Building England's Ethical, Healthy, and Slightly Cheeky Beverage Brand

 

The minimum run Mike would do was 400 cases, eight bottles in a case. The drinks are natural and without any preservatives, they have to be kept chilled, and we had to make them every day. On the first day, a Thursday, we sold three cases of the 400 to our local sandwich shop. On the second day we sold zero. So we went back to the shop that bought the original three cases and there's only four bottles left of the original 24. Our original business plan was based on the shops selling six bottles a day, but this one had sold 10 a day. That weekend we loaded up the 797 cases we hadn't sold and went into every shop in West London and said, "Hi, we're your new local neighborhood juice company. We'd love to give you some smoothies for free. If you sell them, please give us a call and order some more. If not, you and your staff can have them." And after that weekend literally about 45 of the 50 shops we gave them to called and said, "They sold really well. Can I have some more?" So then we could go to a wholesaler and say, "Here's 45 of your existing customers that want these. Here's a big pallet of 400 cases – you buy the pallet and sell them on." And that's essentially how we've grown the business.

We also looked for ways to communicate and create an impression that didn't cost us anything – for the first five years, we couldn't afford advertising. We did really simple things that were disproportionately effective. On the back of our labels there was space, and we knew that anyone reading it was one of our customers. So we'd write silly things, sometimes delivering a subtle message about how natural the products were but sometimes just delivering a load of nonsense. We worked really hard to get good PR coverage. I remember in the summer of 1999 we got a meeting with a journalist. We went in and dropped off the samples and realized: This whole building is stuffed with journalists, and we've got security passes already and a van outside. So Dan and I just went in and out getting bag after bag, and we started at the top floor and worked our way down, leaving smoothies on every floor. You probably couldn't do that now in the post-September 11 world, but we got a ton of phone calls. 

Ten years in, we never expected to sell a stake to Coke. We thought we'd end up with another Maurice, but the money we were looking for was massive: £30 million pounds to grow our international business. The market was hotting up and we didn't have time to do it slowly but surely the way we did in the U.K. – we needed to get there fast, and we needed money. We officially launched our fundraising on the 14th of September, the day Lehman went under. Our adviser said: There has never been a worse time in the history of finance to raise funds. So he said we had to go wide and speak to everyone. To cut a long story short, we had eight different offers. We came out of the Coke meeting and said, 'Blimey, that wasn't how we thought it would be.' They were smart, they were honest. They were clear that they wanted to invest and they didn't want to control. That was quite a cool thing to have, especially because all the others had weird clauses. It was "We'll put the money in but you'll have to stop 10 percent going to charity." Definitely no way. Or "We'll put the money in but you have to give us the majority of seats on the board." No way. Coke was willing to sign that they'd have no operational control. That was two years ago, and they've been absolutely true to their word. When we've asked them for help they'll drop anything and help us. But they're really nervous just coming in the building – they tell us they don't want to fiddle with what we've got.

All three founders make a rolling three-year commitment. We can't see how anyone can commit for longer than that. Once a year we look each other in the eye and say, "Are you in?" We've got our 2012 goals at the moment, and we've got a 30-year-vision. We're really keen to get the brand recognized internationally as the one that helps people live well and die old. One could say we're doing OK in the U.K. and just starting to get somewhere in Europe. But we've registered the trademark in the U.S., China and India and we want to get there, too.

I never would have had the confidence to do all this by myself. I think we survived because we were a team of three. Chances are if one of us was having a bad day then somebody else was having a good day. Can I just tell you, though, that the smaller the issue the bigger the argument? We know when to defer to each other on business matters, but the three hugest rows we've ever had were about the color of the walls, the color of the floors, and the one where people thought we were going to thump each other: where we were going to put the bookcase. I think we're all really frustrated interior designers, and it's pure subjectivity: why should someone's view matter more than anyone else's?

I still maintain that choosing cranberry over orange for the walls was the right choice.

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