How to: build a truly consumer-led business, Nick Croft-Simon, White Rabbit

Nick Croft-Simon, is the co-founder & CEO of White Rabbit, the UK’s largest gluten free pizza brand & the No.1 contributor to growth in the category.  

But this is a conversation about more than pizza.  It’s about how to build a truly consumer-led business.

From building their own gluten free bakery to making the controversial data-led decision to introduce meat SKUs after starting as veggie and vegan this episode is about ownership, agility and listening hard when your customer speaks.

If you want to understand what “consumer-led” really means in practice - not just in a pitch deck - keep listening.

Nick's advice:

• Always listen to the consumer
• Aim high and don’t compromise
• You need your consumer to come back a second time
• Once convinced, your customers will spread the word and be your best advertisement
• Trust is everything
• Trade events can be useful if you choose very specific ones
• A consumer panel has been good for us; invite them to look closely at new products / question them exhaustively / listen to their answers.  Honest feedback is gold
• Always put quality before everything else

FF&M enables you to own your own PR & produces podcasts.
Recorded, edited & published by Juliet Fallowfield, 2024 MD & Founder of PR & Communications consultancy for startups Fallow, Field & Mason.  Email us at hello@fallowfieldmason.com or DM us on instagram @fallowfieldmason. 

MUSIC CREDIT Funk Game Loop by Kevin MacLeod. Link &  Licence

Transcript

How To Start Up / Nick-White Rabbit

[00:00:00] Nick-White Rabbit: Sticking to your values in that instant will ultimately serve the consumer better, 

[00:00:03] Nick-White Rabbit: it sort of feels like criticizing your own child, I think, in a lot of ways, which it's very easy to look at everything else other than your kid,

[00:00:11] Nick-White Rabbit: So the product has had to speak for itself.

[00:00:14] Speaker: I'm joined by Nick Croft Simon, co-founder, and c largest gluten-free pizza brand,

[00:00:24] Speaker: What started in a pub in Oxford where Nick and Italian Chef Mateo Ferrari were serving sourdough pizzas that became the city's top rated on TripAdvisor has grown into a nationally listed brand stocked in retailers such as Sainsbury's, Waitrose, and Ocado.

[00:00:39] Speaker: But this conversation is more than pizza. It's about how to build a truly consumer-led business, If you'd like to contact Nick, you can find all of his details in the show notes along with a, the kindly shared tune in. 

[00:00:59] Juliet Fallowfield: ​

[00:01:00] Juliet Fallowfield: Thank you.

[00:01:02] Nick-White Rabbit: Thanks for having me.

[00:01:03] Juliet Fallowfield: I'm really excited to chat to you about consumer-led brands and businesses. It's something we haven't covered in our show before. So to kick off, I would love it if you could define what a.

[00:01:16] Nick-White Rabbit: I mean, for a startup brand like ours, I think it's about putting the consumer above. Your ego, honestly, I think is probably how I define it. And that takes a lot of honesty and looking in the mirror and difficult conversations because it's really hard to, challenge your own product.

[00:01:35] Nick-White Rabbit: Like it sort of feels like criticizing your own child, I think, in a lot of ways, which it's very easy to look at everything else other than your kid, if that makes sense. So I guess for a business like ours, I think that would be the shortest way I could summarize it without stating the obvious of like it's being led by the consumer.

[00:01:54] Nick-White Rabbit: I think that's all very well and good, but there'll definitely be junctures where listening to the [00:02:00] consumer probably goes against what you always thought was the right thing to do, or what you think the product should be like. And I guess that's where you need to lean towards the consumer, not double down on your own.

[00:02:10] Nick-White Rabbit: You know,

[00:02:11] Juliet Fallowfield: so when did you start White Rabbit? What year?

[00:02:14] Nick-White Rabbit: We started in, well, we launched a market in 2016 and we kind of came up with the concept in 2015. so yeah, we signed up to Company's house January, 2015. I always get the exact date in January wrong. Te always takes the mickey outta me for it. And we launched a market in January 16, so we had a year of kind of developing the product, getting investment, figuring out how we were gonna make it, that kind of thing.

[00:02:37] Juliet Fallowfield: What point between then and now, did you start realizing that your customers were the ones to listen to and not your ego?

[00:02:44] Nick-White Rabbit: I,

[00:02:45] Juliet Fallowfield: Or did you always have that customer in mind? Pre-launch? Did you always have an idea of who they were?

[00:02:49] Nick-White Rabbit: we did the reality is It wasn't always possible. So in our example, we wanted to make a compromise, free gluten-free Italian food. Right. but, and in [00:03:00] the very early days when it was literally Teo making them by hand, we could kind of get there. but then scaling that, so launching with the retailers in 2017, there was kind of this drop off of, okay, well now actually we have to get, I mean, it's still very manual, but some semblance of a production line going.

[00:03:16] Nick-White Rabbit: and there was a big impact on quality there. and so that's really hard because there are some things technically that we just didn't know how to do then we didn't know how to scale. What is quite a delicate. products like bakery baking is really technical. It's really scientific. Gluten-free baking is even more so, like there's less information out there, there's less examples to lean on. And we were also doing something that not really anyone had done before, so it was really hard then because We kind of knew that the product wasn't where it needed to be, but we didn't have the means or the know-how to get there. So I think, in the early days we knew it. We couldn't necessarily act on it straight away. but obviously we did everything we could. And I guess it's just having [00:04:00] that commitment to it because, you know, it might not happen tomorrow.

[00:04:03] Nick-White Rabbit: It might not even happen in the next year. Gonna stop trying to close that and get to how they were when they were handmade. 

[00:04:12] Juliet Fallowfield: I was gonna say, you made a huge rod for your. In terms of Italian food and gluten free, but those that love Italian food that cannot have gluten will be thrilled that you're doing this. So you must have had this burning passion to solve that problem right from the get go.

[00:04:27] Nick-White Rabbit: Definitely. so te had always had the idea of doing gluten-free pizzas, when pub for gluten. he had the idea and the kind of passion for the product and the kind of recipe development. And I had the kind of, sort of blagging skills, honestly back then, and just the want to start a business.

[00:04:47] Nick-White Rabbit: so yeah, that, and actually it is a complex product and it is really hard, but. It's now our biggest strength because for every hurdle we've gone over, it's one more hurdle for the next person to try and get over and it, and it's really [00:05:00] hard and not everyone can do it. So I think as hard as it's been, it is now our biggest strategic strength.

[00:05:05] Nick-White Rabbit: The fact that we've got the best part of 10 years experience making just gluten-free dough and just gluten-free Italian food. 

[00:05:12] Juliet Fallowfield: And with gluten-free. So a colleague of mine was deeply gutted when she found out she was Celiac and she's like, I can't believe I'm now that person. And I said, well, of all the years to find out now is a good year because the world is kind of catching up. But for you, back then, how did you know that gluten-free requests weren't just a passing phase?

[00:05:30] Juliet Fallowfield: How did you know that this was gonna be a scalable audience?

[00:05:33] Nick-White Rabbit: I guess it was pretty anecdotal at the time. 'cause again, we wouldn't have even known how to. Back then when it was just us talking to consumers in the pub. but I guess the honest answer is we didn't necessarily know, but also it didn't really matter because I guess my thinking has always been.

[00:05:51] Nick-White Rabbit: If we're making a product that's as good as the real thing, then it kind of doesn't matter. If that's our north star and we can get there and it doesn't cost [00:06:00] more, then let's just keep shooting for that and then the rest will follow. So, you know, we didn't know, 'cause no one has a crystal ball.

[00:06:06] Nick-White Rabbit: Right. But I guess if we set that as our North star, then it kind of wasn't gonna make a difference to anything we actually did tangibly for the foreseeable future and it still doesn't. So, We double down quality in our core proposition,

[00:06:18] Nick-White Rabbit: which 

[00:06:19] Juliet Fallowfield: I was gonna say. The pub you were having request for this? Is that what kind of thought? Right. We can push this and make this bigger and scale this particular food offering?

[00:06:29] Juliet Fallowfield: definitely. Obviously We kind of, Yeah.

[00:06:33] Nick-White Rabbit: we went round retail. we obviously, researched what we could. We looked at examples in Italy, Italy was actually further ahead. Back then it's, the gap has closed. But in terms of gluten-free, it was a few years ahead back then. So we did some trips to Italy, looked at what was out there.

[00:06:46] Nick-White Rabbit: but yeah, combination of all of that and a bit of a leap of faith, I guess.

[00:06:49] Juliet Fallowfield: Which I'd say every single founder has done, and going into that leap a little bit blind is exciting.

[00:06:57] Nick-White Rabbit: Definitely, because if it's a sure [00:07:00] thing, everyone would've already done it,

[00:07:02] Nick-White Rabbit: you know? So it kind of has to be a bit of a leap of faith.

[00:07:06] Juliet Fallowfield: would you recommend people build around the consumer and not the category?

[00:07:09] Nick-White Rabbit: Definitely. Definitely. It's, it's so easy to overcomplicate these things, but at the end of the day, like in food and drink. Especially like, I can't speak for other industries, but if you make a product that someone likes enough to buy, again at that price, you're, you're gonna win. And then your category argument will kind of speak for itself.

[00:07:26] Nick-White Rabbit: And then the, the amount of thought that has to go into your pitch decks and the rest of it, like it kind of, again, it writes itself. 'cause your performance is there. Like any relationship you can build with the retailer and however good you can make a pitch deck. The foundation is always gonna be your.

[00:07:40] Nick-White Rabbit: Performance. and your performance is always gonna be driven by, rate of sale and repeat data, and it comes down to someone who's busy, doesn't wanna be charged. A premium for the same quality and they need to like the product enough to buy it again. Because yeah, you can have the best sales team in the world, and you can, I mean, to a certain extent, you can kind of make the data say [00:08:00] what you want it to say.

[00:08:01] Nick-White Rabbit: So you can get into fixture, you can win a new retailer, but you can't be at every store persuading consumer to buy it and then to buy it again. That has to be done by the product. So if you're not listening to them and if you're not delivering for them and you're not championing them, like you're gonna be a flash in the pan.

[00:08:16] Juliet Fallowfield: On that, how did you position White Rabbit differently from other, free from brands?

[00:08:22] Nick-White Rabbit: firstly, there aren't that many other dedicated free from brands out there, especially not in our space. like there's a bit of own label and there's a bit of bigger players kind of doing it as an offshoot.

[00:08:32] Juliet Fallowfield: So own label. You see the Sainsbury free from Shell.

[00:08:35] Nick-White Rabbit: Yeah. yeah, our unique proposition was we hone in on quality and we're only, it's all we do, right?

[00:08:42] Nick-White Rabbit: We're the experts and on top of that, we make our own food, which a lot of brands don't. you know, like. Nine out of 10 challenges outsource and there's good reason for that, right? And they can invest more in the brand and, all the other stuff which completely makes sense for the categories they're in.

[00:08:57] Nick-White Rabbit: But in a fairly underdeveloped [00:09:00] category that doesn't have a lot of innovation and doesn't have a lot of technical know-how, the reality is no one was gonna make it for us. 'cause they couldn't do it the way we wanted to do it. So we had to do it ourselves. So, yeah, kind of. I guess as a business, internally, we're unique because we make our own food and then externally, that's translated in our values.

[00:09:20] Nick-White Rabbit: Like we're a very food led brand. It's all about the product. It's all about quality, it's all about authenticity. Like we do actually have an Italian founder. We do actually make our own food. We do actually use Italian ingredients like It's just reflecting that in the product and the packaging.And again, I guess our hand was kind of forced because we didn't have, we've never, and still don't have a big marketing budget. Like all our money has gone into the bakery and improving our tech and improving our product. So the product has had to speak for itself.

[00:09:46] Nick-White Rabbit: Um, 

[00:09:47] Juliet Fallowfield: no, I love this because my background working in consumer PR and I've met some clients going, oh, well, we'll just PR it and.

[00:09:57] Nick-White Rabbit: definitely. Yeah, [00:10:00] definitely. The horse might drink once, but it's not gonna come back, so Yeah, for 

[00:10:04] Juliet Fallowfield: And

[00:10:05] Juliet Fallowfield: the cost of acquiring a customer versus the repeat of a customer and that for you, I guess the sense of pride as well in creating something that works that they genuinely love. It's not compromising 'cause it's gluten-free and pricing wise as well. You, get them in and they stay.

[00:10:20] Nick-White Rabbit: definitely. And I think in our space in particular, because gluten-free. Shoppers know how hard it is to, you know, they have to shop in multiple different stores. Like they can't, like availability's not always great. There aren't many brands speaking for them. So when they do find a brand that they feel like resonates with them, they'll tell everyone else.

[00:10:37] Nick-White Rabbit: 'cause they wanna make everyone else's. Like they feel their pain, so they wanna shout about it. So, you know, Facebook groups and everything like they're so loyal and they're so communicative. and that really helps us as well, especially not having a, big marketing budget.

[00:10:50] Juliet Fallowfield: quite literal pain my colleague. I feel not sorry for her 'cause that sounds really patronizing, but what she's had to educate herself on how to manage life and she's like, oh, I, can't come [00:11:00] to that press appointment because they've picked that restaurant and I can't

[00:11:02] Juliet Fallowfield: risk it. And it's quite literal pain that will floor her. So I'm now far more aware and she's like, oh, I've gotta go to Paris for work and da da. It's obviously tricky, but you're right. Once you get that loyalty in and people can trust you and knowing that you're making the food, there is no contamination. and you can sit and forget and just bejo the fact you can eat your Italian food and who, I mean, it's the best food on the planet.

[00:11:25] Juliet Fallowfield: I have this theory that anything beige, edible is delicious. It's not necessarily healthy,

[00:11:29] Nick-White Rabbit: And most Italian food is.

[00:11:31] Juliet Fallowfield: can't, you can't go wrong. Speaking about consumers, how do you engage with them? How do you survey them? How do you get their feedback?

[00:11:40] Nick-White Rabbit: we do a lot of trade events, and we kind of tend to avoid the like. Bigger flashier ones where it's like, who can have the coolest stand? And it's like, it's a bit of a vanity project. We, we do the, yeah, we definitely, we do a lot of the specific free from ones. and we do that for a reason.

[00:11:57] Nick-White Rabbit: It's 'cause we wanna speak to as many people as possible [00:12:00] and have proper engaged in depth conversations. So. the value for money for those smaller, specific, free from ones, just from that alone is there. So we do that. We also, we now have our own consumer panels, so there's about 1500 people on it.

[00:12:13] Juliet Fallowfield: How does that work? How do you, that's a lot of people to manage

[00:12:16] Nick-White Rabbit: yeah, so we started as a. Of reach out to, you know, please sign up. And we get kind of 30, 40 of them to the bakery every year. take them on a tour, do loads of recipe tests on them. do a load of surveys like what are they finding difficult at the moment? How can we help?

[00:12:30] Nick-White Rabbit: That kind of thing. So there's like real qualitative. Stuff like that, that we literally spend half a day with them and just ask them a million questions. And then we do questionnaires that we send out boxes of new recipes. Ask them to give them up their honest feedback. What's great about that is they'll all have partners or sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, whatever who live with them, who aren't necessarily gluten free and they bring them along to the days.

[00:12:53] Nick-White Rabbit: and so we're getting a big breadth of, okay, not only. Point of view, but from a product perspective, we're getting judged by kind [00:13:00] of like, you know, people who would shop the parent category rather than the free from category, which is super useful. so yeah, we do a very varying amount of like qualitative and quant stuff, and we do any events we can kind of get our hands on if they're specifically free from.

[00:13:13] Nick-White Rabbit: and just talk to as many people as possible. 

[00:13:15] Juliet Fallowfield: Are you now always led by the consumer, or does your gut feeling override them sometimes. If you ever had a moment where you might not be on.

[00:13:24] Nick-White Rabbit: no, I think, where you need to go back to your brand values is, for example, If the consumer feedback and data was showing you that the consumer wants something that, you know, you can't make to the quality you need to make it, or it kind of goes against your brand values in another way, I guess you have to back in the long run, sticking to your values in that instant will ultimately serve the consumer better, if that makes sense.

[00:13:47] Nick-White Rabbit: So for example, like. You know, use the classic example of if there was a huge opportunity for a Hammond pineapple pizza, like that would kind of betray Teos Italian heritage. And we always joke about like, Arto, we're gonna make you do a Hammond pineapple [00:14:00] pizza. But like, you know, if part of our brand is, you know, we're gonna be the best versions of ourselves if we're authentic. In the long run, it probably wouldn't be right for the consumer to do a Hammond pineapple pizza. You know, equally, if there was an ingredient that for whatever reason we couldn't make on our line to the right quality, that's where I think you'd go back to your brand and then let your brand be your North Star.

[00:14:20] Nick-White Rabbit: That's the only instance I can think of, otherwise.

[00:14:23] Juliet Fallowfield: It's hard isn't, it's chicken and egg because how did you create your brand values? Was it from listening to the consumer and the feedback and building up, or was it what you started from day one?

[00:14:32] Nick-White Rabbit: I think they had to be created Because we're very authentic people. Kind of what you see is what you get both with TE and I and it just wasn't gonna work if we didn't. we're not marketers. We didn't have any experience at the time of building a brand, so we had no chance if it wasn't authentic.

[00:14:45] Nick-White Rabbit: So we just went back to, okay, we got a pretty cool story of how we met. great that Teos Italian and he's got all his heritage and background. And then we're both pretty open and honest, transparent people, so let's reflect that in the culture we build for the team. Like, 

[00:14:59] Juliet Fallowfield: Well, I love that because [00:15:00] you never have to second guess. It's just gut feeling, you know? And I, the same for me in comms, everyone's like, oh, PR don't you have to spin the truth. It's like, well, no, because I've chosen not to operate like that, so I never, ever have to think this or that. It's just so 

[00:15:13] Nick-White Rabbit: Definitely, it's also just exhausting. Like it's just, there's tiring enough without having to, like, if your brand doesn't reflect you and your values, then literally sort of what's the point?  so yeah, it kind of reflects what we always believed in and aligns with what the consumer wants as well.

[00:15:29] Nick-White Rabbit: Yeah.

[00:15:30] Juliet Fallowfield: You mentioned the bakery. You chose to build your dedicated gluten-free bakery rather than outsource. how was that decision driven by the end consumer?

[00:15:39] Nick-White Rabbit: because, 

[00:15:39] Juliet Fallowfield: necessary you couldn't

[00:15:41] Juliet Fallowfield: find it? 

[00:15:41] Nick-White Rabbit: well, it? was driven by the consumer in the only way we were gonna win is by really step changing what good looks like in the category from a quality perspective, We're never gonna be, you know, like if we're just going to the same manufacturer, everyone else is going to, we're gonna have a percent of the volume.

[00:15:57] Nick-White Rabbit: So like, we're just on a race to the [00:16:00] bottom. So to deliver for the consumer, we had to do it ourselves. at the time, we didn't necessarily know that we'd always have to do it. Part of us was like, you know, maybe the tech will catch up and eventually, you know, but it kind of just hasn't transpired that way.

[00:16:11] Nick-White Rabbit: and actually.

[00:16:12] Juliet Fallowfield: To bring your community in and your to Definitely, and 

[00:16:16] Nick-White Rabbit: don't get me wrong now, we wouldn't change it for the world. Like there's no way we would go back on it. but it was, yeah, it was a daunting task. 'cause again, we didn't know how to build a bakery or how to, you know, like create an artisanal production line. And it's still labor intensive and it still is.

[00:16:29] Nick-White Rabbit: Hand. but obviously we needed to scale it, so that was daunting, but it was the only way we gonna end.

[00:16:36] Juliet Fallowfield: I want to do an offshoot of this podcast of things you now know how to do that you never thought you'd need. 'cause when you start business, you're like, yeah, sure, I'm gonna have this idea and it's gonna be like this. And then five years in, you're like, what?

[00:16:47] Nick-White Rabbit: Yeah, definitely. And if you knew all of that at the start, you wouldn't do it. So I think part of it is going in fairly blind and just putting one step in front of the other and then eventually it's like 10 years have gone by and actually you are kind of the experts in the [00:17:00] space 'cause you've been making it for 10 years and actually not many people have.

[00:17:02] Juliet Fallowfield: So it's, yeah, it's a funny one. Going back to that panel as well, that amazing feedback. Have your panel fed back on stuff that you then thought, right, we're scrapping that completely? Or have they given you an idea that you never even realized you needed? 

[00:17:18] Nick-White Rabbit: I think,

[00:17:19] Nick-White Rabbit: well, I thinkThere's two things.

[00:17:23] Nick-White Rabbit: The pain around shopping, we didn't necessarily know till we were really talking to consumers in a really meaningful way. like it's common sense that they're gonna want a. Quality that doesn't cost them way more like that. But cause we're not Celiac ourselves, so we didn't necessarily know what it was like to actually have to shop in five different places every week or, you know, shop for your children where one of them is Celiac and the other isn't.

[00:17:45] Nick-White Rabbit: So we've learn a lot that way and we've done things in that sense, like in terms of bringing out more variety and more formats as well. yeah, and I guess The other is around pricing. So as much as we wanna price match our chilled pizzas, for example, they [00:18:00] are still premium. So we're price matching premium parent category, but that's still gonna be prohibitive for a lot of the. that drove a lot of our thought around, different formats, for example. 'cause we were never gonna get to a lower price point by compromising quality. But we can do different formats. So our possessors, for example, are, kind of sides or single serves, and that's a way that we could get to a more accessible price point and be less of a barrier to entry and hold true to that inclusivity piece.

[00:18:26] Juliet Fallowfield: so I'd say that and the kind of. The bringing out the variety and the availability piece were things that we didn't know before we really started talking to consumers. What's been the hardest part of really putting your consumer first all the time.

[00:18:39] Nick-White Rabbit: I think, well, the hardest part has definitely been doing that and creating a sustainable business because 

[00:18:48] Juliet Fallowfield: Sustainable as in it's open every day because a lot of people 

[00:18:50] Juliet Fallowfield: think 

[00:18:51] Nick-White Rabbit: in. 

[00:18:51] Juliet Fallowfield: think As in Yeah, exactly. Because we talk about sustainability that, and everyone assumes it's the green B Corp stuff and I was like, no, you can be a sustainable 

[00:18:59] Juliet Fallowfield: matter if you are [00:19:00] murdering 

[00:19:00] Juliet Fallowfield: person with an ax every day, you're doing it regularly. So yeah, 

[00:19:03] Nick-White Rabbit: Yeah,

[00:19:03] Nick-White Rabbit: definitely. 

[00:19:04] Juliet Fallowfield: that's still open tomorrow. Yeah.

[00:19:06] Nick-White Rabbit: Exactly. because before we had. Scale, like the reality is we had a more artisanal process, so our labor costs are gonna be higher. we used higher quality ingredients. Our raw material costs are gonna be higher and our logistics costs are gonna be higher because we're obviously not doing full pallets in full lorry.

[00:19:20] Nick-White Rabbit: but equally, we had to get to that end price point. Otherwise, we're not delivering like, on our promise of being quality and value parity. 'cause It's ultimately to be compromise free. It's no good creating. a Product that's as good quality if it costs 10 quid, so there has to be that triangulation between price and quality.

[00:19:35] Nick-White Rabbit: So yeah, to deliver that value equation for the consumer and be sustainable from a profitability point of view was definitely the biggest challenge. and it's meant we've had sacrifice. Like we still today to date, have a really lean team. we still spend. Less than 2% of our revenue marketing, because we've invested in tech and the bakery and getting our product where it needs to be.

[00:19:55] Nick-White Rabbit: so yeah, that, that's the trade off. our kind of brand awareness outside of the free [00:20:00] from community is probably not where it would be for a, you know, 10 million pound business  in a different. Space who doesn't make their own food. but I still think in the long term that's a worthwhile sacrifice to make because it means we're building on really solid foundations and eventually when we do have, you know, marketing dollars to spend, we're gonna be bringing people to a product that they're much more likely to buy again.

[00:20:18] Juliet Fallowfield: Well, this is it, 

[00:20:19] Juliet Fallowfield: isn't it? Going back to that thing you said at the start, if you get the product right, the rest will follow. And I like noticed the first couple of years I was in business and it's coming out for six now, which is.

[00:20:28] Juliet Fallowfield: Crazy. a lot of people have a lot of opinions for you and they don't hold back.

[00:20:32] Juliet Fallowfield: It's say, oh, but surely you wanna take investment. Surely you wanna scale, surely you must wanna employ 20 people. and they were saying, because we predominantly focus on independent businesses, startups, and scale-ups for podcast production, pr blah, blah, blah. And friends are like, well, well you could do all the big luxury brands, Mike.

[00:20:47] Juliet Fallowfield: I could, but I don't wanna, and it was a real moment of going, hang on, and sort of pushing back on what me as a founder wants

[00:20:56] Juliet Fallowfield: to give the company and what I was prepared to do and [00:21:00] sacrifice. I think when you work for yourself, you've got that autonomy, but it's very hard 'cause you've got so much freedom.

[00:21:04] Juliet Fallowfield: It's sort of almost boundaryless. 

[00:21:06] Nick-White Rabbit: Yeah, completely agree. and if, you ask 10 different people, you probably will get 10 different answers. So yeah. 

[00:21:12] Juliet Fallowfield: So for you, what does being truly consumer-led mean in daily practice in your business, given that you're probably wearing a hundred hats

[00:21:19] Nick-White Rabbit: It means quality being at the forefront of everything we do. And actually if there has to be a decision to be made between literally anything else or product quality, we choose product quality. because that's, again, that's what we need to deliver. That's our core proposition. If we're not doing that, we're not doing anything.

[00:21:33] Nick-White Rabbit: it's literally functional day by day, whether it's big strategic projects that we need to kind of allocate time and resource to, or if it's day to day, you know, every time we're in the bakery. We test, we try the products every month. Everyone in our business has to go out and buy one of our products.

[00:21:49] Nick-White Rabbit: We pay for it, obviously, and try it at home. with the household, we've got a long list of 

[00:21:54] Nick-White Rabbit: scores it's called. No, no, yeah, Definitely. But it's just like, it's built [00:22:00] into everything we do, so that it just becomes second nature. So I think it can't just be like. Top down or something you just put in a deck.

[00:22:06] Nick-White Rabbit: It has to be bottom up, like lift and breathe at every level and every function of the business.

[00:22:13] Juliet Fallowfield: And it'll flow, which is exciting. It's what you want. The flow state. And what is the biggest myth? Founders believe about being customer first because we see a lot of hot air out there in the found world.

[00:22:23] Nick-White Rabbit: I I think it comes back to what we were saying earlier. it's really easy to listen to the bits you want to hear and ignore the bits you don't. And I think because there's often other outs as well, like, you know, you can, oh, let's just focus on MPD or let's do a big marketing campaign.

[00:22:37] Nick-White Rabbit: And that all spikes sales up for a bit. And there's a lot of like short term wins that you can get. yeah, there, it's very easy to be distracted, like raise more money, bring out more products, spend more on marketing, and kind of ignore the kind of harsh realities of, you know, maybe some of your lines just, aren't good enough.

[00:22:52] Nick-White Rabbit: And it's as simple as that. And it doesn't need overcomplicating, but it does require like, some serious thought and soul searching. so I think it's that, [00:23:00] it's honesty and being open to receiving. Every spectrum, the whole spectrum of feedback, not

[00:23:05] Juliet Fallowfield: Yeah. 

[00:23:06] Nick-White Rabbit: you wanna hear. 

[00:23:06] Juliet Fallowfield: Something said to 

[00:23:07] Juliet Fallowfield: grow slow as well. Get the foundation sorted. Take your time. It's so much more enjoyable 'cause there's less pressure that way as well and.

[00:23:15] Nick-White Rabbit: Yeah, definitely. And I think, it's quite interesting because our business has kind of straddled the pre. COVID plus one year era where the game was still kind of about growth and it was, you know, just grow. Don't worry about making money. Like you can always raise more. No one cares about ebitda.

[00:23:30] Nick-White Rabbit: Just grow, grow, grow. and now where we've kind of, for the last few years, it's very much shifted to actually, no, I mean obviously a business has to make money. It's, I dunno when that didn't stop becoming a thing. But now we're back to actually, no, you do need to be profitable. You do need be sustainable.

[00:23:44] Juliet Fallowfield: Um.You, say that now, but literally three or four years ago, everyone's like, oh God, all the VCs kind of really wanna see us make a profit before they put more money in. I'm like, why were they not doing that before?

[00:23:53] Nick-White Rabbit: Yeah, definitely, definitely. And, it's been really interesting to see, but actually kind of like it. I I want to be running a business that [00:24:00] makes money and I want that to be a metric that decides, because again, you can make a lot of poor decisions like, oh yeah, let's take that sales win at crappy margin and a suboptimal product because we need to get that.

[00:24:09] Nick-White Rabbit: 60, 70, 80% whatever growth to then get the next round of investment. And it's completely upside down. So, it's a bubble that I'm glad is burst because it just didn't really make any sense and it was gonna burst eventually. 

[00:24:20] Juliet Fallowfield: So

[00:24:20] Juliet Fallowfield: our question from a previous guest was, and this made me laugh so much because he said, if running successful business means having more than one client, why as a founder would you then not start more than one business? Because I, obviously capacity time is the most precious resource in any company.

[00:24:38] Juliet Fallowfield: Money comes and goes. Time is precious. I wouldn't start another business. I mean, people have accused me of having two businesses because we do PR and podcasting, and you could split, but I want to keep it under one limited company because I can manage that p and l. But for you, what's stopping you? Maybe starting another business.

[00:24:57] Nick-White Rabbit: I think if you could do it and [00:25:00] win in multiple businesses, then I don't see why you wouldn't. The reality is, I don't think you can at this stage. I think if you've potentially exited one or more businesses and you are in that space and you have that experience, and frankly, you. then maybe it would work. but as someone literally starting their first business, I mean, maybe someone better than me could do it, but I literally do not see a way in which you could have the time, energy resource. because start out. You don't even know about your specific sector, let alone business in general.

[00:25:35] Nick-White Rabbit: So trying to learn on the fly and only make the same mistake once. Specific business is hard enough, let alone there being two. 

[00:25:43] Juliet Fallowfield: 

[00:25:43] Nick-White Rabbit: yeah, it just comes down to time and energy, 

[00:25:45] Juliet Fallowfield: Definitely precious, precious things. What would your question be for our next guest? It could be anything on entrepreneurship

[00:25:52] Juliet Fallowfield: Um, one thing I really struggle with is, Doing the kind of like self-promotion bits that I [00:26:00] need to do for my business to have more of a voice and get our awareness up, but do it in like an authentic way that isn't, cringey and like soul destroying. because to be honest, the way I've solved that to date has been to just not do stuff like Is the first year that I've started doing podcasts and stuff like that. but yeah, I find it really difficult because you wanna champion your business, but There's a lot pressure to do, found led content, but we

[00:26:21] Juliet Fallowfield: discussed, I want there to be another way. I would, I'd like to scale a business or, have a sustainable business, not even scale, without me having to put my face on Instagram. I feel like then I 

[00:26:30] Nick-White Rabbit: definitely, 

[00:26:31] Juliet Fallowfield: and I'm not 

[00:26:32] Nick-White Rabbit: definitely. Definitely. And it's all the like tiny violin stuff as well. it just feels hard, like no one forced me to start a business. Like, yeah, it's really hard, but most people's jobs are hard. Like it's not like, and oh yeah, all the like, well no one knows the grind and this and that.

[00:26:47] Nick-White Rabbit: It's like, I dunno, I'd rather carry an awareness for like, aren't we lucky to have felt like we were in a position to start a business and to take that risk? And the reality of that is. I've probably had 5% to do with that, but the first [00:27:00] 95% was like where I was born and the upbringing I had and the education I had and X, Y, Z, the people I knew.

[00:27:06] Nick-White Rabbit: And yeah, okay, celebrate us for doing the last 5%, but just carry an awareness for the 95% as well. 'cause otherwise it's really jarring to be like. Yeah, all it takes is hard work and craft and this and that and that isn't how I see the world personally. And I'd rather just, carry that kind of energy into this rather than like be another founder who just says the same shit and and blow smoke up their own ass.

[00:27:30] Nick-White Rabbit: 'cause it's just boring. I dunno what my question is, but yeah. how do we like evolve the narrative a bit where it's a bit less disingenuous because now there's like

[00:27:37] Nick-White Rabbit: the first step. content.

[00:27:39] Nick-White Rabbit: Exactly. Because the first step was just doing it in the first place and then it was like the faux real bit.

[00:27:46] Nick-White Rabbit: It's like the real bit, but it's not, 'cause it's kind of all contrived now. Let's like how do we get to the just the real bit because that's actually what's interesting.

[00:27:54] Juliet Fallowfield: Well, I mean that's why for the first few years of this podcast, we didn't video them. It was just a nice chat and it was my [00:28:00] work therapy and I suddenly had this really fun platform to invite people on to gimme advice and therapy that got me through the day. And then team, like, we should really do Instagram reels and like.

[00:28:09] Juliet Fallowfield: Means I have put makeup on. Okay, fine. and now it's kind of, I get it. And that's the line that I'm sticking on. and this is why I'm obsessed with the podcasting space is because it is, you can't doom scroll a podcast. You can't be served a podcast. They typically are educational positive. 

[00:28:24] Juliet Fallowfield: You go to it and you come outta it going, I feel better about stuff. So that's why I'm sort of in terms of the content mix at Peace with it. But it also is really hardworking content because you can put it on LinkedIn newsletter, blah, blah, blah. So it does work, but it's still, I know when I'm editing the reels going, who am I to think I can put my face on Instagram and have an opinion, but it's not my opinion, it's yours, so it's fine.

[00:28:46] Juliet Fallowfield: So I just sit and listen, works 

[00:28:48] Juliet Fallowfield: for me. 

[00:28:48] Nick-White Rabbit: makes complete sense.

[00:28:49] Juliet Fallowfield: Oh, thank you. No, I'm gonna actually ask every single guest for the future of that question because it's something I've really be great. yeah, yeah, definitely.

[00:28:57] Juliet Fallowfield: thank you so much for your time, Nick. [00:29:00] It's been 

[00:29:00] Juliet Fallowfield: lovely.

[00:29:01] Juliet Fallowfield: congratulations on everything you've achieved with White

[00:29:03] Juliet Fallowfield: Rabbit. I know 

[00:29:04] Juliet Fallowfield: very nearest and dearest are big fans, so Yeah, it's a problem that needed to be solved, so I'm very pleased that you.

[00:29:11] Nick-White Rabbit: Thank you. I really appreciate that. Thank you so much, and thanks for having me on.

[00:29:14] Speaker: If you'd like to contact Nick, you can find all of his details in the show notes along with a, the kindly shared tune in. 

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