Tom 0:04
Welcome to this week’s episode of The Grapevine, brought to you by Herdify.com. This week we’ve got a guest I think you’ll love, he certainly knows about how to scale DTC brands. And that’s the founder of The Tumeric Co, going to hold one up as a big fan and drinker myself. And that’s Thomas Hal Robson, footballer and founder of the Tumeric Co. Thomas, how are you? Welcome.

Thomas 0:29
Thank you very much for having me, Tom. Pleasure to be here. Keeping well, thank you.

Tom 0:35
Good stuff. Good stuff. As usual. I’m joined by Ed. Ed, you well?

Ed 0:39
I’m good. Thank you. Yeah. Hello, everyone. And Hi, Thomas, it’s really good to have you on the podcast.

Tom 0:43
Cool, cool. So as regular listeners will know, we talk a lot about word of mouth, offline influence, behavioural science, and how this can kind of help us grow our businesses without the typical spray and pray tactics, which are often advised especially by larger platforms. And Thomas, I saw you talk in Amsterdam, back in the last year. And you started talking about how you’d used community to grow the business. And at that point, is that right? We’ve got to get you on this guy is going to be a fantastic guest. So I really was really excited. Hopefully, we can talk about that today. Before we go there, can I just let you introduce yourself, introduce the business and just just give us a bit of background?

Thomas 1:25
No, of course, yeah, it’d be a pleasure. So obviously, I’ve been an athlete, played professional football for over 16 years, and the lead level, which I’m very, very proud of. But during that period, I suffered really bad injuries and really bad inflammation, post surgery in my knees. And so in order to recover from that, that doctors at the time prescribed anti inflammatories and painkillers, to me, and they took the edge off the pain. And they certainly didn’t deal with the root cause. And the bat, you know, the downside of it was that my body had adverse effects to them. So I started passing blood in my urine had severe nausea. And this was very early on in my career. So as a young adult, you know, late teenager, it was quite a traumatic experience. And in order to play without pain and restriction, I had to somehow find a way to recover from this, you know, this, this trauma that our head experienced in my knee, naturally. And so it was at that point, and my father and I, we began looking into natural remedies and natural alternatives to the inflammation, the inflammatory inflammatory products had been given and the painkillers that I’ve been given, and we began coming across all of these natural raw ingredients, things like pineapple, things like ginger, things like watermelon, things like pomegranate, and then things like turmeric. And each one of these raw ingredients, had anti inflammatory properties, had antioxidant properties, and had also been used in certain parts of the world for over millennia, you know, for a long, long time. And so, my father basically began sourcing these war natural ingredients and turning them into a blend, it was started off as a golden paste, and it turned into a golden elixir, and it was very potent, and very strong. And so being quite fussy, as a teenager basically said, you know, I couldn’t drink that every day. And so after a few iterations, after a number of weeks, my father basically created this golden elixir, which, when I had the first time, really not knock my socks off, it was super potent, but it was actually enjoyable to take, you know, it tasted good. And so it was from that point on where I use this golden elixir, this golden blend of all of these raw natural ingredients, including obviously turmeric as the base, over a six week period, and after six weeks, my usual routine is in a sort of get up in the mornings go into the bathroom, into the shower. And in the shower. At that moment in time, I realised that that was the first time in over two and a half years I had woken up without pain or restriction in my knee. So it was a lightbulb moment for me because I knew fundamentally it was down to you know, this, this this golden elixir which my father had created.

Thomas 4:21
And it was opposite to everything that the doctors, the surgeons, the physios at the club had told me and so I used it as my secret weapon. Throughout my career and within a year I’d made my first team debut a year after that I made my international debut a year after that I made my Premier League debut and subsequently went on to have the career that I had. And it was in 2016, where we basically realised that what we were creating at home was so far superior than what was on shelf in retailers and what was available to consumers who now given a decade on we’re becoming more More were around natural nutrition and the impact they can truly have on health and specific health, ailments around pain and inflammation. And so yeah, we set it set out on a journey to bring what was a homemade recipe to market and we achieved that in 2018, with the launch of the turmeric co

Tom 5:22
fascinating and still pain free today?

Thomas 5:25
pain free today and ever felt better. So? Yes, it was we launched in 2018. And, obviously, I knew it helped me by that point, a lot of our friends, a lot of our families, a lot of my teammates were using it, and we were seeing the benefit on them as well. So we knew that it was you know, it wasn’t just me who had experienced that. And so from launched to now we’ve had over 10,000 customer reviews of the product, changing people’s lives. And I think that for us and for me and for the team, that’s everything for us, you know, this is very much a passion project. It’s about you know, really fundamentally educating people but changing people’s lives for the better allowing people to, you know, live a life and have a lifestyle without restriction without pain, you know, optimise their health, optimise whatever they’re doing and actually live, you know, live in abundance rather than in restriction and living in Lac.

Tom 6:28
Here also, yeah, I’ve been super interested in the, in the gut brain link, right and mental health and turmeric and ginger are huge in that as well. So there’s, there’s so many areas that your product touches. Yeah, it’s really cool. So if we jump forward, then to that conversation, I heard, you know, you talked about, you know, your launch strategy was all about, you know, you’ve built this great product, you know, you’ve got friends and family using it has helped you perform a kind of the highest level was at elite sport, then you go to launch a product, you said, community is the way we’re gonna launch this site. Talk me through that, and how did you arrive at that, you know, how did you arrive at that is going to be our strategy.

Thomas 7:06
And, to be honest, I think it was just, we didn’t really see any other means of of of launching, you know, we weren’t going to, we weren’t going to launch the business and drop her, you know, 20 million advertising budget on the launch, you know, and on the brand, but it was, it was just like, the only way that we could really do it. And obviously, you know, we were self funded, in a sense, where we, you know, we built a bespoke manufacturing facility, you know, we set up the logistics, we set up the brand, you know, all by ourselves, but actually bringing a product to market, you’re immediately paying for impressions, you’re paying for views that, you know, in the standard way of marketing and advertising. So it was like, How can we? How can we actually reach our audience and our, you know, end consumer in a, in an organic manner, you know, in in a manner where actually, there’s longevity and their sustainability and it will stick? And so, yeah, it was it was around, you know, the realisation of that and then executing that, what did that look like, you know, so that looked like initially understanding where the consumer, you know, where our consumer would be. So we basically began doing trade shows, and lots of different types of trade show, you know, so from a retail trade show, to a sports trade show to a yoga trade show to a, you know, gym, gym goers trade show to get the to begin to get the sentiment of how those types of consumers would react to our products. What did they what questions were they asking, what needs, you know, were they looking for? And how could we service that and so it was through these trade shows that we basically used as data gathering exercises, and from that, we then basically assess this data, and very, you know, very wasn’t, you know, in Excel spreadsheets at that time, you know, process it, it was just literally, you know, on almost on the on a on a spider diagram, brainstorming, you know, what was the key messages that we picked up on what what highlights what links, we service and off the back of that we began to understand why our why consumers in specific demographics would purchase our product. And then that allowed us to then build messaging around that which then allowed us to target those, that demographic or that specific audience in a more effective way. And so, we we then off the back of that also leveraged the experience experience of the product and the journeys of our initial customers using the product and how that changed their lives. And we used that content to then sort of feed whether it was our socials or feed our, you know, our blogs, our messages, our creative through socials. to then build your audiences and build engagement and off the back of engagement, we sort of just rinsed and repeated. And so that was how we initially launched the business and the brand. And that allowed us to really sort of build a strong, a strong core and community around the business

Tom 10:22
Did you leverage any of the communities linked to your professional career, you know, be that communities where you played? Or, you know, that type of thing? who already knew you already? You probably heard this story? Was that part of it? Or did you go totally, we’re gonna, we’re just gonna go and explore everywhere,

Thomas 10:38
ya know, that the sports side was, again, organic, it was more, we were being approached, because, you know, X player or X team had seen that I was I had founded this company, because it wasn’t a case that we were going after these, you know, sort of sports or BAFTA, the back of that, you know, we obviously won some really great customers and have been supplying, you know, into all different sports, I think, that I think we estimated the other day, over 1000 athletes use our products on a daily basis, you know, when you begin to break that down, it’s pretty crazy. But that’s sort of the reach that we’ve been, you know, we’ve been achieving? And so, it’s, yeah, it’s, it’s, that’s fantastic ways, how do you reach the athletes? Parents? How do you reach the, you know, the families of the athletes, how do you reach the everyday person, because that’s where ultimately the cost of your customer, your true customer base will be, that’s where the, you know, the volume and the scale is. And so it was, it was really about understanding the best way to begin to communicate to them and, and educate them to then, you know, come into the business and into brand. And that was the initial discussion that we had was around, whether it was retail, or whether it was online. And we very early on established that we had to build the brand as a digitally native brand, we couldn’t we couldn’t be retail first, because what we were offering was more than just a, you know, a sad product, a product, which was just, you know, trendy, or, you know, so let’s take pride now prime prime drinks as an example, right? It’s like everyone, they’re selling prime drinks at a premium of, you know, 1000s, and it’s like, more, even more. And it’s like, well, brilliant, but what the longevity, they’re they’re not building, they’re not going to build on Geraghty into what they’re doing, it’s very much a is high bits of fad. And those drinks, you know, it’s not like it’s a value of a drink, which is changing people’s lives for the better. It’s full of, you know, preservatives, full of colorings. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s awful. But you know, that’s not the route that we want to go to. But for them, for example, they achieve massive distribution massive reached into Walmart’s into all different stores. But actually, for us, it was around how can we change people’s lives for the better? How can we educate those people who need the product in their lives, and the way that we did that was through, you know, through online, so being able to communicate directly to people in their homes, through messaging through creative and off the back of that, you know, once they purchase, take them through their purchase journey and explain to them, you know, what they’re experiencing, why they’re experiencing that how they can leverage and enhance their lives to the better further, you know, so it’s, it’s, yeah, it’s more it, the purpose, and the mission of what we’re doing is more than just, you know, sales of a retail brand. It’s about, you know, passion, to change people’s lives to better.

Ed 13:55
I think something that’s really interesting from kind of a behavioural science point of view is that often when you’re setting up a brand and you decide to go ecommerce, is because you want to reach everyone as quickly as possible. Whereas you kind of took a step back for that, and still chose to sell into particular communities and find the people that really wanted and needed your product. And, like, ultimately, I think that really helps you build a brand. Because when people are looking for that social proof in a product, they’re looking for people who are like them, and that they can relate to right. So being able to say like, you know, other people that are doing lots of yoga, use this products that really helps people relate to the brand and kind of speeds up adoption and increases the amount of influence that they have within those communities. Yeah,

Tom 14:47
I think, kind of adding to that. And really, I guess it it leads back to your first comment I was that you didn’t we weren’t going to spend 20 million pounds watching the brand, right. I think there’s a lot of ecommerce businesses you know, people like private probably got taken loads of investment or however they funded it, but they’ve kind of spent a lot of money on their kind of go to market. There’s a lot of brands who can’t do that. Right. It’s just that that money isn’t available to them. And it’s fascinating to see that journey that you’ve taken, as Ed said, using communities to grow that innocence, you know, to build a sustainable business. And I think that was the key word I picked up from there, right? You’re not just trying to build a fad that spikes? You know, bang, you know, there’s how do you build long term sustainable growth, which I think is fascinating, I guess, linked to that, right, I guess, probably very easy. Now looking back to say that, that that worked for you. I guess, in the midst of that, it was probably less clear. Maybe I’m wrong. But like, what, when did you know that community was working for you, as community approaches working? Did you ever think, so we just need to spend loads on ads, or I’m just fascinated how it felt in the middle of it.

Thomas 15:53
Yeah, I think it was, after the first few testimonials that we did, and we created these testimonial sort of case studies as and creatives and filmed with the customers and their journey, and then we basically created a creative off the back of them and then use that within our sort of marketing funnels. So we put that into, into, across social, we put it into our Facebook group club at the time, and the response that they had, was just insane. And it spurred on another, you know, 20 or 30 video messages from customers. And it was like, you know, we didn’t even ask for them, it was just, they just saw that, that that’s how the product was impacting, you know, those people’s lives, whether it was through arthritis in their fingers, whether it was through, you know, fatigue in the mornings, you know, whether it was through, you know, quite severe ailments where they were, you know, having various medications for treatment, and the product helps sort of cleanse their bodies, and they, you know, we’re we’re living in a completely different body. It was, yeah, it was, that was probably the moment where we were like, wow, it is about community, it is about, you know, how can we build, continue to build sort of lamb there, you know, brick on brick, with these people who are having experiences around the product, and, you know, and then also champion them as well. And I think, you know, that that’s a big, big thing that we’re we’re continually looking at is how can we champion the story of our customers, because they’re, they’re the heroes, you know, they’re the ones who have taken a step, you know, into the dark in terms of trying a product, looking to change their lifestyle, or change their habit habits, the better. And this is the impact that they’ve experienced. And so, yeah, it just makes complete sense for us that that that was, you know, that that was the way forward. And that was when we truly realised that that the power of that,

Tom 18:02
how long did that take? You think?

Thomas 18:06
I’d probably say that point, when that happened, we’re probably in mid 2019 to 18 months, and so not not It’s not overnight. This is like, you know, it’s from launching in 2018. It was, you know, it was building that building out, but that was sort of a moment where I was like, Okay, wow, that’s, you know, that’s not normal kind of thing.

Ed 18:29
I think that’s, that’s pretty amazing. I mean, nowadays, people are trying to come up with all sorts of ways to get that user generated content and that your products just generated it, just through the power of the product, which I think is pretty cool.

Tom 18:43
But I also think it’s there’s a lot of people looking for short term, wins everyone out, you know, the the hack culture we live in, it’s like, you know, we want to build a long term sustainable business, but help me fix this problem tomorrow. It’s impressive. I guess, maybe, maybe, maybe the fat there’s a professional sports person, you have to work so hard before you, you get there. You may be well used to just working hard for a long time and keeping it going. But either way, it’s what about the switch then to you know, because I presume and correct me if I’m wrong, but I presume you then switched to sort of more traditional acquisition, you know, paying paying for for customers, did you Well, he did you, why did you and do you still when you do that, do you still think about community in that context as well? Or do you view it differently?

Thomas 19:35
Yeah, I think just on your first point around sort of time and longevity is like the amount of people who perceive brands, when they make it as overnight successes is like scary, and the best. The best example for this it for me, and so really opened my eyes in terms of business was Fevertree. And obviously, you know, everyone, a lot of people know the story of Fevertree, probably, you know, a little bit more prevalent a few years ago, when he sort of really did you sort of blow up Earth, you know, blow up. But it was like, at that point, when they blew up, I think they reached a billion billion pound valuation. They were seen as an overnight success, and people in their heads, for whatever reason, thought that they had been around for like three or four years. And it was like, at that point, when they had that valuation, I think they had been around for either a decade or 12 years, I can’t remember exactly the baseline, but there was perceived as an overnight success. And so, you know, for us what we’re doing, you know, as I say, to the team, I say constantly, you know, this isn’t a six month project, it’s not a year’s project. This isn’t a five years, but this is a generational product project. We’re in this for the long term, we’re talking decades of consistent hard work, before we begin to sort of realise the vision that we see in our vision, you know, is serving 100 million customers globally. That’s what we want, we want to change the lives of 100 million people. And so like, when you when you say that people will look at you and they’re like, they genuinely don’t think you’re serious. But that’s what we’re here to do. And that’s what we’re what we’re about. So, yeah, I think just just the point that you raised, the third, just worthwhile saying, awesome law firm. And it’s helpful for a lot of business owners or entrepreneurs or people working in businesses, because they do think about, you know, short termism, and it’s like, Okay, six months, where we’re going to be in six months, where we’re going to be in a year. Now, that way, you’re going to be in 10 years, where you’re going to be in 20 years, how have you changed the shape of your life and people people’s lives around you in that time? So yeah, so then that’s our, that’s our mentality? And yeah, to your point in terms of acquisition, and yet, every every channel is every every channel was on a ratio on a scale of scalability, you know, so it’s like, what what can you realistically scale? And what do you need to input into that in order to achieve that volume of scale. And so there comes a point where you, you need to drive more volume into your business. And the best way to do that is from a, firstly, from a position of strength, and then also from a position of full transparency in terms of your understanding, you know, so you’ve got, you’ve got like a more a 360 degree view of what it is you’re about to turn on, and the impact that it will have. And what I mean by that is, when it comes to acquisition, the majority of brands, particularly early stage brands, will spend on acquisition without understanding their true customer acquisition costs. So their true CAC and their true lifetime value on their customers. And again, it’s, it’s not because they don’t want to is most most part because they haven’t got the tools to access that level of information. So the first step for us was beginning to invest in terms of data. So how could we really begin to understand analyse and become obsessed around data around the customer, I, you know, our customers, you know, average days between order, average days between order for specific product, you know, who has the similar who even cares about information, but like, these are the fundamentals that you really need, in order to then successfully turn on channels where you’re going to invest into and are therefore performance based. And so when you have when you when you have a level of data around your business, around your product, and around your customer, is the time when you can begin to turn on an invest in acquisition. And yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s not only that, but it’s also when I was talking about the 360 view, you can invest in acquisition and you can then have all the data but you around the business and the behaviour of the customer. But if you don’t then have the data on the purchasing side, a reason for purchase messaging around the purchase, creative, you know, type of creative, you’re, you’re you’re actually not then going to acquire the customer customers to the efficiency you need. And then certainly not sort of volume. So so. So yeah, so long story short, it was just around you know, we did a massive deep dive into what performance marketing Looks like and off the back of that built sort of frameworks and models that we began to run, to begin to pull in this beta understand our customer. And off the back of that we then began to test and learn. And that was basically what we what we did what we’ve been doing said, so, yeah, look like, the flip side is there are channels where you can elect if a product goes viral on Tiktok. And you’ve got the right, you know, mechanisms in for purchase, then you can drive, you know, you can achieve acquisition. But that’s one in, you know, brands who do that, and it’s so but on the flip side, there are also innovative ways which are always, you know, increasing and always adapting and changing. And I’d say, you know, the one for every for any brand to look out for at this moment in time is tick tock shop, as a marketplace and what you can potentially do that with zero, ad spend. You know, these opportunities arise every three, four years. And it’s about it’s about, it’s about being sort of ahead of the curve to identify it and then participate in that early learning process to then once that channel is then optimised, you’re then actually optimised as a brand. So you can then scale into that channel. So, yeah. long winded.

Tom 26:30
So it’s good to see you do much without the moment you’re sort of in the Explore stage or explore.

Thomas 26:34
Yeah, so we’re exploring heavily. So we’re, we’re getting some incredible learnings. But yeah, it’s, you know, it’s, it’s all the biggest thing for brands in this current climate in this day and age is being omni channel. So you can’t be okay, I’m a digitally native vertical brand only, you know, you need to be a digital, native vertical brand. And you need to have, you know, you need to be serving on Amazon, you need to be into your retail or drunk trying to drive penetration into retail, you need to be looking at out of home activities, you need to be looking at sampling, you need to be looking at, you know, partnerships, and, you know, cross collaboration, you know, sampling inserts, gifting all of these areas where it’s like, incrementally done across the board, that’s how you begin to create sustainable value. And then as I said, if, for example, one of those channels all of a sudden, and that’s the big thing. So all of these channels, they have to feed into a data point, right. So your data processing and interpretation of the data and the performance of each of these channels has to be literally instant. Because if you see an opportunity to scale, and, you know, optimise performance in a particular specific area, you need to drive that and push that and invest into that channel, and and max that channel out. You know, to really make sure you’re you’re driving efficient growth.

Tom 28:07
And uh, you guys, I know you when you spoke by there. Last year, you were talking about the move into retail, is that, is that still something you’re you’re looking at? Or have you progressed with that by? How’s that side look?

Thomas 28:18
Yeah, so we’re speaking with retailers. And the big thing for me is that our specific category is being underserviced. In retail, in that the current options on retail on functional shops, they’re juicers masquerading as shots. And so, you know, it’s we’re looking for, we’re looking to educate retail, and say, Look, you guys are losing customers in this category, because you’re not servicing them with what they need. And what they’re looking for is functional beverages, which actually have a tangible impact on their health, not just fad type shots, which have been highly processed or full of apple juice. And so we’re on this, you know, on a big education, you know, drive into retail, to begin to open up those doors, because all that’s happening with this category and retail is although it 100% It will be growing because people are more health conscious here, the category will be experiencing higher rates of churn, you know, and that, that just means that customers will be trying this product and not trying it again, because it didn’t really do anything for them. And they’ll be missing out on opportunities to drive incrementally rates of sale because the customers continually come back. So yeah, like retail for us is it’s a massive, massive priority. And we’re, you know, working hard to educate retailers and buyers on this. And it’s amazing sometimes you you know, you look at these, the buyers and from that perspective, it’s really beginning to understand, you know, what, what are they what are they what do they want, you know, all they want is to see growth in their category. A lot of them, their category is on their shoulders. So decisions that they make a listing in new brands, you’ve got, you’ve got to have some serious steel and some serious, you know, beliefs in what you’re about a knowledge to know that, okay, I’m going to list this brand, because it’s going to improve the growth of this category, it’s going to improve the rate of sale in this category. And so, yeah, it’s it’s really fascinating to sort of see that dynamic and begin to have these discussions because yeah, it’s yeah, we will obviously need him pioneers in this space, who are aware of the the importance of quality, high functional products

Ed 30:48
to put How do you? How do you see retail fitting in with your subscription offering? So do you see it as an acquisition tool? So someone goes into a shop buys it and then becomes a subscription customer? Kind of along the line? Or do you see it as a sort of different marketplace there, there are people who are more likely to buy in shops, and that’s where they will continue getting your product from?

Thomas 31:13
I think that all you’re always going to experience cross pollination and the more distribution channels you have the better. Yeah, as long as you can service their mind. And you can you can, you can effectively communicate your message into each of those channels. The more channels the better. And, you know, I think there’s the everyone remembers it, Harry’s had the Harry Shavers. And a Harry Shavers today. Yeah, yeah. And obviously, they again, another example of a company blowing up a knee, you know, when mega went, you know, went parabolic. And they were all about online. And they still are as a brand mislike, online, online desktop messaging and positioning. Yeah, I guess the latest stat is 80% of their revenue is through retail, retail, you know, they’re, they’re in Target, they’re in Walmart, they’re in, you know, every outlet in the US in a retail chain. But people in the E commerce space, they get almost fooled into the belief that E commerce is, you know, true e commerce, you know, is it’s is, it’s been trendy, it’s been, you know, it’s a nice space to be in is full of innovators, obviously, it’s based on tech. So, you know, you get a specific type of individual. But actually, you know, true growth and true distribution is omni channel, and it happens not only online, where you can scale certain channels, you know, exponentially by actually distribution. If you win 10,000 outlets in the US, and you have a rate of sale of, you know, 10 units per SKU, and have 10 skews in, you do the math on that, how do you even you know, you’re talking 10s upon millions on a weekly basis. So,

Ed 33:03
look, it’s, it is what it is?

Tom 33:06
Yeah, that’s a really good observation. And we have to remember, even in the UK, and I think it’s even more in the US, but it’s like 75 74% of shopping still happens offline. Right. So you know, as you say, some people that are diehard which, which I love the, one of the things, as I guess I was, I was thinking with the retail, when you’re when you’re speaking to these, these buyers, are you using your data to try and convince them this is, look, we know we have a good community here, right? So if you drop it in this area, people are more likely to buy it. If you drop it in these areas, people haven’t heard of us, they won’t buy it using your data. And that way you guys seem like really on the edge of cutting edge of using data.

Thomas 33:49
Yeah, and we use that data, but that data is kind of irrelevant to a retailer because all they care about is their customer, their shopper. So until you validate that their shopper is your shopper, that’s when it gets interesting for them. And so, that cross section of saying, Okay, well, how can we how can we say, you know, we’re running a survey to our customers, you know, say pick 1000 of our customers, and we want to run a survey to them. First question on that survey is, do you shop at this retainer. Now all of a sudden, when you do that, that’s when it gets interesting. And that’s when you begin to, you know, create that pool for the retail or for the buyer because that’s all they care about. They’re they’re not they’re not really, they don’t care about winning more market share. And this is something again, as a very different from an E commerce perspective, because e commerce perspective is all about winning market share, because you have zero marketing, so you always have to have that mentality of when we need to win market share. They tell us they have market share. So it’s how do we serve and, you know, drives growth within that market share within that customer base. And so is is is a very, very different mentality and a different approach. So understanding that and then, you know, developing that, to your consumer to your, you know, to your needs to your brand and products needs in relation to that retailer, is when you can begin to sort of have nice begin to open up dialogue

Ed 35:19
with them.

Tom 35:21
Yeah, makes sense. Makes sense. The last area I wanted to talk through, and you sort of briefly opened up already is the global expansion, right? If you want to, you want to serve 100 million people globally? How do you plan your rollout there? How do you pick where to go next? Talk me through that.

Thomas 35:39
Katie guess she’s gonna

Tom 35:41
go get us, you

Thomas 35:44
know, so he’s data again. So if it basically desert Yeah, again, so we know, where we were on Shopify Plus, right, great, great platform, you know, excellent in terms of, you know, sort of analytics and the information he gives to a merchant. And so we can see who’s landing on our site from where, so we know, the volume of traffic that we received from the US as an example when we’re not even serving them. Yeah, we can see parts of Europe, what traffic is coming in, from where where they land in? What do they know, what’s their behaviour on the site? What are they looking at, so we have a good idea of, and that’s at a state level as well will be city level in the UK. In America, it’s at state level. So we have a good idea of sort of where we see volume, and then coming in. So again, I think for us, it rolling out a internationalisation, you know, strategy, and plan and then executing it really is pretty much as simple as that. And so it’s about getting the product to the customer. We’re chilled product, so it adds a layer of complexity, but it’s not impossible. And then it’s around, you know, the messaging and the communication into that specific particular state or particular country or particular city that you’re targeting.

Tom 37:08
Nice, nice that any more questions from you before we start to bring it to a close?

Ed 37:14
No, I mean, that’s, it’s fascinating. It’s always refreshing from a, you know, a data perspective to hear see someone who’s got a set set out to use data also. All that means that they’re collecting it at the right level, I think that’s what people often sort of stumble, start where they stumble is they want to add a new channel, but they don’t set up the data coming in from that and to get things up, I mean, retail is a good one there as well, where like, you know, if you’ve been online only, you suddenly lose a lot of data about your customers. Once you start putting in Tesco, right, if you’re if you’re a Tesco sale, you get a lot less data from it. So that kind of connects you out with surveys and actively going out to find out about those customers I think is you know, a really interesting way of doing it. Awesome,

Tom 38:06
awesome. Well just to wrap start wrapping the conversation up I think that’s been super interesting. I think my my three takeaways are communities, data and patients you know, you’ve you’ve you’ve leveraged communities to kind of get you moving you’ve been super focused on your on your data to to give you that advice on that that knowledge as you’re going through and as you scale and you were patient it wasn’t about overnight success it was about you know, grinding and then the long game which I think is which is great was the product plug very quickly. If you’re already ecommerce business we can help you find your communities but I think as you’ve heard Thomas talk there are loads of ways you can get started with this and I think really people should start thinking about as especially as we get to 2023 with you know, tough economic times the value of the communities can bring to you the value of having your data in play and patients so some good things for people to get started with. Thomas before we close we do a little segment just just as a product recommendation is a bit light hearted you know codifies all about word of mouth so we do that as a bit of a fun bit now I’m gonna go first to let you guys think I came pre prepped. And just because it’s it’s you and we’ve got you on the podcast but also I love the product or what my advice is to anyone who buys it is make sure you buy enough for your significant other because when I bought bought me my wife started drinking it so it depleted twice as quickly which I wasn’t expecting so plan ahead would be my my piece. Thomas What what are you enjoying at the moment? What What would you both be recommending if you’re out and about?

Thomas 39:49
I’d be recommending no to be honest. It’s this is more a sort of lifestyle. Recommendation is Just to tap into a doctor called Joe Dispenza. So he’s, he’s all about Well originally, fundamentally around epigenetics more around the, the mind body connection, and how that can, you know sort of really influence your reality and how you perceive your reality and how that actually impacts the experiences of your life. And so, yeah, rather than specific product recommendation, I’d recommend, you know, tapping into Dr. Joe Dispenza he has a number of books which you can purchase as well. I think

Tom 40:43
many favourite books like ones that people to get started on

Thomas 40:46
and my favourite book of his is a book called Becoming supernatural. But he also has books around breaking the habit of being yourself which is also very powerful. And then another one called You Are the placebo. But yeah, just anyone who’s clearly wants to take their you know, their life and their mind to the next level and sort of outside of what we perceive is our current reality and I would say our current reality is, you know, sort of BBC News on a on a weekly basis you know, every day 10 o’clock BBC News, you know, people watching that are, you know, they call television programmes, programmes for reason, because you are being programmed and so how can you break that and actually unlock your mind and begin to think in different patterns which will then actually begin to influence your life so yeah,

Tom 41:44
Possum is probably the deepest and best recommendation on missionaries so tough tough one to follow last but not nice Last

Ed 41:52
but no I’m not eager to try and top that for for David influence, but I was gonna I was gonna recommend I’m I’m not doing dry January, but for anyone who is the Bristol beer factory clear head is a it’s just the best non alcoholic ale that I’ve had. It also is a collaboration with a charity called talk which supports mental health as well. So you will get to do a little bit of good health good for that and you get a really tasty non alcoholic beer.

Tom 42:21
Awesome some solid set of recommendations all focused as we’re in January on making us better people. So Thomas that thanks for joining us been fantastic to kind of hear hear your your personal journey, the business journey and I think actually there’s so much advice of people sit down with a notepad and they can they can take a lot from what you said. So yeah, that appreciate you giving us some time.

Thomas 42:42
No absolute pleasure. Thank you very much for having me, guys. Thank you