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How to meet, inspire and keep your first customers in B2B Software
73 Plays1 year ago
Freddie Szydlowski is a CoFounder of Embargo, the UK's & Poland's no1 plug&play digital loyalty wallet & CRM platform helping coffee shops, restaurants, bakeries, dessert parlours & deli's boost repeat revenues and customer loyalty across walk-ins, delivery and pickup ordering. Santiago Gamboa and Victor Gamboa are Cofounders of Hemanos, Colombian Coffee Roasters - and were early Embargo customers.
In this episode of the First-time Founders Podcast, Freddie, Santiago and Victor talk about how their relationship came about, why Embargo's early proposition spoke to Hermanos and how the platform has matured over time (and retained customer confidence through the inevitable ups and downs of building their respective businesses).
Interested listeners, please reach out to any of Freddie, Santiago or Victor via LinkedIn, or contact Rob on Rob@mission-group.co.uk (or to book some free time, visit https://www.eosworldwide.com/rob-liddiard).
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
Hello and welcome to another episode of the First Time Founders podcast, the show where we talk about how to start a business from nothing and grow it into something meaningful. I'm Rob Lydiard. I'm a professional implementer of the entrepreneurial operating system or EOS, which means I work with entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial leadership teams to help them get more of what they want from their business, whether that's setting and hitting targets, becoming more disciplined and accountable in executing a vision.
00:00:27
Speaker
and improving team health because we can be a little bit chaotic in startup world. We tend to have either too much or too little transparency and tension in between co-founders and colleagues. So that's what I do for my day job, but in my spare time, I love speaking to entrepreneurial people and entrepreneurs about the first time founder journey.
00:00:46
Speaker
so that we can share what we've learned and pay it forward to others that are coming down the entrepreneurial track and trying to bring their dreams to life. If you're an entrepreneur or an entrepreneurial person or just interested in the founder ride, I love to hear from you. My contact details as ever in the show notes, reach out to me, let me know what you think. Maybe you'd be on the guest, another guest on the show.
Meet the Guests and Their Ventures
00:01:07
Speaker
Anyway, today I'm speaking to Freddie, the co-founder of Embargo and Victor and Santiago.
00:01:14
Speaker
Customers of Freddy's at Anbago, they're the founders of Emano's Coffee, Colombian, authentic specialty coffee retailer, predominantly in central London. Three great guys. And the purpose of this episode, we try to do this from time to time, is for those of you that are existing or aspiring B2B founders is to see what a great early stage customer relationship looks like. How do you start one? How do you develop one? And how do you stop it going off the rails?
00:01:42
Speaker
And the guys don't disappoint in this episode. They cover all of those three points with Colombian style. So without further ado, I'll give you Freddie, Victor and Santiago. Gentlemen, welcome to the First Time Founders Podcast. Thank you so much for doing this, guys. Yeah, thank you very much for having us. Thank you. Thank you very much for having us.
00:02:05
Speaker
All right, so I know that like all of you, or at least two of the three of you are becoming independently social media famous, but for those of you, those that are listening or watching that haven't graced your presence on social yet, would you mind just quick introduction like personally in your businesses? I mean, Fred, why don't we start with you and then we'll go full hermanos.
00:02:23
Speaker
Sure, so yeah, my name is Fredy Szylowski. I'm the founder of Embargo, which is currently UK's and beyond leading loyalty and CRM software for hospitality businesses. So ultimately empowering any size businesses and their founders and their teams to hopefully make more money and drive more customer retention with data. Awesome. When did you get started, Fred?
00:02:47
Speaker
So I think we first started fiddling with the idea and how the app should look like in 2017. But we really launched the app and the CRM system around summer 2019. That was around the time or just before we actually started working with
00:03:08
Speaker
Hermano's Old Street in Shoreditch. I believe there was the two sides back then. So yeah, there was probably summer 2019 where the position were like, cool, we got a product. Let's start selling this. Let's start actually making money and see how it goes. And that's awesome. So gentlemen, my favorite Shoreditch coffee purveyors and Shoreditch and beyond now. Love to hear from both of you. Like, you know, tell us the story.
Hermanos Coffee's Journey
00:03:34
Speaker
Well, what can I say? We started, I mean, we always had an idea to, with Santiago we moved back into the UK in around 2002. That's when we came from Colombia to do different things. And we always, since the beginning, we wanted to
00:03:55
Speaker
have a place here that you can actually go and try the best Colombian coffee that you can have. Colombia has a vast, immense varieties of coffee, microclimates, different varieties and everything else. And we always have the dream. We always have the dream. So in 2016,
00:04:16
Speaker
We started with the project at Santiago. I've done quite a little bit of traveling to Colombia and stuff like that and everything. And we started to play around a little bit. Santiago, do you want to add anything, something to that, to the humble beginnings? Yeah, well, I mean, after I went to Colombia for a couple of years, two and a half years, to take a break from the UK for a little while. And when I got back in 2016,
00:04:47
Speaker
Yeah, end of 2016, I started to play with experimenting again and trying to, I did quite a lot of work in Columbia once I was there visiting farmers, doing more roasting courses and more things, trying to get more, you know, more knowledge about coffee, even more. And we started playing here with a little killer roaster in the house, you know, at the back of the, we are in the lounge.
00:05:15
Speaker
roasting coffee, experimenting with coffee. The dog used to eat the coffee that was dropping. There was coffee dropping on the floor and my dog was eating the actual coffee and she was going crazy. I think she was going crazy because she was Colombian anyway. She was like, yeah, very, very
00:05:42
Speaker
We brought the dog from Colombia. But yeah, so and then we opened our first shop back in pretty much around the same time as Frederick, 2017. It was the first thing we experimented on 2018. June 2018, we opened our first pop-up, just opposite my house in Wolfistow, in Blackhorse Road. That was our first shop. It was a pop-up. We started there in a community center.
00:06:10
Speaker
That was right opposite the building I was living. So that was the one in Blackhorse Road was our first shop.
00:06:19
Speaker
So from a pop-up, how long was the first lease on the pop-up? Well, it was two weeks. I mean, we opened there for two weeks. But then we were there, and the ladies who were running the community centre, they were like, oh, do you want to stay longer? And we were doing, I mean, we were happy there. And we were like, yeah, we also had already the contract for also a pop-up in Ulster Station.
00:06:46
Speaker
But the one in Ulster Station was like four weeks later. So we were like, okay, we can stay until before we go to Ulster Station. And we moved into Ulster Station exactly at the beginning of September 2018.
Growth and Partnerships
00:07:01
Speaker
Apparently for three weeks only initially?
00:07:04
Speaker
Yeah, we stay there forever. The station needed to close. And how big is the business now and what's your kind of vision for it so people can picture where you started? Where's this story now and where's it going?
00:07:18
Speaker
Well, now we have nine sites across London. Yeah, we have a thing that, one of the things that we would like to do, I mean, for Hermanos is always, we want to go well beyond London. We like to grow the business, our presence across the UK. We also want to tap into international markets as well, but like everything, you know, the beginning and the start like that, you have to put your craft.
00:07:45
Speaker
into it, you're really going to need to dig in and, and put the hard work to be able to be able to get to that. So right now, we are a nine size across London, we got some really, really good customer loyalty, which is actually ultimately what is keeping us going and working with
00:08:05
Speaker
and other partners like Embargo as well, I think that has helped us quite a lot because, you know, people, when people see that you're looking after your customers, that you are an independent business and everything is a gesture that all the time, people can see that. People see that you are in the business all the time and they really appreciate that. The customers really appreciate when you are around.
00:08:26
Speaker
And you see that and say, yeah, they are the partnership that we have to win a bargain. It's been really good over the years. I think that we started with them in 2018 since the beginnings and now we're still going stronger.
00:08:39
Speaker
Fred, can you hear from the beginning? Yeah, it's interesting. The businesses almost started around the same time or started scaling. I think we've met in Victoria was Frederick. I was going to ask that. Tell me how you came together. Sorry? Tell me how you came together, guys.
00:08:57
Speaker
So I think how it started, Victoria was already there as well, because I think it was a few months after you guys already had set up Wall Street, we knew that you guys set up Wall Street, you had Victoria. I think it was around the time when we were opening Shortage, like those in Black Hills. Sorry, not Black Hills. Bethnal Green Road. Bethnal Green Road, there you go.
00:09:21
Speaker
Very quickly. Exactly, exactly. And I remember that we had a sales guy then who was always first like proper sales hire, a guy called Derek. He was actually the one who met the guys and brought them on board. Yeah, he was one of our first hires. He's done very well. I remember that there was a lot of negotiation
00:09:45
Speaker
I think Santiago really, I think there was something where Derek came to me. They're these guys with a really cool brand. They really want to work together. I think it could do well, but they want this upgrade to the higher plan. Could we do something? And I remember we agreed on some stuff and I think, yeah, we were alive pretty quickly.
00:10:02
Speaker
And yeah, you guys were one of our first specialty coffee customers, if not the first, definitely among the first two or three brands. And certainly one of the first multi-sides that we really felt like
00:10:20
Speaker
To be, like we saw that in the statistics actually, we can remember we had that conversation internally say, your size was fairly small. Obviously, like, you know, Victoria still is, you know, it's tiny, Old Street's small, shortage was a little bit bigger, but still more on the side. But I was particularly looking at the data of Old Street and Victoria, but like your numbers were just crazy. I mean, that retention that was built like within the first weeks, pretty much, you know, was something that I think even on a
00:10:48
Speaker
whole platform perspective today would have been pretty impressive. And it's interesting for us because, you know, we obviously software providers, but we try, I mean, I hope Victor can confirm, we try to be a little bit more than just a software provider. But we also get quite passionate about what our businesses do. And by seeing the statistics, you know, we have a really good insight in comparison. And you can see sometimes when you launch this brand,
00:11:13
Speaker
And sometimes you feel like, oh, they have this beautiful branding and social media and all of this, and you launched that. But you see that retention isn't really there. You see a lot of first-time customers, but it's not really clicking. And sometimes you launch a business which is very unassuming, right? Which clearly they have a
00:11:29
Speaker
Create product and and I love the about about the guys today they didn't care about anything else just set the best product possible and make everyone feel great and that was still times where where you would literally see Santiago and Victor, you know other Victoria or Wall Street pretty much every day and and it created some of the base of the business so well and then you had the numbers just shown right away.
00:11:50
Speaker
This was something really cool to see. It was interesting because if I was to pull up some screenshots of how the product looked, I think I would cringe at this point. It was very early days for us.
00:12:07
Speaker
Guys, that's awesome. Santiago, Victor, can you remember how that first sort of sales guy presented himself to you? Obviously, you knew it was a fairly new product. What was it that caught your attention that made you want to go on this kind of collaborative journey together? Because remember, there's first time founders are listening to this, and they might just have a set of slides and a big dream and nothing else.
00:12:33
Speaker
I think it was the way I was presented. I mean, I remember talking to that person in Victoria. I remember that very well. And I think it was the way how the product was presented to us in a way that what it could, I think you as a business owner and as a founder of a business that obviously you've
00:12:56
Speaker
You haven't got a huge capital behind, but you want to bring more sales and whatever you add to the business, you want that to be able to add value to what you're doing. And if it was the way I was presented to us in that moment to me, what was the benefit for us to have it?
00:13:16
Speaker
what we will get. And obviously, and that was what he clicked. And I remember, obviously, after I spoke to the person from Embargo, I told Victor and Adnan, and he's the other founder of the business. And I said to them, look, there is this app that we could use for our loyalty customers, our loyalty card.
00:13:41
Speaker
And again, as I said, we saw that there was a way of adding value to what we wanted to do and to keep rewarding those customers who didn't want to keep that piece of paper, the typical loyalty card that most people walk around with, because not many people want to have too many things on their wallets. And that was what it clicked. And we were like, OK, let's do it.
00:14:10
Speaker
how does it how actually does it work Santiago or Victor like and and and how has it changed over time if it's changed right um yeah i think that what what what it does is that some customers when they come to the shops i mean we got our physical loyalty cards and we also have um uh embargo which is the digital ones um many people don't want to carry more cards they prefer digital ones so as soon as you get there you get to the side
00:14:38
Speaker
You just buy your coffee, and we got a little pop where people just claim the stamp. And after nine coffees, they get the coffee for free.
Embargo's Evolution and Impact
00:14:47
Speaker
That was right at the beginning when we started. That was how the business was working. And one of the things to add to what Santiago was saying is that what is important is that when I met Frederick from Embargo and I met the guys from Embargo and everything, you can see that they want to work with you.
00:15:06
Speaker
and they know how they can squeeze more money out of you is to see how you can collaborate because this is a long partnership. When you go into business, if you think in a year's time and two years' time, actually it's more productive when you are thinking so just in the next month.
00:15:22
Speaker
And that was the difference. That was the difference as well that it took to us. And now we've got a system where people can actually order the coffee on the telephone. And as soon as they come to, the product has evolved significantly. I think that the product has, it's a very good reflection of the passion that I can see on Frederick when he talks to us about the product. Because every time that you feed back to them and everything is very reactive, they're very proactive.
00:15:52
Speaker
in that sense to try to fix things, try to make it things, go as smooth as possible. And I think that it always helps when the other person is in your same shoes, in a sense that you want the business to work. It's your business, it's your sweat and tears that it got into that. And so you always do whatever it takes to keep the customer happy. The same way how we do with our customers with a copy as well.
00:16:20
Speaker
That's amazing. Freddie, what a lovely thing to hear from customers. I mean, how much of that did you intend? Are you going to tell us you're a genius and you know all this upfront? No, actually, no. I think I will double down on what Victor said, because there's the thing we always assume, actually, my background is hospitality as well. So let's say I have a certain understanding of how much effort and sweat and tears it takes to run hospitality business, right?
00:16:46
Speaker
It's tough and I think the last few years have put more challenges in front of entrepreneurs in that space than ever before. I do understand I have a certain empathy to this because I've been on the other side of the table. But my approach when setting up this business was
00:17:07
Speaker
There had been people trying to solve what we tried to solve, which is ultimately that hospitality is a consumer centric business like grocery stores, supermarkets, hotels, airlines, which is we need to make consumers buy and we need to make them buy again, ideally more and more often.
00:17:24
Speaker
Now, and I always felt like all the other consumer centric business really nailed the data capture there, the tools to build that relationship beyond that experience in store, right? Because like, especially for businesses like, like Santiago's and Victor's where they had a vision. We want to grow this, we want to build this. We're not going to be in every shop every single time when a customer walks in. So how can we build an engineer something beyond the, Hey, how are you doing in store?
00:17:51
Speaker
and a great product, how can we build loyalty beyond this? How can we build a relationship beyond this? How can we keep people up to date with what's happening, how their product evolves? I mean, if you look at even the branding from where we started today, I mean, today they're leading the way and the way they present themselves as a business, right? So it's like they've gone through our journey, but what we want to always do is give this power to any size business to build these communication tools, data-driven loyalty,
00:18:19
Speaker
Something that, you know, yeah, the big ones could always do this. The Starbucks is the McDonald's for, you know, they would have spent millions of dollars on that. But how can we empower any size businesses who have probably even more passion and more empathy for every single user than the big ones?
00:18:33
Speaker
but don't necessarily always have the tools to do this or the capital to do this. So for us, we knew that, but we also knew one thing. We only know what we know, which is not much. So the way if, which is because we haven't been in every single person's shoes. We haven't run every type of business, right? I mean, a coffee shop and shortage will have a slightly different type of, you know, maybe customer-based and a coffee shop in Chelsea. A specialty coffee shop focusing just on, you know, coffee and croissants will have a slightly different
00:19:00
Speaker
You know way of running business in a branch place especially like there's so many different caveats to every single type of business that the only way we can build a perfect product is if we build them with them. It's a whole idea of not building just off the shelf wide label you know solutions where usually the quality lax is let's put everyone on one platform because what does that mean that means that if a victor and cj come to me when we logically say look,
00:19:23
Speaker
Like, we love that. We love to find out people can walk in store, collect a stand, like super simply. It's extremely straightforward, even for not so tech savvy people. But it's great now people can order for clean, collective and delivery and all the data lands in my CRM. But how about could it also somehow be integrated with Square directly? So all the orders going to our KDS is on our way.
00:19:43
Speaker
You know, all these little things you only know if you're an entrepreneur and a person running operations. But they said that this would be so crucial. So we embarked on working on that integration. They're like, this is great and this could benefit so many other businesses. So one person sort of very strong push and idea, you know, can spark something within our business. They're like, this is great. And we can serve nearly 2000 of our businesses with that. You know, we have other cases where, you know, there's a new Samsung phone or whatever phone coming out.
00:20:10
Speaker
something doesn't work as smoothly because of that on our system. But because of one user out of hundreds of thousands that uses and embargo experiences that and brings that to our attention, we can fix this for everyone on the platform. So having the empathy to users, I think something that the Airbnb founder always say,
00:20:29
Speaker
always design with the empathy for a single user. And I think that's on the user side, but also have the same with your business customers. At the end of the day, it's a win-win. If we can provide, if we can have this empathy and this, I guess, drive to constantly have a better product based on what our customers tell us, well, they obviously will because they get a better product. I mean, today the guys can use multiple
00:20:54
Speaker
Analytics tools, six marketing tools, use the law to get across delivery, walk-in, click and collect everything they ultimately want. But we wouldn't have built this if it wasn't because of the nearly 2000 advisors, the businesses, right, who tell us what should work. And then we went because we didn't have a significantly better platform. So, yeah, that was always the thing. But it came from the fact that, yeah, we really wanted to build based on what the guys need.
00:21:21
Speaker
That's awesome. And guys, this is clearly like heartwarming and aspiring founders listening. And it'd be like, this sounds amazing. Find two visionary entrepreneurs that are early in their journey that
00:21:33
Speaker
have a need for technology and trust me to implement it. And that is true. Have you, you don't have to name the innocent or the guilty, but have you experienced working with partners where it hasn't turned into the sort of relationship you clearly have with
Navigating Business Challenges
00:21:47
Speaker
Freddie? And if so, what went wrong? Or if not, what do you think could have gone wrong? Because I would love first time founders listening that kind of want to imitate Freddie's story and your relationship.
00:21:58
Speaker
to know that it doesn't always play out like this, right? Like, I'm sure you've had many setbacks in your entrepreneurial journey as we all do. I'd love you to just talk to some of that so that people listening can recognize, you know, what the other side of the story looks like if you don't go and deliver for a business like yours.
00:22:17
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, well, I can't think of anything in particular on the top of my head. I don't know if Victor does, but I mean, any particular case, but it does happen a lot when you come in with a lot of expectations that, you know, this new partnership or this new, you know,
00:22:44
Speaker
Yeah, and that working with is going to turn that well. And you end up saying, gosh, we've got to have to walk away because he actually is not working out for us. And that happens a lot. That happens a lot. And
00:23:00
Speaker
I don't remember, I don't recall anything. We did have a couple of entrepreneurs as well that came to us with slightly different propositions. Very similar to what Frederick is trying to do now, click and collect and stuff like that and everything else. And I think that one of the things, and this is what I was saying before,
00:23:25
Speaker
When you get into a business, when you are starting, the first thing that you're going to need to realize is that it's not going to be easy, and that they're going to be set back all the time. And you need to be ready for it. You need to be ready. You need to be ready for the setbacks. You need to be ready to be reactive and proactive as well with your customers. And unfortunately, the reason we are still working with Embargo now is because every time that you drop
00:23:52
Speaker
a problem or an issue that you have, they're very quick to try to resolve it. With the other partners that we had previously, one of them, we never heard from him. And the other person, one day just went and started to collect all the tablets that had delivered to us because it wasn't working and it didn't materialize, but it wasn't a communication on a regular basis.
00:24:21
Speaker
on an end-to-end customer and supplier. And I think that that relation and that ability to be there, that you know that it's going to be hard, they're going to be issues. And we all know that. It's not about how many products you have, it's how you deal with them. And if you are open and honest and you always try to get things resolved, people are the other than they're going to see that.
00:24:48
Speaker
Yeah, and I think actually I just remember when Victor was talking and we had a few of those and one of those being people promising, delivering something that they weren't capable and they weren't ready to do so.
00:25:05
Speaker
and that happens a lot when you are a small business and when you're entrepreneurial and you don't want to lose the customer or you go there offering a product or service that you are not ready to deliver and that happens a lot and that's why and we had a couple of those but one being
00:25:26
Speaker
a product that we wanted to get, Run by Victor, and this person promised us that they were going to deliver the items, and we're bringing this from actually from abroad. And they were not ready, they were not able to actually deliver. And we were very hopeful of getting this. And I think you need to know and understand very well, what are you capable of?
00:25:53
Speaker
And not just that, is be honest with the customer. Oh my God, that's so true. That's why, for instance, at the beginning, we have so many people asking, oh, could you do wholesale? Could you do wholesale? At the beginning, we were like, we're not ready. We're not ready. We can't. I can't promise you and I can't commit to deliver X amount of coffee because I won't be able to deliver that.
00:26:19
Speaker
And I could have said at the beginning, not to, you know, not to lose the customer, I think that would have been worse. Because then, yeah, so then I think that's the most important thing. Know, know what you're capable of and not, you know, not try to offer something that you're not able to deliver. It's such a good point, Freddie, you must see this all the time in the tech founder community. I do.
00:26:41
Speaker
I would love for you to just talk to that. And also, like, if you're willing to be a bit open and vulnerable, like, like, have you ever got that wrong? Have you ever bitten off more than you could chew? Or if you haven't, what are some of the things you would have loved to have done, but you had to just hold yourself back in order to protect your reputation for delivery?
00:26:59
Speaker
No, I think in general, I would say by being so keen on feedback, keen on ideas and trying to work so close with the partners, it's a huge value and I think it allows us to be where we are today and have a product that evolves a lot and I think we're all very driven to do this. But it also has this downside because
00:27:20
Speaker
As you can imagine right this means we also have to filter through a lot of ideas a lot of things that people expect and sometimes when you give them you know a finger they want to take the whole arm you know and then it's like oh it should do this it should do that and you know it should literally basically make us millions by just by just being there and then and then you have this you really do and
00:27:42
Speaker
And I feel, but then you go like, great, so how much are you willing to pay for this idea? Yeah, 30 pounds, 40 pounds a month, right? But in all honesty, I think it's a case of, you know, you need to then find a balance because
00:27:58
Speaker
We try to never say no in a way that, you know, and one of the actually, one of our customers, the founder gave us a video test a moment a while ago and while recording it and talking about how Embargas impacted the business, et cetera, the customer retention, one thing he also had to say, and you know, we love Embarga and Freddie, he never says no. I'm like, well, it's not entirely true probably, but yeah, we really try to always find
00:28:23
Speaker
And I think if there's something we can't do, or I think it's not worth it, I usually try to say, okay, tell me why do you need this? What is it that you're actually trying to solve with this? Because you're saying, I want this feature, or to do that, usually is for something. Or by asking those questions, two things usually happen. Either we find out it's not that important. Actually, he was, why do you need this? I was like, I'm not really sure. Or the need is so little,
00:28:51
Speaker
and the potential downsides coming with it are so big that it's not worth it. At the end of the day, our game is to manage, for instance, the complexity of the product versus the simplicity to use it. Because something that I always try to tell our partners is
00:29:07
Speaker
I know you work on your business 24-7, that's your baby. All you live and breathe is your restaurant, your coffee shop, your bakery. But remember, even your most loyal customers who love you so much, they visit you every day. For them, it's a few seconds to a few minutes a day. It's not like the entire world circulates around that experience. And when they go there, they want to have a great product, great experience. I want to feel rewarded for this for sure. And you can do a lot of things to enhance that.
00:29:33
Speaker
But the more hurdles you put, the more complications, the more TNCs, the more things which become complex.
00:29:39
Speaker
you start dropping on adoption, you start dropping on engagement, and suddenly you're like, oh, I've added this because I wanted that, because it was apparently so important. But remember, by adding this, you might maybe save here or add a little bit of value, but you're gonna lose a lot of other value there. And I think seeing the bigger picture. And I think for us, our job is on one and being very curious about how our business partners think and what they need, but also being this sort of, you know,
00:30:08
Speaker
consultant a pot and go like okay tell me why tell me did you think about that how about if you really taking that into account but then all often what happens is the other outcome which is actually so what you want to achieve is x which is i don't know how long.
00:30:24
Speaker
Uh, you know, I want transactional data, right? Let's say connect to my customer. It's okay. So maybe we don't need to be fully integrated. Everything run through your post system. We can still keep the simplicity of the instruments, but at clicking collects at least customers who are willing to pay, who are willing to do this whole transaction for an app.
00:30:42
Speaker
You get the data from them, but you don't sacrifice the ones who are not maybe that tech savvy and prefer just a little tab. So it's almost not going like I need a full on pause integration. Everything has to run from my pause because then what you end up having, you end up losing probably 80% of your customers that currently engage with your system. So would you rather have these 80% of your database and know they return every two days that they haven't been back in a month. They can send them an update about your new products and whatever. They're literally when you reach,
00:31:09
Speaker
but not know whether they drink oats milk or normal milk and sort of say, okay, something, you know, I don't know, but really, is this a crucial information? No, but then the 20% of that I can convert to, let's say, Clifton Collect as an example, and there at least I'll know everything.
00:31:27
Speaker
And then you go, you have the beauty of what, because if you were just to push everything through some sort of weird post-based integrated setup, that 80% would not engage with it probably, right? Or very likely. So again, finding what are you trying to achieve? How can you find the best way for you to achieve your goal rather than being stuck on this one thing, basically? And then that's coming back to founders and general tech. And I read this somewhere, I can't remember, I've been trying to remind myself who said that.
00:31:54
Speaker
But he said to really find product market fit in a business and I think that was to do with tech startups but I think it has to do with anything.
Final Thoughts on Entrepreneurship
00:32:03
Speaker
You need to really believe in your vision, but you cannot be attached to your specific idea and concept too much. You need to be ready to adapt this, change this, and really be agile, because something that you thought today might not necessarily be the reality. And even if it's the reality today, it might not be in a year. So don't get too attached to the specific product concept you have. Be ready to change, adapt, evolve, and learn on the way. And this is what we try to, I guess, do on the other way, as bouncing back those ideas.
00:32:32
Speaker
Guys, this has been like super high impact, half an hour. Crikey, it's like a Colombian coffee shop, isn't it? I mean, we've covered like how you get in and get the attention of like a great emerging brand like Manos and Santiago and Victor as busy hospitality entrepreneurs.
00:32:49
Speaker
how you then Freddy like execute the initial vision and then go on a journey so the vision matures over time, how you don't get out over your skis Santiago and Victor so you don't like take that initial opportunity and then drive it into a ditch by over promising.
00:33:04
Speaker
and under-delivering, there's so much that a listener or a viewer could get from this brief conversation. Is there anything that I've missed about the founder of Journey, your founder experience, or the relationship as between you that you think first-time founders listening should be paying attention to or anything to sign off with? Because I feel like this has been probably the densest episode I've done, really. I'm never so grateful that you've done this, but just curious as to what I've missed.
00:33:33
Speaker
I don't know, I think it's probably, it's important for people to know when they are going to embark in this journey is that they think that to set up a business or to be entrepreneurial is just put up a website and start selling and sales are going to start coming from, I don't know, from where.
00:33:57
Speaker
or if you open a coffee shop or a bakery or a restaurant and all of a sudden you're going to have a queue, two streets down the road, it's not that easy. And some people underestimate that you're going to have to get your hands dirty, you're going to have to
00:34:18
Speaker
get down on your knees and do the floors and do things and do everything. And sometimes you're going to feel like it's just you. People who probably don't think, don't have the, probably not the knowledge, but don't actually understand that they're going to have to do that, they easily quit. They easily say, oh, this is not for me. And they actually are not really passionate about that.
00:34:44
Speaker
They actually don't actually know actually confident and sure the product and the service that they think that they are providing and they just quit because they see it's too hard and that happens a lot.
00:35:02
Speaker
Victor, have you ever thought about quitting on your brother? Anything to add as we sign off this episode? One of the things that you need to love it. That's the one thing. I think that if you love what you do, I think that you're going to wake up every morning trying to just make it better every day. And that's one of the things, whatever you do, you need to be prepared to stack in and do the dirty work because that's always going to be there. That's not going to go away.
00:35:27
Speaker
But if you love it every day, no matter how hard it is, you're just going to carry on doing it. And I think that it's hard, but it's very rewarding when you see, especially when you see customer comments, when you see your teams delivering that and you hear the feedback about the product that you are selling, serving, or whatever, or making. And I think that that's when you realize actually it's worth it. Everything is worth it.
00:35:57
Speaker
I think the reward thing there is when you get feedback. I mean, we're not talking about money. I think we're talking about when customers are truly happy with the product and service that they're getting from you, saying, oh, I come here every day. I love your coffee. Well done. This is fantastic. For instance,
00:36:20
Speaker
how good and happy we feel like working with Frederick because he keeps evolving and providing more features that actually are more in benefit for us to get the best out of it. I love it. Freddie, any final words of wisdom for our first time fans? I think for sure, as the guy said, you have to be ready for a crazy ride.
00:36:45
Speaker
It's a right that you cannot compare this to anything else. Ben Horowitz once said that as a business founder, business CEO, you sleep like a baby. You wake up every two hours and cry. I think you have to be ready for that.
00:37:02
Speaker
Very true. I always say, when you're in London and I hear someone complaining about rain and it's like, do you still complain about rain in London? It's almost like you have to be okay with this. You know it's going to be this. And the same thing like when it comes to problems, issues, challenges, moments where it seems like there's no way out, it just becomes like rain in London. Yeah, it's just rain today. So what? Not the first time, not the last time.
00:37:25
Speaker
you have to be ready to take to embark on this really tough, you know, mental and sort of physical because of late nights, you know, working journey. And as you said, like, embrace the what are you really passionate about? And, and the other day, this is this, this is a marathon. And I come from, you know, a bit of a sports background. And my dad is a sports manager in track and field. And
00:37:51
Speaker
I love one analogy that one of my coaches once told me, and I saw this always when watching Track and Field at the Olympics, you know, when you have these like runs, which are like three, five kilometers on a stadium, and then you have the last hundred meters, usually like two runners that you go head to head, and suddenly one takes over and finishes first.
00:38:11
Speaker
But it's never because they suddenly accelerate after five kilometers in Burley briefing. It's just the other one just couldn't keep up, just couldn't keep going. Every day wake up like we do it again, we do it again. It's about the consistency of pace rather than trying to like go on a hype and try to accelerate. Just consistently go beyond it. Is it raining? Is there another fire to deal with? Doesn't matter, you just keep on going. And I think, you know, with a smile and some passion in that as much as we can at least. And I just have to be ready for that.
00:38:41
Speaker
Gentlemen, thank you so much. What an inspiring, wonderful relationship, and I really do appreciate you sharing your story. Thank you.