such a huge part of your life. And that's fundamentally the core of the brand. That is what you've kind of built it off is a product that you felt was a gap in the market because you wanted it. Talked about your fitness goals and how that's played a part in your entrepreneurial life. - Yeah, I've always been really into sport, going up a little at tennis, a bit rugby and golf. And then I got into running, I guess around 2023. So I'm pretty new to running, cycled a lot as well. I got into running through high rocks. Me and George did a lot of high rocks together. - Nice, yeah. And like I was so, I was very good on the sleds and on the lunges and the wall balls, but I would die on the runs. - Okay. - Just embarrassing because like he was waiting for me. He's a strong runner and I was like, I can't have that again, especially as a pair 'cause you do it as a pair. So I went out and I just started doing like interval training and then you identified that not everything should be at like threshold and running sprints. You should do this on one two thing and started to run more and then did my first marathon. Actually last year at Berlin, I did New York and then this year I did, I'm London this year too. And then I did Chicago recently as well. So I fall in love with the sport. I've kind of stepped away from this audacious goals of like needing to chase time and needing to be, you know, X and Y because I want to be CEO of the year and father of the year, not athlete of the year. It's a goal I have on my midboard to be honest with you. I want to be able to travel the world, building a brand, participating in the sport I love with people that I'm close to. Like running with her in his fiance in New York was a goal this year. Like I didn't get to do it because I had a meeting. I had to go to but like that's really much more important than me. But at the same time, I still want to compete. So I'm doing an Iron Man in a few weeks. Some point three. Actually not a fill. I haven't really talked about it because at the same time, like I don't think anyone cares. - Well let's talk about it now 'cause I'm intrigued 'cause I did a 7.3 in July. - Yeah, so. - And yeah, it's such a like co-experience. Are you doing it on the buildup to a full or you just got this one built in for now? - No, absolutely not. - Yeah. - Couple of my friends were doing it. I like swimming, I swam growing up. I like the bike. Running's probably my like third out, you know, when I'm worst out of the three sports. And that's your handy runner as well. So that must mean you're pretty good swimmer then. - I'm better in the pool and on the bike than I am in the running. - Yeah, that's it, is he a good swimmer? - Yeah, he's not in his head. - I hate it. But I'm definitely, you're a tall guy. I'm built more for the pool. - Yeah. - And you know what? It's like two hours from my house and I'm gonna do and do it and whatever. I've been like training for it. But like, you know, I'm just seeing it as a really long workout. - Yeah, yeah. - And a couple of my friends are gonna do it as well. And I think we'll see what next year is. I think we talked about the sport and like so many people have like a calendar of things they wanna go and achieve. But for me, it's more about where we're building the brand. So London, New York, LA, you know, different parts of America and I'll go and activate. And if I'm there, if there's a race on, like let's go and do it. So I'm entered London next year. - Amazing. - And I would love to make it where possible the opportunity to run New York every year. For as long as I can. That was the most incredible experience of my life. Oh, it's wild. - It's wild. - It's like running down like bed for a minute, mile, 11, 12 in Brooklyn. - Yeah. - If you can experience that, it's probably one of the most crazy. I picked up my daughter on mile beside the Dirty Bird station on, picked up my daughter, saw my wife. It was like, it was just crazy. - Is that the bit of the race where it kind of feels like a Tour de France where it's like five foot wide? - Yeah, yeah. - It's wild. - Going through a tight tunnel and you're like leading into Brooklyn and then after that, it's like goes quiet for a little bit. - Yeah. - Yeah, it's incredible. - Yeah, I think that bit comes either before, just after the silent mile. - Yeah, it's just before. - Yeah, and that bit was crazy because you have the adrenaline dump of, you know, coming out of the crowds into the silence. - Yeah, then you're like, "Hurry, I'm 180. "I need to slow down." - Yeah, yeah, it's wild, amazing race though. But that's interesting. When you're training for an event, obviously you're spending so much time working. - Yep. - I'm just genuinely fascinated because there's so many people that go, "Oh, I can't balance like, you know, "training for this with a full-time job." And that's absolutely fine. Everyone has different priorities. How do you prioritize it and make it such a ingrained part of your routine in life? - I just wake up really early and dream. I call it Dad Hours. - Nice. - Yeah, those Hours between pre-70M or for me. - Yep, so I say my goals my time. Cool, no one else needs to be impaired or affected by my goals. They're not my daughter's goals or my wife's goals or my team's goals, they're my goals. So therefore if they're my goals, do it on my time. So I make sure that I wake up early and get on the treadmill at 5 AM and finish by six because like, again, it's my time. So I think does that come with like one hour less in bed, maybe, but I also go to bed pretty early. So it doesn't really affect me. - What sort of typical sleep are you getting with that? - I'm still getting like six, seven hours. - Nice, I need that, honestly. But like, you know, if I'm asleep by 10, I'm often up by like 330. - 330. - Yeah, yeah. So what are you doing between 330 and like five? - Fuelling or? - Fuelling, yeah. No, I'll probably try and train like 4.35 AM. I have a home gym. So most of my workouts are done at home. I can control the environment and I can like not leave 25 minutes so it's saving that delta. I am the kind of guy that needs like an hour before he gets on a treadmill. - Yeah. - I can't wake up like, I joke like with Alex, I'm like, you are training at five. He's up at like 4.55 AM. I'm up at like 330. I've had a shower, I've had a coffee, I've got my bathroom. I need like my fill makeup routine. - Yeah, yeah, I did the last two runs early this week on caffeinated and it was genuinely the most miserable experience I've ever experienced. - Yeah, we got in the same little hotel. We got in the espresso machine. But yeah, those are the hours I train at. And like we kind of call like, I call it Dad hours, you know. - I like that, Dad hours. Yeah, I'm slowly realizing in this kind of like self-employed life that getting up earlier is the only place to get in the training in. - Yeah, yeah. - I feel shit as well if I don't. If I've missed my alarm and I'm, you know, let's say I was being here for nine. I've got to leave my house at eight. Say if I like snooze my alarm, well, 5.45 to do my session today. If I just slept through that and then just not ran before coming to see you, I would've been so angry at myself. - And you're not going to do it later because the day gets ahead of it and then you want to eat dinner and you don't want to train after that. So yeah, pretty much most of the days of the week, I'll do that enough I can get in a second session later on, I will. But like it's just like. - In Dad hours again in the evening. - Yeah, or in, yeah, yeah, yeah, in the evening after seven o'clock. - Obviously you've observed the like fitness space for so long now with working to develop cadence. What have you noticed to be some of the biggest changes in that time? - Wow, I mean, I think we're mostly within endurance or running is kind of like where we sit and play. You know, I think there's a lot of things that we're identifying now within through the business. Think some of the biggest changes around just the importance of feeling, like not to bring it back to cadence. But when I first started running, I did it more for like body composition and for like weight loss or whatever it may be. And I chat to a lot of people who are like, oh, I'm there running journey. And it's like, you know, a lot of people just want to lose weight or get healthier or fitter. And then the contradiction that you need to like, ram in carbs and like eat before a run or eat during a run and make sure you feel after. So I think the contradiction of like performance and aesthetics are so vastly different within the sport that we both play in, that it's hard for people to excel because so much of the reason the catalyst for going out and running is to maybe drop some weight. So when you're like, but after every, well, it depends which brand you are. We say 20 minutes, but some brands say 30 minutes. We say, you know, feel more to take gels and you're like taking 20 grams of carbs every, what's that got to do with it? So I think that's really important. I think that's the change we're starting to see the importance of like high carb, feeling more, hydrating more, which is super different from I think most people's health journey where it's mostly about like losing weight. I remember when I first started running. Well, back in 2019, I did a half marathon when I was at uni and I remember like dropping a load of weight for it and I used it as a weightless exercise and luckily I didn't get injured in the process but that was very much my mindset. And I kind of came back to running in 2023, yeah. And I remember I was training for Manchester Marathon. I just started my block, went out for like a long-ish run and I remember putting up, I didn't really have much for social media following at the time but I had like enough for people to like see it and call me out if I said anything mental. I remember it was like a photoslide thing on TikTok which I've now removed because it was so dumb. I remember posting saying that I thought gels were a load of bollocks and how mental is that? And I remember one person called me out and it must have got like 20,000 views, only one person out of the 20,000 called me out and that's just how uneducated it was. Myself included, it's mental. - Yeah, I think there's certain macronutrients like protein that become so obvious. I mean, everyone now knows that like after a weight session or after a strength and conditioning session, you need to replenish with your protein, right? Within an hour of training or whatever the data is it's 30 to 40 grams, one pound, one gram of protein. So there's like enough data, they're on things like protein. When you look at our sport and urine sport running, protein doesn't really matter. It matters for recovery but like carbohydrates and sodium Only things that are wrong. are really gonna help you on an marathon. - Yeah. - Has there been much research done into how creating can help endurance sport? - There is a lot. We thought about launching a creating product at the same time, like, we're gonna leave other people to do that. We have a strong belief as a brand. If you can't be the best in the world at it, don't do it. Creating is a commodity. I mean, the difference between ours and everyone else's just would be the packaging and the branding. Whereas this liquid, we build from scratch. We have an R&D lab in New Jersey. We build everything from scratch. Where it's created is literally you're buying it from one or two suppliers you're putting in your packaging and, like, monohydrate or create purer. It doesn't really matter. There's really no difference. So long story short, yes. Also for a brain cognition. - Yeah. - Hugement. - If I'm tired this morning, I'll load up on creating and I find the mental clarity massively different. - There's studies now. And I doubt, by the way, please take this with a pinch of salt 'cause I haven't got the exact source or anything like that. But I saw a study saying that that creating consumption is linked to decreased chance of getting Alzheimer's later in life. - Yeah. - So we have a head of nutrition called Maggions. He's head of sports science at the Boston Celtics, which is championship winning basketball team. He was actually one of my first hires to the company because I realized that, yes, me and George like sport. But who are we as authorities to underwrite like best-in-class innovation within sports science? So we hired him. He's been part of the business now for two years and he builds all of our formulations. So works with our manufacturer to build what is today our gel, our sashes, our cans and continues to jokingly spam our team with just like an amazing amount of data. We try and educate as well as a brand. I think that's what differentiates us through our level of detail around the fueling guide, the marathon guide. And it all comes back to our core customer positioning of like being for the goal oriented consumer. So we want to continue to educate, we want to continue to be a thought leader in sports science and hydration and fueling. Just launched our gel, which has been incredible. - I'm big, big fan of it, it's brilliant. - I know it's been, that was probably one of the first products we ever worked on. But it took a while to get to where we are today. - When did you start working on that? - Probably a year and a half ago. - Wow, a year and a half ago. - Yeah, there's literally vlogs and imagery. A lot of people, and I kind of joke, people were like, you know, I've been working on this for a year and a half. I'm like, you're white labeling a product. Like I know that because there's not a factory here that hasn't called us and said, hey, we want to be your supplier. I've tested every product. - US and UK, there's not one factory that I haven't tried, they're gel offering. We built everything from scratch. We built the foundation, the formulation, the early samples all internally. And then we take that to a factory and they just have to mimic what we have. Rather than a factory have something off the shelf, put your logo on it. - Does that happen a lot? - Everything is white label. - Wow. - Most small brands, any of the gels you've seen launched over the last couple of months from UK brands, I'll guarantee the business is just a white label. It's just an off the shelf. No one's investing in innovation like us. Absolutely not. We have a full team dedicated towards it. Takes longer, it's more expensive, but ultimately it's why our product is fundamentally better. - Yeah. - But we've got imagery, YouTube's video of me testing gels from, I want to say, 18, 19 months ago. But we don't launch anything unless we've been testing for a year. - So how does that testing process work, particularly with a gel, which is something where, you have to do some certain volume and kind of see how it works with you when you're exercising, whether it's a marathon session. How does that testing process work? - From a non-quality issue and so there's quality side. - So quality separate, I'm more meaning like you as a performance-based individual, how do you measure it? - We work with a variety of our athletes essentially and we're giving them product for a period of time. We're asking for feedback, you know, like for us, some of the key identifiers were like, got the gestability, palatability, tearability, packaging, make et cetera. Some of the things you look for in a gel and other products, more simple, like a can. It's kind of like flavor, you know, more focused. Flavor focus, 'cause the formulation is down to a T. We won't change the formulation now. The variables are flavor. - Yeah. - So like do you like orange, do I like orange? Do you like orange A, B, C, or D? Do I, you know, like, and we vote on that. But for a gel, it was like in the market with some of our athletes, including, you know, some of the athletes that ran in the Olympics, they were testing the gel for a period of time. We haven't documented a lot of that. We haven't showcased a lot of that. But the gel speaks, I think, you know, speaks for that itself. - Yeah, and with athletes, you have in the past have had like some top tier athletes involved at the company. Clayton Young was one of the people that you had for a long time. How does that whole process work when you're onboarding an athlete? Propel Fitness Water. With Gatorade Electrolites, Zero Sugar, and Vitamins, propel hydrates better than water to help you get the most out of your workout and get back to your best self. What propels you? - This labor day it lows. Right now, you're the free to walk 20 volt max battery two pack. When you buy a select to walk 20 volt max tool, at Loves, we have what you need to keep your job moving. Bell of your night 13, all supplies last. Selection varies by location. Seelos.com for more details. (upbeat music) - Yeah, it really depends on the athlete and we kind of tier our athletes. You know, obviously people who do this for a living, like you take someone like Clayton Young, one of the best runners in the world, obviously fully focused on running, like content creation and, you know, working for a brand per se is more of like a means to run rather than like an outcome whereas like content creators who run, we see them as different. Not to say we value one or the other more, but Clayton is an Olympic, you know, top 10 athlete. - He's got authority. So we work with him to bring that authority and credibility into our brand because we want to be positioned beside brands at running stores which are working with the kip chogies of the world, for example. - For sure. - Obviously, you know, with that comes a price, with that comes a level of expectation from our side, with content creation, the two and two don't always marry up, right? - Yeah. - With someone who's only focused on running and you want Alex to go down and be like, shooting him and getting deliverables when he's just like, you know, it's always hard to measure up when you work with an influencer or an athlete who is someone like her, for example, who is like, he understands the game, he understands the importance of creating content for a brand that's going to ultimately pay the bills and therefore, me to allow the two to continue to invest in that individual. So we found our sweet spot kind of more a few steps below professional, where people are doing great things within their sport but it's not the only thing they do for a living but they're aspirational but also attainable. Like you could find them at the local run club yesterday, you know? And I think that's more impactful. We've seen that through like sales, to be honest with you. - Well, it's really interesting because obviously like, I have a lot of lads that mess you up, my audience is 80% male and like 75% UK. And so it's very UK-centric male, which is what I go back to the whole is my audience me, essentially. - Yeah. - And I go back to that and think, these guys are trying to just get after it, whether they're new to it or they've had a skin in the game for a long time. Everyone's just trying to get after it and a brand like cadence, particularly with the gels, with your new gel offering, it felt like it was a step into almost, being less of a kind of, you weren't just focusing on hydration, but you found something really unique where you were hydrating people whilst giving them carbohydrates for their runs. Like not a lot of people kind of realize this but a lot of gels don't really have much hydrating capabilities, whereas yours do. - Yeah, we've got 200 milligrams of sodium in our gel, which is definitely like best in class for us. And I actually saw it in London this year where I think, I don't know if you ran, but it was really hot. - Yes, yeah. - And I think it's hard to get hydration on the course, especially if you don't want to drink the stuff that's on the side, which is mostly garbage from the big guys, look as they'd engage or aid. So, and a lot of people do run with bottles, but like the general sign says that consumers sweat and lose around 1000 to 2000 milligrams of sweat, a sodium per hour. So depending on your run, let's just say you take three to four hours to run a marathon, you're probably losing about three to four grams of salt. A guarantee no one is inducing and taking in three to four grams of salt on your run. So we wanted to mitigate that by putting in sodium in our gel, because saying, let's say someone runs with a handheld with two cadence curves, that's 1000, that's only gonna get you through an hour. You still got two to three hours to go, but if you were taking in 10 grams, 10 carb gels, you're getting that back. - Yeah. - And you don't taste it, we don't have any blockers in the gel. 200 milligrams of salt has been a game changer so you're able to hydrate, but also carb replenished during your training. So number one selling product on our Shopify right now. - Really? - We just got news from the feed, which is a large platform that it's, you know, it's a top performing product too. - Oh, the feeds in the American health. - Yeah, they sell, like I guess, some parts of things on that, yeah. - Performance focused rather than lifestyle. I mean, like, carb, a hydrate gels is like their number one category, but yeah, amazing business, great partner for us. - As a brand, I guess, you've gone into kind of innovation with the gel. What's some of the other things that you were either planning or you have currently in the planning process? - Yeah. So we have a pretty aggressive, like stage gate on any innovation and it has to, like, be underwritten by certain things. Whereas I think a lot of, we talked about how we build innovation in beginning was like, I want to build this, let me launch it because it probably works for me. Now we've transcended a little bit more into a proper company, and there's actual people in the company that stage gate things, like cost of business and upside potential in margin, and we kind of underwrite the business differently. We've been pretty aggressive over the last six months. You've seen us launch five flavors. You've seen us launch gels, you've seen us launch sachets, all which have been continuously improved. Even this week, we changed our sachet material, we changed our powder, we've continued to evolve. I think innovation is not only new products, but batchering your current products, and I've always identified there's certain issues, so how does it mix, so how does it tear, or does it clump, or whatever it may be, how does it can crack? Can I improve the current product, and then are those products penetrating the market aggressively, which underwrites the opportunity for me to launch new products? Instead of launching a new flavor, I have to say, is Cadence Cola achieving the distribution and revenue that underwrites me launching Cadence Orange? And for us, no. For us in 2026, you'll see us load on an innovation, and you'll see this can available everywhere. So we're focused on the white space, rather than new products, and that's why I think is the difference for us, kind of leading to 2026, other than an energy gel, which I think you've tested. Let's test that in New York. It's sick. Yeah, which I think. And also with the regular gel, as well, because it's always intriguing to see how like something particularly caffeine will play with your stomach. No issue. Yes, yes. Yes, it was really, that was, we're working on that at the same time. And then I think the, sort of, final innovation, which kind of appeals is the car powder. Yeah. So we've been testing the car powder for a long time, and I think that you'll see that launch. But other than that, we're very focused on distribution. Would you ever, what do you kind of think about gel flavors? Because obviously you guys, it's kind of unflavored, but it's a flavor in itself. Yeah. I think it's quite nice, personally. Yeah, it's like a sweet agave. Yeah. We call it the original flavor rather than like non-flavored, because it does have a flavor to the gel, which just comes from the sugar. Yeah. But we don't put any flavoring in the gel. And of course, I mean, I've been a consumer of gels that are cherry and cola and whatever, but I think you get gel, fatigue really quickly, for sure. And we put a lot of pulls out there and was like, do you want to see flavor or not? It's probably 60, 40, not. And I think it just suits her brand better. Will we launch a citrus gel one day? I don't know. But it's not in the innovation pipeline today. That's it. Yeah. I personally think you're right. I think if you can take something, and you kind of don't notice you take it, I think that's the best thing to do. Yeah. And particularly when performance was. Yeah. And the category leader right now is, is unflavored. I think it's probably what most people are used to now, switching over from a goo to maybe a martin. Yeah. So I think the unflavored is working for us. So you going off to the molten user? Is that what your aim is? I think our brand sits in this interesting space, which is like, we appeal to the athlete who is, you know, doing incredible things in the sport and wants to gel in a car powder and really high, great innovation product in forms for NSF approved, but then you'll find our can in like a poke, we walk past like poke works or whatever's called last night in like our cans are there. Yeah. Yeah. I picked this can up at Soulhouse this morning. Yeah. So it's quite interesting if you think about like the distribution strategy of our innovation, whereas like you'll find our gels that run limited and on the feed, which is like, if you're there, you're interested in sport and performance. But yeah, you'll find our can like a quick serve of a restaurant where like you want a trip or a diet course and you're like, now have a healthy alternative to water. I was going to push down that rabbit hole of like trip CBD drinks because I actually don't mind them. I think quite nice. But I was like, when I don't want like a coke, I want something healthier, but it's not water. That was actually like the only option ever. Yeah. There's a few other like modern sodas, energies being disrupted, sodas being disrupted. Yeah. You've gone after the big guys and for us like our distribution on the can is different from our distribution on our gel, for example. So we see the can fitting into like your local coffee shops, like we work with coffee shops in New York, like rhythm zero, for example, where we'll have like a cadence collab where like cadence and a cold brew and some, and then even like the rap store, we have like a special thing. It's like a green tea citrus. So we distribute the can more into like a lifestyle space, which like you and I both go to. We go to the coffee shop. We go to you know, whatever it may be, and that's helping the brand kind of grow away in awareness. Yeah. It's super interesting. And obviously over this whole time, you've noticed trends, you've noticed you've been there like at the forefront of catching these trends, I guess, and whether it's just not even trends, it's just a change in thought and a change in almost habit from people buying your products. What are some of your biggest predictions for the future in the health and fitness space? We're very bullish on sleep, okay. I think it's probably the most important thing you can do. I mean, you can, you can hack away at like the other optimization. You know, like watches and trainers and like, you know, your half-tights in this trainer and like none of us are good enough to really benefit from those incremental benefits. Yeah. But like sleep is so important. Our sleep sashie is like a top performer as well. And it's nice. I did. It's actually not that nice. It's not so functionally good, and we've identified as a brand that we prioritize function over flavor. Yes. Sure. And we will never dumb ourselves down or sacrifice function because if it doesn't work, you're going to quickly find out. And our product is best in class and it tastes bad, but in order for me to make it taste better, I have to do things to it that will sacrifice function. Okay. So we won't do that. It's interesting that you say it tastes shit, it'll not shit, but it's like tastes. It's going ingredients and it just don't taste good. Yeah. I found, first time I took it, I was like, what is that? And then literally the next day when I took it again, I was like instantly used to it. Yeah. And now I don't even know. It's a little bit less water. Ideally, it's cool. A lot of people put it hot with honey. It's like a tea. Okay. But I'm very bullish on sleep. I think a lot of brands are. I mean, leaving look at like brands like Whip or Apple or Eat Sleep, like really investing into that. And then we're very bullish on people starting to like take more and more carbohydrates during their runs. I think like you're starting to see really high carbs, you look at guys like Joe Klecker. He's come out and saying he's taking like 250 grams an hour in his training. And like Danny Brown is marathon last week in New York and he was 210, like top 10. So we're bullish on those two things for sure, but yeah, I think that's pretty well focused on. And in terms of like, obviously running's been a big focus. Other sports that you're thinking of kind of angling to marketing wise. Yeah. We're agnostic to sport, you know, we're for people who sweat, yeah. And you sweat playing pickleball and tennis and you sweat, you know, racing car, whatever it may be. I think the natural progression to us is cycling. You know, I cycle a team cycle, we're looking at that space, we're looking at teams to sponsor. We've done a recent campaign, which was largely focused on on cycling and you've started to see us work with like map, for example, closely, and the team are amazing there. And then eventually, I want to see this can on a tennis court, Wimbledon, a paddock club in Formula One. I want to get there, but like, it takes time. And we want to build the brand within the community that we service today. I love brands like, there's a brand called RX PAR and it was a big bar in America and they only sold to crossfitters for like a very specific period of time. They were only available in Crossfit gyms and they got the business to like $100 million and he sold it to Kellogg's. And like, we always want to pull back to the customer that built our brand and that's for the runner. And honestly, they built the business to where it is today, guys like yourself, like me, and we want to service them before we service everyone else. Have you had any interest from like, big conglomerates trying to buy off you early? It was definitely been like, interest because I've been exposed to that world before through my last company. And they kind of see what you're like, you know, like, hey Ross, you've seen what you're building. Let's have a chat. It's very small to be in, you know, for these businesses to be entertaining us today. I generally know what it takes to get to that level and we're not far away. But like, no, we still got a lot of work to do. But you never know when you're small, someone might be like, right, we can catch it early and we can make it, you know, let's say 4X, it's value, like instantly. You never know. Like, if there's someone trying to pull a fast one on you, I mean, is that true? Yeah. It's a Coca-Cola, if you're listening to a conversation, no, we're, you know, I think these guys sell like 500 million dollars of cans a day. Yeah. So most brands are like, oh, they're really just short, like you were still so unimportant in this background scheme of facial, you know, it's a, like for me, obviously I'm in that echo chamber where I look at it and go like, this brand is massive now. And but for you as a business owner, you probably go, we still got a long way to go. For sure. Well, when you start a business like your goals will change and for me, I've always been pretty audacious. I don't think about some of the brands that you may see on social media's competition. I think about like genuinely, I think about like Pepsi and Gatorade. Yeah. Red Bull. And that's where we want the brand to be. Yeah. Yeah. Crazy as it may seem. I think that for a period of time, you have to be the crazy person. Yeah. Delusions brilliant. Delusions brilliant. It is. It is. I just want to finish with a few like quick questions from audience. I put into my broadcast channel, one sentence, we're going to answer it. Well, you can keep it small, but yeah, okay, quickly dream athletes work with. I would say Anna Hall or Sydney McLaughlin. Okay. Nice. [BLANK_AUDIO] said that one. What is your opinion on products like prime and big market drinks for aimed at younger people? Well said, I like that a lot. Quickly, want to just give a shout out to the pop-up going on this weekend. Yeah. Right, so the cadence fuel shop is here for this weekend, though, and it needs up in Hackney. If you don't know, Knees Up is a really cool space. It's a very running focus cafe, just really like sort of like-minded space, I would say. So Thursday, we have a little VIP launch party. That's going to be going. That's going to be happening whilst this podcast goes out. Yeah, and I just want to say I don't believe in VIPs. Like none of us are important. This is for our top 50 UK customers. Wicked. To us, that is our VIPs, that's who we service. So we've invited our top 50 shop-fight customers down to the event. That's the amazing people we care about. Yeah, that is really cool. And especially like being a consumer, seeing that face-to-face, must just be an unreal experience. Yeah, I'm excited to see the like- that's the feedback lip that drives the business. So instead of a bunch of, you know, important people with cameras, it's literally the people that spend their hard-earned money on us. We invite them all down. And then Friday night, we have a one-mile race. So this is going to be like a 1.6K race. I have to leave because they want to win it. Yeah, I didn't want to drop a 4-minute mark. Yeah, exactly. And then Saturday night, we have the cadence branch, and I'm sure there'll be a run involved. And then Sunday, there is a 10-mile run. Knowing this part of London, I imagine it goes through Vicki Park, which is my stomping ground. It's like doing my sessions. No, it's great. We did a pop-up in New York a few weeks for the marathon, and it was really well received. Yeah. So I think now it's kind of underrated in the opportunity to build retail space and pop up, you know, throughout the cities that we service. So this will be our second attempt, and it looks incredible by the work that Herk's done. And yeah, a lot of the team are here to witness it. So I'm excited. Yeah, and also might be able to get yourself a cadence cap. Oh, sick. I'm rinsing wine to death, bro. I can't help it. I used to daily discipline cap this morning. Yeah, we should be a cap company. I think we'd sell more caps than caps. Everyone loves hats. Like my run club, we're just launching a collab with Arga, you know? Yeah. And mate, everyone's just like throughing for it. It's crazy. Yeah, we're excited. Ross, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for having me. It's been such a pleasure having you. And I'm so glad we could get this sorted whilst you're over. So, you should appreciate you, man, and keep building what you're building because it's so, so sick. And you have an amazing impact on so many people. Me as well, like, yeah, big, big fan. Thank you. Thanks for supporting the brand. Yeah, appreciate, man. And thank you for watching. Thank you for listening. Obviously, this podcast is now available to watch on Spotify, which is so, so sick. If you told me that when I started this that one day, you're going to be able to post video onto Spotify and work with them, I would have like said, there's no chance. So, yeah, thank you so much for supporting the pod. And yeah, interacting with the conversations that we have because I love having them. And yeah, it's great to be put, put them out for you. So obviously, subscribe on YouTube, follow on whatever podcast platform you're listening on or if you're watching on Spotify, give me a rating, drop a comment, and I'll see you next Thursday. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. No two football players are exactly alike. And the same is true off the field. That's why State Farm gifts to know you so they can help personalize coverage for your life and budget. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. The Viori Core Short moves with you with everyday versatility and classic athletic fit. It's the one short for everything your day brings. Invest in your happiness and get 20% off your first purchase at Viori.com/core20. That's V-U-O-R-I.com/K-O-R-E-2-0. Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions. Say, take care.