E48: Jamie Laing & Ed Williams - The Sweet Success

In this week's episode of The Diary of a CEO, I chat to Jamie Laing and Ed Williams, the co-founders of Candy Kittens - the fastest growing confectionary brand in the UK. Our conversation delved into battling the misconceptions of family wealth,... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:10Steven Bartlett?

  Candy Kittens. I wonder what you think I'm talking about when I say those two words. And I'm guessing, due to the success of this business, a lot of you will actually already know. It's one of the fastest growing confectionery brands in the UK and it was started by reality TV star Jamie Laing with his business partner Ed Williams in 2012. It kind of begs the question, what adult would start a candy brand at the age of 20 something? But these guys have absolutely smashed it. They're selling a bag of sweets every couple of seconds. They've sold millions and millions and millions of bags of candy, generating tens of millions in revenue over the last couple of years. And their brand is an absolute juggernaut.

• 0:51Steven Bartlett?

  The momentum is absolutely crazy. And these two guys, Jamie and Ed, are the perfect pairing. If you've ever wondered what your perfect business partner would be, if you ever thought what the perfect complementary piece of the jigsaw puzzle that you might be missing, these guys have found that in each other. One of them is incredibly overly stimulated and excited. And Ed, on the other hand, is calm. He's pragmatic. He's very, very practical. My conversation with them was funny. It was informative. It was real. It was everything that this podcast has always been. And I can't wait for you to hear it. So without further ado, this is the Diary of a CEO and I'm Steven Bartlett. I hope nobody is listening. But if you are, then please keep this to yourself.

• 1:44Steven Bartlett?

  Ed, Jamie, I alluded to the fact that I'd known Candy Kittens some time before we started recording. And here's how, so I don't know what year it was. It was a couple of years ago. I was on Cedars. I was a broke, young man, entrepreneurial, an investor. And I was scrolling down Cedars and I saw Candy Kittens and I was so, so compelled by the story. I saw you on there. I looked into the brand a little bit more. I'm not talking shit here. It was probably the closest I've ever come on Cedars to investing in something. And so I've seen it grow and grow and grow since then. Every time I get on a Virgin flight now from New York to London, which I do all the bloody time, it's the thing that I'm eating. I'm eating like the watermelon ones. And at the end of the flight, you come to my chair and it's just all these fucking wrappers.

• 2:29Steven Bartlett?

  The candy.

• 2:30Speaker 01

  Amazing.

• 2:31Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, so that's my, that's my sort of historical connection to the brand.

• 2:34Speaker 01

  I, I love the fact that, because when you said, you said I was broke, but I was looking to invest. I was like, how is that not working?

• 2:41Steven Bartlett?

  You to, right?

• 2:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:42Steven Bartlett?

  You've got to click a couple of buttons and pretend you've got a little bit of excess income and you can bob your uncle, so.

• 2:48Speaker 02

  Did you ever invest in anything on?

• 2:49Steven Bartlett?

  I, I never did and I've invested off Cedars, but I was looking for a platform like that. I was obsessed with Dragons Den and it was one of those platforms that would allow me to invest a little bit and feel like an investor. And there was two ones that I really remember. One of them was like some indoor beach, whatever. And the other was Candy Kittens. That felt the most solid at the time.

• 3:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:10Steven Bartlett?

  So I guess my, my first question is, how did you get there? How did you get to that point? What's the, the context of, you know, I know you guys met in a pub one day and all those things, but why did you choose Cedars as a platform to raise investment versus all the other options out there?

• 3:23Speaker 02

  It's a good question, actually. I think that we'd reached a point where we thought, okay, to get to that next level. And I think at this stage, we're probably.

• 3:32Speaker 01

  We were still young.

• 3:32Speaker 02

  A couple of years in there, we, we'd, we'd kind of gone through family and friends round of investment, pulled together enough money to kind of get the business going.

• 3:42Steven Bartlett?

  Can I ask you a question on that?

• 3:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:44Steven Bartlett?

  I've always been too scared to raise money from anybody that I know. And maybe that's, maybe that's a sign that I don't back myself, but the thought of raising money from friends and family terrifies me.

• 3:54Speaker 02

  I think the, well, I think, to be honest, this is, Jamie and I have always been sort of, we're very different people, but we bring completely different things. And one thing that Jamie's always been amazing at is finding money. So he's like a Jack Russell for money. He can go and sniff it out and just go and find the people and the right friends. And I think that as long as you're doing it in a way that everybody's happy and everybody's upfront and transparent from the, from the beginning, that actually, look, we're going into a point here where it could go wrong. I think it can work, but what do you think?

• 4:25Speaker 01

  But also there's, I think there's two things to this as well, because firstly, we were, we were quite young. We didn't really understand how important cash was for a business. And so we were looking at the easiest place to. Get it. We didn't realize that you, we, we, we did, but we didn't realize the concept of you could go pretty much to other people and other people would do that. We kind of, well, what's the easiest place to get money? Okay, friends and family, and that's why we'll do it. Um, and I think also for, for, I think it's important to understand that there's this sort of big misconception that I have money growing on trees everywhere. And that I have this bank balance from McVitie's. I've never seen that. I mean, and, and everyone always writes, uh, things saying that, oh, he's air to McVitie's.

• 5:09Speaker 01

  I'm not. I, I don't know where that money is, but it is, yeah, yeah.

• 5:14Steven Bartlett?

  Have you seen that Lewis Capaldi video where he's talking about he found his net worth of 10 million on Google?

• 5:18Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 5:19Steven Bartlett?

  Still got the New York wallpaper in his bedroom. Have you seen that?

• 5:22Speaker 01

  It's hilarious. Yeah. He's just genius. But it's true. And people throwing numbers around with all different things. And actually, um, you know, most of it's not true. But, uh, you know, I think that I've always said this, it's, you know, in, in terms of business, you, you, cash is so important. It's oxygen. You need, it needed to make you breathe. And for us, we needed cash. And I think that it's like a riddle. Everyone has money in their pockets. It's just finding a way of getting the money from them into your pockets. If you have a great idea, if you're passionate, most people buy into the individual, as you know, they're not really buying into the business unless it's something like C's. They go, okay, that's a great thing. But when you're meeting someone, you kind of go, okay, is this person, do I like this person? Are they passionate? Do you think they got drive? Do you think they're going to achieve what they want to achieve? And then you kind of invest in them. You know, you can create a great business, but if you have a wrong team surrounding it, it's probably going to fail.

• 6:04Speaker 01

  But if you have a great team and a mediocre business, more chance of it succeeding. So it's about going to different individuals and persuading them and proving to them and showing that you, um, really have a belief that your brand or business is going to achieve something great. And I think that's what we were doing with Candy Kittens. Because it was so authentic and real to us, we found it quite, um, not easy at all, but we found it, um, easier to meet people who were potential investors. Um, but C is for us was a platform because it was exciting. It was fun. We could make a big show about it. Um, we were new.

• 6:40Steven Bartlett?

  Publicity.

• 6:40Speaker 01

  Publicity.

• 6:42Speaker 02

  And I think also at the time crowdfunding itself was new.

• 6:44Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 6:45Speaker 02

  It was like a real buzz around it. So everybody that you spoke to. That was talking about raising money or doing these things was doing it through crowdfunding. So we, I guess, we also slight kind of human sheep mentality. We were like, okay, well, we want a bit of that. We want to go in and get involved in that as well. Um, did it work?

• 7:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's another story.

• 7:05Speaker 02

  Another story, but it was actually, it was quite a good thing, I think, from a PR and kind of hype perspective.

• 7:11Speaker 01

  And, and I think that's important to, to say is that it, it didn't work for us.

• 7:16Speaker 02

  Why?

• 7:17Speaker 01

  Because we approached it in the wrong way. We, we believed that because we had a profile in myself, because the brand had a profile, because we had 80,000 people following us on social media with the brand. We thought that people were going to invest and we thought that was gonna, that, that amount of people was going to turn into cash. And it just doesn't work that way, as you know, it really doesn't. Um, and we were mistaken. I think with, there's lots of, I think crowdfunding is a great place for a lot of different people, but for some people it isn't because, you know, that you, you kind of got to get investors before, you got to get people interested before, you've got to do all these different things.

• 8:00Speaker 01

  And we did none of that work. We just thought, okay, fine, we're going to put Kenny Kinn's on the website and everyone's going to invest. And, and it didn't work out that way.

• 8:06Speaker 02

  I mean, you hear about all these kind of big success stories of people funding 30 minutes or, yeah. And, but actually the reality is that a lot of them are doing a huge amount of groundwork beforehand. So we didn't really, we were too naive to the, to that and, and actually didn't really line up any investment beforehand. We did a bit because Cedars kind of explained that that's sort of a good tip would be to do this. And we had a, a bit, but not enough. And so how did that play out for you to conclude the, the Cedar story? You, you, how much did, did you raise? So what actually happened, which was,

• 8:40Speaker 02

  Again, just another example of one of the hundred times in our lives where we've been just incredibly lucky. We hit a point where we were about a week out and it looked like we probably were about eighty percent funded, but we didn't think we were going to just tip over and get that extra twenty, twenty-five percent. So we spoke to our existing shareholders, our first investors, and one of them said, oh, well, if these hundred and fifty people have backed you and are really interested, maybe I've missed something. Why didn't I just put all the money in myself? And we were, okay, well, we should have said that six months ago, but let's go for it. And he actually essentially put all the money in himself. And then we had a group of about twenty, twenty-five people that had invested

• 9:19Speaker 02

  or pledged on Cedars, over five grand, I think it was. So in order to kind of honour their commitment to us and honour their faith they showed in the brand, we said, okay, well, you guys can still come in at that valuation. We'll kind of honour that. Bought them in. And then everybody that had invested less, we kind of politely declined and sent them a bag of sweets and said, thank you very much, and kind of kept them involved in the journey. But, yeah.

• 9:42Steven Bartlett?

  I'm super intrigued there, Jamie, about the misconceptions thing.

• 9:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:45Steven Bartlett?

  Because it's got to be the case that that misconception follows you around, right? And I also noticed you were very quick to address that particular point. So I wanted you to give me context as to what that's like as an entrepreneur, you know, because the more, the more successful you get, and this is just me guessing, from a very, because I've never had to sort of carry that misconception around with me because of the McVitie's thing. The more success you get, the more people, because of the way that humans are, like to discredit or discount your success, because in some respects will make them feel good about themselves. Or if they can take the credit off you and mitigate the hard work that you've done and try and take that away from you, then it shines a better light on themselves in some respect. The thought that you might have worked really, really

• 10:28Steven Bartlett?

  hard and done something really, really good is something that makes others feel inadequate to some degree.

• 10:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's totally it. And I suppose, if I'm totally honest, it's probably a defensive thing now, because, you know, I think that that is it, the sort of main question when Ed and I go and do different talks and chats and all these different things, the question that comes out every single time is, well, you had a lot of money, so surely your family... Really helped you with that. I said, well, no, that's not the case. Um, and it's, it's, it's, it's probably a, um, it's probably a defensive thing for myself, but also it's important to know that. Um, I, we didn't come from a place from that situation. So people listening to this podcast or listening to our talks or whatever it is, know that it is possible to achieve those things. Even coming from a, a, a completely normal place in a sense. Um, but I think, yeah, it, it is tough because.

• 11:16Speaker 01

  I think life, in life, you wanna be kind of proud of what you've achieved and proud of what you're doing and all these different things. And so when people try and, um. Give excuses or say for the reason, well, this is why you've achieved what you achieved, you kind of wanna. Hit them back with something else a lot of the time. And so that's probably what I do, but I don't, I, you know, I, I, I mean, I joined a reality TV show. I mean, the, the amount of. Shit that I got given, you know, I'm used to it. I'm totally, I'm used to it. But I think it's more, for some reason, it, you have more. There's a lot of pride we have with our business and we have a, a lot of passion towards it. And Ed and I were twenty one, twenty two years old. You know, you started as a young entrepreneur. You know how hard is it beginning for people to take you seriously, for anyone to take you seriously, you know, even our parents.

• 12:00Speaker 01

  Um, didn't believe that we were gonna set up a sweet company. Um, and Ed and I, uh, to our sort of credit have built this company up from the ground up. You know, nearly losing it a million times and going through lots of different struggles like every single person does. And so you wanna be proud of that because you kind of go, well, this is what we've done and this is what we've achieved. And we started with three thousand pounds in the bank. We didn't start with. A million or whatever it was. And, um, so I probably counter it every single time for two reasons, going back to your question is firstly, because. I want people to realize that anything is kind of possible if you put your mind to it. You don't have to be in a certain situation to raise capital or.

• 12:39Speaker 01

  To build a business. You don't have to be wealthy. Anyone can do it if you really put the hard work in. And secondly, we're proud of Candy Kittens and. Uh, we built it ourselves and I don't want other people to believe differently because why would I?

• 12:55Steven Bartlett?

  And then also, as you said, then they can't, they won't see that path as being achievable for themselves.

• 12:59Speaker 01

  That's it. You want, you want to kind of make the path. And I think, you know, in life, I think what is really important, I think that success. Growing up, I always thought that if you made a lot of money and you had this and had that, that was gonna equal success. And what I've realized now is that that is totally not success. That is actually having a purpose and that links to success. If you have a purpose in life, you feel very successful because you wake up every day and you want to achieve and do something. And for us, it's, we feel incredibly successful every single day because we get to do something that we want to do all the time. And we really encourage the younger generation to go out there and do the same thing because,

• 13:42Speaker 01

  freaking out, people now are told that you have to go into this job or into this industry to, to achieve this. You know, we always talk about this at schools, you're told you have to pass this exam to get to this university. And if you get to this university, you get this degree, that means you're gonna reach here. And it's totally false. You know, going out there and doing something that you really want to do and want to achieve, that is way more fulfilling and way better than anything else. You know, you dropped out of university and look where you are now. And it was because you just said, oh, screw this, I kind of want to go and do what I want to do. And we really want other people in this world to go, doesn't matter what background from, what gender you are, whoever you are, you can go and do it if you put your mind to it.

• 14:18Steven Bartlett?

  And here's, here's me playing devil's advocate, and this is a question for both of you.

• 14:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:22Steven Bartlett?

  And I guess this, the reason I ask this question is because I think as much as we, and I think I literally posted about this on my LinkedIn yesterday, as much as entrepreneurs, we did it ourselves. And the reason, my, my, one of my first questions to you was about misconceptions. So it's interesting that you raised it before I asked the question. The reason I, my first question was about misconceptions is I know that even if you come from, say, say you did, I know that it's a great, great, whatever. Yeah, even if you did come from a wealthy background, it, it's not a precursor for success in your own life. And I've got so, in fact, my most successful friends typically aren't the ones that go on to do great things because they, if they had it handed to them.

• 15:04Steven Bartlett?

  And it's often my friends that were deprived of their parents or whatever their parents' resources that. End up going and building a life for themselves. Umar Kamani is a great example with Pretty Little Thing, who's coming on to do this podcast live in a couple of weeks' time. He's had the credit robbed from him because his dad's the billionaire founder of Boohoo.

• 15:24Speaker 02

  There you go.

• 15:24Steven Bartlett?

  But I've been there with him and I know his journey. And so I, even as an outsider.

• 15:29Speaker 02

  It's a shame that, isn't it? I mean, we had somebody on our podcast.

• 15:31Steven Bartlett?

  It's a tremendous shame.

• 15:32Speaker 02

  Jamie and I have got our own podcast. We had somebody on a few weeks ago and I had a call the day before from her PR manager and she said, can we just make sure whatever we do, do not talk about school life or early life because she had quite a privilege, went to a really nice boarding school, blah, blah, blah. And she doesn't want to talk about that because it always discredits what she's gone on to achieve.

• 15:53Steven Bartlett?

  Sure.

• 15:54Speaker 02

  And it's just kind of a weird thing that people actually have that.

• 15:56Steven Bartlett?

  Because with Umar, he is the most obsessive, hardworking. He's obsessive to the point where one might diagnose it as a bit of an illness. And to think, and to have watched him for five years, where he's a bit of a client of mine, but he's become a very, very close friend.

• 16:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:13Steven Bartlett?

  To watch the sacrifice he's gone to and to hear everybody in the city and globally just say, oh, well, his dad's a billionaire. It feels like a massive injustice.

• 16:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:21Steven Bartlett?

  And I've had no, you know, right now and with my team and stuff, they'll ask me, what's Umar like? And I'll say, I'll be honest with you, he's a bit of a genius. He'll never be given that credit.

• 16:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 16:31Steven Bartlett?

  And that's why.

• 16:31Speaker 02

  But how does he feel about that? Is that bothering him?

• 16:33Steven Bartlett?

  He realised that was the case and I think it did impact him early on. But now he's so comfortable because he's gone so far and so many people have been around him to see that he is the one that's taken the brand there, that he's getting more and more relaxed with it. But that's why the first question to you was, because I didn't think that was the case.

• 16:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I think also it's just, you know, that's the sort of cross you bear. But also, I really think it's important not to forget about where you came from, your roots. And, you know, I went to a private school. I went to a boarding school from the age of eight years old.

• 17:09Steven Bartlett?

  And this was my question with about self-awareness was what are the privileges that you you think you've had in your lives that have put you here? Because they might not be financial privileges, but they could be educated, it could be good parents.

• 17:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, we talk about this a bit, but I think actually for for both of us, probably speaking for both of us is that our parents have always let us have given us the confidence to go and do what we want to do and have never ever held us back.

• 17:36Speaker 02

  Yes, when we started the business, they said, sweet company, you mad, what are you thinking about? But ultimately, they believed in us and said, actually, go on then, if you think you can do it, go and show us. And I think that's probably the the greatest kind of gift that definitely I was given is the fact that our parents believed in us and and kind of encouraged us to go and achieve anything. I was never told that I wasn't good enough, or I couldn't go and speak to that person or go and do that thing. I would go and be confident to have a conversation with anybody from any background, any walk of life. And and I think my parents gave me that, and and that's probably for me

• 18:15Speaker 02

  the the biggest asset, I think, to to do what I've done.

• 18:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that's exactly, I think the biggest asset, I think, I think what growing up right now, you know, like I said, I went to sort of private school and things like that, and I don't think you're educated better. I don't think that you have lot, there are lots of things that are positive about going to a boarding school or private education school, but there are lots of negative things as well. But the biggest positive for me was you you you're given confidence. You're you're told to stand up in front of the whole school and give a talk, or you're told to read a poem out. And that inner confidence that it puts within you is so vital in life. The reason why a lot of people don't go out there and achieve what they want to achieve is because they lack confidence. They're scared about failing, they're scared about not achieving something, they're worried what people will think of them.

• 19:03Speaker 01

  And I think it's really important from an early age to have confidence, because then you can believe in yourself that you can go and achieve stuff. And for Ed and I, at the very beginning, you know, we wanted to go and set up a sweet company, right? We had no idea how to make sweets, we had no idea where to get them from, we had no idea what we were doing. But we thought, well, no, we're going to do it because.

• 19:22Steven Bartlett?

  Why, why sweet company?

• 19:23Speaker 01

  Well, it's interesting because I believe a lot in kind of sort of fate, I think. And when I was a kid, I sort of say this a lot, but it's just, it's the truth. When I was a kid, I was scared of the dark. And I used to share, I used to go and sleep in my brother's room because I was scared of the dark and wanted to share a room with him. And he used to tell me a story of Jamie and Sweet World to make me fall asleep. So I had this obsession with sweets, coupled with the fact that my parents didn't allow me to eat any sweets because I was so hyper. They fed me, I fed me white chocolate, there was more sugar in it than anything else. So that's what they used to feed me. So I had this obsession with sweets. I love sweets. And growing up, my one wish would be to have a world made of sweets, that sweets didn't damage your teeth.

• 20:08Speaker 01

  And I think this manifesting in my head kind of grew and grew. And I went to New York when I was about seventeen years old. And I went to Dylan's Candy Bar, which is Ralph Lauren's daughter's sweet shop. She has a few over America. It's kind of like the Hamleys, the Harrods of sweet stores. You imagine Willy Wonka, but.

• 20:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's a crazy place.

• 20:24Speaker 01

  It's amazing. And I went in there and it was incredible and it was amazing and it was wonderful. And people were spending three hundred dollars on sweets. I thought, this is crazy. I want to create a sweet shop. And the idea behind it was to create a sweet shop that was a mixture between Willy Wonka and Hugh Hefner. That was the idea because I wanted the kittens to be beautiful girls because I thought that would be fun for me. And I wanted the, the candy was a sort of generalized term for sweets.

• 20:46Speaker 02

  Had to drop the Hugh Hefner thing pretty quick. It wasn't a good look. The climate. Wasn't a good look.

• 20:50Speaker 01

  And Ed very quickly swooped in and said, let's not set up a sweet shop. Let's not do that because that means that we only have one situation where people can go to. You only have a location. And why do you just want to have a location? Why do you want, you want everyone to have these sweets? And I said, okay, this is a good idea, but what about the Hugh Hefner thing? He said, it's a terrible idea. Get rid of that idea.

• 21:11Speaker 02

  I think it was the fact that Jamie had kind of stumbled across this massive opportunity in, in the market for a modern confectionery company, somebody that was delivering something that was relevant and resonated with a young audience. If you look at chocolate, there's a chocolate bag, box, bar for literally every single person out there from like a real cheap. Chocolate bar through to a champagne truffle seventy five percent cacao thing. And then sweets, there's just sweets for kids and maybe a tin of sweets in that weird kind of like white powder. Hard boiled sweets that your grandma's got in front of her car. And and nothing in between.

• 21:50Speaker 02

  As Jamie started telling me this idea, it was sort of like a light bulb moment and it kind of came off together and and yeah, we've kind of. Been going at it ever since.

• 21:59Speaker 01

  But also, which I think is so important is that when you're when you're selling a product, right? I really feel like it needs to have a story and it needs to feel real towards the consumer. And for us, it was very real, it felt real towards everyone, they they actually believed it. So it was kind of okay for us to to go down this road of making sweets because I went, oh, no, this is believable. Actually, I understand where this is coming from. We had this story and we had this background thing. So we kind of knew what we wanted to create and where we wanted to go with it. I think the trouble happens is when someone says, okay, what do we, what do we, they sit in a room, they brainstorm about what they want to create. I don't, I I'm sure it has happened a lot of times, but I find it very rare that someone goes, okay, there's a gap in the market for a new water.

• 22:44Speaker 01

  Let's go and create a new water because you don't actually, it's not within you. And you really, you know, like, like, business and building a brand is hard. Get back to your point about, it doesn't matter if you're a billionaire or you have so many. So many social media followers, it doesn't matter, it, your business is still hard. And going back to the Pretty Little Things guy, it's amazing what he's done with that business. Doesn't matter if it's a billionaire or all these different things, it's incredible what he's done and he should get the full credit for that. And it's because he actually really believed in it, he knew what he wanted to do. And if you get lost in life, doesn't matter whatever you're doing, you then become a model and you don't know what you're doing. You need to have a destination without a doubt. And for us, we always knew our destination, we knew what we were trying to create, we were trying to create the best suite possible.

• 23:29Speaker 01

  Which we were doing or we're still doing today, that's why we want to just create the best suite possible. That's what we're always trying to do. And I think if it's not authentic and not real, you suddenly forget what you're what you're driving towards.

• 23:40Speaker 02

  Well, and consumers also can just see through that so easily now, right? There's so. Many touchpoints. If you were, when you were Haribo and it launched a bag of sweets, they just put a bag of sweets on the shelf and they can kind of set, they can make up the story and say what they want. And there's nowhere else to find out. You see one TV advert and one bag. Whereas now, there's so many places for people to go and find out about your brand, whether that's the content you're putting out or the stuff that other consumers are saying.

• 24:04Steven Bartlett?

  And there's so many brands as well. So there's so many.

• 24:06Speaker 02

  So much, so much choice.

• 24:07Steven Bartlett?

  So you can see, if there's thirty thousand bags of different variations of Haribo, it's very easy for there to be a standout and then grey.

• 24:15Speaker 02

  Exactly. It's a great point. And that's where we started this kind of

• 24:21Speaker 02

  unique segment for premium confectionery. So we're the first people to come along and make a gummy sweet and sell it for three pounds a bag.

• 24:28Speaker 01

  Just to, can we just quickly say, we did that by mistake. We, we didn't.

• 24:31Speaker 02

  That was an accident.

• 24:32Speaker 01

  We did it by mistake.

• 24:33Speaker 02

  Like a lot of things that we've done, they were happy accidents.

• 24:35Steven Bartlett?

  Which, which part was a mistake?

• 24:36Speaker 02

  Three pounds. So we just kind of made a sweet. We said, okay, we want it to taste like this. We want to use real fruit juice. We want to use natural ingredients. We want to put it in this nice bag. We were like, sweet, okay, uh, that's going to cost three quid. And then we just kind of put it on the shelf.

• 24:49Steven Bartlett?

  It's interesting you refer to that as a mistake because it's like unintentional intention. You created something that you wanted and that you thought was great. And you are also probably the customer to some degree as well. So it's funny that the most, it's unintentional, but it comes from.

• 25:05Speaker 02

  I suppose, yeah, it's unconscious more than, more than, more than unintentional, I think. We were just going, okay, this is the thing. And we talk about this a bit where we say, I studied design at university and a big part of design is all about doing your research and understanding the market and really going out there. And we do all these things.

• 25:23Steven Bartlett?

  Kill everything creative.

• 25:25Speaker 02

  And you just think, why? Because actually, if, if we had gone out and asked the market what they wanted, nobody would, we would never have come back with this. We would have come back with another Haribo. Exactly. So for us, that three pound thing was just so jarring and so unbelievable, but for people in the industry. But actually for us, we thought, well, we believe it. We can do it. And we've proven that. And yeah, you're right. It's just don't go and ask the market for research.

• 25:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. The best business plan is no business plan supposedly.

• 25:52Steven Bartlett?

  It's a really interesting thing I say about my. Business, which, you know, we, we, we were a bunch of young kids. We walked into this office. The first thing we, we did, we spent thirteen grand of our startup budget on a slide. And it was, and we were like, everyone can go on holiday whenever you like. You don't have to book holidays. The next thing we bought was a basketball hoop. So we've got this office, no desks, a thirteen grand sliding ball pit thing installed. We're all sat on these fucking one pound. Like, yeah, a couple of bean bags in there. There's this photo of this office, massive office, and they're just installing a slide. Before the desks have arrived.

• 26:22Speaker 01

  We're gonna be Google.

• 26:23Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah. No, but it was totally like, this will be a fun place to work every day. And it's funny that in reflection, the naivety is the motivator behind all of our, our greatest decisions.

• 26:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:34Steven Bartlett?

  Because if we had, if we'd read a book on how to run a business and how to make an office and how to do marketing, we would have been doing fucking newspapers in a four white walled office. But the naivety made, you know, these kids, we started doing thunderclaps on Twitter with people like you back in the day. And we create this term thunderclap and then we, you know, in this crazy fucking wacky warehouse, we have a hundred meter jungle in there where the birds sing. That naivety, which you probably see in Disney and PLT and your brand is in fact.

• 26:58Speaker 02

  Well, it's funny that when we, you talked about Cedars at the start, when we put together our Cedars campaign, we went out and got a few kind of testimonials for our campaign video. And we thought we'd smashed it. We were selling in Selfridges at the time. So when I spoke to the head of food at Selfridges, and she said, we said, can you say something nice about us and kind of put the camera on her? And she was like, and we thought she was gonna say, you know, these guys are geniuses. They've, they've nailed it. They're experts of what they do. And she actually just said, you know what? I think these guys are gonna go really, really far because they haven't got a clue what they're doing.

• 27:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:25Speaker 02

  They don't know anything about the industry. They're totally naive. And that was the, like, everything you've just said is the fact that we came at it from a completely fresh, fresh place.

• 27:33Speaker 01

  I honestly say this, and it's so funny that you use the word naivety. I say it all the time. Naivety is your biggest weapon. And it's so important to realize that people go out into the market and try and study everything and understand how they do this and that. I put it down to the same thing. If you, if you, someone said you, um, you should go and we're doing the mask too. Have you seen the mask with Jim Carrey? Or let's call it Ace Ventura. Go and do Ace Ventura number five, whatever. But it's not gonna be Jim Carrey. You're gonna play it. If you've seen Ace Ventura, it is impossible to play anything else but how Jim Carrey played it. It's impossible. So it's actually. The naivety of going into it, just seeing it completely raw for yourself. That's when you'll gain success because you go about it just how you think it. If you start following others, it is so important to, I think it's important to have a mentor. I think it's important to have someone that you can turn to and look up to.

• 28:19Speaker 01

  But in terms of what you're creating, do it yourself. We, like I said, we were twenty one, twenty, twenty years old, creating sweets, putting them in bags that no one else seen before. Making them gluten free, making them cost three quid and just putting them out there. And, and we did it and we said, well, we like it, so we're gonna do it. And I think that's so important. People try and follow these trends and if you start following these trends. You know, the same thing goes for, and it drifts into different things like, um, I always talk to people who go into reality TV. Or who are creating a podcast or are creating a YouTube channel. You have to know the reason why you're doing it. If you're going into reality TV or doing a podcast or, or doing YouTube just to become famous.

• 29:00Speaker 01

  You will get lost because when you get that fame, you won't know what to do with it. Yeah, you, you go, what's happening now? And this is why we have a huge problem at the moment with these different things because people gain fame and they don't know what to do with it. But you have to know where you want to go.

• 29:13Steven Bartlett?

  And they didn't know why they wanted it in the first place.

• 29:14Speaker 01

  And then actually what you find out, yeah, Steve, is that you've realised that actually it's very unfulfilling. Um, it doesn't bring you happiness and success as much you thought it would do. And you go, oh shit, everything I was striving towards doesn't really mean anything.

• 29:26Steven Bartlett?

  The anticlimax must be crippling.

• 29:28Speaker 01

  Crippling. And so you, you've got to know from the beginning what you want to do and where you want to go. Otherwise you'll get lost.

• 29:35Steven Bartlett?

  I think the same applies to, you know, you talked about fame there, but success and wealth generally as well. I think if you, if you don't understand the motivations from day one as to why you were striving to get rich or, you know. Build something great. The day, I remember that, you know, the, the, some of the most confusing days of my life were the days when someone came across and said. We'll buy your company for X tens of millions and going home, an eighteen year old Steve showing up, right, in my mind and being like, let's get that Lambo. And then going on Rightmove that night, I remember being sat on the bottom floor of my house and going on Rightmove that night, be like, okay, we'll look at mansions. But, and then looking at a photo of a mansion and thinking, okay, well, if I live there, that's gonna be forty five minutes away from my friends, there's seven bedrooms, a tennis court. I don't think that's gonna make me happy. Okay, I'll look at Lamborghinis. Looks at Lamborghinis, black Aventador Lamborghini.

• 30:20Steven Bartlett?

  That's really, looks really uncomfortable versus like the, the big four by four I have now. And thinking, so why did I do this again? I know there's a reason, but I don't think I was fully in touch with it. Right? Cause I, I love getting up every day and I'm enjoying this, but 18 year old Steve, who was broke and come from a family that were bankrupt. I never had Christmas and birthdays had somehow told himself that, you know, if you get rich, then your parents might stop arguing.

• 30:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:43Steven Bartlett?

  That kind of thing, but that wasn't the reason why I was doing it. And so it was success and getting success that made me super self-aware. And like, why are we doing this every day? And if you're just going to keep getting more and more successful, what is the purpose of that pursuit?

• 30:55Speaker 01

  Where's the finish line?

• 30:56Steven Bartlett?

  Exactly. Because you're gonna, you're gonna keep climbing and, and you're gonna get more, you know, more power and more freedom. And you can't believe that every step up this ladder is going to make you more happy. Because if you believe that, it will make you more miserable. And that's the anti climax point.

• 31:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I think it's, and, and listen, you know, we're not, I think all three of us can agree. We're not sitting here and saying, you need to know exactly what you're doing right now. You can, you can start on your journey and understand that you want to create the best suite possible. But you're, you've got to learn on your journey that actually you've got to really understand why you're doing this and what, you know? There's a great story that Ed and I heard that again, I mentioned on another podcast, I'm sure about a guy who worked for JP Morgan. I think it was, he worked for some big bank and huge amounts of money. And he went on holiday to Thailand. He was in Thailand and he was sitting on a bus. And this guy got on and he was like, he didn't really want anyone to sit next to him. So he kind of covered up a seat. But the guy came and sat next to him anyway, and he's American guy and he turned to him and said, how are you doing?

• 31:54Speaker 01

  Started speaking and he said, yeah, I'm good. I'm great. He says, what do you do? And he says, oh, I work for JP Morgan. And he said, oh, you must be earning a lot of money. He said, yeah, I do. I earn a lot of money actually. He said, are you happy? And he went, I don't, I don't really know if I am. And he said, okay, well, do the test. If you're sitting in your rocking chair when you're 90 years old, are you going to be happy with your life? He said, I don't think I will. He said, okay, we'll change it. And he came back from Thailand. He quit his job there and then, and he set up a company called Change Please, which is a coffee company that is around London, different places, that hires homeless people and houses them for a year and serves coffee. It's amazing business and he's happier than ever. And actually, he realized that his life wasn't about earning cash and those kind of things. Actually, it was about success,

• 32:36Speaker 01

  but success in a different form. And his success was helping others and doing something to make a difference. And it's so important to realize that from the beginning, I think.

• 32:43Speaker 02

  I think true. I think it's true for going into any situation, really, whether that's a business or a relationship, or even on a lower level, going into, you know, having a coffee with someone, what, why am I doing, what, what's this for? What, why? And, and something that we've been talking about recently with our team is every meeting we go into, what, what's the reason for this meeting? Because you can just go through life, just turning up to stuff.

• 33:05Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 33:06Speaker 02

  But not really knowing what the purpose was, what you were hoping to get out of it. And I think thinking sometimes selfishly, what, what's in it for me? What am I getting out of this? Is actually something that we are taught all our lives not to be selfish. And growing up, it's a bad thing to be selfish, which on a macro level is true. But actually, day to day, on those little things, why, why do we want to go and do this thing? What's, what's the point? And if you're not careful, you can slip into probably a career of thirty years, where you actually think, well, hang on a minute, what happened there? None of that was for me. But I think, yeah, knowing what you're doing, and it comes back to that self-awareness point, I suppose, so key.

• 33:46Speaker 01

  And, and also, I just, because I want to mention these guys, we were in Germany, something called the ISM the other day, which is, we've been there for the last eight years. It's been eight years, hasn't it? I mean, Ed went there by himself to begin with, this amazing story, how you basically go there, you can think of every single sweets and snack.

• 34:01Speaker 02

  It's a big like conference trade show thing, yeah? Confectionery.

• 34:04Speaker 01

  It's amazing. And Ed went there. We've had a sort of funny journey with our, our sweets. And Ed went there to look at different sweets and find a manufacturer and came across these guys called Catchers, who were a German company.

• 34:15Speaker 02

  I know Catchers.

• 34:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, they're great, right? And they, for listeners who don't know, Candy Kittens, our brand, they make Percy Pig. Which is M and S sweets. And Ed said to them, oh, look, we want you to make our sweets for them. They said, okay, well, your minimum order is four hundred thousand tons a year. And we just dropped Morrison's. We went, okay, well, we're a startup. This is probably not going to work. And anyway, what happened then to skip to eight years later, they've just bought some of our business and they're making our sweets for us. And it was an amazing journey from the beginning, but I met these guys there who lit this year, who have a chocolate bar called Tony's. And there were four Dutch guys who were journalists and they went and checked out the cocoa trade in Africa and saw how horrific it was.

• 35:01Speaker 01

  Saw the child labor that was going on and said, okay, fine, we want to do something about this. So they wrote an article about it. No one paid any interest to them. They went, okay, fine. Well, why don't we set up our own chocolate brand and use the cocoa trade to try and get arrested? And they didn't get arrested. So what they did is they set up a chocolate that was completely ethical. And their story and how they do it and the uneven road of all these different things. And again, for them, the reason why they did that is because they went, okay, well, this is something that we want to do. We want to strive towards. It's like with candy kids. We want to do it because we like sweets. We're like, well, this is going to be fun. This is going to be great. This is going to be exciting. And also at the same time, we're giving other people pleasure because we're feeding sweets to everyone. So for us, it was always about doing something that we always want to do. I think that's really important.

• 35:45Steven Bartlett?

  I know I don't really have to reference what you said earlier, because even as an entrepreneur, I know that there's, I think the outside perception is, you know, you start a business, up you go. Fame, success, money. It's all wonderful, but there's, there's a very rocky road to travel to get there. And I wanted to know a little bit about your, your really, really tough times, the times when you, you know, your darkest days.

• 36:08Speaker 02

  In fairness, I mean, we've had tough times, really, really tough times and, and most of them probably.

• 36:16Speaker 02

  Started off and finish with cash and I think that that having that cash in the bank is is literally your your oxygen that that keeps the business going.

• 36:26Speaker 02

  But I wouldn't necessarily say they were dark days in that sense because I think that we've always been quite good at kind of managing the emotional part and the and the way that we're kind of involved in the business emotionally.

• 36:43Speaker 02

  So yeah, that's probably been a good thing. We don't take life too seriously, which definitely helps being an entrepreneur because it's pretty tough. But yeah, I mean, the toughest times, I think, probably have been days where you look at the bank and you've got no money in there and you've got to pay the wages tomorrow. That's pretty horrible. We've had days where you've had to go out and get kind of 20 or 30 grand in an hour to kind of keep ourselves going and you just call in every single person you know.

• 37:07Steven Bartlett?

  How does that feel though on those days? Say days when you you look at the bank account, there's not.

• 37:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's weird. I don't actually remember that feeling particularly.

• 37:15Steven Bartlett?

  I do.

• 37:15Speaker 02

  It was scary and horrible, but I don't I don't remember ever really thinking we're we're done. I never, never, ever thought this is the end.

• 37:23Speaker 01

  This is why it's, you know, very important to have someone, you know, I think there's something like 73% of businesses have a co-founder or you have a business partner and it's really important to have. I personally think it's important to, did you start by yourself? Were you completely by yourself?

• 37:38Steven Bartlett?

  No, I had I had a co-founder.

• 37:39Speaker 01

  You had a co-founder. Yes, I think it's I think it's important to have a co-founder because firstly, it's a lot of stress and to have someone else to do it with is is a bit better, even stress. It's more exciting to be on a journey with somebody else. It's a bit of a lonely place. I heard you talk about an interview once where you said that I think you spoke to Gary Vee who said, if you want to be super successful, it's going to be very lonely. And I kind of definitely see that. So if you have a buddy along the way to do it with, that's quite a fun thing to do. And again, I think, you know, if you're greedy, then yeah, you want to take the whole business yourself a hundred percent. But if you're not, I think it's a great thing. But Ed has always been this guy who's never worried too much. I catastrophize. Oh, my God.

• 38:26Speaker 01

  But Ed has always had this level head, and I think that's really important to have, and especially when you're running a business, because you need to have, in term, in situations of emergencies or in situations of chaos, you need someone to break through the clouds who can look above like a telescope and say, okay, no, we're going to be all right.

• 38:42Speaker 02

  Well, you can't, you can't worry yourself out of a problem, right?

• 38:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:45Speaker 02

  So it's like, okay, crap, we're in the shit. What are we going to do about it? And in this case, okay, we've run out, we need thirty grand by ten o'clock. Okay, who do we know that might have four grand, five grand? Okay, we're going to call this guy, this guy, this guy, this guy. And, and you make it work. And I think that we've had, those are the kind of tough, tough times, really, because it's kind of.

• 39:06Steven Bartlett?

  Does, does your, did your team ever realize?

• 39:08Speaker 02

  Probably not.

• 39:09Speaker 01

  No.

• 39:10Speaker 02

  Probably not.

• 39:11Steven Bartlett?

  I was, I'm quite fascinated by this, um, this world that, um, employees never really get to see, which is same for my business, which is total chaos upstairs. Like, you know, with the CEOs and the founders, total chaos, but almost like a blissful ignorance below.

• 39:26Speaker 02

  I find it really hard. I, I, even just about twelve months ago, we were going through a really, really big, um, kind of negotiation and kind of like top level conversation about the future of the business and what we were going to do and the strategy. And I came out of a meeting feeling pretty shit and thinking, you know, lots of thoughts going through my mind and just needed to kind of digest it all. And I got back and I sit at my desk and everybody's gets up and having beers in the office. And they're all the fun stuff that we have built and encourage and want people to do. And they're like, oh, we're going to order some pizzas, Ed, do you want anything? Do you want a beer? And I was just like, no, thanks. Put my head down and kind of just like.

• 40:02Steven Bartlett?

  And that's the loneliness. That's loneliness. It's an emotional loneliness.

• 40:05Speaker 02

  And you're just sat there on your own while the whole team are just having fun. I think if only they knew.

• 40:10Steven Bartlett?

  Do sometimes.

• 40:10Speaker 02

  What we've been talking about.

• 40:11Steven Bartlett?

  Are you sometimes envious of the, the ignorance to those?

• 40:15Speaker 02

  I think so.

• 40:16Steven Bartlett?

  In a respect, you wouldn't, you wouldn't trade it.

• 40:18Speaker 02

  I wouldn't trade it, but I think sometimes I think shit. And I'd love almost, almost the point where I'm like, oh, I could almost just tell them that.

• 40:24Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 40:25Speaker 02

  I don't want them having fun right now. Or I don't, and you just kind of hold back and you go, no, okay, we'll just.

• 40:29Steven Bartlett?

  Is there a part of you that, that is somewhat, um? Wishes you hadn't, because I think of entrepreneurship is like something that you can't unsee.

• 40:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:39Steven Bartlett?

  And like when you're building a business, you can't like unsee your dreams, your ambitions, where you want this to go. You can't turn that off.

• 40:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:46Steven Bartlett?

  But I wonder this, I know, I don't think this is true, but I wonder if I would have been more happy if I didn't have the like disease that I have.

• 40:53Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 40:54Steven Bartlett?

  You know what I mean?

• 40:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:55Speaker 02

  Then the answer is probably just no, isn't it? Because you are who you are, right?

• 40:59Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, I'm happy.

• 41:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly, yeah.

• 41:03Speaker 02

  But it's, it is interesting. And I've, but I've actually on the kind of flip side of that, I've got lots of friends who are trying to run their own business. So they're, they're pursuing entrepreneurial.

• 41:13Steven Bartlett?

  Endeavors.

• 41:14Speaker 02

  Endeavors. And they're, and actually I look at it and go, do you know what? You'd probably be better just having a job.

• 41:18Steven Bartlett?

  Yes.

• 41:19Speaker 02

  And there's loads of people like that that we meet and you think, why are they doing it? Why are they putting themselves through the pain? We, we, we go through that pain because we believe it's, it's right. And that's just what's called us there.

• 41:30Steven Bartlett?

  But surely they do too, right?

• 41:32Speaker 02

  But I think, no, but I think actually sometimes people listen to, to your podcast. They look, they look at your Instagram, they look at people like Gary Vee and they go, yeah, that's me. I want a bit of that.

• 41:41Steven Bartlett?

  I agree.

• 41:41Speaker 02

  And that's like, it's like being a footballer now. When you grow, when I grew up, I just, I couldn't think of anything more than wanting to go and play football and be a pro footballer. Kids are now growing up going, I want to be Gary Vee. It's kind of a, it's a weird flip. Nobody, when we were growing up, wanted to be a businessman or an entrepreneur. That word didn't really even exist.

• 41:59Speaker 01

  Because, because I think it goes back down to that, that situation now where we turn on Instagram or go onto YouTube. And we see everyone driving Lamborghinis or fast cars. And we think that generates happiness. And so we go, well, how are we going to reach that happiness? We have to become an entrepreneur, set up a business and we get success. But actually it's, it's, it's a tough road. As you said, you know, there is a huge happiness in having security and working in a community where you have a job. And you can go to your work every single day and you can switch off at night. Being an entrepreneur and running your own business, you can never do that. You can never, I said this to Ed the other day. I said, Ed, when was the last time you think you switched off? And he went, I don't.

• 42:43Speaker 01

  And I went, oh, exactly. You you can never switch off. And yes, and what I honestly believe that the majority of entrepreneurs are filling a void within themselves. They have something missing within them. Um, I don't think Ed actually has. I actually just think Ed just quite likes running people. Yeah, just being a leader. Yeah, I think, yeah, just but for for me, um, or I think maybe for you too. There's something that you want to fill. And so the reason why a lot of these successful people who people think or entrepreneurs put stuff on social media and things like that is because they're trying to constantly create and constantly do and constantly do different things and hey, hey, hey, and show this and that.

• 43:27Speaker 01

  But actually, I think honestly, probably for myself, you're filling something or you're trying to be validated for something. And so that's why we're doing it. There is a huge bliss in being part of a huge corporate business and turning up and doing that and leaving work every single day and having your life. Being an entrepreneur is not all roses and sunshine at all, and it's stressful. It's very.

• 43:48Speaker 02

  It's actually something that kind of bothers me a little bit in the fact that, you know, when we have our podcast or or we we get bold with stuff like this. There's lots of people listening that then perhaps get encouraged to take that path, that perhaps didn't didn't need to go down that route. And I sort of feel partly a little bit guilty sometimes to think. You know, it's actually okay. You can have a great job and be really happy and enjoy that. And and there's nothing, nothing wrong with that. You're gonna have probably any much easier life. It's gonna be okay. It's I think there's a balance between sort of giving advice and then.

• 44:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:22Speaker 02

  Glamorizing.

• 44:23Speaker 01

  And also, there's a there's a real total difference between being an entrepreneur and being a businessman. There there is such a difference. You can be a great entrepreneur, but you can be a bad businessman. I think I think personally, I'm a good entrepreneur. I don't think I'm a very good businessman. I wouldn't be able to without Ed, there is no way that Candy Kittens would be a success. Not in my wildest dreams. But I also think on the flip side, Ed, Ed sort of is both he he's an entrepreneur and a businessman. So but without Ed, without me, there was probably no way that Candy Kittens could have been.

• 44:51Speaker 02

  But you you would have seen this as well. I mean, you guys. Now gone public, right? So presumably you're dealing with people in that world that are very high profile, very well respected business.

• 45:02Steven Bartlett?

  Of course, every investment bank I've just.

• 45:04Speaker 02

  But these are not entrepreneurs, they don't, they can't think like you think.

• 45:06Steven Bartlett?

  No, of course not, no. I mean, the finance team typically, you do well to find someone in a finance department that is entrepreneurial in their nature. They are more, it's more like a risk.

• 45:16Speaker 01

  Do you find it hard to communicate with individuals who are in the big corporate banks?

• 45:23Steven Bartlett?

  It's, it's, it's, it's a lesson I've had to learn over the last couple of years, which is just, if you want to succeed with those types of people, you have to know their motivations and what they care about. And you have to take your like dreamy ambition, we can do everything, we're going to take over the world stuff. You have to try and filter it through their, the way they see the world. So I try and speak their language, even though naturally I'm like you where, you know, I'm big, dreamy, like the business would have gone bust if it was just me. Right? Same with you, Ma, same with you, Ma. He's told me a million times and you'd learn, I try and learn over time how to, how to speak in a different language to those people.

• 45:59Steven Bartlett?

  Whereas to, you know, on stage, yeah, exactly. Spreadsheets and, and if I'm talking about culture and buying a slide, I'm not, now I know to talk about it through the, the impact of the P and L.

• 46:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 46:09Steven Bartlett?

  The positive impact of the P and L. And like, so we bought a slide in this, in our, in our office, five, five, six years ago, whenever it was, five years ago. And every major newspaper, BuzzFeed, Vice, Channel Four, Gadget Show came down, Vice did a documentary on us, that's all. It's all about the fucking slide. And so you think about the marketing ROI on that slide, it's like this, the BBC had me like laying in there the other day. And everyone comes to this, and it's the, it's like the, and you could not have bought that, but how do you communicate a bit of brand work that is going to have no direct, like, you know, to a finance person? So that's the skill that I'm learning.

• 46:46Speaker 01

  That's interesting because that goes back to your naivety as well. The fact that you got that sign because you thought it would be fun and then you get all this press because of it. But also I think that, that analogy of the slide is a great story because it actually just shows what, what the, culture within a business is so important, what you're creating. I spoke to an amazing guy called-

• 47:04Steven Bartlett?

  It's brand now. This is, this is the big distinction in the world, in a world where companies are now glass boxes, where you, employees can take a Snapchat or an Instagram and show you inside and social media. There's no such thing anymore is internal company culture. It's just brand. And so you can tell me the stories of you hearing about Amazon staff pissing in bottles in the warehouse, because we're all glass boxes now. You can tell me you knew about Google's office. People will know about your office through all of your employees doing beers and pizza. And that is part of your brand. I think the biggest contradiction in the world would be if I came to Candy Kittens office and it was a bunch of like miserable, you know-

• 47:40Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 47:40Steven Bartlett?

  You know?

• 47:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, totally.

• 47:42Steven Bartlett?

  Don't come.

• 47:42Speaker 01

  Don't come, yeah, don't come, is it? But okay, but I, but I see, but you're, I, I think Steve, what you, what you're, your slide analogy is great because even though you spent thirteen thousand pounds on building a slide that you probably couldn't afford-

• 47:55Steven Bartlett?

  And don't use.

• 47:56Speaker 01

  And don't use. You still created something within your business that was exciting, fun, energetic, something that you, that was you. And I think that's really important because even though it cost you a huge amount of money, it represented something much more important. And I think that's key, that you never lost what you were trying to do and what you were trying to show. You kind of just went, this is what we represent.

• 48:22Steven Bartlett?

  But listen, changing subject, the podcast sponsor, which is Boost by Facebook. They are a dedicated one-stop shop for entrepreneurs, for CEOs, for small businesses, job seekers, and anybody with ambition that's looking to thrive in this digital economy. They launched with the aim of creating a place where all of us can understand this new world of digital and social. It can be incredibly intimidating. My mum, I was talking to her about Boost with Facebook the other day. She doesn't know how to use a phone. She doesn't know how to type and she's trying to run a business in two thousand and twenty and compete against people that do. Boost is a place for people like her, where she can learn more about the digital economy, about features and skills and training and all of the things that matter, the

• 49:04Steven Bartlett?

  things that might level the playing field for her as someone that doesn't know about this new world that we live in. You can learn more about this at facebook.com/boostwithfacebookuk. And if you do check it out, drop me a message and let me know how you find it. I always pop on there every now and then to, to, to try and make sure I'm staying ahead of the curve. But yeah, do let me know how you find it.

• 49:26Steven Bartlett?

  I was really interested in what you said a second ago about you've got a couple of friends who are trying to be entrepreneurs and you know from your perspective that they shouldn't be. And now to even have that that understanding, it takes a tremendous amount of self-awareness. Right. Almost an impossible amount of self-awareness because the narrative is just keep going, never quit. You can do anything you say, but what you're saying is quit. You're saying you shouldn't do that. And that's the counter narrative to all of the messaging out there. So my, I guess my question is, how is someone supposed to know when entrepreneurship is not for them?

• 49:59Speaker 02

  Not sure I'm intelligent enough to answer. I think that it's, I think it's so, so difficult, but it does come down to that kind of self-awareness piece. And I think Jamie mentioned earlier about, you know, people that are sat in a room trying to come up with an idea. So that people that say, I want to be an entrepreneur. I just don't know what business is going to be yet.

• 50:17Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, it's the worst.

• 50:18Speaker 02

  That's like, well, that doesn't work.

• 50:21Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 50:22Speaker 02

  It's like saying, I want to be a professional sportsman, but I just don't know what sport.

• 50:25Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 50:25Speaker 02

  But you can't, how, how's that going to happen? Um, I think you have to, it comes from those real kind of, you know, idea, like the ideas within you. Something you genuinely, as you just said, you know, really believe, genuinely believe in. And also probably the, the way you're enjoying it and going through the process. I think some people talk, I talk to people about, you know, so we meet people at different events or whatever, and they say, okay, I've got this thing and I want to do, I'm struggling to get hold of the right people to make the business work. They say, okay, well, what have you tried? And you say, well, we've sent some emails out, but nobody ever gets back. Okay. Well, that's the point where you should, you should stop now. That you should now quit.

• 51:07Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 51:07Speaker 02

  Because if you just sent an email and somebody hasn't replied and you can't possibly think of any other way to get hold of them, then it's not going to work for you.

• 51:15Speaker 01

  But also Ed made such a good point the other day. We were talking to a friend of mine who is working for a gin company. And he said, oh, I'm trying to get hold of waitrose and things at the moment. I can't get hold of them. How do I get hold of them? And Ed sent them email saying, honestly, just go in there, go to the headquarters and walk in. That's what you need to, you need to have that. And I think you, you know, when you shouldn't be an entrepreneur, if you're not willing to take risks. And risk is everything. You've got to put yourself out there and just be willing to do anything and everything to achieve what you want to achieve.

• 51:44Steven Bartlett?

  Question to you then. Yeah. How does one go from being a non-risk taker? Cause you guys, one of the things that you said you shared, one of your privileges per se was confidence. Sure. So if someone's listening to this right now and they are maybe not the most confident person, is there anything they can do to build said confidence? Yeah.

• 52:02Speaker 02

  Different types of confidence though, right as well? Because it's not always about saying, I'm confident enough to stand up on a stage and deliver a keynote. It's also the confidence to say, I really believe this idea can work. And I don't care what anybody tells me, I've got confidence in my idea. Or there's, there's confidence in knowing that you're very good at maths and you're going to absolutely kill it. And your numbers are always, there's different levels, but I, and I don't know which one you necessarily need, or if you need all of them, or maybe one of them to be right. But confidence is a quite a hard thing to teach, I think, particularly as you get older.

• 52:35Steven Bartlett?

  So where did it come from in you though? What would, can, are you, cause what, one of the things that when I look back, you know, there's obviously nature and nature. And I'd be somewhat naive to not, you know, pay homage to the presence of those things in my life. But when I look back at my life, it's doing something and then being like, ah, that was cool. I didn't know I could do that. And then taking these small steps that, you know, today, it's almost like a staircase. You take one step up the staircase and you think, oh yeah, fuck me, let, look at me go. You take another small step. For me, it's like public speaking. I spoke in front of 50 people, I was shitting myself, shaking, couldn't read what was on the thing. And then the next, you know, a hundred people and I'm like, oh my God, fuck. And then I'm doing fucking 15,000 people in Brazil with Obama. And I feel the same. And I think it's that, it's almost like this little staircase.

• 53:19Steven Bartlett?

  And the problem with motivational speakers and shit like that is they tell you to just throw yourself into this like fiery abyss of uncertainty. Whereas for me, the, the, the way to get there is just these tiny fucking steps over a long period of time. And that could be make the Instagram account today. Like come up with a name.

• 53:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know. I, I, I think that's exactly it. I think you've sort of hit the nail on the head there where, um, okay. For example, if you sort of say to someone, so, you know, Ed and I and yourself, we were lucky to probably have confidence from the beginning. We did something, whether it was score a goal in football when we were younger, or pick up an instrument, or sing once and so on. Oh my God, that's great. Go and do here. And slowly by slowly you build it up like that and that's how you build stuff. But it's the same way if someone says, well, I'm gonna go and start the gym, you know, don't make these huge dreams that you go, okay, I'm gonna have a six pack or whatever by one month's time. You've got to slowly do it bit by bit. If you go on a five minute run one day and then do a 12 minute run the next day and then a 30 minute and you build it up like that, that's the way to success and that's the way to building these different things. And, and repeating that.

• 54:18Speaker 01

  Repeating that, yeah. You just have to, I think, in terms of confidence, you have to be willing to work at it, like everything. And you have to be willing to take it step by step and trying different things, whether that is giving a talk in front of five people, then doing a talk in front of 10 people. You know, I, um, I went and did stand up comedy for the first time. Really? Yeah, in my life the other day. And holy shit, it was one of the worst things I've ever had to do. Um, but I went, I went and did it and I thought, okay, I'll just go and do this. I went on stage and it went really well. And it was funny, everyone laughed. I was like, this is amazing. So I then went, okay, well, I'm gonna go and do this again. And I went on stage again and it was one of the worst things I have ever done. Really?

• 55:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. Don't make a joke at the beginning about, I made a joke my first, I, I came on pretty confident for the second time. And my first joke was, oh, I've done stand up comedy before and this is the second time I've been doing it. And I got in a taxi coming here and I spoke to the taxi driver, said, can I practice my routine on you? And he went, yeah, go on lad. And I said, oh, and obviously he spoke like that because he's working class. And no one laughed. And I went, oh my God, don't make a joke if you're white, privileged and boss. But it was this learning and it's the same thing. You learn these different things. You learn, you learn how to get confidence. So going back to your question, how do you teach them? It's about within you. If you want to start becoming fit, you have to do it yourself. If you want to give up alcohol, you have to do it yourself. If you want to learn to get

• 55:44Speaker 01

  confidence, you have to do it yourself, but it's bit by bit. And you have to go on that journey yourself. No one else can teach you it.

• 55:49Speaker 02

  But that's the big thing, right? There's only a small amount of people that are willing to put the work in. And I suppose then that goes back to the question of how do you know when to quit? Are you genuinely really, really willing to sacrifice and give up? But I think if you, if you start seeing it as a sacrifice, that's also part of the problem. Because I never considered, I don't, I mean, you have obviously made lots of sacrifices to choose to kind of live the life you're living. But I don't know, do you kind of?

• 56:17Steven Bartlett?

  Of course not, of course not.

• 56:18Speaker 02

  You never look at it and go, okay, well, I'm going to make a decision today. I'm going to sacrifice this thing instead and do that.

• 56:23Steven Bartlett?

  Because it always, the, the nature of sacrifice almost makes you believe that you're giving up something you wanted to do more for this. But I never wanted to go out and go to Tiger Tiger in Manchester more than I wanted to sit and build my website.

• 56:36Speaker 02

  Great fact, you missed out.

• 56:36Steven Bartlett?

  So although it's, it's almost, yeah, like it's, it's something, people will look at your life and say, oh, you sacrificed so much. I'm like, well, no, I didn't want to do those sort of things. And you could, you can tell what I wanted to do by my actions. Like, so that's something really interesting.

• 56:50Speaker 01

  But you're a rarity for sure, because you, you, you were seventeen when you started, was that right?

• 56:55Steven Bartlett?

  Eighteen, I said.

• 56:56Speaker 01

  Eighteen, yeah. And that's pretty rare to understand what you want to do at that age. I, I, I said, once I said again, I think the educational system is completely flawed in, in lots of different ways, because firstly, it drives creativity out of you in lots of different ways. Secondly, it's a, it's a place where you can't copy, cheat, you can't collaborate, you can't do anything. And life is all about collaborating and copying and helping each other. And at school, there's, and you're meant to know exactly what you want to do at the age of eighteen years old. You're meant to know you want to go and study this at university and do that. And no one fucking knows.

• 57:28Steven Bartlett?

  I didn't know.

• 57:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I think you.

• 57:30Steven Bartlett?

  It's weird because I didn't know what the word entrepreneur was until maybe two years after I'd become one. I like when I, when I started out, there wasn't this like, you know, like the social network movie and all this, you know, Gary V stuff and all this. I was, I was a kid that my favorite game with my brothers was turning my bunk bed into a business and making fake money and passing it to each other. My mom was always really entrepreneurial, although she never had any money and she failed and she slept on the shop floor of her business every night, never came home in her, in her corner shop. But I just thought that by at sixteen years old, I realized that my grades were going to be really, really, really bad. And that that, that meant that this narrative of getting good grades and being rich was never going to happen for me. And I also think I overvalued money because we never had it. I think I was like insecure and inadequate.

• 58:11Steven Bartlett?

  I'll give you one more layer. I was the only black kid in a school of fifteen hundred white kids in an area where everyone was middle class. But our house had like six foot grass at the front and smashed windows on the front for a decade and a half. I felt inadequate. I was dealing with this complex about me being black and having fluffy hair and all the kids having straight hair. And it was just like this constant, I need to like, if I'm, my parents aren't around either. So I'm like, if I'm gonna get it, I need to get it on my own.

• 58:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:37Steven Bartlett?

  And I definitely want to get it. And so.

• 58:40Speaker 01

  You had that, you had that hunger driven within you because, uh, you know, your mom was sleeping on the, the shop floor and, and you. Yeah, which is crazy. And you, and you, so you saw, I think, um, what a lot of, what a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of successful people, um, I experienced from a younger is that they experience, um, sort of pretty hard times and they, and they can see that what, what, not what hard work, but where life can lead. And I suppose what you're saying is that you didn't want to, you didn't want to leave that, you wanted to change your family's life and, and, and build it like that. And that comes from a place. So even though you didn't know what you wanted to do, you, you knew where you didn't want to be.

• 59:18Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 59:18Speaker 01

  And so that's.

• 59:19Steven Bartlett?

  It was non-negotiable.

• 59:20Speaker 01

  But, but that's even better, right? That's actually so for, I suppose for Ed and I, and a lot of people listening, they're eighteen years old. They, they probably didn't experience the same things that you experienced and probably have, you know, they probably go on nice holidays and they probably do different things. And so.

• 59:35Steven Bartlett?

  Look, my friend that I mentioned earlier, um, you know, his dad's a billionaire, but he, he experienced the exact same thing. But in a, in a, because it's, all it is is an emotional feeling and that emotional feeling can arrive from, say, your dad being a billionaire and you feeling like you're always in his shadow. And that you can get the same thing, same motivation and the same drive. There's this huge misconception amongst entrepreneurs that we're all on fucking playgrounds selling fags at 12 years old and we're all like wheeling. But the emotional feeling can come from any circumstance. It can come from like female rejection. It can come from, you know, it's just that feeling of inadequacy or independence, you know? So.

• 1:00:14Speaker 01

  I totally, I totally hear what you're saying. I think that's so funny. There is that, there is that kind of misconception again where, when, you know, you ask me, when did you start your first business? And I always say, I didn't make it up, but I said, oh, I picked heads off my daffodils, off my mom's daffodils. I don't think it, I don't think it happens there. It gets to a place like you said, where you wanted to build something. The reason, you know, Ed and I went did it is because we, we were more excited about the prospect of building Candy Kittens than actually going and working for a corporate business.

• 1:00:49Speaker 02

  I think that's, I think that's sort of an example of life doesn't really play out like a, like a movie. So.

• 1:00:57Speaker 01

  But we think it does.

• 1:00:58Speaker 02

  So you go, and I'm like, oh shit, what was my first business? Like, what, shit, what, how did I? Because everybody expects that kind of Disney fairy tale entrepreneur story. But it's not always there. So like, yeah, I was washing my dad's car and getting a couple of quid for it, but that wasn't a business. But it was probably something that led to work hard, get money, work harder, get more money. And, and it, it, it turned into a business. But yeah, it's just a, I guess it doesn't always play out. It plays out definitely for everybody.

• 1:01:26Steven Bartlett?

  It's so important because again, that's empowering to a lot of people who can't think of, you know, them selling fags on the playground at 12 years old. And the narrative is that if you weren't doing that, then maybe you're not cut out for it in some respect. But the entrepreneurs that I've met on this podcast alone are so diverse in their upbringings. They are introverts. And again, that breaks the narrative because apparently all entrepreneurs are these fucking wacky, wacky, you know, super confident people. They are introverts that have remote teams and have built businesses that are making hundreds of millions. They are, they are sometimes extroverts. They are sometimes the, you know, the people like me and probably a little bit like yourself, Jamie and Gary, who are, you know, much more sort of externally confident. And they come in different shapes and sizes. I think that the question that I, that I wanted to pose to you guys is we've done a lot of, I guess, looking backwards.

• 1:02:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:10Steven Bartlett?

  And like looking at now, but, but what is, what is, what is it that you guys are playing for? Like, why do you get up every day now? And what's the, where is this going over the next couple of years of your life?

• 1:02:21Speaker 01

  You want to take this one, buddy?

• 1:02:25Speaker 02

  I think that for me, I want to continue to build the best possible business we can build. And when we started, we really had ambitions of going out there and kind of knocking Haribo off their perch. And going, okay, let's, let's really properly challenge a market. We're now the fastest growing veterinary company in the UK. But beyond that, we're, we've still got a long, long way to go.

• 1:02:46Steven Bartlett?

  Isn't that nuts though?

• 1:02:48Speaker 02

  It's crazy.

• 1:02:48Speaker 01

  A packet of candy and sweets is bought every 12 seconds.

• 1:02:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, maybe.

• 1:02:54Speaker 01

  Is that wrong? Have I just lied?

• 1:02:56Speaker 02

  That sounds interesting.

• 1:02:59Speaker 01

  Have I just totally lied about that?

• 1:03:00Speaker 02

  I saw this kind of stats in the office the other day and we're selling more, we were selling more things than like major brands like Skittles. We're growing quicker than Skittles. We're growing quicker than a whole heap of brands. And these are, and these are kind of like household names that we grew up with, that we're then going toe to toe with and challenging, which is fun. So that I think is, is great, but we want to do that properly on a, on a kind of global stage.

• 1:03:24Speaker 02

  Personally, I think it's about that kind of sense of achievement in, inside yourself to say, yeah, okay, I'm really proud of that. Really, really happy with what we've done. Nothing makes me more happy than building the team. And I think seeing the team grow and go on to do amazing things. We've, we employ some, some great people, some really talented people, people that have come through our internship program and end up being then kind of senior managers in the team is really fun.

• 1:03:48Steven Bartlett?

  How does it feel like when they quit?

• 1:03:53Speaker 02

  I've probably only had, we've probably only had one person quit that I was, that I was upset about.

• 1:03:58Steven Bartlett?

  And how, talk me through that feeling. You find out, you get that email or whatever, you get the, you have a chat and they say, I'm going elsewhere. How does that feel?

• 1:04:04Speaker 02

  I think it's, it's quite upsetting, but actually in this case, she left to go and start her own business and do something else. And I think that was, that was kind of cool as well because you think, okay, well, she's kind of been a part of what we're doing. In some way, perhaps has learned from us and been inspired by what, what's happening within these walls. So actually that's kind of cool. She can go and do her own thing. She leaves to go to a competitor or leaves to go somewhere else. And I don't really get upset about it. I say, okay, cool. Go and do whatever you do, your thing.

• 1:04:30Steven Bartlett?

  Interesting question, and I'm going to ask you both in isolation. So you have to answer separately. Jamie, how would you feel if Ed turned around tomorrow and said, I'm quitting? And said, like, I don't want to do this anymore. I'm going to, I'm going to sell my stake, whatever to this guy. And I'm, I'm going to leave and I'm going somewhere else.

• 1:04:47Speaker 01

  Um, I would, in all honesty, I'd probably feel quite let down. Um, I would, because I think that, I think there's a, I think persistency is a really big thing and you kind of, if you go into something, you've kind of got to stick at it and go for it. So, yeah, I would probably feel, um, I'd probably feel let down because, uh, you know, I, for Ed, I have not been an easy journey for him. You know, I'd, I'd started a TV show. I was doing lots of different things and he had to build, run the business while I was, ah, and, and I'm like that on bad days. Um, so, I, but I think at the same time, when you go into something together, you kind of have to stick at it and you kind of got to do it together

• 1:05:31Speaker 01

  and you go on this journey together. Um, and I get that people change their opinions and change their minds and different things, but you kind of want to stick things out.

• 1:05:37Steven Bartlett?

  And how would work feel the next day? So Ed's gone, you get into the office.

• 1:05:41Speaker 01

  It would like be going into a cockpit and, a cockpit and trying to land a plane. I'd have no fricking clue what is going on. Um, so it'd be pretty damn scary for me. You know, Ed and I, as Ed said at the beginning, we are two very different people, um, but we're similar in lots of different ways and we have the same aim and we complement each other in loads of different ways.

• 1:05:59Steven Bartlett?

  Would you feel like a bit, a bit of your sense of purpose as to why you were doing this was, was gone?

• 1:06:05Speaker 01

  I would, I would probably, I, I would, I would feel inadequate to do it. I don't think, I would not be the right person to, to run it. It's, it's, you know, when you're building a business, it's very important to hire people who are better than you in so many different ways. And it's very important to hire people who do the job better than you. Um, and Ed does the job far better than me than every single way. So it would be a tricky scenario because I don't know how to find another Ed and that would be a very hard task to do. So I would probably, um, is he about to tell me? Is that the whole point of this?

• 1:06:38Steven Bartlett?

  This was like a thirty, thirty second date.

• 1:06:41Speaker 01

  I would feel, I would feel scared. I would feel worried, but I would, with everything, you've just got to push on and you've got to achieve what you've got to achieve and you've just got to go through it, you know, and that's what I think. What about you, Ed?

• 1:06:55Steven Bartlett?

  Tell him.

• 1:06:57Speaker 01

  Tell me the truth.

• 1:06:57Speaker 02

  So we set this up today.

• 1:07:01Speaker 02

  No, so I think, yeah, I think it's tough. I think that there's this kind of old adage that everybody in a business is replaceable. But I think actually, in our case, the relationship that Jamie has to the business and the relationship that Jamie and I have, Jamie has made himself very, very difficult to replace. It's so synonymous with the brand and kind of such a sort of bedrock to what we're about.

• 1:07:31Speaker 02

  I think it's probably safe to say that Candy Kittens wouldn't be Candy Kittens without Jamie's energy and personality and everything that he gives to it. So, so yeah, it would be very tough. I think that we would have to seriously consider kind of how the business would move forward from that point.

• 1:07:49Speaker 02

  We've got to an amazing stage. Putting that to one side, we've got to an amazing stage. And from day one, we were kind of keen to make sure that Candy Kittens stood on its own two feet as a brand. And there's lots of places now, you know, we sell in the States where people don't know who Jamie is and we've got, we're building the brand there based on the fact that it's a really good product.

• 1:08:08Speaker 02

  But it would be tough. And I think that as Jamie says, it would be that kind of sense of being let down and thinking, shit, okay, if he quits, then, then what am I still doing here? What, why, why is, what is he seeing that I can't see? Or what am I, do I, am I looking at a goal and the potential that just isn't there anymore? So yeah, I would, I would feel a little bit disappointed, I think.

• 1:08:31Steven Bartlett?

  Let's go back to that question about the future then. So the, the future of Candy Kittens and where you want to go with this and where you're.

• 1:08:38Speaker 01

  I think probably for, for, for both of us, I think that, you know, at the beginning, we want to establish ourselves as the leading factory brand in the UK. That's what we want to do. And we still have that aim. We're a British brand. We want to continue to do that. But I think that you kind of, in terms of the future, you don't really want to give yourself boundaries. You kind of want to just go, you want to aim for the stars and.

• 1:08:58Steven Bartlett?

  It's the answer you don't know.

• 1:09:00Speaker 01

  I think, I think for us, we just, I think, you know, Ed and I, if we are totally honest with ourselves. Will we be selling sweets for the rest of our lives? Who knows? And we always say the same thing, you know, if we had gone and sold socks, we would probably be doing the same thing. You know, we, we actually don't make the sweets. A different, a, a German company catches making sweets for us. But what we, what Ed is and the team is and I am, we're good at is we're good at building brands. And I think for us, we will constantly, whether it's candy kittens or something else, we'll constantly build brands. And we'll constantly start things and build things and create things. I think creativity is the most important thing in life. And I think that's what we will constantly be doing, whether that's candy kittens or something else.

• 1:09:45Steven Bartlett?

  And you don't know how long that, you know, that could be three years, five years, 10 years, it could be, you know, just depends.

• 1:09:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I think the goalposts keep moving further away for us.

• 1:09:52Steven Bartlett?

  Sure.

• 1:09:52Speaker 02

  We thought, okay, when we get our first supermarket, we will have smashed it. And then you get that one and you want the next five supermarkets. And then you get those and then you want the supermarkets in different country. And then you, and you keep going and it just, those goalposts keep moving further and further away. But I think I'm, I'm okay with that. As long as I keep enjoying it, as long as we keep having fun. And we feel that sense of achievement and pride, then, then we'll still be, still be chipping away.

• 1:10:15Steven Bartlett?

  And this is my last question before the last one. Money, you, you talked about catches coming in and buying some of your company out. I'm guessing that was they bought your equity.

• 1:10:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, we're rich, we're really rich now.

• 1:10:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, see you later.

• 1:10:28Steven Bartlett?

  This was in fact, this podcast was to announce to your employees.

• 1:10:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're billionaires. We're really excited about it. No, catchers came in, they bought, they bought out, I can say this kind of, yeah. Yeah, they, they bought out the minority shareholders.

• 1:10:41Steven Bartlett?

  Okay.

• 1:10:42Speaker 01

  So Ed and I are still in very much, we're still there. We just wanted to team up with someone that, again, we've built the business a very long way. But I think we, we know exactly what we want to do and we'll continue doing what we want to do. But to have someone on board who are a manufacturer is really important. And that's what the German company catchers do for us. They make amazing sweets.

• 1:11:03Steven Bartlett?

  But you haven't got a payout per se yourselves yet because they brought out the minority, same in my company, they brought out the minority shareholders.

• 1:11:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:09Speaker 02

  So we're still, we're still kind of working away. And I think that what's amazing for us is that we've suddenly got this. Startup world that we're in and we're we've got a young team, lots of naivety, energy, creativity and everything that comes with it. And then on the other side of the coin is this huge German company that's over a hundred years old and they're generating hundreds of millions in revenue, owning companies across the globe, real kind of corporate mentality. And those two worlds kind of collide in a really nice way for us. So we're able to work with them, learn everything that they have to offer. And ultimately, the reason we kind of went and made the partnership happen was because we really believed in

• 1:11:54Speaker 02

  them and they were just a great bunch of people, still family owned organisation. And although it's this huge, huge thing, they share a lot of our kind of mentality and ethos. So yeah, really nice.

• 1:12:05Speaker 01

  You know, fifty three percent of German businesses are still family run.

• 1:12:08Speaker 02

  Really?

• 1:12:09Speaker 01

  It's amazing. And in the UK, what we do is we think, okay, we'll build this, I'll sell it, build it and I'll sell it. And actually, it's a really, the Germans are amazing because it's not about being cash rich. What it's about is having generational wealth in terms of building for your family and for your family's family and for your family. And it's about building family.

• 1:12:27Speaker 02

  Passing it on.

• 1:12:28Speaker 01

  Passing it on.

• 1:12:29Speaker 02

  They never sell.

• 1:12:30Speaker 01

  They never sell. And in the UK, we think we are incredibly selfish and we go, okay, we're going to make the money. And that's why we have something called the third generation curse, which is grandfather makes it, father sustains it and then son loses it because they don't do anything. And it happens over and over again. And in Germany, it doesn't happen because it's all about keeping it within the family. Very mafia of them. But it's a good way to be and it's an important way to be.

• 1:12:54Speaker 02

  As founders that are yet to take cash off the table, what do you, does that, does that play on your mind as you're getting older, you're starting families and those kinds of things? And do you think I would like to take some cash off the table at some point?

• 1:13:09Speaker 01

  Well, I think, I think, listen, there's, there was an interesting statistic came out the other day, the happiest people earn seventy two thousand euros a year. Those are the, this peak of happiness because anything, anything that you earn less, you want more and anything after that actually just is more problematic. You don't really have to earn that much money in order to be super happy. What, what, what cash brings you is a bigger house and a faster car and nicer holidays. Pretty much, that's what it brings you.

• 1:13:35Speaker 02

  It's interesting because the, we're actually talking about this with the, with the German guys and they were explaining that if you, every increment you get a salary increase up until about, say fifty, sixty thousand, there's a level, call it fifty thousand.

• 1:13:50Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:13:51Speaker 02

  Every time you get a salary increase, it has a real benefit to your life. So you can suddenly rent a nicer flat, you can do this, you can do this. And then when you get to like fifty thousand pounds, say, there's nothing that you can do differently to the guy earning a million pounds a year. Because, okay, and he gave an example, this is the owner of the business in Germany, said, okay, well, I'm going on holiday this year to Cuba with my family. Okay, cool, I'm gonna fly probably first class and I'm gonna do some nice things when we're there in a nicer hotel, but you could still go to holiday, you could go on holiday in Cuba, you just get a different plane to me and maybe stay there. But the, the core experience is still the same.

• 1:14:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:25Speaker 02

  You can still live in London, you can still do this, you can do, so the, what you do with your life is the same. So there's a, a massive void, as Jamie's then saying, the more money you earn, more money, more problems, you get to a point where actually that doesn't benefit you. So I don't know, for us, I think we want to get to a point where life is sustainable. And I think as an entrepreneur, if you are not able to kind of do the things you want to do in terms of having a family or I got married last year, these kind of things, you, you're then sacrificing a little bit, maybe too much, it's gonna make your business really difficult to run. So that's, if that's causing you financial stress and anxiety and, and trouble outside of your day to day life, then you're gonna probably be a, a worse person in the business.

• 1:15:05Speaker 01

  And you can see the value you've created.

• 1:15:06Speaker 02

  There needs to be a balance and, and we were taught from the very early stage of Candy Kittens. Pay ourselves a reasonable salary. I remember going into a meeting and kind of putting out on the table with our board of directors, kind of what we thought we wanted to earn and being quite punchy and saying, okay, well, we want to earn that. And it was like, it was silly. It was like 18 grand a year. Because we thought, okay, well, we can, that's enough to pay our wage, I'll pay our bills and we can survive on that and it'll make the business work. And they were like, no, no, you guys need to pay yourself a proper salary because otherwise

• 1:15:40Steven Bartlett?

  You'll be resentful.

• 1:15:40Speaker 02

  You're gonna be resentful and you're not gonna be working properly and you're gonna be scraping around for cash. So, so yeah, there's a balance, but I don't feel desperate to take cash off the table. I think there's a lot we still want to do and we're in it for the long run.

• 1:15:52Steven Bartlett?

  My last question then, you mentioned marriage. I always, I'm always intrigued by the impact that the entrepreneurial pursuit has on romantic relationships for entrepreneurs. And I know you're, you're in a relationship, Jamie, you're married now. What impact has being an entrepreneur, running a business and being obsessed with your own, with, with candy kittens had on your relationships?

• 1:16:16Speaker 02

  I think actually probably in the early days of our, my relationship with Charlotte, it was probably the, the thing that drew us closer together. Because it gave me an escape, gave me something else to think about.

• 1:16:30Steven Bartlett?

  She did.

• 1:16:30Speaker 02

  She gave me something else to think about and focus on. So.

• 1:16:34Steven Bartlett?

  I thought you meant candy kittens gave me an escape from Charlotte. You're in trouble.

• 1:16:37Speaker 02

  Totally different.

• 1:16:40Speaker 02

  No, but actually, you know, leaving, not sitting in the office till 11 o'clock at night and just getting a takeaway. I actually had somebody to go and see or go and go out for dinner with or whatever. So that was, that was quite a positive thing.

• 1:16:54Speaker 02

  She also runs her own business. So in my case, I'm very lucky. We, we spend a lot of time talking about each other's work. So that kind of works well. I think it's, I think it's finding the balance though and also knowing when to switch off. And we've sort of seemed so far to be able to do that.

• 1:17:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I think, I think sort of the same. I think it's about, I think it's really healthy and a good appetite to have is when you lead two different lives and you, you lead different lives and you kind of come together as one. I think for, I've had a sort of checkered past in terms of relationships and that's for lots of different reasons, but I think now I'm in a relationship where we kind of value each other immensely and understand and appreciate each other. And I think it's just about balance. I think balance in life is really important.

• 1:17:39Steven Bartlett?

  Are you easy to date?

• 1:17:42Speaker 01

  God, I was thinking about this the other day. I think, I think I'm, I don't know. I think I, I am and I'm not.

• 1:17:51Steven Bartlett?

  Why aren't you?

• 1:17:53Speaker 01

  Because I'm hectic. I'm, I think I'm hectic. I'm a really, I'm a really good in relationships, so I'm, I would consider myself fun and, and loving and all those different things. But I, I've had to learn to not be so selfish. And actually, there are other people who you, you need to appreciate and love and different things. I think.

• 1:18:13Steven Bartlett?

  Compromise.

• 1:18:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, compromise. I think for a lot of my twenties, most of my twenties, it was all about what pleased me. And then you realise actually, it's not about what pleases you, it's what, how about pleasing others. And I think that's what I probably had to learn a lot. But I think it's, it's about having a healthy balance between work, life and relationship life. Because at the end of the day, if you, if you don't have family and love, I said this before, the meaning of life is really to love, I think. And it sounds super cheesy, but I think it is. And, you know, when you're, you know, when you're older, you're just gonna want your homie next to you and that's pretty much it. You don't really care about anything else.

• 1:18:47Steven Bartlett?

  The last, the last point I always say on this podcast is just about my, my little dinner party song and dance. I don't know if you've had this before, but I, I tell the guests that they can pick, if they were to have a dinner party today at this very table, and you could invite four guests, dead or alive, who would you invite? So I'm gonna let you invite two guests each and just explain why you'd invite those two people. Dead or alive, anybody you want.

• 1:19:06Speaker 01

  Oh, God.

• 1:19:07Steven Bartlett?

  And also what we're gonna eat.

• 1:19:09Speaker 01

  Okay, I would probably go for, I'd have to go for an adventurer, so I'd probably go for Shackleton.

• 1:19:15Steven Bartlett?

  Wow.

• 1:19:15Speaker 01

  Shackleton would be great, just because he's a leader. Oh my, what a leader and the things he did and the things he saw. So I'd go for someone like him in terms of a leader. Um, and in terms of someone entertaining, I would probably go for someone like, um, I think Elvis.

• 1:19:33Steven Bartlett?

  Wow.

• 1:19:33Speaker 01

  Would be quite cool, just because of what he stood for, what he did, but also why, why it tumbled so badly towards the end when you have that much success and that much fame and all these different things and everyone, what they want to achieve and why they want to achieve it. Why does it go wrong? What happened? Was it unfulfilling? And I'd want to find out, quite depressing, but I'd want to find out. And we would have a starter, we'd have a barata, delightful.

• 1:19:57Steven Bartlett?

  You can pick the main then, Ed.

• 1:19:58Speaker 02

  Okay, cool. I'm gonna stick Italian theme as well, actually. It's already sort of in my mind. So, um, I would go for Muhammad Ali.

• 1:20:05Steven Bartlett?

  Nice.

• 1:20:06Speaker 02

  Cause I just think he's super cool. I watched the Will Smith, Arnie film the other day, again, um, one of my favorites. I just think that.

• 1:20:13Speaker 01

  Never seen it.

• 1:20:14Steven Bartlett?

  It's so cool.

• 1:20:15Speaker 01

  Is it great?

• 1:20:16Speaker 02

  Just insane. Uh, you need to do that. Homework for you, Jamie.

• 1:20:19Speaker 01

  I was watching Bruno last night, isn't that?

• 1:20:23Speaker 02

  Bit more highbrow.

• 1:20:26Speaker 02

  So yeah, we, uh, I think he just, the experiences he's gone through and the, the challenges he faced, but also super entertaining and, and fun, I'd imagine.

• 1:20:34Steven Bartlett?

  And just the guts to say, do you know what? I'm gonna give up my whole career because I don't want to go to war.

• 1:20:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:20:40Steven Bartlett?

  And, you know, willing to go to jail and all those things.

• 1:20:42Speaker 02

  Crazy, crazy, but just so quick witted and.

• 1:20:45Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:46Speaker 02

  Away with words and be a real kind of capture the whole nation.

• 1:20:49Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:50Speaker 02

  Amazing. Um, and similar sort of vein, actually, Obama, I think would be pretty cool. I mean, you look at this kind of state of politics, kind of globally at the moment, and, um, somebody like Trump in power, I just think that's, it's just, you can't get your head around how they've gone from like one of the greatest spokesmen, spokespeople of all time.

• 1:21:16Steven Bartlett?

  Character.

• 1:21:17Speaker 02

  To then go to, and, and. You know, whether or not you agree with like the the details of Obama's policies and politics, but actually just to be that great spokesman and such a great ambassador for a country. And then you just go to Donald Trump.

• 1:21:30Speaker 01

  It's crazy.

• 1:21:32Speaker 02

  But those two, I think, would be pretty cool. And we're gonna eat gnocchi, which I just love. So simple.

• 1:21:40Speaker 01

  What? That heavy, heavy, heavy pasta?

• 1:21:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, you sound like my wife now.

• 1:21:45Speaker 01

  What?

• 1:21:46Speaker 02

  Because I'm never allowed it at home, so that's why.

• 1:21:48Speaker 01

  Gnocchi?

• 1:21:49Speaker 02

  I'm never allowed.

• 1:21:49Speaker 01

  Out of everything we could have had, we're having burrata the gnocchi.

• 1:21:54Steven Bartlett?

  I'll let you guys settle on that later. Thank you so much for giving me your time today. It's been an absolute pleasure.

• 1:21:58Speaker 01

  Cheers, mate.

• 1:21:59Steven Bartlett?

  And I'm super excited to watch the future of Candy Kittens unfold. It's an incredible brand and yeah, every time I get on the flight, every single time I see it and I am, it's my somewhat innocent or guilty pleasure, however you want to look at it. But I want to say thank you as well because you've created something that makes my flights a lot more pleasant to New York. So thanks.

• 1:22:16Speaker 01

  Thanks, buddy. Appreciate it. Thank you so much.

• 1:22:19Steven Bartlett?

  Thank you.