E35: Julian Hearn: Huel - £45 Million In 4 Years

Julian Hearn is the founder and CMO of Huel, a nutrition company responsible for the increasingly popular, powdered meal replacement drink. Huel is basically a meal in a bottle designed for time-poor people, enabling you to get all your nutritional... 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.

• 0:08Steven Bartlett?

  Julian Hearn, the founder of Huel. Huel is a company that's very close to my heart and anybody that knows me knows how much Huel I consume. If you don't know Huel and you've been living under a rock, Huel is essentially a meal in a bottle. And because I live a sort of a very busy life, shall I say, I don't have much free time, so I don't spend a lot of time cooking, going to restaurants and things like that. So having a Huel in my bag at all times means that I can get all of my nutritional needs while still focusing and getting the most out of my day. I've been so impressed by Huel, so impressed. And so I was overwhelmed with excitement when I, when I found out that I'd be sitting down with Julian to understand the brand.

• 0:51Steven Bartlett?

  It's a great, great product, but it's also a great, great business. In fact, it's one of the UK's fastest growing business and I think this year they're on track to make about 45 million in revenue and that's in their fourth year. When I look at Huel, I see so many small touches of genius. So I've been so incredibly excited to meet the man behind the brand, to understand how many of those things were intentional or how many of those things were just luck. My suspicions would tell me it was the former. In this conversation, I'm not just interested in the business, I'm not just interested in the revenue and I'm not just interested in the product. I'm interested in the entrepreneur, his personal life, his personal struggles, his personal issues, his personal relationships.

• 1:37Steven Bartlett?

  And I think he reveals some things that even caught me by surprise and I have no doubt, no doubt that this conversation will catch you by surprise too. Without further ado, this is Steven Bartlett and this is Diary of a CEO and today I'm joined by Julian Hearn. I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself.

• 2:08Steven Bartlett?

  Julian, thank you so much for taking the time to sit down with me today. It's an absolute privilege to me because, as I've said to you, and I hope people know that this isn't bullshit, I consume a lot of your product. I think it was built perfectly for somebody like me who's time poor, wants something that tastes good and wants to also maintain their health while they're travelling and busy and thinking about a lot of other things. So I guess the first thing I have to say is thank you for creating Huel. And secondly, can you give me a little bit of a brief intro as to how Huel came about, but also you came, how you came about as the entrepreneur you are today?

• 2:43Speaker 01

  How I came about as an entrepreneur? I think it was really a need must situation that I'd been, I was 37 and working in London, three hours a commute each way, leaving the house at sort of half six in the morning, getting home at half six at night. It was a long old day and me and my wife were trying to have a baby and we'd had a few miscarriages. And so I wanted to be working from home. So A, it was not the hotbed of great places to work. So I was head of marketing for a company in London. There was no alternative and luckily I bumped into some guys doing some affiliate marketing. They were earning some mega money and working from home in their PJs. And I was thinking, hold on a minute, this seems pretty clever.

• 3:28Speaker 01

  They were like me, you know, they're normal guys. I don't think I'm particularly outstanding at anything in particular. And I just thought, wow, if they can do this, why can't I do this? So I just spent the next year practising learning in my bedroom of how to do this sort of stuff. And, and then after about a year of earning a little bit of money on the side, I thought I could do this. Said to my wife, right, give me six months, we've got enough money in the bank, I'm going to start. So started a company three months later. I was earning more money than I was as a full-time job. And then three years later, I sold that business.

• 4:01Steven Bartlett?

  And that was an affiliate marketing business?

• 4:03Speaker 01

  Correct, yeah.

• 4:04Steven Bartlett?

  Was that your first sort of foray into being an entrepreneur?

• 4:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, apart from my mum found a photo of me when I was eight selling her plants on a stall out in front of the garden. So when I was eight, I did, and then the gap was nearly 30 plus years until I did anything real. But. Yeah, I probably would still be in that corporate job if that that hadn't have happened because, you know, when you when you I was earning decent money, I suppose, as a corporate person, but I never really thought, because I didn't have any. I don't know, role models or anybody else that I knew that had run their own business and been successful. So I just, you know, went the sort of corporate route after leaving university. So I must have had a little bit of a entrepreneurial bug, but it wasn't it wasn't obvious until that point.

• 4:42Steven Bartlett?

  Were you were you studious? Were you good in school when you were younger?

• 4:45Speaker 01

  I left school at sixteen with pretty poor GCSEs, to be honest.

• 4:48Steven Bartlett?

  How poor?

• 4:49Speaker 01

  Pretty poor in the sense of I got two E's at English.

• 4:52Steven Bartlett?

  Right, okay.

• 4:53Speaker 01

  Can't spell, like I think we had a little chat earlier. I'm not very good at spelling.

• 4:56Steven Bartlett?

  Same.

• 4:57Speaker 01

  Uh, I think I got a couple of Cs and maybe one B, something like that, pretty, pretty poor GCSEs. And so I left school at sixteen. So, no, at the school I went to, there was, I don't think the teachers wanted to be there and the kids certainly didn't want to be there. So there was not a lot of ambition. I didn't know anybody who went to university, didn't know anybody who did A levels. So I just left and got a job like everybody else. And it was only three years later, one of my girlfriends said, what are you doing? I was digging holes in the road for two years. That's what I was doing, working, digging holes. And she said, what are you doing? You're too bright to do this. So at that point, that's when I went back to college.

• 5:32Steven Bartlett?

  And then, so you start this affiliate marketing business, you sell it.

• 5:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:35Steven Bartlett?

  How old are you when you sold it?

• 5:36Speaker 01

  Uh, forty years old.

• 5:37Steven Bartlett?

  Forty. And so how quickly after selling that business did Huel begin?

• 5:42Speaker 01

  Uh, probably nearly two years later.

• 5:46Steven Bartlett?

  Two years later. And tell me about how that came about.

• 5:48Speaker 01

  So I took a bit of time off. Luckily, we did have a child and, you know, so I I had no reason to work. I had enough money to survive on and to live on, so I had no reason to work. So I took a good year out, if not longer. But then you get itchy feet. You can't like sit at home. I think you've got to have a work-life balance. Works both ways. Like people usually work too much, they need to have more free time. When you've got a hundred percent free time, you need a little bit of work in there. So I wanted to find something that I was going to be passionate about, I was going to be proud of, something that kept me busy three days a week. Because the first company I I I built and sold, I wasn't really proud of it. You know, you wouldn't want to go down a pub and talk about it with your mates. It was something that generated cash, but it wasn't something you would be proud of to wear a T-shirt sort of thing.

• 6:30Steven Bartlett?

  True.

• 6:31Speaker 01

  So I wanted something I was going to be into, proud of, something that was going to be beneficial to the world. So I I started another company called Body Hack and Huel spanned out of that.

• 6:42Steven Bartlett?

  And so why, why did Julian make Huel? Why, why, you know, why Huel? You could have made any business, you could have done marketing, you could have done anything. Why Huel?

• 6:52Speaker 01

  Because the, the thing that interested me, I sort of sat down, I thought, what am I actually interested? I was always interested in sort of health and fitness stuff, sort of wellbeing. And so the Body Hack Company was a, I was trying to get rid of all the sort of dubious websites out there that give them fake information. What I was going to try and do is run every single, you know, all different meal plans, all different exercise programs to see which ones work. Take photographs every week. After three months, you would see which ones actually generated a result. And so I did that for three months and I was, went down from 21% body fat down to 11% body fat. I was 40, 41 years old. So it was the leanest I'd ever been. And that was because I was weighing all of my food from scratch. So it was crystal clear that what you eat is super important, is more important than going to the gym, really.

• 7:35Speaker 01

  So I was doing three hours of exercise, but it was the, I'd done that for 10 years previous and I hadn't got the same results. So it's the food you eat is super important. And so my friend said, how did you do that? And I told them and they said, how the fuck am I going to eat an egg at 11 o'clock with broccoli and, and, you know, cook an egg? And then at 12 o'clock, one o'clock, going to cook 200 grams of turkey and quinoa and baby spinach. And they said, it's not practical, you know, you're living in cloud cuckoo land. So it made me think, right, so people want to eat healthy food, but they need it convenient. And typically it doesn't work that way. Usually healthy food is time consuming to prep. And, and then convenience food is just junk food, is not good for you. So where's the healthy convenience food out there?

• 8:17Speaker 01

  So I was using protein shakes, protein shakes super convenient, but you can't lift off protein alone. So they're no good either. So it made me think, right, why don't we could put all the stuff into one single product? So I found James Collier, who's our co-founder, James Collier put a formula together, which is pretty much what it is today. And then made, made us think, well, there's all the other benefits of it. Because when it's powder, it's got a 12 month shelf life. So it's better for the world in the sense of, there's no food waste. 30% of food is all thrown away because it gets bruised or its shelf life expires. Well, you can't bruise powder. So that's really good. You can put all the Meals into a single bag, so it's super convenient. It's got all the nutrients in a single product. And then we can make it vegan as well, because if you can't see it, it doesn't really matter whether it's a meat product or whether it's a vegetable product.

• 9:02Speaker 01

  You know, you've just, you know, blended all these, these products down. So it just ticked so many boxes. It's time you think, shit, this is like better for the world. It's better for the person using it. It's more cost effective than most foods that people consuming today. It's more convenient. Uh, win, win, win, win, win. So it made us think, right, that, that's got some legs to it. And then the next job was to come up with a brand, come up with a name, get the product made, get it to market.

• 9:25Steven Bartlett?

  All, all of that process you've just described, what part of it were you uniquely good at? And I can ask this question in another way. When I meet entrepreneurs, I always think, um, there's like one defining thing that made them succeed. Versus probably everybody else who would have had that same thought and would have even maybe had the same idea. But within the execution, there's something within the founder or a CEO, whether it's, you know, Burnett, Jim Shark or other CEOs that I've spoken to. That is kind of unique to them and their experience and, and often unique to how they see the world.

• 9:59Speaker 01

  Um, possibly, I'm not sure exactly whether it's one particular thing. I think I've got a good design aesthetic. I think I sort of, I'm not a great designer. I can't design, but I think I know something looks good or doesn't look good. So I think that has been beneficial. I think the fact that I'd already made my money meant that I could make something that. Uh, in lots of cases, we overspect it, you know, we spent more time or spent more effort or money on something. Whereas I could have done a lot cheaper version. I think sometimes that's the problem. These types of products in the past, people have cut corners in a bad way. They've not used the best ingredients. They've not packaged it in the best way. They've not cared as much as what I did. Because I only did that. I didn't do it to make money because I already made my money. So I didn't need that. I did something that I genuinely wanted.

• 10:43Speaker 01

  And the objective was to do something I was proud of. And the, the size of the business was irrelevant. Sometimes by chasing after numbers, I think that is the, that means you never get the numbers.

• 10:53Steven Bartlett?

  Sure.

• 10:53Speaker 01

  But by not trying. You get there, it's a little bit trying, trying to get up maybe.

• 10:57Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 10:58Speaker 01

  So, you know, if you try too hard, it's it feels, yeah, you don't get the results. I think it's it's the fact that we didn't try too hard. We just, I. My original objective was three days a week work and to have a thousand people buying it a month. So it's gonna be a lifestyle business. That was, that's what the objective was. And something that I would, I would use personally and something that I would be proud of wearing a T-shirt down, down the pub with my friends. And they may do it. And I was talking to seven days, I went down the pub the other day and they were all four of us that we went down the pub was all wearing one part of your clothing. Cause they're sort of proud to be associated with a brand as well. So that, I think that aspect of already have made the money meant that this time I could do it in a different way.

• 11:39Speaker 01

  And I wasn't always thinking about cutting corners or saving money. It's all about how do I um make something that is good, you know, a quality product.

• 11:47Steven Bartlett?

  You did it for the right reasons.

• 11:49Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 11:49Steven Bartlett?

  There's something about that I've noticed about entrepreneurs where, where they are willing to do something, even if it's unpaid for the next five years because it's coming from a genuine place. And those are the entrepreneurs, same with uh with with Bennett Jimshaw, now that I've mentioned him, that over time, especially in the macro, with a macro perspective, seem to create things that people love, but also they're able to weather the storms that come along with the way. Because most people would quit upon getting the first piece of bad news or hitting the first wall, but that passion and that desire to do it for the right reasons, I think it keeps them going. And on that, I guess to that point, jumping ahead a little bit, I think generally there's a perception that entrepreneurship is easy.

• 12:30Steven Bartlett?

  And so, and someone might listen to, you know, that story, they might see the timeline that you've achieved your success on and what you've created there and think, oh, I could do that as well. It's very, very easy. And I think we as entrepreneurs have a responsibility to give them the full picture.

• 12:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:43Steven Bartlett?

  And because there's not, not a lot of places, certainly not Instagram, where they're getting the full picture. So. Can you talk to me about some of the sacrifices and some of the hardships that went into creating this that people wouldn't know?

• 12:55Speaker 01

  Okay, so sacrifices, I didn't, I didn't pay myself for three years, you mentioned that. So I just thought, what's the point of paying myself, it's just gonna come out of the company pocket. I think, you know, probably the first eighteen months, I was totally immersed in the company, obsessed, didn't do anything else really. You know, I did go out, but you know, the hours you put in are ridiculous. So every, it was seven days a week for probably the first eighteen months. Not full blast, but I would say that what was happening was I'd do a four days work, come home, have some dinner. And then go back on the computer, I used to do all the Facebook answers, used to do some of the customer service. But I would do something like every evening and weekends for, yeah, probably a good eighteen months.

• 13:40Speaker 01

  And didn't pay myself at the same time, probably made myself ill as well. You know, like you just, you sometimes burn the candle at both ends a little bit too much and you just try and get through these times. Me and my wife split up, so, and that partly was down to that.

• 14:01Speaker 01

  So, yeah, it's not as easy as you think. But at the same time, I think sometimes people think it's too hard and don't start, and I just think you should, I think people should have a go at it. I don't think that I'm wildly different from the next, you know, the next person. And so I think that a lot of people think it's too hard and they shouldn't do it, and I think some people should have a crack at it earlier than what they do. Looking back, I do think that I waited too long, I was thirty, thirty seven, thirty six, thirty seven when I first started.

• 14:30Speaker 01

  And you're, you know, I don't know when you started, you're super young, right? So you've done it, so you didn't, you know, you said earlier about, I don't know, about your education, but you didn't come from money. You didn't come from a super high level of education, same as me, and we've both managed to make things successful. So it's just grit and determination.

• 14:49Steven Bartlett?

  The cost you spoke about there, though, you know, I've experienced that myself, you know, I try, I really never had a girlfriend. I tried for a year and that went to shit. Because again, you know, irrespective of how many hours I spend in the office, I spend all of my time in my head. If you know what I mean, thinking, thinking about things and that can, I think, make people that try and be in a relationship with me feel very lonely, even if they're sat next to me.

• 15:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:16Steven Bartlett?

  And I've never been particularly good at compromise. I've been very, very selfish over the years. And so when what you speak about there with your, with your partner, with your ex-wife.

• 15:23Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 15:24Steven Bartlett?

  Is that something that, what advice would you give to eighteen year old Steve, who's, who's someone like you that's thinking of starting their business about the impacts that it can have on romantic relationships?

• 15:39Speaker 01

  Um, I think that there's probably nowhere around it that if, if you've got it in you that you want to do something, then sometimes things do have to change. And if you, if you deny yourself starting something or doing something because you really want to, then it still might have that knock on effect anyway, because you won't be happy with yourself, I don't think. If you're driven in a certain way, you just can't help it, I don't think. So the good news is, is that it doesn't last forever. So while you're in an obsessed stage getting something going, because it has to, you know, it's a flywheel, it's a snowball, it has to get going, that eventually, so I'm back down to say maybe four days a week now, and I'm able to do sort of podcasts, rather than normally this would have been,

• 16:22Speaker 01

  no, I can't do this, I've got, I've got work to do. Whereas I can, I can now do these, these, these extra things that are still useful for the business. But at the time, you know, you're, it's, it's a life or death in the early days of a business, you know, if you, if something's not done today, the business could fail tomorrow. So in the early days, you do have to commit, you do have to say, suck it up and go, it could be, could be eighteen months, it could be two years, it could be three years. But there has to be a time in your life when I think you just grit your teeth, get it done, and then you can look back.

• 16:49Steven Bartlett?

  And how do you, how do you know? Because there'll be a lot of people that will start businesses and they'll get two years in and nothing's working.

• 16:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:55Steven Bartlett?

  And, you know, they've sacrificed their relationships, their, their, they've sacrificed their time, they probably have made themselves ill to some extent.

• 17:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:04Steven Bartlett?

  How do you know when to? To quit, to throw in the towel or to carry on going? I guess this is a tough question.

• 17:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, I don't think there's any right answer, but I've, I've had three main businesses. And those three, two of them went almost straight away. As soon as we launched, it was, there was instant results. The other one, it was, it was, it was lukewarm. And I think that might be the signal that if you're, say, two years in and it's still lukewarm, that ain't gonna, ever gonna come good, I don't think. Obviously, there are exceptions to that, where people have chugged along very slowly for a number of years and suddenly it's exploded. I think, I think there's so many opportunities now. There's so many different ways to get the ball rolling. You should be able to get a minimal viable product out the door pretty quick. And then you should see, if there's no demand, you shouldn't have to chase the demand. I mean, in the early days,

• 17:53Speaker 01

  we couldn't keep up with the demand, you know, it struggled to keep up. And I think my first business, it just took off straight away. Like I said, within three months, I was earning more money than my objective was. So both of those took off within the first few months, you knew pretty quick. You know, there was a long run up to get sometimes to launch stage. But I think if you can think of ways you can try and get some early adoption, then that should give you enough feedback or nice, enough inspiration to keep going. But if that is hard graft, you're not, people are not that interested, maybe it's not the right idea, it's not, not the right thing.

• 18:23Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm. So going back to the question I asked a second ago as well, um, what's, in the last couple of years, is, is there a particular day or moment that you would consider to be your hardest?

• 18:33Speaker 01

  Um, there's probably a couple. Uh, I think every day, every day's pretty hard, right? I, uh, don't get me wrong, like every day there's problems. We just been talking about some problems in the building today. So every day can be pretty hard. Uh, there are some real, um, crunch ones. So, you know, even pre-launch, we had a product, we had a company that strung us along for a number of months, that had promised to make the product and strung us along, strung us along. Or when I say us, it's basically me. And then let me down. And that was, that was probably a year in pre-launch, you know, that took me a year to get to that stage. So at that point, I, I. I sort of said I'm done.

• 19:08Steven Bartlett?

  Um.

• 19:08Speaker 01

  Um. But the following day got out of bed and went, why, why should I give up just because of that one person let me down? There must be other people out there that can do it. So just why not just keep going? So that's, that was one. And then another one was just sometimes you get a lot of criticism on um social media, which I'm sure you're probably aware of. And it's stupidly unjustified. Yeah, because get to you. And you just think, why are you even, you know, like, we're, we're uh an ethical company. We're trying our best to do the right thing. So when people criticize you, when you think there's all these other dodgy companies out there doing bad stuff, why are you picking on us? You know, why are you having to go ask? And that can be, that can be soul destroying.

• 19:42Steven Bartlett?

  How do you, how have you, have you learnt how to deal with that?

• 19:45Speaker 01

  Ignore it. I think uh in the early days, I used to really go backwards and forwards with people trying to change their mind and uh.

• 19:51Steven Bartlett?

  Never works.

• 19:52Speaker 01

  I read somewhere, I have done it a couple of times. I have, I have managed to persuade a few. But I did read somewhere, they said like, give your answer back to somebody and that's it, that's it, no more. You just give one answer back. So you give your side of the story. They come with your criticism. You, you tell your side back. And uh one thing quite often I, I use to, to kill critics too much is, is uh, there's a quote from Ratatouille, believe it or not, the Anton Egon quote. If you cut that and paste that uh and send that back to somebody, which basically said, you know, critics are worthless. They add nothing to the society. That's basically what the quote says. They, I, I don't think anybody's ever come back after that and, and actually come back and uh had an answer coming back. I'll send you the quote and you can use it.

• 20:31Steven Bartlett?

  I've, I've, I um, I'm the same, obviously. I think, I think all business owners are the same. If you really care about your business and you, you know that the things being said about your business and your life's work are fundamentally incorrect. Not even, you know, someone else's opinion, fundamentally, that didn't happen or that doesn't happen. It can be one of the most triggering things, even for me today.

• 20:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:52Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, it really winds up, can ruin your day.

• 20:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:54Steven Bartlett?

  Right? Um. Especially if then a bunch of other people jump on and believe that fundamentally incorrect thing. And then it becomes part of your brand.

• 21:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:02Steven Bartlett?

  I've, I've struggled with that over the years um with, with social media. And I've just, I've arrived at the, the decision that I will, I will in some cases re- reply empathetically. Um. But if I, if I don't feel like I can reply empathetically, I won't reply at all.

• 21:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that's the best approach.

• 21:17Steven Bartlett?

  So uh, yeah. Can you tell me something that you've, you've learnt from building Huel and being an entrepreneur that you think most aspiring entrepreneurs have absolutely no idea about?

• 21:31Steven Bartlett?

  Or that is not told.

• 21:34Speaker 01

  I mean, there's so much basic stuff behind the scenes, like coming up with a brand, coming up with an idea. You know, you read so much advice on how to do those types of things, how to do performance marketing. So much advice on that, but there's the the the basic stuff behind the scene, just doing purchase orders, just doing the real simple stuff, how to find an office, how to um recruit staff, all the real basic stuff. You don't really hear about because it's not the sexy side of it. And I think those sorts of things, you just, I mean, you have to make it up as you go. Um, but I think that was one thing that was surprising to me because my first business was easy in comparison. That there was no product, there was no um uh customer service, there was no fulfillment, none of those sorts of things.

• 22:18Speaker 01

  Whereas with pure physical product, yeah, is hard, much, much, much harder than doing online stuff.

• 22:24Steven Bartlett?

  Sure.

• 22:25Speaker 01

  So my background was digital marketing and so creating the website, creating the name was all difficult, but it was much easier than actually getting a physical product. And then actually getting that product to market, then getting the fulfillment, you know, picking the cardboard boxes, learning how to tape a cardboard box up, you know, all these really sort of basic stuff that you're just not even aware of. So there's there's absolutely thousands of things like that that you usually are not aware of until you start. And there's no one to even tell you how to do it because it's not the sexy stuff. So nobody's really telling you how to do it.

• 22:54Steven Bartlett?

  One of the questions that I think is most popular when I look at my inboxes from Young Entrepreneurs is a very sort of ambiguous question, but it's just um wh- where do I start? Right? Because there's typically so many things that one could be doing.

• 23:09Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 23:10Steven Bartlett?

  That um I think entrepreneurs or aspiring entrepreneurs are sometimes forced into like, um, they almost paralyze themselves because they look at all that, you know, I've got to do this, this. So what would your advice be to to an entrepreneur that's listening that thinks I want to start a business, but I'm just overwhelmed by the amount of things that I think I need to do?

• 23:27Speaker 01

  I would, in terms of the idea, I would always try and look for something. I think Huel was a, a, a product that I wanted. It was a, an issue that I had. I wanted convenience, healthy food, right? So that's, and that's what my friends wanted. So I had the perfect audience because if you are your own customer, then you will use your own product. And if it pisses you off, then you can fix it. Whereas if you're trying to make, if I'm trying to make, I don't know, a product for uh some different type of person, I'm trying to guess all the time what they actually want. Whereas if I make it for myself and my immediate friends, then I've got the perfect feedback loop. I just keep using it every day and then that bit bugs me and I fix that. Then this bit bugs me, I'll fix that. So I think being, fixing a problem you personally got, or people very close to you have got,

• 24:10Speaker 01

  means that you will be able to get to the, the best product very, very quickly.

• 24:15Steven Bartlett?

  And obviously, you know, when, when you have the success like you've had with your, your previous business in marketing and then obviously Huel, a lot of things can change in your life personally.

• 24:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:25Steven Bartlett?

  And one of those things is obviously money.

• 24:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:26Steven Bartlett?

  Which is a, a clear upside of building a business and being successful and selling it as, as we, as we would know. What impact has money and having money had on your life, going from where you were digging, you know, holes in the road to now?

• 24:42Speaker 01

  In some ways, it sounds a bit strange, but maybe not that much. I still live on the same estate. I live in a bigger house, but it's the same estate. Uh, I still go to my same local pub with the same friends. Um, I still live in the same town. Um, I drive a nicer car.

• 24:59Steven Bartlett?

  What car?

• 25:02Speaker 01

  It's a seven series BMW, so it's a nicer car than I had before. I go on nicer holidays. Uh, when we first sold my first business, we bought a house on the coast, which was very nice, but we didn't use it enough. So we sold it and, and got a lot of money in the bank, so I can do whatever I like, whenever I like. I don't buy expensive, I've got a plastic digital watch on here. I don't really go and buy the, the crazy expensive stuff because um, you know, as long as you're financially secure, I think spending, you know, I've, basically, I suppose I've been brought up a bit tight, you know, like, uh, you know, you, you, you, you don't spend wildly. So I think in terms of, um.

• 25:40Steven Bartlett?

  About in terms of happiness and has it made you happier?

• 25:45Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, I suppose it has. You you you don't have to worry about money. You know, you. I don't spend recklessly, but I do take, you know, I take uh lads on holiday, you know, I'm going, you know, my ten of us going to um. Spain later on this year, so I'm paying for the uh hotels. I've taken people to Vegas to watch UFC fights. Um. So I try and do all around experiences rather than um buying gold watches or something like that.

• 26:12Steven Bartlett?

  Um hum.

• 26:12Speaker 01

  So those those times are really good, you know, so you remember those days. So I suppose it makes you happy because of those, but on a day to day, fundamentally day to day ba- basis. Um. If you was ten times smaller than what is today, I'd be just as happy.

• 26:27Steven Bartlett?

  Um. So a a young person that's listening to this, um. That is wondering if money, because one it's one of the lessons that I learned, I thought for some bizarre reason that money would scale my happiness to some extent. But I was content and happy at the time, but I just presumed, probably because lots of the unhappiness in my life growing up was. My mum and dad screaming at each other because they can, you know, afford things. I presumed it would scale my happiness, but um. Upon making a decent amount of money, I realised that adding more money to that would have very little effect. But what I liked, really liked about your answer is that realisation that the happiness will come from experiences with like meaningful relationships and stuff.

• 27:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, definitely.

• 27:04Steven Bartlett?

  Versus cars and watches and stuff.

• 27:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think uh you you, if it's a new experience, it's a new experience was with cars, I think, I think somebody said it quite wisely. That once you bought one, you get you get used to anything. So that's the new norm for you. So then you you have to then, where do you go then? You go to more expensive car, new more expensive car. What what do you do at some point? Yeah, never ended. So I think that by doing new novel things, like going to new places, like we went to Grand National this this year, took some lads up there. We we stayed, you know, went to nice places, you know, it was it was good. So those sorts of things, I think, are the the best thing that has come out of this. Um. You know, we gave some of our friends and family some money as well, which helped them out. Um. But I think in general, yeah, the the the gold watches are not the not the thing you are that do it for me.

• 27:50Steven Bartlett?

  Um. One of the big things in our sort of uh society at the moment is this topic of mental health.

• 27:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:55Steven Bartlett?

  And founders and entrepreneurs um go through very sort of high pressure, um. I guess, high pressure journeys in order to try and achieve this objective. Um. I've got so many questions here. How how do you protect your own mental health? And what have you learnt over the the last couple of years about keeping your sort of mental wellbeing in check?

• 28:19Speaker 01

  I think that I because of keeping my friends close, I think those are useful. I think if you I think sometimes people might drop their friends, move out, it's like we we talked about spending money on a big house. But basically, that big house has got to be out in the countryside, which basically you're removing yourself from your social circle. It seems a little bit strange in some ways that actually you become more detached. So I've deliberately not done that. That's why I still live on the same say with same friends. So I think that's that's a good thing. Don't just, you know, forget where you came from and just move on to bigger and better things. So, you know, you were talking earlier about Ash, you know, like you're still friends with this guy that you first started off with. So I think it's good to to have long term friends. I think that's a that's a fundamental.

• 29:04Speaker 01

  And I think in terms of the last few years, if you go too mad in terms of hours, it's gonna it's gonna catch up with you eventually. So you you will get yourself burned out if you're not careful. I'm a lot older than you, so I'm probably gonna get burned out easier. You could probably go harder than what I can for longer. But you do need to take into account that when you see it coming, you've got to try and take the foot off the accelerator a little bit. But, you know, ultimately, somebody asked me a question a place the other day, you know, there is no way around it. You're gonna have to put the graft in, you have to put the hours in, it's gonna have to be for a sustained period of time to make these things work. But try and keep an eye on yourself, because if you start, I don't know, I probably started going out too much.

• 29:45Speaker 01

  You know, like in the evenings, trying to make up for, because you think it's like a reward mechanism, I suppose. You think I've put all these hours in, what am I getting back out of it? I'm not just gonna sit, I'm so I probably burnt a candle at both ends, went out a bit too much. And midweek, weekends, and you just think, yeah, you could do it, you're indestructible, you keep going. But eventually it will catch up with you if you're not careful.

• 30:05Steven Bartlett?

  Did it catch up with you?

• 30:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 30:09Steven Bartlett?

  And what were the, what were the symptoms of that? I'm asking for myself here because, because do you know what? What you said there is very accurate. I at one stage thought I was indestructible. When I was like eighteen, nineteen, I thought I can just, I don't need sleep. I can just speak to a human being. I can just hammer it away. And then, you know, I'd look at other people and think like, ha, ha, ha.

• 30:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:27Steven Bartlett?

  And then people would say to me all the time, you're going to burn yourself out. And I never believed the word of it.

• 30:32Speaker 01

  I never believed it either until I started to get super tired, right? So I just thought, oh my God, you know, like there was, when I, I tell you what the, the signal was when I stopped going to work. There was a couple of times where I just, I'd get up in the morning, get on the sofa and didn't go in. And that was not me. So, yeah, and then like, uh, stopped going to the gym and stuff like that. And just like going to the gym, I used to look forward to it because it gives you a bit of a lift, a bit of a buzz. And, uh, and then I'd go to the gym and I dread going because I know I'm going to be even more tired when I come out of it. And it wouldn't do that. So I think I went and saw a doctor, doctor said, um, chronic fatigue syndrome.

• 31:10Speaker 01

  And, uh, and then the, the, obviously the problem with that is it's not clearly defined as being an actual thing. There's no clearly defined sort of, um, medication. It's basically said like, you need to change your, you know, like sleep patterns and stuff like that and sort yourself out. Take some time off. I said, I can't take too much time off of stuff to do. So it was just a case of, uh, and this was probably eighteen months, two years ago. So I think I'm sort of back to normal now, but it does take a long time. And some of those days were like, yeah, you're just, you're just fucked in terms of, you know, your ability to, to get stuff done. So luckily the team's a lot bigger now. So we've brought people in, I gave up the CEO role. And so all those things have contributed to, to, to put me back on an even keel.

• 31:54Steven Bartlett?

  Chronic fatigue syndrome.

• 31:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:56Steven Bartlett?

  What did he just, what, what did he say, the doctor say about that? Sounds like something that I, I need to do my very best to avoid.

• 32:03Speaker 01

  Yes, indeed. Uh, I think that, uh, some people, there is no, I don't think it's even a clear, I think it's one of these one really quite a woolly ones. People say it's not even a thing, but for me, it was like very clear that I was not the same as what I was previously. And, uh, So yeah, I think it probably was burning the candle at both ends. And you know, like I'd go, I'd do a day's work, go out in the evening, get up in the morning, go to the gym, do a hard session, go to work, do it again. And like, that was a bit too extreme. Because of this sort of feeling like I could do anything. And eventually that does catch up with you. But I think it's just you've just try and you, in the early days of a startup, it's a sprint for sure. You could die the following day, basically, if if the company, if you don't do certain work, the company could fail.

• 32:48Speaker 01

  So you are scared of failure in terms of this baby you've created. It's it needs nurturing, you know, you've got to try and nurture that baby as best as you can. And if you don't feed that baby that second, it could die. So you you keep you keep feeding and then eventually the the baby becomes a a toddler and it's more self sufficient. And I think that at that stage, you can take the foot of the accelerator. And that you need to try and get to that point. Um, and notice that point and then do take your foot off the accelerator, because if you try and keep going full pace, full pace, it turns from a a sprint to a marathon. So we're in that sort of marathon stage now. We sort of can see the future of being, I've got this, you know, it's not, it's not another year's time, it's number three or four years time. And if you're at full pace of number three or four, you're really going to struggle.

• 33:30Steven Bartlett?

  And it's, I guess it's about trying to make your life a little bit more balanced and sustainable, which is what I'm thinking a lot about at the moment.

• 33:36Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 33:36Steven Bartlett?

  Someone asked me the other day, they said, what's uh, what's your goal for the for the next couple of years? And I said, um, to try and achieve more balance and sustainability within my life, because I've heard from enough people like yourself who've, who are um, much more experienced than I am, that um, if I don't, then it will actually be detrimental to my business in the long term.

• 33:54Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 33:54Steven Bartlett?

  Versus me thinking that I can just sacrifice everything, you know?

• 33:58Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 33:58Steven Bartlett?

  And I've not been very good either at um, uh, maintaining personal relationships, but also romantic relationships, as I said. Um, and I I have this this inclination that I'll probably, I'll probably get old and be lonely if I don't do something about that quite quickly.

• 34:16Speaker 01

  You've got, you've got lots of time ahead of you, but I think there is a, there is a strong argument to to, you know, you've got a successful business now, it seems pretty solid to me, you know, you've got some good people, you've got two big teams, you've got, you know, New York and uh, and Manchester. So yeah, you probably could take a little bit more time to get that balance right. And if you think about, well, we went to fast track the other day and Richard Branson came up on the screen and did a little talk and, uh, you know, he's. Yeah, I think he's sixty eight years old now, but he's still got his fingers in lots of pies.

• 34:47Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 34:47Speaker 01

  And he could be burning himself out, but I think he lives on Necker Island, so he gets on the morning, goes kite surfing. But he's still involved in his businesses. But one of the other guys there, uh, I can't remember what he was, the M D of Virgin or something like that. He said that one of the the the good things about Richard is he doesn't get involved in the detail. So when he comes in to meet and doesn't know the details, you can take that overview um of the whole business. You can see stuff that the other people, they're in the the day to day, they can't see. So he's he's more visionary, he can see the high level.

• 35:13Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 35:14Speaker 01

  But that works for him because then he doesn't need to know the detail. So it's sort of, maybe that's what you could be good at or what I should do more of is just don't do the job.

• 35:23Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 35:23Speaker 01

  But be the sort of visionary or the the overview of the whole thing.

• 35:26Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 35:27Speaker 01

  And that allows you to put less hours in because you've got a whole team to execute for you. But you still steer the ship, so you see the overview. And that means you could spend less time doing the the nitty gritty.

• 35:39Steven Bartlett?

  You know, I I completely agree and I I I um saw that you had relinquished the the title of C E O of the company.

• 35:46Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 35:46Steven Bartlett?

  And I think that the reasons for you doing that were a hundred percent admirable and showed a tremendous amount of self awareness. But so many people, probably myself included, have an ego, right?

• 36:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:00Steven Bartlett?

  Like, let's just be honest. And there's something that comes with the title of C E O that I think a lot of people would be attached to. Now, you and I've mentioned him a few times now, but Bennett Jim Shark have both made that decision. And I really wanted to understand um why you made that decision.

• 36:18Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 36:18Steven Bartlett?

  Um, and to kind of understand if it's the best decision for me as well, because.

• 36:22Speaker 01

  Well, the the, I'm not saying anybody can, but but there's lots of C E Os. So if you take a big, successful company, over the years, they have lots of C E Os. They can only ever have one founder.

• 36:32Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 36:32Speaker 01

  So you're never gonna lose that. So don't worry about the ego side of it because you're still always gonna be the founder of Social Chain, right? So you don't have to worry about that, that's that's can't change, it's impossible to change, nobody can come do that. But the C E O role is is hard, you know, it's a lot of hours and and um. And it's very broad. So if you, what I saw was that my skill set is not, is not H R, is not operations, is not finance, is not new product development, it's not people skills, you know, it's that is those, but that's what CEO needs to be good at, all those little things. And I felt that I was very average of all of those, but I'm very good at brand and marketing. So why am I, why am I,

• 37:11Speaker 01

  it's, it's just a bad use of um time for me to get involved in. I mean, some of the discussions the CEO has to get involved in, just very dull in my eyes. I just didn't, it wasn't the stuff that I think I was, could add value to. I don't think I was particularly good at. And I didn't find that interesting. So I decided to bring somebody in who was better at that than me. So James McMasters came in, he's done an excellent job. And so that allowed me to do what I thought I was good at, which is the brand and marketing and the beauty of brand and marketing. It still can have input into all those other areas because if, if the operations is not right, the delivery is not on time or the, the product's not right, then I still can, I say that's affecting the customer, fix it. You know, what, what's wrong with that? Why? No, I still have input. It's not like I'm sort of sidelined.

• 37:52Steven Bartlett?

  Sure.

• 37:53Speaker 01

  Um, and I think Ben took the role of brand something or other.

• 37:58Steven Bartlett?

  Creative something, yeah.

• 37:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. So he's still got an overview of, of what the customer sees. And I think that, you know, the rest of it is uh the, the nuts and bolts. But really, it's what the customer sees is the key stuff. And so as long as you keep a handle on the overall brand and the way people see the company, how it actually gets executed can be passed over to a, a big broad team who can make that happen.

• 38:19Steven Bartlett?

  It's probably, probably the case that the majority of founders should probably not be the CEO.

• 38:23Speaker 01

  No, I probably, I agree.

• 38:24Steven Bartlett?

  Do you know what I mean?

• 38:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, I do agree, yeah.

• 38:25Steven Bartlett?

  Because you have the vision and you have the, the understanding from day one, which is no one will ever be able to replicate. No matter how hard they try, they can create something different from the base you've built, but they'll never be able to make your heel, right? Um, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you're the best with operations and finance. Like, I'm not, I'm definitely not. And I've, I've managed to put a lot of people around me that are much better than me at most things. So my next question is, um, what, what do you regret?

• 38:54Speaker 01

  Not starting sooner.

• 38:55Steven Bartlett?

  Really?

• 38:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think so. I think looking back, I mean, in some ways I never regret anything because where I am today, I might have, if I'd started sooner, I might have failed because I didn't have the same amount of experience or wasn't the same level of motivation or whatever it was. I might have given up. So I might not be here today. I always think that, you know, there's all little changes throughout your life and they're all possibly for a reason as you go through, you pick up stuff as you go. And I'm, I'm here, I'm in a place where I wanna be. So maybe it was exactly the right way to do it. But yeah, if I was looking back, you'd probably say. Started sooner. You started way young.

• 39:31Steven Bartlett?

  I feel very old. Random question.

• 39:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:35Steven Bartlett?

  Are you scared of dying?

• 39:36Speaker 01

  Uh, no.

• 39:37Steven Bartlett?

  Why?

• 39:38Speaker 01

  Cause I don't think I'm gonna ever die. That's a bit silly. I just don't, I just, it seems so far away. It seems so far away that I don't even think about it. No, I'm definitely not scared. I've, I think I've had a full life. I think I've um done most things that I wanted to do. So no.

• 39:55Steven Bartlett?

  What are you scared of?

• 39:57Speaker 01

  Um spiders.

• 39:59Steven Bartlett?

  Is that it?

• 40:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't like spiders.

• 40:01Steven Bartlett?

  You're not scared of the, the business falling into the ground and going wrong?

• 40:04Speaker 01

  No, like, like I said, I think even if, even if you was the size of this room. Um, and we had three staff and had the products we had today, I'd still be happy. Something that I, I like. Uh, I think we've done a good job. I think it looks good. I think it's a good product, does good for the world. So yeah, even if, you know, even if we go back to the, the thousand true fans that I originally chased after. And tried to make happier. I think if we started those, still got the same level of engagement, I'd be happy.

• 40:33Steven Bartlett?

  What um, what advice would you give me about um that relationship issue I described? And have you managed to, to find the, the answers in your own life?

• 40:42Speaker 01

  Um, relationship issues, I'm not sure. I'm not sure I'm the right man to give those. I'm not sure. I think um, I think there's a. You've just got to do, I think, don't try and please other people. There's so many people out in the world, somebody's gonna be exactly right for everybody out there. So just do, just decide what you want. And if somebody doesn't fit in with that, then they're not quite right.

• 41:05Steven Bartlett?

  No compromise.

• 41:06Speaker 01

  No compromise.

• 41:07Steven Bartlett?

  Really?

• 41:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't think so. I think, um, yeah, relationships are hard, long term relationships are super hard, marriages are super hard. Um, you know, you're making a commitment to somebody who may change, you knew may change and you've made a commitment. It seems a bit strange way to do it. I've never made a commitment to my friends and we're friends thirty years later. They know that if they're a dick, I'm not gonna be friends with them. And if I'm a dick, they won't be friends with me. So just, it's an unwritten rule, just be nice to each other. And we're still friends thirty years later. So there's no pressure that way. And those relationships, the most long standing relationships I've, I've got. So something in friendship, there's, there's an extra pressure in relationships which are not the same.

• 41:49Steven Bartlett?

  Do you think that's something to do with the ring and the signing the contract?

• 41:52Speaker 01

  Possibly, yeah, exactly. So I think, I think relationships are, uh, put extra pressure on each other that sometimes you need space. You need, like, friends don't live with me, they're not on my case all the time. And, um, I think there's something there that's, um, yeah, friend friendships, you know, guy friendships that I've got, they're, they're the best relationships I've got. There's something, there's got to be something there, there's the, the important stuff you're talking about. You know, friends you've got and, uh, yeah, the, the, the remote romantic ones are sometimes extra complicated for arguably no reason. Why don't you be nice to each other and we'll still be, you know, romantically involved years later.

• 42:32Steven Bartlett?

  Who needs marriage?

• 42:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, who needs marriage? Yeah, I don't think so. I don't think, I don't think I'd ever do that again.

• 42:37Steven Bartlett?

  Really, you, you, can I ask, are you single?

• 42:40Speaker 01

  Uh, no, I'm not single.

• 42:41Steven Bartlett?

  Okay, interesting. I'm, I'm, I'm, it's one of the things I'm most interested in at the moment because it's something I'm trying to fix in my own life.

• 42:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:47Steven Bartlett?

  And I've like failed repeatedly, so, and I don't really believe in marriage.

• 42:50Speaker 01

  I don't believe in marriage. I think, I think it's illogical to make a commitment to somebody for something that you're saying, you know, for thick and thin and forevermore. But you don't know how that person's gonna change. I think, I think, yeah, me and you, say we've got to be friends.

• 43:06Steven Bartlett?

  You don't need to sign a contract.

• 43:07Speaker 01

  Don't need to do anything. Why?

• 43:08Steven Bartlett?

  Religion and the law doesn't need to get involved.

• 43:10Speaker 01

  If I do something wrong, we're not friends anymore. You know, why does it need to be any more complicated than that? Just treat each other as you want to be treated. Be nice, don't be a dick. It doesn't, it's not difficult.

• 43:20Steven Bartlett?

  What's success for you?

• 43:22Speaker 01

  Uh, success. Um, I think a community of people has been really something that I've sort of, when you see our hooligans on social media sharing the product, I think that's been heartwarming and does indicate how well we've done. Clearly, numbers are some sort of crude measure of success. Um. But yeah, I think being financially secure is a success as well. I think moving forward, I, I, I'm just, we're just going to keep going, doing what we, we do. We've talked about exits at some point, but that will come. It's all, it's all a product of doing the right thing. So we never, when we raised our money last year,

• 44:07Speaker 01

  we never went chasing after investors. It was a, they came to us. They chased after us and it was all because we just produced a good product. Customers liked it, rebought the product and so it all happened. Um, so yeah, that's basically how I see it.

• 44:23Steven Bartlett?

  My last question.

• 44:23Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 44:24Steven Bartlett?

  Um, we're sat at this table now.

• 44:27Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 44:28Steven Bartlett?

  Um, dinner party.

• 44:30Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 44:30Steven Bartlett?

  You can invite four other people to the dinner party.

• 44:34Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 44:34Steven Bartlett?

  And you get to decide what we all eat.

• 44:36Speaker 01

  Right.

• 44:37Steven Bartlett?

  They can be dead or alive.

• 44:40Speaker 01

  Uh, okay. So I think I would definitely invite you for sure.

• 44:45Steven Bartlett?

  Okay.

• 44:45Speaker 01

  Right. I think, um.

• 44:46Steven Bartlett?

  I'm already there, so you have four others.

• 44:48Speaker 01

  All right, four others. Okay. So I think I listen to a lot of podcasts. So probably be podcast people.

• 44:54Steven Bartlett?

  Right.

• 44:54Speaker 01

  So I really think Joe Rogan is awesome. I think that he's got a very wide breadth of, uh, interests. And I think he's generally a decent guy. So I think he'd be very interesting. Uh, Tim Ferrish probably, same sort of reason. Uh, Derek Sivers, same sort of reason.

• 45:11Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 45:13Speaker 01

  Um.

• 45:16Steven Bartlett?

  This one has to be.

• 45:19Speaker 01

  Okay, this will be a pure entertainment one Conor McGregor, just because I'm into UFC, just to just for bringing a bit of entertainment to the table.

• 45:26Steven Bartlett?

  That would be a lively dinner party. What would they be eating?

• 45:29Speaker 01

  Okay, so.

• 45:30Steven Bartlett?

  Your favourite meal?

• 45:31Speaker 01

  My favourite meal would probably be.

• 45:37Speaker 01

  I think I don't know if it would be a British Sunday dinner, maybe just because they've maybe not tried one before, something like that.

• 45:43Steven Bartlett?

  Is it one of your favourites?

• 45:44Speaker 01

  I think it is, yeah.

• 45:45Steven Bartlett?

  Amazing. Thank you so much for your time and thank you so much for creating a product that so many people, including myself, rely on to function and to pursue becoming the best versions of ourselves because I really think that that's what Huel is to me. I think it's a it's an enabler and it's enabled me to be myself without worrying too much about my health or time falling at the expense of that. So thank you and thank you so much for your time today. You're a real inspiration to me and what you what you've done through the product and through the business you've created, I think is just brilliant and I really remean that. So thank you.

• 46:17Speaker 01

  Thank you very much. You're too kind. Thank you.

• 46:19Steven Bartlett?

  Thank you.