Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / Fave hits: Raising $36M with your grandpa & building your own angel incubator with the Nue Co's Jules Miller

Transcript

Fave hits: Raising $36M with your grandpa & building your own angel incubator with the Nue Co's Jules Miller · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  Hey, it's Dune here. This is just a quick message to let you know that the Female Startup Club team are taking some time over the holiday period to rest, recharge, and sip on champagne. During this time, we're bringing you a roundup of our favorite episodes from the year, like Jing from Fly by Jing and Alison, the founder of Poppy.
• 0:22
  So many crackers in here, so if you miss them the first time around, I hope you love them. I'm looking forward to being back in your ears in the new year and wishing you and your family a super cute holiday season packed with love and joy. This is Jules Miller for Female Startup Club.
• 0:50
  Hey, everyone. It's Dune here. On today's episode, we're learning from Jules Miller. She's the founder of The New Co, and she is so awesome. I really loved, loved, loved recording this episode. We talk about her path to starting this business alongside her grandpa, who was a chemist slash formulator and professor at Cambridge. We chat about the learnings that come from raising circa $36 million dollars.
• 1:17
  Thank you.
• 1:40
  Founded by Jules in 2017, the new co-creates health supplements made from clean and sustainable ingredients created to deliver proven results. Every tincture, powder, capsule and spray delivers evidence-based solutions for improving energy, focus, mood, skin, sleep and digestion.
• 2:01
  All of the new Co's products are responsibly sourced from around the world. 95% of the packaging materials are infinitely recyclable, and it's supported by the brand's in-house recycling program. For anyone who needs to hear this today, stop stopping. You have got this. Let's get into this episode. This is Jules for Female Startup Club. Jules, hello. Welcome to the Female Startup Club podcast. Hi, thank you so much for having me.
• 2:30
  I'm so excited to get in today to your story and all the things that have been going on in your world. Most recently, your Series B fundraise, which is amazing. Incredible. Congratulations. Thank you so much. I can't lie. We're pumped about it. So thank you. I bet. Gosh. Gosh.
• 2:48
  I always love to get started by just getting you to introduce yourself and give us the elevator pitch of what your business is. Yeah, sure. So my name is obviously Jules Miller. I launched the business back in 2017, so actually not too long ago.
• 3:03
  I had been sort of struggling with IBS for about five years. I turned to supplements to help me. And essentially, like things were just getting worse. I won't give you the gory details. So it was really my grandfather, who was a chemist and a scientist at the time, who sort of sat down with me and said, let's go through all of these vitamin labels. And let's really talk about what these ingredients are doing.
• 3:25
  And I literally couldn't believe some of the stuff that he was telling me. And I think that, you know, I think things are changing now. And I think that the conversation and arguably the backlash against clean is super interesting, I think, to just push the category forward. But that was really my first glimpse into like, wow, we are actually consuming ingredients that could potentially not be very good for us or healthy for us.
• 3:47
  And so that was really the insight. I had worked in basically marketing my whole life. I'd worked at startups. I was head of business development at the time at a company called the Detox Kitchen in the UK, which is like, it's like Saqqara in America, if you know this, it's like a healthy sort of food delivery service.
• 4:07
  And I was just really interested in the category. So I started to do a little bit of research. I landed on the idea of the new co. And from a formulation perspective, it was really about developing really formulas with the best sustainable and ethically sourced ingredients that could really drive results that you could see and feel in 30 days. But from a brand perspective, it was really about developing a brand that could be
• 4:33
  build a really loyal customer base. That was really what I had realized was missing in the category. Most people were buying a different brand every single time they were buying a supplement or they were just forgetting to take their supplements completely. So yeah, that's me.
• 4:49
  And that person? Well, that is like most people really, particularly back then. The retention rate for the subscription, sorry, for the supplement industry was around 25 to 30%. So really poor. So yeah, we really just wanted to build a brand that really stood for something that, of course, had amazing products, of course, really drove those results. But a brand that could really engage with the consumer in a way that really supplement brands hadn't done so until now.
• 5:15
  Yeah. I mean, I really feel that if I think about my own consumer behavior towards supplements, it's like I identify an issue or something that I'm like, I want to fix this. I go out and I buy everything. I basically OD on too many supplements. Nothing works. I don't see any change. I potentially feel worse. And then I stop and like supplements don't work.
• 5:36
  Yeah, yeah. And I don't remember any brand name. Yeah, I think like that line, like supplements, they work is really interesting because like different markets behave in completely different ways where I'm obviously from London. But when I was doing sort of like my market research, I realized that we have to go to America because 80% of Americans take a supplement every day. So you don't really need to spend your marketing dollars on educating people that supplements work. What you're really doing is you're educating the consumer on why you're different.
• 6:05
  And whereas in the UK at the time, it was like 35% of consumers were taking a supplement every day. And that line, like supplements don't work. Like I think people like surprised that the government is recommending that you take vitamin D, you know, during a pandemic. They're like, wow, wait, this is something that actually works and can be useful. So yeah, no, that one, that one, I totally get that. That's like, that's a surprising one that people don't realize that taking vitamin D would be.
• 6:33
  actually work and be a good thing like yeah but I mean I think you know things like acne and vitamin d really correlate as well gut health and acne so like there's so many things that I think you know vitamin d is is the basic one but I think it's really sort of the gateway to people realizing that actually supplements can really be uh useful within a healthy lifestyle yeah
• 6:56
  Yeah, I mean, it's tough because I say that line supplements don't work, but I know that there are supplements that do work. And it's like for me when I think about it, it's like I actually really want to take a supplement. I don't know what I should take because I have like X, Y, Z problem, and then I go out and buy all the things, feel like nothing works, and then don't really have a good experience and don't feel like anything's speaking to me. And so I can totally see why –
• 7:23
  you'd want to go into a market that's already like, yes, we know that it's going to work no matter what, like we trust this brand, et cetera, et cetera, versus trying to target an audience that's different or a little behind perhaps in the education side of things. Right, and you have to really...
• 7:39
  understand sort of that consumer mindset in order for you to really address it. So we obviously took a lot of inspiration from beauty. And one of the things that I saw that beauty brands said is that they were really specific about the benefit of each product. So you would buy a product of five lines and pigmentation, dry skin, acne. Whereas when I had sort of digestive issues, I was just buying products for gut health.
• 8:05
  And yet really gut health symptoms are so different for everybody. You could have constipation, bloating. So we have a huge amount of products, but like 26 different SKUs and we get really granular with the benefits. So we tailor to 10 different need states. And within those 10 need states, we have different products. So we've got something for bloating, we've got something for constipation.
• 8:26
  And then really, if you really understand the problem you're addressing and you're taking a product and it's saying it's going to work in the next 30 days, you can assess whether it's working or not. And essentially what we found is when we acquired customers who've been dealing with things like IBS for five years,
• 8:44
  and you can really show them success, they're extremely loyal. So our repeat purchase rate is now 70%. And, you know, I think that's a basically, it's quite a basic way to really think about addressing problems, but it just wasn't something that was being done really early on.
• 9:01
  And I think from looking at your website, what you do really well, and from the consumer point of view, having that consultation section where you can fill out what the problem is, what your gender is, what your diet is, et cetera, et cetera, and then get something that you're like, oh, okay, this is what I should be leaning into versus just buying everything and not being really sure and then being overwhelmed and not knowing what your specific needs. Exactly. Exactly.
• 9:27
  Yeah, really cool. I've gotten ahead of myself a little bit. So I want to go back to life before you started this. Did you always want to start your own business? And where do you think your entrepreneurial spirit comes into the picture?
• 9:41
  Uh, no, I didn't. So when I worked for Lily, the founder of Detox Kitchen, I remember we went out for a glass of wine one night and she was like, I'm not silly. I know you want to launch your own business. Like, I know you're going to launch your own business one day. And I was like, no, I'm not. I don't want that pressure. So yeah, it was definitely not like a lifelong dream of mine at all.
• 10:02
  My partner, Charlie, had his own business and I had loads of friends who had started their own companies or who, you know, are successful. So I don't think it was something that I was really fearful of, but it wasn't necessarily something that I was like really focused on my whole life at all.
• 10:20
  Got it. Oh gosh. Everyone has such a different journey. That's so interesting that you hadn't kind of had that desire. And then somehow along the way you get the aha moment that you're going to start by working with your grandpa, which is just so cool by the way, as having him as your sidekick. When was the point through this research phase that you thought, hang on, there's a business here and I'm going to get started?
• 10:46
  So, I mean, this is all like a little bit of a long story, but I have had no experience in fundraising. I've never spoken to an investor in my whole life. And so I knew I needed like a little bit of capital, like just something to really start to, you know, even talking to labs and thinking about ingredients and stuff, you really need to have a little bit of capital on the use. So I actually set up a conference with a friend of mine called the Business of Wellness Summit.
• 11:14
  And from that, we sold out, we sold like 155. Are we talking about Lauren? Yeah, Lauren Arms. Oh, I know Lauren. Yeah. So we did the first event together. We like sold out, was it 500 tickets? Yeah, it was 500 tickets. I don't even know how we did that. Oh my God, that's amazing. Yeah. She's been on the show to tell this story.
• 11:33
  Okay, amazing. So I think that was like a really interesting experience. Obviously, we really only worked on that for like five months, but it was like, yeah, it was full on. I was speaking to founders all the time. I was obviously like, we had like an investor panel. So I was speaking to investors and one of our partners was Stylus. So it was like the trends forecasting agency.
• 11:54
  I already had like this idea about supplements. I'd already started speaking to my grandfather, but I went to one of their presentations and they were talking about the concept of beauty from within. And I just thought it was so interesting. Honestly, back then, there was literally nothing. I think Welco had just launched and Moon Juice just had their cafes. But other than that, there was just collagen gold and boots.
• 12:17
  So I think that for me, I was like, wow, I think like I have this idea about supplements. There's, you know, there are two sort of opportunities that I've spotlighted, which is brand loyalty and retention. And then there is this sort of huge opportunity with beauty from within. And what if all of these things could essentially come together? And from then on, things just happen really, really quickly. Like what? What happened next?
• 12:42
  What does that mean? So I, um, so yes, I basically had the idea. I pulled together like a business plan, you know, that nobody saw just for me, just so I could start to get all of my ideas sort of down on paper. From then on, I started to look at sort of the competitive landscape, who was doing what and really what was their strategy.
• 13:06
  And I noticed that Net-A-Porter had just launched into wellness and they didn't have a huge amount of brands on there. And really, like I said, in the category, they just want a lot of Net-A-Porter and Miss-A-Porter brands. So I managed to get a meeting with one of the sort of top beauty buyers there.
• 13:24
  And I said, like, I have this idea. I'm working with my grandfather. And this is a concept. You know, it's a brand that's really going to talk to the net supporter consumer. And it's going to feel like a beauty brand. It's going to drive the same sort of experience in terms of, you know, the packaging. People really looking forward to engaging with that product on a daily basis. But it's going to be really be harnessed in these amazing ingredients.
• 13:49
  And they was just like, yep, that sounds great. We can launch you guys in eight months. And I was like, right, I have to build a business in eight months then. And did you already have the investment that you'd gone out to get at this stage or the small amount of capital you're talking about? Or this was like the first thing?
• 14:04
  I literally had like the money from the ticket sales. Right. Okay. Got it. From Lauren. Which was how much? How much money did you get from the ticket sales? It was a couple of thousand. Like, right. Not a lot. Not a lot at all. But honestly, you know, in those days, it was a huge amount, really. So, yeah. So it was enough, really. Like I said, to start working with the lab. I just needed those formulas. That was like the most important thing. And then as soon as I had the Netta Porter sort of verbal, yes,
• 14:33
  I then went out and almost built like an incubator around myself of strategic angels. I knew exactly the type of people that I wanted around me who could help. And I knew that I really probably wasn't going to raise enough money prior to launching in order to really build out the team myself. So I needed to get these expertise from my investors.
• 14:55
  So to give you an example, I got funding from the managing director of our lab. And that meant that we got, I think it was like 90 day payment terms, which, you know, it really was amazing in terms of our cash flow. So because usually you would pay upfront for everything, but this meant that you would get the product and you could pay within 90 days. So you'd potentially get your payments back from someone like Netaporter first, if you're able to also. That was my idea. So I got my payment back from Netaporter first, and then I would then pay really my biggest cost at the time, which was just my product.
• 15:26
  So yeah, so I got investment from ArtLab, then like the owner of our PR agency, PR agency I really wanted to work with in New York. She also became an investor. I got investment from a couple of other angels who had built beauty businesses and had sold them in the UK. So Sian Sutherland, who was a founder of Mio Skincare, sold to the Huck Group. She's now actually founder of a charity called Plastic Planet. So she's like a real advocate for sustainability, something we're passionate about.
• 15:55
  So that's literally what I did. I like constructed literally an incubator around myself. That is so cool. I love that. And I literally found everybody on LinkedIn too. And so you literally just cold reached out to all these people and said, hey, here's what I'm doing. I'm specifically contacting you because I want you to be part of this. Exactly. And I was like, we're launching on Netoporter and these are all the reasons why you should get involved. And so that was like,
• 16:22
  pretty small round. It was like £100,000. And that was enough for us to build the brand. So all of the packaging, obviously, like the brand identity. We worked with the most incredible branding agency called Maidsource. And one of our investors was sitting on that board. So we couldn't obviously really afford them because we had that introduction. We were able to work with them
• 16:45
  So yeah, and then a few months later, we launched on Netoporter. And yeah, that was it. I think everything just sort of exploded. I think that's such an interesting way to approach it versus the classic, you know, buy into a lot of inventory, whatever the minimums are, and then go out and try and, you know, get people on board, get the product, all this kind of thing into doors by taking that approach of getting it into doors before you've even got the product ready to go. Yeah.
• 17:14
  And then being like, this is it. You always need a hook. Yes, exactly. You hooked everyone in. Yeah, you need a hook for every raise. And you have to remember that I had very little experience and I had no contact. So I knew that I was going to, I couldn't have, I couldn't really take the traditional fundraising route of just doing like a seed round before launch and then just hitting the ground running. I really raised pretty much the whole time for the first like,
• 17:42
  two or three years. So yeah, so we raised our angel round. Then we did actually another sort of like bridge round, which I can talk to you about. And then we did a feed about eight months after launch and that was 1.5 million. Wow. Cool. I just want to ask you a few more questions about that angel round first. Did anyone say no when you reached out on LinkedIn or was it kind of like you got the people that you wanted straight away? Uh,
• 18:11
  I, yeah, I got so many no's. I mean, I met with a lot of people and the people who said no gave me such great insight and advice. So, you know, I think in my first model, I was really looking to somebody like Ace Office Inspiration. And I, you know, I think we were saying that we were going to open up like 20 stores or something in the first two years. And they were like, you're crazy.
• 18:36
  Like retail is really not what you should be focusing on in the first two years. So we went back and, you know, we really looked at our model. So I think I never took those no's as anything really negative. And, you know, I really, really had done a lot of my homework. I really started the category. I'd got my hands on loads of consumer insights and market insight reports and papers really through the business of wellness.
• 19:00
  So when people were saying no, it was really because my strategy was wrong or really because I knew that the category was in such like a state of infancy that a lot of, you know, a lot of investors were saying things like, well, I don't think that, you know, consumers are ever going to think about their supplements in the same way that they do about their topicals. And they're never going to care about sustainability and pay more for that. And they're always going to want to have, you know, like the cheaper options and products.
• 19:28
  You know, I think you can't really convince everybody. So yeah, I had a lot of no's amongst the yes's.
• 19:35
  That's amazing that it was your strategy to launch into, you know, 20 stores in the beginning and then you switched to D2C and followed that route. That's incredible. Good one. Yeah. I mean, I think for us, I quickly realized how stupid that was. And really, I think it's always been our goal to really prove a profitable omni-channel strategy. So today we're around 70% D2C and the majority of that comes from our subscription.
• 20:00
  But we've always worked with wholesale in a way to really help sort of amplify the brand and really get in front of that consumer who might, you know, try one of our products on Netoporter and then want to subscribe to sort of one of our hero skews through our website. So now we're very much following the omni-channel strategy and pop-ups are part of that. But in terms of, you know, signing 20 long-time leases, it wasn't a good idea. I figured that out early enough, thank God. Thank God. Yeah.
• 20:28
  So in that beginning, then you move into selling on Netaporter. Obviously, that's a huge credibility stamp. That's amazing. I'm sure they also did a lot of marketing to help launch the brand. But what kind of got the ball rolling on the D2C side of things for you in those early days?
• 20:43
  So I think for us, PR was just so important. It still continues to be so important. I think you really need to ensure that your sort of ambassadors are people that our consumers trust. And I think often editors and certain publications really had that sort of authority voice that maybe influencers don't always have. So yeah, I think leveraging PR was a really big, important piece for us.
• 21:13
  you know, with the sort of Net-A-Quarter exclusive launch, we were able to secure, I think it was Vogue who launched us. So that was crazy. You know, like it was absolutely crazy. I flew out to New York, I did like five days of press, like 10 meetings a day. And I think like in my third meeting, I presented it to Vogue and they were like, we'll do the exclusive. And then after we had that,
• 21:34
  Everybody really wanted to write about it because they knew that Vogue was going to launch it. So we had like amazing, amazing press. And, you know, I think, like I said, you know, Net Supporter was really sort of like a strategic partner for us. We then launched our subscription service, like I think about eight months later, because we had to raise some funding to then actually build the tech.
• 21:54
  And once we really launched a subscription, we really focused more on a strong customer acquisition strategy and really started to invest in Facebook and Instagram. We'd had those previous eight months to really start building up our database. That email was starting to perform really well for us. So it definitely took some time for us to really go from, you know, a wholesale first business to actually focusing on our DTC.
• 22:18
  Mm-hmm. And in those early days, who was your first key hire that came in and helped you take some of that load off? Sounds like you were doing a lot. No, I literally always had the most incredible people around me. I'm so lucky.
• 22:33
  And Flow was our first hire. So Flow was working a company called Pi Skincare. I don't know if you know them, it's like a sort of organic clean skincare line here in the UK. And we'd met whilst I was working at the detox kitchen. And I wouldn't say we were friends, but we really got on when we met in sort of like industry parties and whatnot.
• 22:57
  And so when I was getting ready to launch the NUCO, I would always pick her brain and say, well, what do you think about us doing this? And what do you think about us doing that? Because she'd launched Pi into America. And I think it was just like a sort of organic thing. I just sort of got the idea one day. I was like, I really need to hire Flo. Like she just had...
• 23:16
  everything that you should look for in somebody as your first hire. She was so determined, so motivated. She was so passionate. She was happy to wear any hat, like whether it was like...
• 23:31
  going to a store and doing testers to meeting investors to, you know, bringing on labs. She, she was just amazing. And so I, you know, sat her down and sort of formally said, you know, I really think that we should talk about you joining the new co-op. And then she said, no. I wasn't expecting that. I think every good hire I've made her said no in the beginning and then I just didn't quit.
• 23:56
  No, I think for her, she was, I said to her, I was completely honest with her. And we were in London. I was like, we're going to move to New York. We're going to raise a huge amount of funding. This is what we're going to do. We're going to be the biggest brand in the category. And I think she loved all of that. But then she also was like, okay, well, I'm thinking about getting married with my boyfriend. And, you know, I've got a house here. So I think in the beginning, she wasn't really ready to maybe,
• 24:24
  prioritize the business, which everybody really, like every founder and every member of any founding team really understands that for the first few years, everything else takes the back seat. And then I think eventually she realized that it was something she really wanted to do. And luckily, her partner, Josh, was amazing enough to actually fly out to New York with us and get a job out there.
• 24:44
  Oh gosh. And so she's still with you now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She's yeah. She's amazing. So shout out to Flo. So she's yeah, she's VP of product now and she's incredible. And yeah, I've got a couple of family members. So my partner, my husband, Charlie works at the new co cousins who works there. So it's a little family business. I love that. That's so amazing. Gets to spend lots of time with the family. Exactly.
• 25:12
  I want to go back to raising capital. You recently, like circa the last 30 days, you've raised 25 million. I think I read before that you'd raised circa 11 point something. So tons of money that you've raised. You've had a lot of experience. You've said that you've been raising a lot. What are the kind of pieces of advice that you were given that you can share with others and like those kind of key insights and tips for people who are going to go down this path of raising institutional funding?
• 25:41
  I think the first part is just being really confident in your customer insight and how you've translated that into a product and brand proposition. And those things need to be very linear. I think you also need to be very clear on your exit strategy. I think sometimes founders forget as to who investors are and why they're getting involved. And you need to have a very clear roadmap to when they're going to get their money back and how profitable the investment is actually going to be for them.
• 26:08
  And that was something that I always had extremely clear in my head. I was looking at the types of acquisitions that were being made by the sort of big beauty conglomerates. I thought, you know, it's only a matter of time really before they're going to want to acquire that wellness consumer. And I thought of the brand that they would want to acquire. And it really would be the type of brand that you could plug in to a beauty shelf and who, you know, could survive in sort of a traditional beauty setting. And so...
• 26:37
  All of those insights have fed into the way that the new code looks and feels today. So yeah, very clear sort of exit strategy. I think being really clear as to what you want, what you're happy to give away, and what is going to keep you very focused and motivated as a founder and as a leader long term. So going into a fundraiser, I was always super clear with myself that I always wanted to have ownership of the products that we make, the brand that we build, and the people that we hire. Yeah.
• 27:07
  And I knew that if I could control that, that actually the other things that I might have to give up would be OK. I would still feel very motivated in running the business. What are the kinds of things you have to give up? What does that mean?
• 27:24
  You know, often if somebody approaches you and they want to buy your business for a certain amount of money and your shareholders don't agree, you have to pass up that opportunity. So, you know, it's things that I think maybe as a founder, you don't really think about too much in the early days. It's obviously you can imagine. Yeah. Has that happened for you?
• 27:44
  No, no, no, it hasn't happened for us. But these are just the types of things that you have to give up. And in all honesty, I think if you bring on the right investors and you're really aligned anyway, that's the most important thing. But I think that not losing control of those things are really important because the experience that I've had really is that I've met investors who I've clicked with, we've signed a term sheet, and through the due diligence process, it's become clear that
• 28:12
  you know, maybe we're not aligned on really what is important to me and what I would want to have ownership over. Or maybe I see sort of examples of things that, you know, I don't really want to have in my camp. And you need to always be prepared to step away from it and say, this is actually not right for me. So I think that's, for me, like the most important thing. It's just really like understanding those three elements. And then aside from that, you just have to go out and meet
• 28:42
  And it was funny because I was literally meeting everybody. So I would have like private equity companies ask me to come in and pitch them. So these are basically funds that are writing checks of like 20 to 40 million. And I would literally have made like a hundred grand in revenue. And they were obviously just like digging and trying to understand, you know, there's a new category, it's a new brand. I want to hear them come in. And I would go in being like, oh yeah, you know, they want to hear my pitch. They obviously want to invest. Good experience.
• 29:11
  Yeah, I mean, I was going into some of like the biggest funds in the world, like investing in Spotify. And I was there with my supplements. But yeah, I think I think that that was like a really important just not getting this hard and meeting with loads of investors, really understanding the types of questions that they're going to ask and just perfecting your pitch.
• 29:31
  Yeah, that's such a key thing, I think, is like in the beginning when you don't necessarily have the experience and you're also getting like slammed with rejection and you're also trying to figure out what it is you need to change to get people interested. It can be such a well, it sounds like such a such a mountain to climb. But once you once you get it right and you're on that train, it sounds amazing. Congratulations, by the way. Thank you. What does it feel like when twenty five million dollars comes into your business bank account?
• 29:59
  Like, is it just like you wake up one day and then it's there and you're like, oh, that's 25 mil. Yeah. I used to think that they would like stagger it. But yeah, that's kind of what I thought might happen. Yeah. And obviously just, oh, here's 25. No, because you're actually, everything has to happen at exactly the same time. So everybody exchanges signatures. You literally have the lawyers all on the phone and the money has to be transferred at exactly the same time.
• 30:27
  because you're literally selling your shares. So if for whatever reason you sell your shares and you don't get the money. So it's a really interesting experience and you always close on the wrong day. So like, I always obviously like clear my whole day and, you know, this is going to happen, everything's set. And then it's always like the day I thought that it had been closed. So I booked a holiday and I'm like standing outside the airport with my headphones. But I mean, I...
• 30:57
  I don't really measure success based on how much money we've raised. I think it's really clear for everybody to see now that there's been so many companies that have raised a huge amount of capital and haven't been successful. You know, I think that we at the NewCo celebrate in a completely different way. I think that we define success in a completely different way. So, yeah.
• 31:21
  I think it's definitely a sense of relief because raising just a due diligence process for a company like ours is really hard, as you can imagine. You know, you're having like auditing of all of your labs, your claims. So I think this last raise, it almost felt like an acquisition. The due diligence process was really intense. I think we had like 40 people on behalf of the investor working on it. And we had like a team of three.
• 31:47
  So it's definitely like a sense of relief, but that's pretty much it. I don't necessarily feel like, oh my God, we've raced 25 million. You just got to keep on going, keep chipping away. What does that capital do for you over the next 12 months?
• 32:05
  I mean, my big focus really is that we want to get to a sort of profitable stage in the business. And we're really, really close. We've had profitable months on and off for the last couple of years. Well, yeah, the last couple of months. But I think that that's a really big focus for us. We have always believed in business.
• 32:22
  ethical and sustainable sourcing of ingredients and packaging. But I think with this investment and actually where it's come from, we can really hold those values that just felt like things that we felt like were important to the same standard as really like our rate of growth and our revenues. So Pomoja Capital is owned by the founder of European Climate Change Foundation,
• 32:48
  actually all of the profits that are going to be made from the investment in the NUCA are actually going to go into climate change research. So I think from that perspective, it's going to be amazing for us to really be able to further invest, further interrogate. And I think with sustainability, there's never, we say it's a sustainability journey. Often we find a material material.
• 33:12
  that appears to be perfect. And we then further interrogate it and we say, oh, actually it's increased our shipping costs. And so I think that this funding is really going to sort of help us further invest in those things. And then secondly, it's just growth. So we're launching into a couple of different markets. So we've got Canada, Australia, the Middle East, and then Asia coming up. So that's all happening in the next two years. It's a lot. It's a lot, yeah.
• 33:41
  That's a lot. That sounds so exciting. My gosh. I think it's interesting when you talk about, just to go back a step, when you were talking about, you know, coming into this and raising money, you have to be very clear on what the exit strategy is and how you get to that. What's some tactical advice around? Let me give you an example of things that I'm thinking about at the moment.
• 34:00
  So we're building our own Better For You premium non-alcoholic wine at the moment. And we've been developing that for the last five months, let's say. And so something that we're focused on at the moment is speaking to as many people in M&A as possible and as many people who are in these businesses like Diageo potentially who could acquire us. And we've been kind of like watching what big brands are acquiring other brands and in what categories and things like that.
• 34:25
  So that's an example for anyone listening of what we're doing to potentially look at what could be down the road in, say, five years' time. But I'd love to know what you were doing to also kind of prep yourself for that future exit or acquisition.
• 34:39
  Really similar to you, to be honest. And like I said, we've got a lot of institutional strategic investors. So like Unilever is an investor. Lots of family groups are an investor. William Hood, who are experts in M&A, they sold oli vitamins and liquid IV to Unilever and Holland and Barrett here in the UK. So, yeah, very similar to you. I basically went out and sort of got all of this very...
• 35:04
  sort of useful and tactical information. And that really sort of helped build our strategy. In all honesty, it was pretty simple. We were just looking at sort of like the big conglomerates, what type of acquisitions they were making. We saw that there had been a sort of cluster of smaller acquisitions
• 35:21
  acquisitions done a couple of years ago of companies that were in sort of like a 20 million revenue standpoint, but that actually those acquisitions hadn't really been a huge success for these big companies. And we were sort of starting to see a different pattern where they were really only really taking the risk of acquiring brands who were sort of in more of like that 100 million revenue plus stage.
• 35:46
  So that sort of helped me sort of set my goals to sort of, okay, if that is the number, it has to be above that. What sort of multiples are we then looking at for an omni-channel business or really more of a provenant D2C, but was omni-channel sort of opportunity? And then we sort of like drew on a multiple, which we were looking, I think, at like...
• 36:08
  six X or something like that, five X, six X. And then from then we were then looking, okay, well, this would be sort of what that exit could look like if we were going to go with a big community conglomerate. And then basically working it backwards from there to how much you need to raise, what you need to get to, that kind of thing. Exactly. Yeah. So interesting. I love that. I love hearing what other people have done to figure it out. And also it's,
• 36:34
  A bit weird because for us, we're so at the very beginning, we don't have anything yet. You know, we haven't even finished our samples and it's so weird to be even thinking about that kind of stuff. But you know that it's important to think about and to have in your mind for shaping the brand and shaping the pathway.
• 36:50
  Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, I think sometimes when founders say, you know, I built a brand to sell it, it feels like it's almost dirty. I don't think, I mean, I'm so passionate about New Coat. Like I live and breathe it. It's something that's come from my grandfather. Like I'm so happy every single day to fight for the company.
• 37:09
  So it's not a case of like, oh, I just want to build it and dump it at all. And perhaps I actually hold on to it for 20 years and 30 years. But I think having a strategy is going to help you make the right decisions. You know, and I think that things change and obviously you can pivot. But I think that you have so many people around you often giving you conflicting advice. You sort of need to take what makes sense to you. And you can only really do that if you have a really clear plan.
• 37:37
  Yeah, you need to know what your North Star is and where your non-negotiables are. Is your grandpa still involved?
• 37:44
  No, he passed away a year and a half ago, unfortunately. Oh, I know. I'm so sorry. No, no, no, that's okay. He must be so proud of what you've built and what you've done. That's so cool. Well, we had like my grandfather, his sort of like best years have spent at Cambridge University. And Charlie, who is our COO, my partner, he is actually going back to school. So he's going back to Cambridge University to study sustainability leadership. So he's doing his master's next year. So...
• 38:13
  It's sort of like a nice full circle. That's a nice full circle moment. When you look back at your journey to where you've gotten to today, what was absolutely critical in the beginning to getting this brand off the ground?
• 38:29
  Oh God, there's, you know, okay, there's three, there's probably three elements. I think the first one is a bit silly, but I think the whole idea of manufacturing was such a black hole for me. I literally had no experience in it. And I was basically developing and manufacturing products in the UK. And then I was going to have to ship them to the US to hit my delivery deadline for Net-A-Porter. Yeah.
• 38:56
  And like I said, I didn't have a compliance team around me. So I needed to make sure that we were working with the best partners in order to make sure that that went smoothly. So, yeah, getting the right lab and then getting the right fulfillment agency. And I know that sounds silly, but we just would have never been able to deliver our first order without those two partners in place.
• 39:18
  And I would have never got to have worked with those two people if it wasn't for the angels around me who had made those introductions. And the reason I say that is because I feel fairly confident that I could sit in front of a buyer at Net-A-Porter and convince them that this is a good idea. In the same way that I could probably deal with an investor. But when you're trying to work with suppliers and manufacturers and you want to work with the best and, you know, they're working with brands that are, you know,
• 39:44
  putting in orders for a million dollars and I'm going to them saying, I need 500 schemes and I just want to work with you. I don't want to work with anybody else. It's a much harder pitch. So I would say that that was a huge moment for us. I would say also, obviously, like the Net-A-Porter launch was a really important moment. And then lastly, it was actually getting Charlie to join the business.
• 40:08
  And I think that in the beginning, you know, when it was like five people around the table, it was me, Flo, and other people that were basically just like Flo, who were happy to wear every hat. And, you know, it just felt really collaborative or we didn't have layers of sort of management. And it was amazing. We got so much done. Like in our first year, we launched Lynetta Porter. We signed on like...
• 40:29
  20 retailers. We then raised 1.5 billion. We opened a store at the end of the year and we launched another five products that we did so much as a group. And then I think that sort of going into like the next phase of growth, I quickly realized that really we needed another type of skillset in the business. And Charlie had another business
• 40:49
  I'm very like forward thinking, extremely optimistic. I make decisions super quickly and I want to do everything. And he is the complete opposite of that. He's very considered. He really takes the time to slow down and listen to people. And he's amazing at really building things like OKR structures around the business. And so having somebody on board like that who had a completely different skill set to me
• 41:17
  was amazing. And I think that's really helped us sort of keep up with that pace. Oh, wow. That sounds amazing. Oh, that's so sweet. So sweet. If you were starting this business again today, is there anything you would do differently in today's landscape?
• 41:36
  I definitely learned a lot of lessons that I don't regret because it's got us to where we are now. Maybe my advice for founders is that you should always remember that it is your business and that you actually are in control. So even if you raise all of this money and you've got all of these incredible investors around you who have so much experience working,
• 42:00
  It's your responsibility to know and understand every single aspect of your business so that you can make the right decisions. Because I think often, you know, you could take advice for someone who you don't necessarily agree with the advice, but you think.
• 42:15
  They come from this amazing background. They've been there and done it. They must know. And you sort of follow through with it and you realize, actually, this doesn't work for us. And I knew that. And now we've wasted money and we've wasted time. So I think that, you know, having been through the last four years, I think that just remembering that it's your business and it's their business, but your job is to protect the business. So if you think that you're making a decision for, you know, the good of...
• 42:43
  yourself, you're making it for the good of your shareholders. And just to have confidence really in yourself to do that. That's really great advice, standing with it, with conviction and going with that intuition slash what your feeling is.
• 42:59
  Yeah, I think it's that. But I think it's also, if you really know your business, if you're the one who's done the pitches to the editors. The data that's, yeah, you're the one. The data that you have. Exactly. And I think that that's what you often don't forget. I mean, I think if you stood in front of a buyer and you were trying to pitch them a new skew of a L'Oreal brand versus the pitch that we have to give when we're...
• 43:22
  you know, trying to convince a retailer that A, this is a category and B, they should clear shelf space for a brand that probably their customers don't know, but it's going to, you know, I think it's a completely different approach. And so that's, you know, you just have to remember that nobody really knows your business as well as you do. So that's why you have to have conviction in what you do. Gosh, is there anything on the horizon that you want to shout about?
• 43:46
  So we are launching with a major retailer in the US that's going to be by far our biggest sort of retail launch. And we're really, really, really excited about that. And we also have another sort of big collection that's launching in October, which is an extension of our functional fragrances. Oh, I'm very excited. That sounds nice. I was just looking at your forest lungs. Yeah, that looks so cool. I really like that. We need to get you one. It smells amazing. Yeah.
• 44:15
  Oh, I bet. I have no doubt. At the end of every episode, I ask a series of six quick questions just to wrap it up, some of which we might have covered, some of which we might not have. So question number one is, what's your why? Why are you doing what you're doing? To make people feel better, to improve people's health. Love that. Love that.
• 44:35
  I actually, just as a side caveat, I am the kind of person that's also dealt with like severe bloating from time to time in my life. And I'm that person that rushes to the pharmacy, like trying to have absolutely everything that they can offer me and then not feeling any better and being like, ah. I think, yeah, I think.
• 44:53
  It's I think all founders, most founders are really passionate about what they do. But talking about sort of what we really celebrate at the NUCO, it's a customer reviews. That's what we share on Slack. And that's what everybody loves to be part of. That in, you know, we're talking about conversion rates and click through rates and launching into retail. But in reality, that's actually what we do and how lovely that that's what that's why we come to work.
• 45:17
  I read through a couple of your reviews and they are really, really, really nice. What's been the number one marketing moment that made the business pop? I think the Vogue exclusive launch for sure. That's a pretty good one. Yeah. Question number three is where do you hang out to get smarter? What are you reading or listening to or subscribing to that others should know about?
• 45:40
  This is going to sound so lame. But one of the reasons we wanted to work with Unilever was because they had these incredible trend reports and consumer insight reports. So that's usually what my go-to, the future laboratory as well and stylist are two other sort of forums that I go to.
• 45:59
  Amazing. I'm going to link them in the show notes for anyone who wants to check those out. Question number four is how do you win the day? What are your AM or PM rituals and habits that keep you feeling successful and motivated and happy? So I am a very early bird and I always go for a long walk before I like start work. So it's usually like an hour. And then my sort of
• 46:24
  So I have a really basic skincare routine, which is obviously just made up of NUCO products, but I put a candle on and I'll use our fragrance. So I think basically my approach is start and end slow and then sort of the bit in between in your day. Just get everything you've got. Power through it. Yeah. Yeah.
• 46:46
  with fire. Question number five is if you were given a thousand dollars of no strings attached grant money, where would you spend that in the business? And that's kind of to look at like, where's the most important spend of a dollar for you? I think ingredients. Well, that's what we did. That's literally what we did. So we got a couple thousand dollars and we said, okay, let's invest in the formulas. And then subsequent to that, it was the brand identity.
• 47:12
  And question number six, last question, how do you deal with failure? What's your mindset and approach when things do not go to plan? I just think you, as a founder, you have to be accepting and understanding that you're not going to be able to do everything right. I spoke to a founder yesterday who has created literally the most beautiful, incredible brand. She was being so hard on herself because she thought that she'd got her trademarking strategy wrong. And I was like...
• 47:39
  You just can't beat yourself up about everything. You sort of have to accept that maybe you're not the lawyer, but actually you are the creative visionary. And yeah, that's really, I mean, I've learned so much from all of my failures and I've always looked forward and not in a sense of like manifesting, but I'm always like...
• 48:00
  okay, this is really hard, what I'm going through. Is it really going to bring the company under? Like, can I really see a scenario where this means that we're going to have to liquidate the business? If I can't, then I'm going to survive and I'm going to get through it. Then everything's all good. Yeah, and unfortunately, I think with running a business, I always know that whatever issue I'm dealing with today, I'm probably going to be dealing with a bigger issue tomorrow. That sounds really negative, but it actually makes you feel better. Yeah.
• 48:29
  That's so funny. My husband loves to say, he loves to put things in perspective by saying like, is this going to matter in a week? Is it going to matter in a month? Exactly. You know, is it going to matter in a year? And if it matters in a year, he's like, then maybe consider that. But if it's only going to matter in a week and that's it, like,
• 48:44
  And also it happens to everybody. Like I remember early on, we, I can't remember what we did. I think we had like the wrong font size in one of our labels. And so 500 units of our products were stuck in customs. And I was just so worried and stressed. And I remember I had a meeting booked in with somebody from Unilever. She wasn't part of the venture arm. She was just working there. I think I was trying to hire her.
• 49:11
  And I was moaning about it. She's worked in operations and she was like, oh, we've got four million dollars worth of stock actually held in customs for the same reason. And I just thought, wow, you know, that really puts it into perspective. You know, we're sort of all in it together and you just can't get disheartened. Love that. It's so funny.
• 49:33
  Jules, thank you so much for taking the time to be on the show today and share your incredible journey so far. I'm just so thrilled to have been able to learn from you and I'm excited for what's to come. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.
• 49:49
  Hey, it's June here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out femalestartupclub.com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter. We send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D2C, and interesting business resources.
• 50:14
  And if you're a founder building an e-commerce brand, you can join our private network of entrepreneurs called Hype Club at femalestartupclub.com forward slash Hype Club. We have guests from the show joining us for intimate Ask Me Anythings, expert workshops, and a group of totally amazing, like-minded women building the future of D2C brands.
• 50:36
  As always, please do subscribe, rate and review the show and post your favorite episodes to Instagram stories. I am beyond grateful when you do that.
• 50:53
  Hey, it's June here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out femalestartupclub.com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter. We send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D2C, and interesting business resources.
• 51:18
  And if you're a founder building an e-commerce brand, you can join our private network of entrepreneurs called Hype Club at femalestartupclub.com forward slash Hype Club. We have guests from the show joining us for intimate Ask Me Anythings, expert workshops, and a group of totally amazing, like-minded women building the future of D2C brands.
• 51:40
  As always, please do subscribe, rate and review the show and post your favorite episodes to Instagram stories. I am beyond grateful when you do that.