Episode 407
Startup Lessons, Resilience & How Failure Builds Success: John B Stapleton Explains
EP 407 - What does it really take to build a food empire from scratch?
We're giving our chat with John B Stapleton - serial entrepreneur, investor, and co-founder of the New Covent Garden Soup Company and Little Dish a re-run to remind us about the hard-won lessons behind his multi-million-pound successes.
From inventing the UK’s fresh soup category to mentoring today’s challenger brands, John shares his insights on:
- Why resilience beats a “genius idea” every time
- How to raise investment when the market is stacked against you
- The truth about failure - and why it’s the best teacher for entrepreneurs
- Bootstrapping until you “know what you’re doing”
- The entrepreneurial ego: small “e” vs big “E”
Whether you’re launching your first startup or scaling towards exit, this episode is packed with real-world advice on how entrepreneurs really win - and why sometimes failure is the very thing that sets you up for millions.
Perfect for founders, investors, and anyone navigating today’s uncertain business landscape.
*For Apple Podcast chapters, access them from the menu in the bottom right corner of your player*
Spotify Video Chapters:
00:00 BWB with John Stapleton
00:40 John's Background and Achievements
01:19 Current Business Climate and Challenges
04:22 Investment Strategies and Advice
12:45 Mentoring and Advising Startups
14:25 Mission Ventures and Investment Platforms
18:17 Entrepreneurial Traits and Success
24:43 The Birth of Lamborghini
25:22 The Cult of Entrepreneurial Personality
26:29 The Value of Failure
28:51 Consumer Insight and Resilience
30:05 The Fresh Soup Revolution
34:21 Quickfire - Get To Know John
41:26 Wrap Up
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Transcript
He turned soup into a supermarket revolution and built brands you've definitely eaten.
Speaker A:From New Covent Garden soup to Little Dish, John Stapleton knows what it takes to turn a crazy idea into a household name.
Speaker A:But in today's world of shaky markets, tight fisted investors and startup hype, how do you really build something that lasts?
Speaker A:We sit down with John to talk resilience, bullshit business plans and why failure hurts like hell, but teaches you more than success is ever will.
Speaker A:Hello and welcome to Business Without Bullshit.
Speaker A:I am Andy Ouran.
Speaker A:Alongside me is my co host, Pivot Sturt.
Speaker B:Hi Andy.
Speaker A:And today we are joined by John Stapleton.
Speaker A:John is a serial entrepreneur, business advisor, mentor, keynote speaker.
Speaker A:Lovely Irish man indeed.
Speaker A:He's responsible for putting some of the biggest brands on shop shelves, including the New Covent Garden soup company and Little Dish.
Speaker A:And he actively manages investment portfolios, advises growing businesses and is the investment director of Mission Ventures, a business accelerator which builds challenger food and drink brands in the uk.
Speaker A:Wow, very good.
Speaker A:Thank you for making the time.
Speaker A:Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker C:Thank you, Andy.
Speaker C:That's the best introduction I've ever heard.
Speaker C:Did I write that?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:It's a real pleasure to meet you, you know, especially as an Irishman, as you are.
Speaker A:So we always like to start with a very simple question, which is what's keeping John up at night?
Speaker C:The economy, the cost of living crisis, the war.
Speaker C:Yeah, I guess that's what's on most people's mind.
Speaker C:But in a business context, I guess it's the implication of all of that.
Speaker C:It's particularly the effect on the investment community.
Speaker C:There's lots of really good businesses out there because I'm involved a lot of the time in startups and helping them grow and helping them getting investment ready and investing in them.
Speaker C:Potentially a lot of really good businesses out there not getting the traction, not getting the investment that they probably deserve.
Speaker C:Now go back two years, five years, businesses were getting a lot of investment for all sorts of reasons about high valuations, really crazy valuations actually.
Speaker C:So I think it's good that the edge has been taken off that overheated situation.
Speaker C:But now the pendulum has swung the entire other way.
Speaker C:And there's some really good businesses, but good business propositions, not getting investment or getting investment at very poor valuation.
Speaker C:So it's really tricky, really difficult time out there for businesses at a startup phase.
Speaker C:Ready for investment.
Speaker B:Was part of that Covid or was that like a short?
Speaker B:Because you know, I had a lot of companies that were about to get investment at the very start of COVID and pretty much all those investment rounds fell over at the time, but it felt like they picked themselves up quite quickly.
Speaker C:Yeah, they did.
Speaker C:And a lot of the COVID presented opportunity for lots of businesses to reinvent themselves, pivot or just to start taking advantage of the fact that people couldn't go out and do things as they normally did.
Speaker C:Unfortunately for them, people have gone back to doing things they normally did and therefore a lot of the opportunities that presented them were short lived.
Speaker C:But Covid, you can't ignore it because it's a once in a lifetime, hopefully event and it had a huge effect across all of society.
Speaker C:I don't think Covid in its own right was responsible for this.
Speaker C:I think it's a combination of events which has culminated in a huge degree of uncertainty in the markets, in society, in business.
Speaker C:Everybody's uncertain of what's going to happen next because things have happened in the last five years or so that kind of never happened before.
Speaker C:People didn't recognize.
Speaker B:I'm talking about the B word.
Speaker C:Hey there is that as well.
Speaker C:Yeah, we started off with the B word and that was bad enough.
Speaker C:And then we had Covid and lockdown, that was really bad.
Speaker C:Then we've had a war.
Speaker C:Have we last had a war?
Speaker C:And we have had wars.
Speaker C:People have kind of ignored them.
Speaker C:And then there was supply chain problems and then there was like crisis of how do people pay for essentials and energy costs and and then there was the whole issue about staff and resourcing and all this has come.
Speaker C:It's like when's the next crisis going to hit?
Speaker C:So we've almost been in this kind of situation now where crisis has become the norm and uncertainty has become the norm.
Speaker C:Now that's all great because I think there's great opportunity from that, especially if you're an entrepreneur and you're a startup environment.
Speaker C:The problem is the investment community are going, hang on, there's far too much uncertainty.
Speaker C:I can't predict.
Speaker C:You can't predict your business plan sounds good, but something else might go awry that you haven't predicted.
Speaker C:So I'll just hold off.
Speaker C:Great idea, but just not for now.
Speaker C:And it's happening over and over and over again and businesses are kind of going, how do I get the investment I need for growth?
Speaker C:That's really quite tricky.
Speaker A:Is there any advice you could offer anyone at the moment?
Speaker C:The obvious advice is okay, try to stick with some sort of maybe revised down growth aspiration that doesn't need so much investment.
Speaker A:Okay, go for us, just be less hockey stick about this sort of Your ambitions, as it were.
Speaker C:Yeah, it's difficult if you have real ambitions that are, you know, justified in reality and you've looked at the consumer or the customer base and you think, this is great, this is going to happen.
Speaker C:I want to do before somebody else does, so I want to get on with this.
Speaker C:That's essentially what an entrepreneur does.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:And sells the potential and then wants to realize the potential.
Speaker C:So I think reducing the aspiration, reducing the potential is always really difficult.
Speaker C:But if you can't get the money to fund it, then it's a question of wait until the market is a little bit better.
Speaker C:In other words, carry on the best you can and grow within a limitation.
Speaker A:Should they take investment if they feel it's at an undervaluation?
Speaker B:That was going to be my question.
Speaker A:And you're an investor and you're saying these values too low.
Speaker A:Would you ever.
Speaker A:I mean, it's madness to say someone, I think your valuation's too low.
Speaker A:You know, would you say that?
Speaker C:Well, it depends on the side of the fence.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:But oftentimes.
Speaker C:Well, answer that question in a different way.
Speaker C:For the last couple of years, I've been saying actually your valuation is too high.
Speaker C:Let's be realistic about this.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker C:So we're in this.
Speaker C:As I say, the pension has swung too far the other way.
Speaker C:I think good businesses will.
Speaker C:Slightly contradictory what I just said.
Speaker C:Good businesses will always get investment.
Speaker C:The issue is they have to swallow their valuation expectation.
Speaker C:So the businesses that are getting investment right now are getting it at much lower valuations or poorer terms than they did maybe even a year ago.
Speaker C:And that's not a bad thing at all.
Speaker C:If you just come to terms with that, some of you can then maybe use that investment.
Speaker C:Don't raise so much, invest it for a shorter period of time, prove your concept, hit a few milestones and then go back to the market.
Speaker A:Feels that if you try to summarize the change in investors, investors are just.
Speaker A:Just like, make money.
Speaker A:Show me you can make money.
Speaker A:And it less about.
Speaker A:Like Maguire.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Less about money.
Speaker A:Oh, we're going to build a brand and, you know, giving away free fruit to the staff or something.
Speaker C:I think the making money point is a really interesting point because I'm not saying that investors were never interested in making money.
Speaker C:Clearly not.
Speaker C:But there was an acceptance that money come.
Speaker C:Making profits or getting to profitability or breaking even is like secondary.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker C:So combined with the crazy valuations, I mean, crazy valuations, you had business plans that weren't really demonstrating.
Speaker C:When you're going to break even and actually make some money.
Speaker C:It's all about grabbing revenue, which is great, don't get me wrong.
Speaker C:It's all about growth.
Speaker C:But at some point you have to demonstrate you can make money.
Speaker C:Maybe not today, because I'm starting out, maybe not even tomorrow, but otherwise, what.
Speaker B:Are you doing it for?
Speaker C:Exactly.
Speaker C:And there's got to be a realization that businesses can turn a profit.
Speaker C:Maybe year three.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:That's a reasonable, I think, assumption if you're starting from a standing start.
Speaker C:But a lot of business plans didn't.
Speaker C:A lot of businesses never did, actually, you know, there are quite a few obvious businesses out there.
Speaker C:The huge valuations, lots of money, lots of expenditure, growth in revenue, but never really bothered to deliver a profit.
Speaker C:And the market has.
Speaker C:I think they've wiped up to that and they're saying, okay, Coke, so I hear about your ambition and growth, but when are you going to break even?
Speaker C:Exactly.
Speaker C:And if it's not within a timeframe that I'm happy about, you know, I'm not interested.
Speaker A:And that timeframe is probably quite short.
Speaker A:Within two years, max, maybe it has.
Speaker C:Come from never or not really being so obvious to.
Speaker C:Yeah, two or three years.
Speaker C:I think two or three years is a reasonable timeframe to expect a business starting from a standing start.
Speaker C:In other words, you know, isn't that the bootstrapping?
Speaker A:I was once explained, bootstrapping is not just like not spending any money, it's showing this thing can make money.
Speaker C:My advice is, in the growth context, is bootstrap until you know what you're doing.
Speaker C:Now, that sounds a bit arrogant, but you will know in your business whether you know what you're doing or not.
Speaker C:It's like, have you proven the model?
Speaker C:Do you know what works?
Speaker C:Do you know what levers to pull to actually demonstrate a return on the investment that you haven't got yet.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:So if I had lots of money, I would pull this lever, this lever and this lever, and that would work in terms of my consumer profile or my brand, or it would get me to a point of traction.
Speaker C:If you don't know what those levers are, guess what?
Speaker C:You pull every lever inside until something works.
Speaker C:And then you don't really know what works.
Speaker C:You haven't figured it out.
Speaker C:So you're still wasting money on stuff that doesn't work.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, that's a great way to do it.
Speaker C:Bootstrap until you know what you're doing and you will judge when that point is.
Speaker C:So don't raise a lot of money.
Speaker C:You will need some Maybe get enough friends and family or whatever you have to get you to a point when you know what you're doing and then demonstrate you know what you're doing.
Speaker C:Maybe it's only a small scale or a case study, but I can tell you, Mr. Investor, you give me X, I don't know how to spend it and turn it into 10 times X in a couple of years time.
Speaker C:That's a great, that's a compelling argument.
Speaker C:You can't get away from that argument.
Speaker C:As an investor, you want to know more and then you're likely to get into a conversation about making that investment.
Speaker C:But if the argument is, oh, I'm raised because I got a great idea, well, do you know what you're doing?
Speaker C:And the answer is invariably, if you haven't worked it out, no, I don't.
Speaker C:And entrepreneurs have a really difficult time admitting that to themselves and certainly to investors.
Speaker A:I mean, to sort of conclude on, you know, what do you think people should put together in terms of business plan?
Speaker A:Is it like a two year plan?
Speaker A:Is it when they're going to make money?
Speaker A:Is it?
Speaker A:Because I mean I, I always get annoyed if a client gets asked sometimes by sorry, asshole investors, say, can you change that into a five year discounted cash flow, profit and loss and balance sheet?
Speaker A:Because it's like, okay, we're just, we're in la la land now, you know.
Speaker A:But what do you think you should come to the table with if you're trying to raise money with an investor?
Speaker C:A whole bunch of things, but let's keep it simple.
Speaker C:Definitely plan a business plan.
Speaker C:I'll come back to that in a second.
Speaker C:But in terms of numbers, you need a P and L, you need a projection.
Speaker C:Whether it's three years or five years, it doesn't really matter.
Speaker C:You need to have a balance sheet.
Speaker C:Obviously if you're talking about discounted cash flows, you're having the wrong conversation with the wrong person because that means nothing to a startup.
Speaker C:I mean discounted cash flow, really, that's a way that an accountant would approach a mature business, how to actually value it.
Speaker C:But it doesn't make any sense for a startup or pre revenue or early stage or even before break even.
Speaker C:It's all about the ambition.
Speaker C:And I think your business plan lays out your ambition in English.
Speaker C:And then all your numbers do, which a lot of accountants or commercially minded investors go to straightaway, converts those assumptions in English into a different language called sums or maths.
Speaker C:So it quantifies all the assumptions you've made.
Speaker C:So the businessman has a List of assumptions and some are like really wacky and I've got no idea.
Speaker C:And some are kind of I have a fair idea and some I'm pretty certain about because I've been thinking about this for a while or I've tested or I've been around, I've been trying to prove my concept a bit.
Speaker C:So it's not just me sitting at the pub coming up with a great idea, which is where ideas start, but it's actually doing something about tests in the assumptions.
Speaker C:So you have a bunch of assumptions at various stages of evolution and you just need to be clear which ones are guesses and which ones are certainty, which ones are in the middle to your investor and then say I've now translated that into numbers and that's my.
Speaker A:P and L. That's a really nice way of putting it, isn't it?
Speaker A:It's a sort of lay it down because yeah, algebra and all, it's just an expression of whatever.
Speaker A:So the numbers are just representing what's in your business plan.
Speaker A:These are the, you know, you don't know.
Speaker A:Put them on.
Speaker A:But how long should that.
Speaker A:That model seeing into the future?
Speaker A:Because I was mixing too many things in my question.
Speaker A:But you know, we can't see more than a couple of years ahead, can we?
Speaker A:True.
Speaker A:Is it worth it?
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:The further you go out, the more bullshit it becomes and more or less relevant it becomes and it really is a guess.
Speaker C:The problem is though, if you want to demonstrate break even, you got to.
Speaker A:Take it to, you got to take it to that point.
Speaker C:Right?
Speaker C:So, and like I said earlier, if break even is year three, well, you got to go then for a four year plan to demonstrate going past break even, right?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:You don't need to go to year 15 or 10 or 5.
Speaker C:An investor will always discount the further out anyway, kind of think maybe you know what you're talking for the first six or 12 months, but after that you haven't got a clue, do you?
Speaker C:You go, no, but I've got a better clue than you do because it's my business.
Speaker C:Great, let's talk about the assumptions.
Speaker C:You keep coming back to the assumptions, I think and then quantification of those assumptions.
Speaker A:And nowadays in your career are you more, you're much more a mentor than you are an investor or so Mission.
Speaker B:Used to invest in it, but if you stop now.
Speaker C:Right, two questions at once.
Speaker C:Let me.
Speaker A:How do you split your day between the three questions?
Speaker C:You guys are great.
Speaker C:No, the first bit, let me just try to get that.
Speaker C:Because that Leads to.
Speaker C:The second question, to be fair, is so it's still all jumbled up really.
Speaker C:I started off when I sold my third business, which was a little dish, then deciding, okay, I'm not going to set up a fourth business, but I am going to try to add value to guess what?
Speaker C:Startups and early stage businesses.
Speaker C:That's what I've done.
Speaker C:10 years, new Covent Garden, 10 years little dish, tucked in roughly to between 15 and 20 million revenue.
Speaker C:So 0 to 20 million, that's like the sweet spot of growth or whatever within an 8 to 10 year period in food.
Speaker C:That's me.
Speaker C:So how do I leverage that experience?
Speaker C:Well, I help businesses who are doing exactly the same thing.
Speaker C:So I started off mentoring the entrepreneur who was trying to do this.
Speaker C:And then without knowing, I began to advise the business.
Speaker C:And actually it's only by doing both I realized there's a difference between the two.
Speaker C:Mentoring the entrepreneur and advising the business are two different things.
Speaker C:Sometimes you start off advising the business and then you realize, you know what's needed here for a bit is to mentor the entrepreneur and you come out of advisory mode, you go into mentoring mode and you come back into the business again.
Speaker C:So there are two ways of helping businesses grow.
Speaker C:And the third bit is actually investing.
Speaker C:But that's really only an extension of getting excited about the bit that you've advised about.
Speaker C:You're putting money in your mouth and you think, actually this is a really good idea.
Speaker C:I like this entrepreneur.
Speaker C:I want to become involved and invest.
Speaker C:And if I invest, I want to be hands on to contribute value added.
Speaker C:Which takes me to the fourth bit, which is Mission Ventures and the Reedsdale Food Fund, which we now have in Ireland are two kind of platforms which I use to invest.
Speaker C:So I invest directly as an angel investor and I invest indirectly through these platforms which I part ownership in, if you like.
Speaker C:The Reedsdale Food Fund is a VC fund.
Speaker C:It's an easy way to describe that.
Speaker C:It's a very straightforward VC fund.
Speaker C:We invest in startups based in Ireland only.
Speaker C:So it's high risk.
Speaker B:Is it a particular sector?
Speaker C:Like it's all about food.
Speaker A:You're a very slim man for the listeners at home, but you spend your life in food.
Speaker A:It's always, it's like the slim chef.
Speaker A:How have you managed that anyway?
Speaker C:I'm not a chef.
Speaker C:I don't have any idea how to cook food.
Speaker C:Ask my wife.
Speaker C:Not really.
Speaker C:And so it's all about business and it's all about.
Speaker C:But although I tell you what, I don't order anymore.
Speaker C:Restaurant or in the Tesco's, wherever I go shopping.
Speaker C:I don't order soup anymore.
Speaker C:I'm all souped out.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker C: ve eaten so much soup between: Speaker C:But you don't put out much weight with soup.
Speaker C:You know, soup.
Speaker C:Soup's okay.
Speaker C:So in terms of investing, we had that VC fund in Ireland.
Speaker C:So the theme is food and drink.
Speaker C:That's true, actually.
Speaker C:Gotta say that.
Speaker C:But.
Speaker C:And it's typically startups, early stage growth business in various guises.
Speaker C:And the Irish investment fund is easy to define because it's a VC fund that covers that Mission Ventures you mentioned, based here in London.
Speaker C:It's not a fund at all, even though it sounds like it.
Speaker C:Mission Ventures, what we are, and this won't do it justice, but we are really an incubator stroke accelerator to help businesses that we facilitate investment in.
Speaker C:But we don't invest directly ourselves.
Speaker C:I'll come back to that.
Speaker C:But we facilitate investment in and then we help that business to invest.
Speaker C:Excuse me, to spend that money wisely or spend that investment wisely.
Speaker C:So not to waste as much money.
Speaker C:You would always waste some.
Speaker C:By definition you can't.
Speaker C:But, but the idea is that through our experience, and we're a bunch of entrepreneurs ourselves in the food industry for many years, we advise and we have a program which does this in a structured way called the Mission Map.
Speaker C:And we do other things as well.
Speaker C:You know, it has really grown beyond just that in the last few years.
Speaker C:That's what Mission Ventures is.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:So it's another vehicle which I have part ownership in that we use to help businesses to grow by making sure they're using the money that's invested in them wisely.
Speaker C:And we have relationships with the source of funds as well.
Speaker C:So we have a bit of carry attached to.
Speaker C:To that particular business model.
Speaker C:So yeah.
Speaker C:So I help businesses by mentoring the entrepreneur, by advising the business, by directly investing or by indirectly investing as I've just described.
Speaker A:You're an extremely helpful man, it must be said.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I mean that ends up being a very busy man, I imagine.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:But I like being busy.
Speaker C:Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad thing.
Speaker C:Having said that, I need to find a way to say no more and say no earlier.
Speaker A:How to say no to the right ones.
Speaker C:Well, yeah, because there's always some exciting new idea or exciting new person or start a new theme or new way of doing things.
Speaker A:Or do you feel you like, do you get that.
Speaker A:That sort of feeling.
Speaker A:You want to help people.
Speaker A:You sort of feel this sort of resonance.
Speaker A:You know, there's a.
Speaker A:There's a you.
Speaker A:You know, I find no matter how busy I am, you'll meet people and, yeah, you like.
Speaker A:And you want to help them.
Speaker A:You know what I mean?
Speaker A:So you're like, it's an arrogance, too, you know, Some would say it's like, you know, who are you to come and save them?
Speaker A:Do you know what I mean?
Speaker C:I call it.
Speaker C:I call it ego.
Speaker C:I call it ego.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's an ego to it, but you put it under the title of care.
Speaker A:Do you know what I mean?
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:It's somewhere between the two.
Speaker C:You could do that.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:I must try doing that.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:I just call it ego.
Speaker C:Yeah, no, it's a small E. It's, it's like, it's like, I think an entrepreneur with a big E just has to have ego to live and exist.
Speaker C:It's like.
Speaker C:But it's not a bad thing.
Speaker C:People go, ego.
Speaker C:I'm not sure I like that.
Speaker C:Well, I'm talking about ego with a small E. I'm talking in a constructive way.
Speaker C:Like, we all have to have some ego to literally get out of bed in the morning, you know, why bother, right?
Speaker C:So then why set up a business?
Speaker C:I mean, you need to have a lot of motivation or craziness.
Speaker A:You got to be crazy and confident.
Speaker A:And I, I, I actually, you know, I.
Speaker A:This is where we get into the women.
Speaker A:Men chat.
Speaker A:Because I, you know, women set up less businesses or whatever, but, you know, as a generalization, you got to be crazy to set up a business, you know, and men are huge risk takers, much more generally.
Speaker A:And it's, you know, you know, I.
Speaker B:Will lie in bed and think about that, that startup that I'm never actually gonna do because I don't have the.
Speaker A:You get into trouble making generalizations.
Speaker A:But, you know, my experience, women worry more, you know, and that it makes sense.
Speaker A:They've gotta, you know, they look after babies.
Speaker A:All sort of general.
Speaker A:But, you know, I think about entrepreneurs, and you just, you just.
Speaker A:You've gotta be n. You've got to be nuts.
Speaker C:Well, there's two things.
Speaker C:I think there's a very fine line between being nuts and being an entrepreneur.
Speaker C:I think it helps to have some.
Speaker A:I'm exaggerating.
Speaker A:I don't actually mean nuts, but.
Speaker C:Well, some of the decisions you got to make, sometimes you do have to be nuts, right?
Speaker C:Or, you know, it's kind of like.
Speaker B:You'Ve Got to be brave.
Speaker A:Brave.
Speaker A:It's a better word.
Speaker C:It is a better word.
Speaker C:But actually the uninitiated, being nuts is actually quite challenging because the answer to that is, well, what do you mean by nuts?
Speaker C:And then you go, I would never do that.
Speaker C:Okay, well, that's fine.
Speaker C:You don't have to.
Speaker C:But if somebody decides to do it, then there's a lot to overcome.
Speaker C:Even if you have a wonderful idea and a really clear idea how you're going to implement it, there's a lot to overcome.
Speaker C:We're getting to a different area here now, but sometimes if I'm asked, John, would you invest in a business that had a really good idea?
Speaker C:You never have a dead cert, but as close as you get to a dead cert, market opportunity idea, and as a kind of a reasonably good entrepreneur, or you have an idea that's like a bit wacky, and I'm not quite sure, but, you know, it could.
Speaker C:And you have a wonderful entrepreneur.
Speaker C:And I'll maybe define what that means, but basically it means resilience.
Speaker C:Which would you go for?
Speaker C:And it's slightly counterintuitive, but I go for the latter.
Speaker C:I go for the really strong, resilient, creative, not let anything get in their way entrepreneur.
Speaker C:Because you can overcome so many problems that both opportunities, both businesses are going to encounter.
Speaker C:And even if you've got a great idea, there's no guarantee it's going to work.
Speaker C:No, if you've got really good entrepreneur, you got a really good chance it'll work.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And also, you know, wait, oh, maybe this is just me, but I have no idea when people come to me, you know, for legal advice, not that I'm investing in them, because I don't invest in them, but whether it's actually something that it might not have a market right now, but they might be able to drive a wedge into the marketplace and create a market.
Speaker B:So you look at something like popcorn, and you look at proper corn, for example, and you think, when they first started out, I can remember having conversations with people where they were like, popcorn, that's just a subset of crisps.
Speaker B:There's no.
Speaker B:Nothing.
Speaker B:There is.
Speaker B:There's no market for it.
Speaker B:And, you know, you've effectively, over the last kind of five, 10 years, people have created a market for it.
Speaker B:So you never know that an idea is really stupid.
Speaker C:Oh, no, you don't.
Speaker A:The quality of ideas is.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:The value of that information.
Speaker B:And I have slightly given up trying to work it out.
Speaker C:Well, there is no formula.
Speaker C:If you're trying to Find a formula to make it work, like back to dcf.
Speaker C:That doesn't work for startups.
Speaker C:Formulas don't really work for startups at all.
Speaker C:It's just crazy.
Speaker C:You try to pin it down and suddenly it disappears and it reinvents itself somewhere else.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:It's a very tangibility.
Speaker C:It's really difficult with a startup.
Speaker C:But there's two things that I will say, and one is that if you've got really strong consumer insight and who's to say how you define that?
Speaker C:But I have my own version of it.
Speaker C:Really strong consumer insight.
Speaker C:You think you know what the consumer want.
Speaker C:Sometimes a bit of arrogance again, or ego.
Speaker C:The consumer might not know themselves what they want.
Speaker C:Right?
Speaker C:There's a certain bit of that in terms of New Covent Garden soup company.
Speaker C:But if you.
Speaker C:Consumer insight, you think that consumer need is there and it's considerable and if they only had it, they would buy it, then that's one piece.
Speaker C:The next bit is coming back to resilience again.
Speaker C:It's like.
Speaker C:So the first bit is in the creative.
Speaker C:Can't redefine it terribly well.
Speaker C:It's out there, but the resilience is here now.
Speaker C:It's like the doing.
Speaker C:So you need to have the craziness and the ego and the insight and the stuff that's less tangible.
Speaker C:And then you need to have the person that's you're actually going to implement stuff and get shit done.
Speaker C:And if you have the combination, that's a very potent combination.
Speaker C:As an investor, it's like difficult not to want to know more, at least.
Speaker C:And you have to tell me more.
Speaker C:Show me your business plan.
Speaker C:I might get behind this.
Speaker A:It might tell us what a great entrepreneur is.
Speaker A:So the resilience, is there any other piece of it, do you think?
Speaker A:Or.
Speaker A:I mean, so it's got to be a bit crazy.
Speaker A:Got to be resilient.
Speaker B:I really like the bit about you've got to get shit done.
Speaker C:Yeah, you do.
Speaker C:And of course you got to get the right shit done.
Speaker C:So you got to have.
Speaker C:That's going back to the insight and having the right prioritization and knowing what the, you know, 20% of your effort lands.
Speaker C:Well, nobody's fighting getting that shit done.
Speaker C:Really.
Speaker C:It's the 80% that lands.
Speaker A:I think what I'm saying is some of the most successful people, and I have a personal experience myself, are really strange people who sort of have highly unpredictable to deal with.
Speaker A:Do you relate to that at all?
Speaker A:Do you think that's nonsense?
Speaker C:You know, maybe too controversial to use elon Musk.
Speaker C:Because there's a whole bunch of people have different views about Elon Musk.
Speaker C:But go back to when he was doing SpaceX and going back to before he went off the edge a bit.
Speaker C:You know, he made things happen that nobody else believed were even possible.
Speaker A:No, it's unbelievable.
Speaker C:In fact, I watched a documentary movie the other weekend about Federico Lamborghini.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:So you might imagine what he did.
Speaker C:The point about him is he came out of the war.
Speaker C:He was Italian, came back from the war.
Speaker C:He was a farmer's son, like I am.
Speaker C:And his father thought he was gonna take over the farming business.
Speaker C:And he was the eldest son and he actually got into mechanics in the war cause he became a mechanic.
Speaker C:Anyway.
Speaker C:Anyway, he invented a really cool tractor.
Speaker C:Nobody knows that.
Speaker C:Well, I didn't know the Lamborghini started off making tractors.
Speaker B:Did they go fast?
Speaker A:Were they purple?
Speaker C:They had a go faster stripe down the side now.
Speaker C:Anyway, his revolutionary kind of tractor, really successful, lightweight, powerful, all the rest of it.
Speaker C:And then he decided he would try to help Ferrari fix the clutch problem.
Speaker C:And he approached and Ferrari was very arrogant and told him to go away.
Speaker C:And in certain terms he said, you know what, I'm going to do it myself.
Speaker C:So he designed a supercar called the Lamborghini, right?
Speaker C:And it all went on forever.
Speaker C:This was like through the 50s and so.
Speaker C:And it was all about like the can do attitude.
Speaker C:People were going, can it be done?
Speaker C:I was like, well, let's just make it.
Speaker C:Let's just make sure it's done.
Speaker C:And he said, well, can it be?
Speaker C:I didn't ask you.
Speaker C:He's going, I don't really know if it can be done or not, but I'm going to make it done.
Speaker C:I'm going to make it happen.
Speaker C:So can we do it?
Speaker C:Can it be done?
Speaker C:Answer is always yes, we can do it.
Speaker C:And now a quick word from our sponsor.
Speaker A:Business Without Bullshit is brought to you by Ori Clark.
Speaker A: ancial and legal advice since: Speaker A:You can find us@ureclark.com Orey is spelled O u r Y Before we press on, just a quick reminder to come say hi on whatever social platform you like.
Speaker A:We're pretty much on all of them.
Speaker A:Just search for wblondon.
Speaker A:What do you think is bullshit in your industry and why?
Speaker C:It's like the culture of the entrepreneur and this kind of self congratulatory or self indulgence that goes on a lot of time, especially on social media.
Speaker C:You'll see this about, I'm all For sharing views on social media.
Speaker C:Don't get me wrong, but it's like ad nauseam.
Speaker C:Let me tell you about what I did and what I learned from it and why.
Speaker A:Oh, the evangelical ness of it all.
Speaker B:The cult of personality.
Speaker C:Yeah, well, the cult of the entrepreneurial personality is crazy.
Speaker C:It's like, you know, I've done this, aren't I great?
Speaker C:Let me tell you how.
Speaker C:Not just how you could do it and set up your own business, but how you can bring meaning into your life by listening to me telling you about what I've done.
Speaker C:But the fact of the matter is you probably just made it up as you went along and been lucky or by accident got there.
Speaker C:That's what most of the time happens.
Speaker C:So it is a lot of bullshit.
Speaker C:So I kind of think, and unfortunately I think the gross generalization coming up here, but the younger generation, generation essentially much more gullible about that sort of stuff and feed off it.
Speaker C:So you got this kind of feeding frenzy of the more bullshit that's put out, the more it's believed.
Speaker C:So guess what?
Speaker C:The more bullshit that's put out.
Speaker C:Somebody once said to me.
Speaker C:What?
Speaker C:Failure isn't the opposite of success.
Speaker C:Failure is part of success.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah, sort of.
Speaker C:You can't build a career on failure.
Speaker C:So it's not about failure.
Speaker C:It's about learning from failure.
Speaker C:That's the issue.
Speaker C:And you can't go making failure failure because guess what?
Speaker C:Nobody will listen to you.
Speaker C:Nobody will follow you and nobody will work for you.
Speaker C:Nobody invests in you.
Speaker C:So failure doesn't get you very far.
Speaker C:But so long as you make a mistake or you have a situation where really you screw up and then you learn from that, that's what turns into success.
Speaker C:Because you say, I'm not going to do that again.
Speaker C:Or that's taught me something about what I need to do differently to be successful.
Speaker C:Great.
Speaker C:So it's not about failure, it's about learning from failure.
Speaker A:It's slightly that failure needs to be painful too, you know?
Speaker A:Do you know what I mean?
Speaker A:There's an aspect of those experiences need to be visceral to you and then you will remember.
Speaker C:No, now that is really true.
Speaker C:It's a very emotional connection with the failure.
Speaker C:I put it like this.
Speaker C:I say, say success is a lousy teacher because you're never really sure what in there that you've done has made your venture or your business or your life, if you want to put that way, successful.
Speaker C:Whereas with failure you're much more exposed.
Speaker C:It's kind of you, right if you're an entrepreneur, it is you.
Speaker B:And you can normally pinpoint what it.
Speaker A:Is that you didn't do as an advisor.
Speaker A:We learned through failure.
Speaker A:I mean, that's the truth of it.
Speaker A:You muck something up and then you really realize the thing you thought you.
Speaker B:Understood, you know, you never do it again.
Speaker A:Yeah, you didn't really understand failure.
Speaker C:Back to your point about pain.
Speaker C:Failure isn't a great place to be, but it's a wonderful place to have been.
Speaker C:Cause it makes you make sure you never want to be there again because it's so hurtful and it hurts like hell.
Speaker C:So you say, well, you know what?
Speaker C:I'm never going to.
Speaker C:And that's a great lesson.
Speaker C:Really figure out what did I do wrong to end up in that situation.
Speaker C:And I'm not going to end up in that situation ever again.
Speaker C:I might make a different mistake, which is fine.
Speaker C:And that for me is the value of failure.
Speaker C:But just to say, you know, everybody should fail.
Speaker C:No.
Speaker A:Do you think people should watch any of these classes online?
Speaker A:I mean, I'm so with you.
Speaker A:Often we look up these people.
Speaker A:Sometimes they apply to be on this podcast, podcast.
Speaker A:And, and like I've made 100 companies six figure.
Speaker A:They just always about six figure numbers, five X.
Speaker A:And you, you know, as an accountant, I can look up all their supposed companies and stuff.
Speaker A:And you think there's nothing here.
Speaker A:So actually their business is telling people that they've made all this money.
Speaker A:I know there's no, you know, and that's very common.
Speaker A:People like most of these people, there's no substance to it.
Speaker A:They're just building a social media account.
Speaker A:What advice should you.
Speaker A:Should you.
Speaker A:Is there a podcast or do you think, you know, because you need some information when you're starting a business or do you think just roll your sleeves up and start working on it?
Speaker C:Consumer insight.
Speaker C:Consumer insight followed by resilience.
Speaker C:So the consumer insight is a new idea, there's a new opportunity.
Speaker C:I have insight into the consumer or the customer in your case, that they act in a certain way.
Speaker C:And my product, my idea, my service is going to make a big difference to that particular target audience in such a way that they're going to buy my product.
Speaker A:I love it.
Speaker A:Focus on the problem, basically.
Speaker C:What problem are you solving?
Speaker C:Also, don't think you're going to sell to everybody.
Speaker C:You sell to everybody, you'll end up selling to nobody.
Speaker C:You got to be really clear.
Speaker C:You have to have a target audience, a consumer group who, whatever you're doing differently makes a real big difference.
Speaker C:To them.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:And zone in on that.
Speaker C:Make sure you know where they are, how they buy, what their behaviors are.
Speaker C:And that's all much more than that to do with consumer insight.
Speaker C:Great.
Speaker C:And then have the resilience.
Speaker C:The entrepreneur has the resilience to not take no for an answer.
Speaker C:Because irrespective of how good your idea is from day one, you gotta be told, no, you're crazy.
Speaker C:No, it won't work.
Speaker C:This is what we were talking about, this newcomer garden.
Speaker C:There are lots of reasons why this is a stupid idea.
Speaker C:Put soup in cartons in the chiller.
Speaker C:That's ridiculous.
Speaker C:Soup goes in a can.
Speaker C:Has been for centuries, about decades, certainly.
Speaker C:You know, we were told it won't work.
Speaker C:Absolutely.
Speaker C:Soup doesn't go in a carton.
Speaker C:Soup goes in a can.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Why are you reinventing the wheel?
Speaker C:It's already.
Speaker C:There's a thing called the soup aisle, for Christ's sake.
Speaker C:Go down there and buy your soup.
Speaker C:I mean, yeah, but you put soup in a can, and it's like it doesn't taste like soup anymore.
Speaker A:It's true.
Speaker C:And it's not nutritious because you've burnt it all away.
Speaker C:So we want to make it safe.
Speaker C:We want to, you know, cook it a little bit, but put it in a carton so it's fresh.
Speaker C:Short shelf life.
Speaker C:You don't need 18 months.
Speaker C:You just need 18 days.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Go in the chiller.
Speaker C:That's where you'll buy it.
Speaker C:Nah, that won't work.
Speaker C:Okay, well, let's try it then anyway.
Speaker C:And then it's about the carton.
Speaker C:They say the carton's the most ridiculous idea in the world.
Speaker C:Well, fresh milk goes in a carton, or maybe juice in those days goes in a carton.
Speaker C:Soup doesn't go in a carton.
Speaker C:That's a ridiculous idea.
Speaker C:So, well, let's try it.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:And then the chiller people said, retailers told us, don't put in the chiller.
Speaker C:Chiller belongs to us.
Speaker C:We put lots of ready meals in the chillers.
Speaker C:Soup goes.
Speaker C:Guess where.
Speaker C:Soup aisle.
Speaker C:I said, well, let's try it.
Speaker C:Right?
Speaker C:And all, you know, we eventually tried it, but we were told countless number of times, no, no.
Speaker A:And it worked the first time you tried it.
Speaker C:Well, once we got all those ingredients literally together.
Speaker C:But we got the fresh soup.
Speaker C:We designed a process to make it safe.
Speaker C:Not sterilize it, but just pasteurize it.
Speaker C:Safe enough within a chilled environment.
Speaker C:Put it in the chiller, and told people it was fresh soup.
Speaker C:We didn't have a huge marketing budget.
Speaker C:To explain what fresh soup was about.
Speaker C:It wasn't even a thing.
Speaker C:It was like this weird.
Speaker A:It makes sense.
Speaker A:The first.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Did it work the first time?
Speaker A:It must have.
Speaker C:Well, on that point, the brand communicated the benefits of the product.
Speaker C:So the brand was promising to the consumer this benefit.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:That's the consumer insight.
Speaker C:And the product crucially delivers in that the product is so much better than what you did before.
Speaker C:Like, last time you bought soup, it was in a can.
Speaker C:This was in a carton.
Speaker C:But anyway, the big picture was make it fresh.
Speaker C:Don't over sterilize it, put it in a carton, convey it to the consumer, and make sure the product delivers on the flavor and the composition.
Speaker C:That can, never can.
Speaker C:But we were told so many times the point is that it won't work for all sorts of reasons by experts who knew their stuff.
Speaker C:And we were going, yeah, but we didn't really want to deal with that, want to deal with this, and let's try it.
Speaker C:Eventually we got to the point where we could try it.
Speaker C:And that, I think, is the resilience of, say, I'm not taking no for an answer from all the experts who.
Speaker A:Thought, how many years did it take to try it?
Speaker C:Well, it was about 18 months.
Speaker C:It took us from the original conversation to actually getting the technology because we had to invent a new technology.
Speaker C:We actually patented the technology to make fresh soup.
Speaker C:Because I know it's crazy.
Speaker C:Today you think fresh soup is all over the place.
Speaker C:Ubiquitous didn't even exist then.
Speaker C:So it wasn't like we could just do it.
Speaker C:We had to figure out how to do it.
Speaker C:It had to be safe.
Speaker C:So, you know, the people who said to make it safe were right.
Speaker C:People who said, you can never make it safe, so don't do it.
Speaker C:We're wrong.
Speaker C:We had to prove all of that.
Speaker C:So we had a lot of science coming into making it work.
Speaker C:Then we had to build a plant.
Speaker C:We had to raise money, build a factory.
Speaker C:We had to go to a Waitrose, get the soup.
Speaker A:You had to build a plant.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Because nobody made fresh soup.
Speaker C:I mean, if you want to make soup, then those days, the answer was, how big do you want the can to be?
Speaker C:Because every, you know, all liquid soup was in a can.
Speaker C:So we had to develop this process, design this process, and build a factory around that process to actually physically make the soup.
Speaker C:And then, of course, we had this big factory and no volume, nowhere to sell it.
Speaker C:So we had to run like crazy to sell it.
Speaker C:But then pretty quickly, we got listed in waitrose and then Tesco's, I think.
Speaker C:And then we had a tiger by the tail and we were just trying to run like crazy to keep up.
Speaker C:So it worked out.
Speaker B: I remember in the early: Speaker B:And it was like, I can imagine people going, a shop that just sells soup.
Speaker B:That's just insane, right?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:But literally had a queue all the way down Malibu High street every lunchtime.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:All week.
Speaker B:And it was great.
Speaker B:That was my lunch every day.
Speaker B:Okay, so this is John, where we do you the five second rule, which is where we're going to ask you a list of questions to get to know you a little better.
Speaker B:And you've got about five seconds to answer each question.
Speaker A:All right, Are you ready?
Speaker A:Sure.
Speaker A:Cue the music.
Speaker A:And we're off.
Speaker A:What was your first job?
Speaker C:My first job was New Covent Garden Soup Company, believe it or not, University.
Speaker C:And did that.
Speaker C:I did actually feed calves when I was a kid and got pocket money for that.
Speaker C:Maybe that was a job.
Speaker B:That's the second cow feeder of the week.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:There must be some kind of.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Cow feeding retention in town.
Speaker C:I've got a whole story about cows and cows.
Speaker C:You want to hear it?
Speaker C:No, no.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, do actually.
Speaker B:But what was your worst job?
Speaker C:Weirdly or happily?
Speaker C:Happily.
Speaker C:I've never had a worse job.
Speaker C:I've only ever worked for myself, I suppose, which is bad enough, you want to ask somebody about a fight to work for me.
Speaker C:But.
Speaker C:But no, I. I've never.
Speaker C:I could.
Speaker C:I could never say I've had a worse job.
Speaker A:Well, you.
Speaker A:I mean, you've done well.
Speaker A:If your first job was starting your own company.
Speaker A:That's.
Speaker A:That's great.
Speaker A:Favorite subject at school, Organic chemistry.
Speaker A:Oh, I didn't know we got a selection.
Speaker A:I thought it was just chemistry.
Speaker C:Oh, yeah, just inorganic chemistry.
Speaker C:And there's some other kind of chemistry I've forgotten there.
Speaker C:Organic chemistry is all about organic, which is carbon based.
Speaker C:And it's the foundation of the world.
Speaker C:It's how every.
Speaker C:We're all versions of carbon, Right?
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:It's trippy, isn't it?
Speaker C:It's absolutely fascinating that, you know, we were all returned to dust at the end of our lives for a reason.
Speaker C:It is all carbon, so it's recycled carbon going through the entire world.
Speaker C:It's fascinating when you think about it.
Speaker C:We're just borrowing somebody else's carbon to live in our body for a period of time.
Speaker B:What's your special skill?
Speaker C:Yeah, being schizophrenic.
Speaker C:Oh, yeah, I'm Libra, so I'm very balanced.
Speaker C:That's the other way to put it.
Speaker C:But I can see both sides of the argument quite quickly, which is bit confusing for me.
Speaker C:But I got this is me, so I'm quite used to it.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's a really interesting answer.
Speaker A:I think it's probably a reflection of your intelligence.
Speaker A:What did you want to be when you grew up?
Speaker C:I wanted to be an athlete.
Speaker C:Well, I was an athlete for good for years at school and university.
Speaker A:You're very tall.
Speaker A:You're a runner.
Speaker A:Are you?
Speaker C:Triple jump?
Speaker C:Believe it or not.
Speaker A:Triple jump?
Speaker C:Triple how?
Speaker C:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker C:That usually is a conversation stopper right there.
Speaker C:But triple jump and long jump, I used to do it.
Speaker C:I represented Ireland.
Speaker C:It was great fun.
Speaker A:You represented Ireland?
Speaker C:I did triple jump.
Speaker C:I did, I did.
Speaker C:I went to all sorts of international competitions.
Speaker A:Triple jump feels so fun too.
Speaker A:It's like one of the only bits of sport I liked at school.
Speaker A:You go do skip jump and it's like, yeah, I like it.
Speaker A:It's got a sort of rhythm to it, you know.
Speaker B:What did your parents want you to be?
Speaker C:They never really imposed their view on, but I guess my dad wanted me to be a farmer because I was the eldest son and he was a farmer.
Speaker C:We had a farm.
Speaker C:So cattle farm.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:In the west of Ireland.
Speaker A:Dairy farm?
Speaker C:No, cattle, beef.
Speaker C:And I make best sense of the world.
Speaker C:And I guess that's what you normally do.
Speaker C:But I had other ideas and did something else, which was originally to be an athlete.
Speaker A:What's your go to, Garrett?
Speaker A:Karaoke song.
Speaker C:I'm not prepared to discuss that because you're gonna ask me to hum it or sing it.
Speaker C:We do not do that.
Speaker A:No, no, say that.
Speaker B:No.
Speaker C:Well, you should have told me.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:Well, it's probably 16 pints of Guinness and then it's.
Speaker C:Come on, Eileen, office dogs business.
Speaker C:Or there's one down here who owns this.
Speaker A:This is my dog.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker C:So.
Speaker A:No, no, no, no, please, please.
Speaker A:We ask it for a reason.
Speaker A:I think I agree with you.
Speaker A:They are bullshit.
Speaker A:But, you know, he's ended up more like.
Speaker A:He just.
Speaker A:He sort of hangs about, about sometimes.
Speaker A:Have you ever been fired?
Speaker A:Have you ever been fired?
Speaker C:No, I haven't.
Speaker C:Because I've only ever watched myself.
Speaker C:But I have fired myself on many occasions.
Speaker C:Or at least I.
Speaker C:That's a bit of a cop out.
Speaker B:You should give yourself a reprieve after a while.
Speaker C:Well, what I mean by that is I think it's important when you've got a business and this is a longer than 5 second answer, so just hear me out.
Speaker C:Maybe I think it's really important.
Speaker C:When you set up your own business, guess what?
Speaker C:You do everything yourself because there's only you.
Speaker C:Maybe you have a co founder but between the two of you, you're doing everything yourself.
Speaker C:And that carries on for quite a long time in that you're doing everything yourself.
Speaker C:And even when you got to a point where you have a team, you're still doing everything yourself.
Speaker C:And there's got to be a point where you've got to realize that if I carry on doing everything myself, I am now limiting the ability of my business to grow beyond my own ability.
Speaker A:Yeah, I am now scale.
Speaker C:Well, exactly.
Speaker C:You can really what you want to do is introduce and encourage people outside of the organization to come and join you who are better than you are at all those disciplines that you need them to be good at.
Speaker C:So you don't do that.
Speaker C:Then you don't do this because you've got somebody to do it.
Speaker C:And then you switched from doing to kind of delegating and monitoring and encouraging and directing and helping the boat go faster in the same direction.
Speaker C:Because if you bring in lots of like minded people who are self starters, guess what they're going to do?
Speaker C:They're going to self start in all sorts of different directions that you don't want them to be in.
Speaker C:So you got to work on making sure that they're working.
Speaker A:It's one of the trickiest bit hiring people who aren't like you because you might not like them or, you know what I mean.
Speaker C:But the point about it is you've got to get out of your own way.
Speaker C:You got to be.
Speaker C:And the problem is a lot of entrepreneurs come back to the earlier point, have such an ego.
Speaker C:That's what gets you to start in the first place.
Speaker C:To get out of it is a really difficult decision because you kind of think, you know, nobody can do as well as I can.
Speaker C:Which is a fatal argument to have and a fatal flaw to make.
Speaker C:So yes, I've tried to make sure that I fired myself from doing everything to doing fewer things.
Speaker B:So it's trying to make yourself redundant.
Speaker C:Yeah, no, I really believe that that is very important.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:So it's not quite the answer to the question, but you do have to get out of your own way to grow your business.
Speaker A:You got to work out what your way is.
Speaker A:But you know, that comes out experience.
Speaker A:It's interesting to think that maybe men are just more egotistical people.
Speaker A:You'd probably Go along with that?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:No, no, it's just attributing things to yourself.
Speaker A:No, no, it's a discussion.
Speaker A:I'm not attributing it to it.
Speaker B:And you're saying it to somebody who has quite a big ego themselves.
Speaker C:So, Pippa, have you noticed this is the second time you've brought up this men, women thing?
Speaker A:I think it's a long running debate.
Speaker B:And apparently got a problem.
Speaker B:What's your vice?
Speaker C:I have no vices and no virtues.
Speaker A:You have no vices.
Speaker A:You don't have a drink.
Speaker A:An Irishman, he doesn't drink.
Speaker A:That's a nice concern.
Speaker B:Well, we've already talked about 16 pints of Guinness.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:And that viewed as a virtue anyway over there.
Speaker C:So.
Speaker C:So I wouldn't.
Speaker C:I guess going to restaurants is one of my biases.
Speaker C:I mean, the fact that I'm in the food industry has nothing whatsoever to do with this.
Speaker C:But we just love.
Speaker C:My wife and I love, love to go to restaurants.
Speaker C:Love.
Speaker C:I mean, all the time.
Speaker A:That's a nice thing.
Speaker C:Then we go to a place because there's a really cool restaurant there and then figure out what else to do for the rest of the weekend and stuff like that.
Speaker B:Do you want to have 30 seconds to plug something?
Speaker A:Anything you want to tell anyone about?
Speaker C:I like to tell somebody.
Speaker C:Anybody wants to listen, really.
Speaker C:All about turning uncertainty into a competitive advantage.
Speaker C:We've come through so much uncertainty and it's all around us.
Speaker C:It's still being, still going to be with us for quite some time.
Speaker C:But I think in the last three, five, six years, uncertainty has kind of got to a stage where it's overbearing.
Speaker C:And I think some people think they're frozen in the headlights and they can't make decisions.
Speaker C:I think the opposite is the case.
Speaker C:I think uncertainty provides opportunity.
Speaker C:Certainly in an entrepreneurial environment, the more uncertainty, the more opportunity.
Speaker C:And I think if people realize that and stop getting frozen by the uncertainty, yes, decisions like investment decisions, it's much better when you have more certainty.
Speaker C:But certainty favors the establishment and uncertainty favors the startup guy and the entrepreneurial guy.
Speaker C:So embracing adversity and learning from failure and having the courage of your convictions are all part of what you need to think about to try to turn uncertainty into a competitive advantage.
Speaker C:I think, I think if entrepreneurs realized that more, then we wouldn't be so phased about this uncertain world we live in.
Speaker C:And let's face it, uncertainty is not going to go away anytime soon.
Speaker A:It suggests that the UK is a great place to do business right now.
Speaker A:I mean, we're being in a fairly uncertain.
Speaker A:I feel we're philosophically trying to work out who we are now as much as anything.
Speaker C:I think the uk, generally speaking, is a great place to do business anyway, and I'd include Ireland in that as well.
Speaker C:A very similar culture attitude in that way.
Speaker C:I think there's a lot of common sense, more so.
Speaker C:And I live in Germany, right.
Speaker C:And the Germans are very capable of doing all sorts of wonderful things and have done and proven it over and over again.
Speaker C:And I just think entrepreneurship is not as accepted as much in Germany as an asset, certainly in the food and drink space, whereas in the UK or in Ireland as well, it really is.
Speaker C:It's all about dealing with practical challenges and finding practical solutions.
Speaker C:And that's really what it's about.
Speaker C:It's less to do with theory and try to figure out what the ground plan is.
Speaker C:And there's lots of incentives.
Speaker C:People recognize that.
Speaker C:The government has recognized that ever since the days of Thatcher.
Speaker C:There have been incentives and opportunities and encouragement to be entrepreneurial.
Speaker A:Tax benefits, apparently, in engineering.
Speaker A:The British are known in engineering circles that it's all trial and error.
Speaker A:It's like, that's how the Brits do engineering.
Speaker A:You're brilliant engineers, but it's all trial and error.
Speaker A:Most other countries, they come from a much more theoretical base where we're just like, well, I don't know.
Speaker A:Can you put a badger on the back of a bus?
Speaker A:I've never tried, you know, I don't.
Speaker B:Know that there's a business plan there.
Speaker A:It needs.
Speaker A:To be honest, there needs to be a badger in every stupid idea.
Speaker A:That's it.
Speaker A:You've been absolutely brilliant, John.
Speaker A:Thank you for coming.
Speaker A:And that was this week's episode of Business Without.
Speaker A:Thanks, Pippa.
Speaker A:Thanks.
Speaker A:Invisible D and Romeo it is.
Speaker A:Ciao.
