Saturn Returns with Caggie - Bonus Episode Featuring Our Sponsors, London Nootropics: The Founders' Journey

Episode Date: May 22, 2024

Join Caggie in this special bonus episode of Saturn Returns as she explores the innovative world of London Nootropics with its founders, Shez and Zain. Caggie first encountered this unique adaptogenic coffee brand at the Harvest wellness summit in Turkey, where its distinctive blend left a lasting impression. After three years without coffee, London Nootropics offered Caggie a way to enjoy the beverage again, minus the jitters and anxiety, thanks to their smooth blend of coffee and adaptogens. Shez and Zain’s venture into the business world reached a milestone in February 2022 when they appeared on BBC One’s Dragons’ Den. There, they secured investment offers from two Dragons, Deborah Meaden and Sara Davies—an experience they describe as nothing short of incredible. Adaptogenic blends have been used for thousands of years, utilising plants, mushrooms, and other natural substances to enhance body and mind. Now, London Nootropics is bringing this ancient wisdom to modern consumers with their high-quality, natural adaptogenic coffee blends designed to help you flow through your day. Thrilled to partner with Saturn Returns, Shez and Zain join Caggie for a candid conversation about their entrepreneurial journey. From the initial spark of an idea to the adrenaline-fueled pitch on Dragons’ Den, they share the challenges, triumphs, and invaluable lessons learned from bootstrapping their brand right from their kitchen. Tune in to uncover the secrets behind their creativity, resilience, and how they turn setbacks into opportunities. To find out more head to: London Nooptropics 

Hello everyone and welcome to Saturn Returns with me, Kagi Dunlop. This is a podcast that aims to bring clarity during transitional times where there can be confusion and doubt. Today I'm joined by two friends of mine, Zane and Shez, who are the founders of London Nootropics. Now as many of you might have heard they have been the sponsors for this season of Saturn Returns and I have worked with them many times in the past. I first met these guys when I was at a wellness summit in Turkey called Harvest and at the time I hadn't drunk coffee for about three years and I didn't think I ever would again to be honest and they were handing out coffee to everyone that was attending this event.

And they started telling me about their product and how the adaptogens in their coffee mean that it doesn't give you that anxious feeling that was the reason that I stopped drinking coffee in the first place. And so a little skeptical at first, they were like, try this Zen blend. Like, I promise you you you'll feel fine and you'll love it and I had one I remember sitting down and first I was like this is delicious the taste is incredible and I felt like a little bit of a lift kind of the buzz that you get from coffee but then I kind of felt this quite mellow feeling at the same time, this kind of calmness.

And then it just kind of eventually faded. There was no crash. There was no jitters. And I was like, oh, OK. And anyway, since then, I have been hooked. I really, really believe in this brand. And I loved having this conversation with these two, which we're going to get into in a second, because hearing a founder's story when they have a passion for something,

when it really becomes their purpose and all the challenges that people go through, you often only hear about the sort of end success result and you imagine that it just happened overnight. And as you'll hear from this conversation, it's been a process for these guys. And I hope that you enjoy listening. And perhaps if you're on your own journey to becoming a founder or starting up a business, that this might be useful to you too.

Shaz and Singh, welcome to Saturn Returns. Hi, Sankagi. How are you? Good. I have no reason to complain. Yeah, good. How are you? I'm good, thank you. And for the audience that might not be familiar with your work, you guys have been, I guess, supporters of the show for a while,

and we met, when was it, two it two years ago last year wasn't it last year in kaplan kaya time flies in turkey at kaplan kaya for the harvest series and at the time i was not drinking coffee i hadn't drunk coffee in three years and then you guys introduced me to the brand that you've created which is I mean the rest is history so would you be able to share a little bit about how you got into the work that you do as founders yeah sure when where how far back do we so um we went to school together a long time ago so we've been going for four years with the brand two three years before that I was in Bournemouth in the south of England staying with Shez and his cousins and one of them's a semi-professional

boxer and we had to well I had to go to the gym to get a lift home we went to the gym every day and um he was giving us like a chemical lace pre-workout drink and it didn't sit right with us we had like a massive spike and then it crashed and we felt horrible afterwards um so we started having coffee before we went to the gym and then we started adding natural ingredients to it like we've always been quite health conscious and just knowing everyone in the gym was like oh my god you're gonna try it you're gonna try what we've made and people are like you should make this into a business like i'll really i'd buy it for you so you know no expertise in the field so we started looking for some people that are experts they can help us um and we met amanda a nutritionist and she's like guys have you discovered functional

mushrooms and adaptogens and these are the synergies with coffee. This is how they work together. And then from the moment we tried adaptogens, like everything changed. That's a light bulb moment. So what was in the mix that you were doing? The pre-mix. Yeah.

It was, so it's called Captain Black's Coffee. Don't ask how we came up with the name. And we were just putting what we thought was good in there. So they weren't adaptogens. It was coffee with guarana, which essentially is more caffeine. It's the punchy stuff. Yeah. Green tea extract, had a bit of cinnamon in there as well. I think we even had cacao in there. Yeah. Yeah. And I was giving it to people and some people like love it but haven't left all night which is why we're like you know we need to find an expert and Amanda our nutritionist okay so she then introduced you to the adaptogens and everything else that's in it now yeah and then it was like we realized pretty quickly we're now

having adaptogens not just as like a pre-workout for an energy boost like depending on what we need in a day like adaptions are incredible so can you explain what they actually are so um adaptions are natural um fungi and other root extracts that help us they work in different systems in our body and they help us balance stresses um but you have things like lion's mane which is known as the brain mushroom which is good to like help clear your brain fog wake your brain up um there's other cognitive enhancing adaptogens so rhodiola is great for cognitive and physical performance and then you have things like quality sets which can increase your aerobic

capacity your oxygen flow boost your atp so that is a good for like a workout and then you have things like ashwagandha which works on the adrenals that can help balance stresses and of course all the stress levels in our body so that's where we got to it was like okay now i'm having different adaptions based on what I need personally in my day. So one day I really want to focus and wake up and be productive. I'd have a different set of adaptions. And then we made our three blends. Okay. Did you feel that from the original brew blend that you were making that you would feel that you crashed? Because I think when we first met I

was explaining that I have a had a bit of a love-hate relationship with coffee and that I would love it love the taste love the sort of high but then I would have these quite bad crashes afterwards and then you guys convinced me that the zen blend would be the best one for me because it would kind of keep me not give that spiky feeling the first blend wasn't actually a product it was more just like a concept and we were just basically trialing it yeah but essentially yeah I mean it was just a very high caffeinated drink so you still kind of had that crash but it was like we were having something natural as opposed to a pre-workout the the key point with adaptogenic coffee is there's really good

synergies with caffeine and adaptogens so if someone like yourself is sensitive to caffeine what will happen is you get those jitters the spike and a big crash but with adaptogenic coffee the adaptogens help to balance out your cortisol so like you've experienced firsthand you can get the benefits of caffeine back in your day yeah so there's there's like there's really good benefits from from coffee and caffeine and like cardiovascular system um and in general also filled with antioxidants so i was listening to a podcast about sleep the other day and he was kind of going through every single factor that affects your sleep so i was anticipating what he was going to say about coffee he said it's actually filled yeah that it's actually really good it's filled

with antioxidants but it can also impact your sleep how do these blends kind of help or so coffee on its own like if you have a regular coffee caffeine's absorbed quickly and we have a spike and then a crash and then you're like i need another coffee and then you kind of like have another coffee and then you go down so you kind of roll it through your day you can have four or five coffees i met someone at breaking convention last week she has 20 coffees in a day. And I was like, how is your ticker still running, right? So when you have four or five coffees in a day,

or like yourself, you're sensitive to caffeine, and you then feel some side effects from coffee because your cortisol is spiking, your stress hormone. Some people feel on edge, they feel wired. Some people get jitters and anxiety. Some people get palpitations. So adaptogens can help balance out that spike and crash. So a lot of our customers are like, I used to have four or five regular coffees in a day.

Now I just need one or two adaptogenic coffees. I don't crash in the afternoon. I feel more balanced, like in homeostasis. And then the other synergy is like like if your cortisol is spiking there are adaptogens like ashwagandha that work on that to make sure they can help balance out our cortisol so you can enjoy the benefits of coffee and caffeine in your day while staying balanced i almost guarantee people when we talk to people at shows and events I'm like and they say I drink a lot of coffee or have a lot of caffeine in my day I almost guarantee them and I say look you're

not going to need more than one or two of our blends in a day and they're like really and I'm like try it um well you can I think it was you that I was speaking to at the time when I said I haven't actually had a coffee in three years because it makes me feel very anxious and on edge and then you're like trust me and it's and it's true it's like I've just had it one now and it is like you feel alert and awake but also you had zen yeah kind of chill yeah calming energy which is amazing so how did you then start formulating those three blends that you've got now next step then was right if we're gonna if we're gonna have these in our diet we need to find the ones that are the highest quality and that was a long journey in itself so we looked at first the synergies between the different

adaptogens and we thought right we wanted to have our three different blends based on what we needed in our day so if we were going to work and you know you want to switch on the brain in the morning and there was flow with um lion's mane mushroom and rhodiola um then we were still looking for that one to give us a natural boost which was mojo so we have cordyceps mushroom and ginseng and then the zen blend um now with l-theanine and ashwagandha so the the journey from there we spent about two years trying to find the highest quality extracts. And what did that involve? Because, you know, when people say they want to find the highest quality, where do you go? Where do you begin?

Yeah, the reason why you want the highest quality is because we realised pretty quickly that with adaptogens, you get the benefits from the active compounds within them. So with things like mushrooms, if you can eat lion's mane mushroom, like it's culinary, but you don't get those brain health benefits, right? Because our bodies can't break down the kite and sail wall of mushrooms like we do with plants. So you have to use an extract.

Now within extracts, there's active compounds and what we found um in the market and even today it's very confusing for customers it was confusing for us so we tried like 20 different lines mains and like 18 of them didn't do anything but there was one or two where it's just like do you know what i feel really switched on right now and then we learned how to read a COA, a certificate of analysis, and look for, okay, this is what we need to look for in our blends.

And then we'll make it for ourselves, right? So we're like, okay, we want to have the highest quality. We want the active compounds that are super high in these extracts. So we, like Chester said, we spent two years trying to source the highest quality and that was basically just scouring the globe in terms of a lot of google searching a lot

of looking into like who cares about quality it's crazy there's even companies like here in the uk that we were like oh they look really cool because they have so-and-so and like a mycologist behind the brand. They must do good mushroom extracts. So we got some, and they're like a wholesaler. So we got some like lion's mane mushroom from them. I asked the head of UK, like, oh, so what are the actives? And I was actually shocked. I I'm like how did they not know like we're we're not experts in the field but then what we realized is the people that had like really really high quality experts they wanted to help and they wanted to like be like um this is what you need to look for and they helped us formulate they're like listen love what you guys are about I love

that you're actually looking into this stuff this and they just taught us formulate that, like, listen, love what you guys are about. I love that you're actually looking into this stuff. And they just taught us everything that we needed to know to make the highest quality egg shack. Because obviously it's become a really popular thing. And mushrooms are kind of in everything is this like big health benefit. So from your experience, obviously, you've just answered a lot of this. Should people be wary of how they navigate that in terms of what should they be looking out for in quality? So I'd probably give the two bits of advice is like, look for transparency. Like if there's brands out there that like this is the origin, like this is where the adaptogens and mushrooms come from.

And where do you get them from? So we're NDA because we've got some cool new... I'm like, this is my party. We've got something coming. New ones. There's new extracts. Well, the company's been around. They make practitioner-level mushroom products

and they have like an oncology range with clinical studies that show how that they've proven clinical studies that show like it destroys cancer you can use it alongside chemo so they're super high grade um they're grown here in europe and they're like well they've never they've never worked with another brand. Okay. They love what we're about, like our ethos about quality. And they're like, look, we'll make you mushroom extracts. We agreed to put their logo as like a stamp of quality on our bases. I think years ago they'd wanted to make what we've made, but they never kind of got it to the stage that we've got it to.

So they're like, well. So they're like, you know what? You guys do it because you've done a really good job and we're testing it at the moment and we're close so how does it work between the two of you in terms of who does what yeah listen that's just nice well do you know what it's not like we planned out and said like okay you take care of this yeah no it happens naturally it just happens so it's like if we have roles because we do everything like um I'd be more like okay I look after the website side of things because I'm a little bit technical I made the website and and

then Chas is like all operations fulfillment production and then also b2b sales wholesale partnerships so it kind of just worked out like that and then as we grow as a team we kind of like share the team and they will help each other out that we're a small startup so everyone does a little bit of everything yeah that's the way it goes it works well though like i think there is something which um people always say like, oh, you shouldn't do business with friends or family. They do. I think we've kind of broken that rule.

Like I probably couldn't do business with most of my family and most of my friends. But I think with like me and Zane, we've known each other, like I said, a long time. And there's never been anything apart from wanting the best for each other in like a really cheesy way. But, and there's also like with with the business itself it's like we both know that we both want what's right for the business it's not like an element of pride or you know like i want to be the one to make a decision no it's like what's right for the business and ultimately if you always have that alignment then it doesn't matter i think that's another thing that intimidates people with starting a business if they don't have investment because I obviously want to talk to you about then going on drag instead and that

whole experience but in terms of actually getting things off the ground. I think the best way to start a business is bootstrap I think I've seen a lot of people on the flip side who have investment and have money and the money they tell you they spend on things I'm like huh. They don't even know whether there's a demand for that product or if it's right yeah and it's like sometimes when you've got too much you don't make the right decision so because we've been bootstrapped we've had to did you try and get investment at the beginning or not no we just we just look we just basically got had our blends formulated them put our money together bought some ingredients managed to find someone who would work

with us to blend them no manufacturer would work with us because our quantities were too small so they were all like yeah you need to do a hundred thousand sachets I'm like my mom's not gonna let me bring a hundred thousand sachets in the house so so we're like right so we got um we got the powders blended and then we managed to buy two machines one was the powder filling and one was a sachet filling and we basically went started it from from there and that was our production um and then we just built it up slowly slowly um reinvesting back into the business it wasn't about us taking a wage it wasn't about us making money um and we we still do it now most of what we make goes back in because it's about you know making those decisions ourself.

And it forces you to be creative. It forces you to do a lot of research. What I found is, and something I like to share with people is an example of when we first had our boxes, right, for our coffee sachets, it was like three pound a box because of the quantity we were buying it for but if we had money we'd probably pay for it right but we didn't have it so it's like we spent maybe a month two months looking looking looking got the unit price we wanted to so it's like without being bootstrapped you don't realize actually what you're looking for is out there right it made you have to keep seeking yeah it

makes you have to keep looking and trying to find the you know rather than just throwing money at the situation yeah and with the brand because the branding is so beautiful was that always was that hard to get right did because again like that sort of thing where people might think oh I have to spend a fortune to get branding done. You know, there's so many there's so many of these aspects that people get tripped up over. It is the branding thing, because we speak to a lot of brands and they're like, oh, where do you get your branding to do that? And we're like, we actually didn't spend a lot on our branding at all. And it kind of just evolved so it is quite

fragmented right now and it is something that i'm like i always had in my head like let's just launch and then like two years down the line we'll make a really really nice um so it's a process that we literally just started this week as into like as a rebrand as in well just to refresh like refresh the brand and align all the colors and the typography. But it was like, we literally had a box that was craft with a logo on it. And we had Harrods Tea and Coffee Bar going, could I try your blends? I've been recommended them. So we send him a box and then he's like, I really liked the box.

Thanks for the samples. What about your retail box? And I'm like, Shez, what does this guy mean, retail? Shez was like, oh, oh. Well, because you just sent it in a normal box. And then we're like, oh, so we need to actually write what it is in the box, and it needs a barcode and it needs a nutrition table. And so Shez was like, why don't we just get sleeves to slide on the box

and we'll have the info. Brilliant idea. So Shaz was like, why don't we just get sleeves to slide on the box and we'll have the info. Genius. And then a few months later, Selfridges were like, they might have seen us in Harrods and we're speaking to like a third party who's like, we'll put you in Selfridges. So we're like, okay, that sounds cool. And then the Selfridges buyers were like, guys, all your boxes are just craft, they're all the same colour. Why don't you make them coloured so people know what what we're like that is the best idea ever so we've talked a little bit about the success of it and those kind of moments of encouragement and support but what are some of the things that you faced as founders where you felt like this isn't going to work we've massively

messed up or how do we do this like some of the failures because I think we can all learn more from the failures than we can you know what I've never had that thought of it's never going to work like not in a bad way but it's never even crossed my mind I'd say like in terms of failures it's just carnage like you know carnage along the way like you know like people say i'm gonna start a business i'm like don't do it to me yeah but what is just showing some of the realities of it because i think people can romanticize it stories so the first boxes that we got horrible they weren't even aligned but it's about do you know what before we even started I need all in all thousand and at that time that was a lot yeah that's loads

yeah what she wants they're like these fold out boxes I'm like Zane you can't use these then there was even before that we actually were still like, we met Amanda, we're like, okay, we need to book a development day with like a producer. We didn't know. Trunchbull. And we were like, yeah, you know Miss Trunchbull from Matilda? She was the literal woman who was doing that.

Literal woman. Like we turned up, my gut was like, like I just had a bad gut feeling that day. Like I knew that something wasn't right. Like, and that's the first time where I'm like, damn, I got some a bad feeling that day. Like, I knew that something wasn't right. Like, and that's the first time where I'm like, damn, I got some good intuition going on. Like, I knew this was going to... But anyway, we were trying to make the pre-workout coffee

and we just discovered Adaptogens. And we're like, oh my God, these are insane. Like, oh my God. But we already booked this thing in. We spent a lot of money on it too. On booking that? Yeah. It was like over a grand. Like, not crazy. For a day? Yeah, it's a lot. It's a lot of money on it too. It was like over a grand, like not crazy.

For a day? Yeah, it's a lot. But for us it was like, you know, we were saving, but they gave us most of the money back. They did? They got away with the work. Wait, wait, wait, what happened with Miss Chod? Do you know what, so that was probably the worst at that time, the worst day and the best day, because it was a pivotal point, because at that time was she going to be so she at that time we wanted to make a cold brew coffee right of the captain black's cold brew coffee yeah so we tried all

these cold brew coffees and some of them were nice and we'd sent some examples of like which one we liked we got there and it was just like a bottle of acid right but like yeah that's what they put in drinks yeah and that's when we realized you know you know on a lot of like um drinks that aren't 100 fresh whatever there's this much acid in them that keeps them like this is why they don't go off right and we didn't know that and i'm like what are you adding and she's like oh this is just the acid like you have to it's law blah blah blah and i'm like i mean it was like drinking battery acid but if i didn't know that's just like drinking an orange juice from i was just like that is horrible i was like no but on the

on the way home we're like what are we doing why yeah we're having adaptions every day why aren't we making the adaption blends that we're having and why are we trying to make cold brew we're literally making like little powder blends we should just put it yeah we're like where are we gonna put where are we where are we gonna put glass bottles what we're gonna do about refrigeration storage refrigerated transportation we're like we don't have any of that so we're like that was quite a big yeah point where like let's strip it back this way that you were gonna go which was to put it in cans or bottles and have to have acid in it to keep it yeah so before before that we were giving it out to people in gyms in like a little pot in powder and they just mix it

with water right so we kind of pivoted back to that we're like actually that was working well because i was i was wondering why the sachets and why the powder so it's to do with actually convenience on the go and also that you don't have to put acid in it to keep it yeah what are some of the things that have gone wrong that you've then rectified very fast well that was i mean like the deleted all that ptsd yeah the production stuff is like look something might get stuck in customs and you know because even if you've done everything above board customs can just take something and hold it now we don't have loads of money where we can have loads and loads of ingredients just kept in in stock so we try and plan accordingly something

gets held in customs it's not just about getting another one sent over that's why I ended up in France because I'm like actually we need to go and get it ourselves. Because you can't take that risk. You know, I've got production in two days. Can't risk sending it over again. When you say production. As in the blending of our ingredients and the filling into sachets. Because if we, yeah. I mean, a few weeks ago, so we've obviously had source production now.

weeks ago um so we've obviously had source production now and um our manufacturing partner is like just call shares at like five o'clock on a friday dude don't drive got ppsd yeah guys everything's going well you know on track for delivery next week just one thing um don't know how to tell you this but someone pushed the wrong valve and they've just lost 200 kg of powder we fired them but yeah we'll have to stop and we're just like more more than that but yeah yeah like three weeks worth of our own rate and then you're like okay you can't do anything and you're like okay what can you do they press the wrong yeah well and he just exploded well so the coffee spilled out the back of the machine because the valve should have been closed but it's like look what can you do all right yeah

we literally we were in office together it was a friday afternoon and it's like we're just like yeah it's like yeah it's like do you know what you can spend the rest of your afternoon or weekend like stressed or being pissed about or you can be like all right listen that is really shit it's happened but let's find a solution there is a solution out there right and we can find it pretty quickly and you know what most of the time when these things happen actually it's a little bit woo woo but a lot of things happen for a reason 100 okay so we've got to talk about dragons den what was that experience like? How did you decide to go on it?

Amazing. Well, now I look back at it and go, it's amazing. At the time, it was like, it was just, yeah, what on earth has just happened? Yeah. So it wasn't even like, it wasn't like us. So we had an email from a BBC researcher saying, like, do you want to come on the show?

I think you guys have got something cool going on. So you didn't actually actively... No, we thought it was a scam. We were like, huh? I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, cool. And then two weeks later, writes back, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. And then, like, at one point, he's like, can you send a video? And I'm like, sure, quick video.

And, like, we're not in front of the camera. We're just laughing. I remember just trying to take the video again and again i'm like listen we need to like stop laughing and make a serious video so he made a video sent it in a few weeks later i was like oh congratulations you got filmed today i'm like huh i'm like calling shares i'm like says come to mind we need to practice the pitch we need to you know we're actually going to go on this TV show. So that's how it happened.

But that process, there was like, they asked us every question under the sun about who we are, where we're from, where the money's come from, from the business. Oh, okay, you put the money in yourself. We need three years worth of your bank statements. Like it was, the due diligence was ridiculous. Before you. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Which is good because you're going on BBC in front of four or five million people. So they want to make sure that... So I'm curious on that one with the, because I've watched them occasionally where the person hasn't done, they haven't like trademarked or something like that. And it's sort of the dragons are like...

Yeah, it's good TV, isn't it? So they know that that's going to happen. Yeah. But obviously there's still stuff that can come out because the BBC can't ask everything, right? Yeah, it's good TV, isn't it? So they know that that's going to happen. Yeah. Yeah. But obviously there's still stuff that can come out because the BBC can't ask everything, right? Yeah. They do the due diligence.

Yeah. They were more interested in our products and like the extracts and that they are good quality and basically like it's a legitimate product. Yeah. Like, so that was the main due division part but then you just turn up like you don't know what to expect right and how did it go put makeup on my head

so it was it was really really cool like you're in there for an hour and a half um pretty much straight away because you don't know what it is. They're like, you don't see any cameras. Like, don't worry about it, guys. Like, you step into the elevator car. They're like the biggest cameras you've ever seen in your life. And you're like, okay, thanks, guys. And they kind of, like, hype you up,

and they kind of come down and see who they're going to put on next. So they want to make a good show. So you're in there for an hour and a half um but I remember right at the beginning Peter asked about the numbers and I'm like that's I've memorized that part they always ask about the numbers right so I said it and he goes nope doesn't add up say it again I'm like said it again and I'm like it's got to be right unless I've just been doing the wrong thing this whole time um nope it's wrong say it again and I'm like it's got to be right unless I've just been doing the wrong thing this whole time um nope it's wrong say it again and I'm like I was like I've got no other answers I just said it again and then Debra looked at him and was like I think he's uh I think he's pretty accurate there then I was like okay these guys are playing little games here um so there's there's a

little bit to kind of like throw you off yeah Yeah. But then they give you loads of really cool advice because you don't see the full... You build a good rapport with them throughout that time. They were telling us loads of stuff. Do you know what? I was super nervous about to go on. I was looking at Zane and he's like chilled. And I'm just like, okay, kind of about to go on TV.

But so I'm stood there like going, all right, fine. And I remember just before we went on the producer sat there on his phone and he got like a video but it was a prank video and like everyone started laughing and my whole like physiological state just completely changed so I went from being like super super nervous to a smile on my face went in there and it like went really well and what were some of your takeaways from that experience as from the dragon zen experience i think it comes afterwards yeah because after your because then that's filming it's like there you're in you've had this experience you don't know what they're

going to show what's going to happen or anything but then actually that was in july and we weren't shown on tv till the following febru February that's when like it's like a what was how did you describe it like an explosion like an explosion but I guess a takeaway from being on the show was you can make stuff bigger than what it is right and at the end of the day it's just five people sat in front of you the big thing is is that you you just don't want to look like an idiot on TV, right? But yeah, I think you can make stuff a lot bigger than what it is. And that can play into like how you feel about stuff.

Yeah. I mean, I think there's a lot of really cool brands that go on there. And it's like they don't, they have a little bit of nerves and stuff, but I think they create that atmosphere because they want to make a really good show it's like just be yourself they're just humans at the end of the day everyone's on their own journey and going down their path it's like just turn up then you get shown on tv and then it's then it's the explosion then it's like oh my god and actually we didn't even know i think till a couple of days before

that we were going to get a really long slot so you can imagine we speak to other people that have been on the show and they're like guys stock up right because there's millions of people watch it and we're like okay how much stock they're like just stock up so we're like okay again like bootstrap trying to like we're funding two rounds worth of production we're like okay where's everything going to go so we're like we need an office so we managed to get like a small office unit still don't know what it's gonna what's gonna happen a couple of days before the show we find out we've got like a long slot so it's like at the end of the program um yeah website crashed straight away um it is just going like every everything is just going off yeah why crazy yeah i don't because we had orders that we

were trying to fulfill for a long time um we didn't really have a team or anything like she said we got an office like so you were as prepared as you could be with dude i had half my family in the office like bless and i have my auntie down from bournemouth shout out auntie auntie moini um yeah just like all hands on deck just trying then we were like okay we've uh we need to get a team so and aside from exposure how did that change things for you i mean it put it kind of puts you on a map a little bit and i think people do um like recognize you and trust you a bit more which is nice um when you're speaking to maybe potential clients as well okay you know because they're trusted because you've been on the bbc and legitimizes yeah

you know they know like people respect that you know the bbc have done a lot of due diligence in order to put you on tv so but also it's like mom i've just been on tv i like yeah proud she's like yeah go on son and then uh yeah that's really cool that's really cool but chess always says uh he knew he's gonna be on yeah my dad didn't like show me the show years ago um and i always knew i said it i've said it many times i always knew and honestly like i'm not like massively into manifestation and stuff but I guess this is manifestation at its finest right but the the key thing that I knew was that there'd be a point where we me or whoever I was in there with would go and talk to the wall and it would be Debra who was going to be telling me to go and talk to the wall and obviously it was Debra and Sarah who

made the offer and at the wall I remember they're like go talk so there's this bit in the show right where if they make you an offer you can go and talk privately to the wall so so we're at the wall and I look over at Chez I'm gonna see his mouth moving I've got no idea because we made a decision before if there's the wall thing only one of us should like speak so I was like all right I'm gonna do this I just turned around and I don't know like it's just flowing you know it's just coming out I remember talking to the wall and no idea what was coming out but yeah that was an experience that really cool but you look back and you think um in the last few years you've done so

much and it comes back to what this podcast is about like your saturn return things and it was about the age of we were talking about that because it was 2020 turn of 2020 when we were like december i think december 2020 we bought our machines and i just turned 30 and zane just turned 30 a couple of months before that. You got a massive smile on your face. So that kind of leads me to my final question beautifully, which is what would your advice be for people that have an idea, something like this, but don't know where to begin? Get some feedback, right? There's people out there that will help you. You know, if you've got an idea, ask people.

The thing is, is that there are a lot of people that will tell you what you want to hear you need to find out what the truth is so there's certain people that will give you that honest advice how do you know how to find those people the genuine yeah listen to your instinct and your gut it's usually right right but then there's another part of your gut that's like, don't do it. Like, be comfortable. It's like, listen, the best part is, is like, just start doing it. And you don't need to figure out like, all right, these are all the steps I need to get there. Like, they will come. You make it up as you go a little bit. You make it up as you go, but things will fall into place.

It's like figuring things out. You don't need the plan at the beginning like they will come like we're all super smart right um and i don't think we will give us that credit like everyone like you've got it in you it's like um just start taking those steps like baby steps so i've got to do something to make it like is it like getting my website domain or doing a bit of research into this area or how like we figured like literally everything out from like how do you get post out like at the beginning it was like oh we'll go to the post office then it was like and it goes from there like okay now the post office comes to us in a big run

it's like how did we get I know yeah like every little bit along the way like we still figure stuff out today from the from the start we kind of knew though from getting feedback people like the idea of being able to take a coffee out with them where we had the pods and they like the convenience and the single serve factor there's kind of like that kind of like told us that you know what there's there is a market yeah the feedback yeah probably the other main thing that i didn't realize before is it's like the power of who you know some people don't really know anyone it's like the network put yourself in those positions where you're going to meet people like we learn so much from other brands and we all help each other out from experts in

the adaption field that have done the research done the clinical research and all that like they're everyone's willing to help each other but all you got to do is ask and sometimes it's like there was there was a um a really nice lady that ended up in that inbox the other day and she's like um yeah guys could you send some samples for this corporate uh wellness day we're like yeah i would love to do that and ches was like why don't you get in touch with her and ask because it's b2b mind she's like ask her about like what she's doing and her plans and jumped on a call with her she gave so much advice she's like i love your blends i I'm a subscriber.

This is like, who do you want to be introduced to? I know some people. And like, just from that, just asking that one question, she just opened up this whole new avenue. And it's like, listen, if you ask, people will nine times out of 10 be more than willing to help and network in that right crowd.

Like if it's in food and beverage there's loads of different meetups and shows and festivals where everyone's just learning off each other right well guys thank you so so much for coming on and sharing your story i found it really fascinating and very inspiring so for the audience that might be interested in trying these out, where can they go? Harrods or Selfridges. LondonNewTropics.com. Also, I forgot to ask, why London New Tropics? London, because we're from London and we made it to London. And people go off in shows,

oh, so London New Tropics, where are you guys based? And we're like in Manchester and nootropics is a substance that helps the cognitive function so there's no fancy there's no fancy like story or anything behind I know but it is a great name it is a great name I really like it but I had no idea it's actually really long yeah there's a lot of n's and o's yeah but I love it well thank you so much I really enjoy the product and the brand and it's exciting seeing you guys go from strength to strength appreciate it congratulations thanks Peggy thank you so much for listening to this episode of saturn returns and from hearing from our

sponsors zane and shares from london nootropics if you guys want to explore the brand a little further you can head to london nootropics.com and check out their adaptogenic coffee blends which i highly suggest and my personal favorite is the zen blend as always remember you are not alone goodbye