The Adventures of Toy Volume 1 Chapter 1

What stops founders from building something meaningful isn't a lack of ideas, it's the fear of getting started. I'm Alex Chisnell and this is screw it, just do it. The podcast for people who are ready to stop waiting, take action and make things happen. First year we did 750,000, second year we did 5.7, I think it was 30, 14.1 million pounds in revenue. Last year we did 14 million. I think there must be at least a thousand people in the country that are similar to me. From a very early day when we launched, realised it was going to go bigger than that. I've never done a business plan. My goal was to create a business that I wanted for myself. We don't know pre-jewel, he just tells us a little bit about what led you to this journey. We've got plans of where we want to get to, whether you get there or not, it's difficult to know. You've created something that people want to be associated with. So it's one of the judges of this that my friends would wear the clothing. Before we get into today's conversation, this is genuinely relevant for a lot of founders listening. Are you running a business that pays supplies abroad, receives international payments, or operates across borders? World First helps founders manage global payments and effects more efficiently with access to competitive exchange rates and tool designs specifically for growing businesses. World First, they've given us an exclusive offer for podcast listeners to get 50 transactions completely fee free for 60 days. And to worldfirst.com/screwit to create a free account and claim now. Now let's jump into the main conversation. We've got a lot of start to pack 45 pounds. We've got a lot of start to pack 45 pounds per month, 45,000 pounds per month, half a minute a pound a year business, a nice little lifestyle business that I could be into. I could really put my soul heart and soul into. So that was the original goal. From a very early day when we launched, we realised it was going to go bigger than that. We got some significant PR in the very early days. At that point we started to plan and look a bit bigger. So that mission you're seeing up in the world that was set quite early because the yield product is different from other food products. But when you realise that what I wanted was healthy convenience food, I wanted something that was quick, easy, but actually nutritious, rather than being quick and easy, not very nutritious. So I wanted something that's going to give me all of the products that I needed in a single product. But then when you realise, when you look at powder, powder has no water in it and therefore it's got a shelf life of 12 months because there's no water, no bacteria can live. Then you realise that actually we can make it vegan, if it's vegan, and then there's going to be a lot less waste on the planet. We can put 40 meals into a single powder, so again there's going to be less plastic waste. So all those things start to realise that actually we can do really good as well as given something that the end user wants. So we can do something good for the planet, good for animals and actually good for the end user. So that mission that you see up on the wall, that will set quite soon after we realise this is going to become something big. So we decided to try and get things right in the early days because I think I hate companies that chop and change too much. I want to get things right first time and stick to them and I think that means that you become a clearer, stronger brand over time because people know who you stand for and what you are. So I try and get things right first time. So that was set very, very early. That was probably within the first three months after launch. I'll just read it as I'm here. So our missions are making you traditionally complete convenient affordable food with minimal impact on animals and the environment. Giving your four years into the journey and the movement, plastic waste movement, just absolutely snowball probably in the last two years, three years even. Those things that you clearly, you set out to do but a lot of, a lot of people need a bit of luck, a little bit of serendipity and that must have given more strength to your animal species. You've set out of that mission and you've moved forward and you've clearly got a lot of PR out there already. Yeah, got loads of PR and in terms of going back to the goals, we didn't, I didn't want it to be a big business, necessarily. I want to say good. So there's probably a bit of luck in it, good timing, good execution. Good execution. Good execution. You should execute it. Totally. There's probably about 100 brands across the world that do a similar type of product. So lots of those are nowhere near us. We think we're probably the biggest in the UK for sure, biggest in Europe. We sold, we're coming up to our 50 millionth meal that we're going to be sold. You know, our numbers are pretty crazy. We look at it. We do, we know, first year, we did 750,000, second year, we did 5.7. I think it was. Third year, we did 14.1 million pounds in revenue. Last year, we did 14 million. So in our fourth year, I did a graph the other day to show us our comparison to put that in perspective. 14 million in the fourth year, fever tree, which is worth 3.1 billion. After their fourth year, they were doing about four or five million. Jim Sharko, a very big company as well. They're doing really well. They were doing 12 million in their fourth year. And Brewdog were doing sub 10 and there were for billion valuation as well. So these were really big companies that I look up to and I think they've done a fantastic job. They're British brands, they've done, they've sort of disruptive as well. But when you compare it to our numbers, you realise how much is exploded just to show they were such a demand there that people were not getting satisfied. They were buying convenience food. They realised that convenience food was probably not very good for them. And so they still want convenience, they want speed, they want to save time, but they want it to be higher quality. And then there's all those other factors as well, the fact that we're a vegan product. People are now realising that eating meat for every meal is not good for them probably and definitely not good for the planet. So if they can cut down consumption, she all makes it very easy to do that. You're just, you know, you still have super convenience, but you get in all the nutrients that you need and it's vegan at the same time and it's good for the planet. So there's a lot of tick boxes there. And that is a hockey stick graph, isn't it? If you're looking at your, yeah, for your growth. And when you started out and you're thinking lifestyle business and you set the three year, the five year plan, whatever you had, did it look anything like that? Not really like that. Don't typically do plans. So at that time, no, I didn't look ahead and go, well, this is going to be, I just literally thought right, I'm just going to start this year, it goes. So I mean, the initial order was, I think it was £5,000 with a stock. So there was no, I've never done a business plan. Don't do that. We do do plans now, but even now, you know, we're talking one page, you know, just to say where it could go because it's so difficult to predict the future. Or you can do really, I think if you just do the right things, you've got big, long list of stuff you need to fix or the stuff you need to do. And you've got, we've got plans of where we want to get to, whether you get it or not, it's difficult to know. But so, yeah, when I first launched, no, didn't have much more of a plan in a few months. So you're, and what's the reaction being from friends and family who, you should be still got a rest. Saying friends and family, but back then, when they saw that you were starting this and just looking lifestyle on you, you're staying local. What you're doing now. I mean, I think I'm quite lucky. Most of my friends and family, they're all very different. They don't, they don't treat me any different or do anything different. They're all very down to earth. And I think in the very early days, they were probably saying there's a lot of people first heard of she all laughing. This is a bit weird. What are you doing? And they think any sense to me. But now a lot of them use the product now. In the early days, it certainly didn't. And one of my things when I first started, I wanted my first business. I made money for them as a good cash generator. But it wasn't some brand you wanted to be associated with. So one of the things I wanted to do was be proud of the company. And so one of the judges of that is that my friends would wear the clothing. Yeah. And you know, we go down the pub and quite often they will turn up two or three of them will turn up with that. Oh, so it's nice to see that you create something that people want to be associated with. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And again, when you look back and we mentioned Steve Jobs earlier, and I always love that quote that you know, you can any joint adoption of that quiz. And when you have the time, which you probably don't get very often to actually look back at that growth, do you identify any particular moments or moments where you actually thought this is actually going to surpass anything that actually set out to achieve? Probably almost straight away. And what was that today? Well, stuff like this, even over the wall there, right in the far corner, there's an article that was not necessarily a positive article, but straight away we got national press. In my first business, it was a very SEO oriented business. And you was always trying to get links or trying to get featured in national press. Couldn't do it. Just didn't have any, just didn't, they wouldn't write about it. No matter how hard you tried, this business straight away, I got, I can remember, I got two sales from two guys before the website even launched. I was just talking about it on a Facebook group. These two guys, I've just talked about it, they said what you're doing and blah, blah, blah. I wasn't trying to sell, but they were just that interest. They came to the site and obviously the site was live, but I hadn't publicised it. Yeah. And they bought and then on the 17th of June 2015 when we actually launched, we got sales, we got serenaded straight away. Within the first month we got, I think it was seven or eight national press. So within the first month it was, you know, sales were strong, national press was great. Feedback from customers was really, our customers are a different breed. They are usually really, really nice people. It's amazing how warm and how passionate they are about the brand. And I hadn't seen that before. I'd worked to sort of call brand before like Starbucks. Never got that sort of level of engagement. No people sending those pictures of them proud to hold the product or wear the t-shirt. And I just hadn't seen that before. So it's almost straight away. I knew this was going to be a lot bigger than what I originally planned. Getting standing between you and your business breakthrough is the decision to screw it and just do it.