Back in the day of the Yellow Pages<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Solve a problem and fulfil a need that isn\u2019t already being fulfilled<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Building an authentic tone of voice<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Be open to new way of marketing and look for advantages to your brand<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Keeping your business privately owned<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Rival companies will play dirty<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n The downfall of the shaving bond<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Fund your growth by selling more of your product<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n How Covid impacted King of Shades<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n In the eye of the storm\u2014businesses battling recession<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Being direct to community should be your marketing strategy<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Transferrable skills from the yacht to the boardroom<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Will, it is so wonderful to have you on the show. How are you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bex, you know what? I think we were chatting earlier and said it\u2019s been 10 years since we last saw each other and here we are 10 years later, and you haven\u2019t aged a bit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I know you have a baby on the way, and you\u2019ve already got one and it\u2019s so lovely to see you, and I\u2019m still shaving lives, Bex. That\u2019s what I\u2019m doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I love that you are still on brand, and I feel as old as time. So I love you for saying I haven\u2019t aged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Oh stop it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But yeah, you are right. When I was starting my career as a business journalist focusing on entrepreneurs, you were just an obsession because number one, you were doing so many cool things that had never been done before with King of Shaves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Number two, you were always great for a quote, because you always just said exactly what was on your mind, and you never held back, which was great.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And three, you always picked up the phone. So you were part of my kind of mini-MBA as a business journalist, just learning from you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So it\u2019s so nice to be catching up with you again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Oh, thank you, likewise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Well maybe we should start then. Take me back to the heady days of 1993.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tell me how you came to create this disruptive brand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So you\u2019ve been made redundant, is that right? Tell me how you came to the world of shaving lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Goodness, me. We\u2019re going back 29 years, Bex. So I was 26 or 27 years old then, and I was working in conference and event production, but there was a recession in the UK, and I was made redundant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I went from my \u00a340,000 a year job and company car, to a bike. I was really not that happy to be honest with you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I decided to do two things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Firstly, I wanted to be my own boss. The entrepreneur word wasn\u2019t really used a lot then. I mean, of course you had Alan Sugar and Richard Branson, but other than that, it was very, \u201cYou\u2019re starting your own business, really?!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Secondly, I needed to make a product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I hated shaving. I\u2019d studied engineering at Polytechnic, now Portsmouth University, and The Body Shop was big, aromatherapy and essential oils were big. And I thought, could you shave with natural oils?<\/p>\n\n\n\n They lubricated and foams didn\u2019t, they\u2019re chemical-based products, and so I bought a book in Henley on how to mix essential oils. I went home and mixed up some essential oils and months later I arrived at a formulation that seemed to not gunge up the sink too much but did deliver a nice shave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You have a carrier oil, and you have essential oils, and I didn\u2019t get razor burn for the first time in my life. I mean, that was a huge thing. I\u2019d always had rash skin. And we had to wear suits, shirts, and ties back then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I thought, maybe if it works for me, it might work for other people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And that\u2019s how I came to create the original King of Shaves shaving oil, the last one of which I have here is 30 years old.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wow. Still in its packaging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And that went on the bottom shelves of Boots in May 1994 after lots and lots of phone calls and lots of trips up the newly opened M40 and then the M6.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And of course after we\u2019d got it into Harrods where I\u2019d rung up Mohamed Al-Fayed and got put through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I got put through to his assistant, and they listed the product, and it is incredible now, Bex, when I look back on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1993, not only was I able to launch a product, but there was no technology to speak of then, the internet wasn\u2019t invented yet really, and everything was paper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But also incredibly the timing was so amazing because I had one competitor that was Gillette. So there were really no other shaving brands other than Wilkinson Sword. No Nivea for men. No L\u2019Or\u00e9al Men Expert, no Bulldog, no nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was me and my two dogs, the Fox terriers, out the bedroom, and we got it on to the Boots shelf with the buyer Fiona Kemp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our sales went from \u00a3300 a year to \u00a357,000 a year and then to \u00a3250,000 when we got it into Sainsbury\u2019s and then \u00a3500,000 when we got into Tesco. Then I guess by 1998 the rest was history, we\u2019d become this challenger brand to Gillette.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And if you didn\u2019t like Gillette, well, we were kind of the only other option. So incredible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today, you could not believe that it was just us and to paraphrase a couple of famous sporting brands, impossible is nothing, I just did it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here I am 29 years later. So it\u2019s great to be on the pod with you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ve got so many questions, Will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n First I have to ask, how did you get Al-Fayed\u2019s number?<\/p>\n\n\n\n So how did I get Mr Al-Fayed\u2019s number?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, first of all, I picked up Yellow Pages, a big yellow book of telephone numbers that you used to have delivered to your door every year. I lived in London, and it was listed. That\u2019s still their number now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I rang up the switchboard and asked to be put through to the buyer and nobody would help me. I was trying to write letters, you had to send letters back then and stamps and put parcels in the post and hope they turned up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You probably know, my first job was selling advertising space for Haymarket, for a marketing magazine. So I had no issue picking up the phone to people if I didn\u2019t know them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And I just thought, you know what? I\u2019ll ask to be put through to his office, and I was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So I said, \u201cHi, I\u2019m Will King, and I\u2019ve launched this brand King of Shaves and Harrods is the world\u2019s best known and best department store, and I\u2019d love to share with Mr Al-Fayed what my plan is.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And the lady said, here\u2019s his fax number. So I faxed it over and the next day I had an order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, it\u2019s amazing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And I feel like we can\u2019t stress enough that you were the original shaving disruptor because you walk into a supermarket or into a chemist, and you see all these brands on shelves, but there was literally only one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So I want to know, first of all, how hard was it to be the first disruptor? What was the pushback like?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Was there a reaction when suddenly this whipper-snapper was trying to claim shelf space?<\/p>\n\n\n\n That came later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I mean, definitely when we launched our razor in 2008, that was quite punchy because Gillette for the first time went on 50% off some of their handles, which they\u2019d never discounted before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But going back in the early days, no, when we got into Harrods, then although the sales were tiny, I had a stockist and I knew I had to get the Boots buyer, a lady called Fiona Kemp, and I knew her number. City Gate Nottingham NG2 3AA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I can still remember the original Boots central Nottingham post code.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You\u2019re showing off now. I don\u2019t know how you remember all these things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Oh, well these were important milestones and I just badgered Fiona. I wouldn\u2019t say badgered, I was politely persistent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And at the end of the day, after many faxes, she granted me a meeting, and we had a 15-minute meeting in December 1993 or January 1994, early then. And then I heard nothing for weeks and months and I thought what\u2019s happening?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then I got a letter, an old school letter through the post from the purchasing team at Boots, saying, \u201cWe are looking to set up and come on as a supplier.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And I thought, well, that\u2019s it. I must be in. I mean, she really didn\u2019t have much to lose. So we were put on the bottom shelf, we were selling it at \u00a32.99. Gillette was at, let\u2019s say \u00a31.99 or \u00a32.49.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We were at \u00a32.99, so what were premium mass in the market. So we delivered margin to them, and you know what? It was a tiny bit of shelf space. It was on the bottom shelf, and what was the risk of it didn\u2019t work? Like nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And then of course, nobody knew who the heck I was or anything. So there was no pushback because the Gillette guys would\u2019ve gone, oh there\u2019s this weird shaving oil called Kings of Shaves on the bottom shelf of Boots. I mean, yeah. Ok. Move on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course, because it solved the problem and I think that\u2019s important with people listening to this podcast, if you\u2019re doing a product or service, you have to solve a problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You have to fulfil a need that isn\u2019t already being fulfilled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can\u2019t just launch another kind of shaving gel because Gillette were doing shaving gels or another kind of shaving foam. So we\u2019re doing shaving foam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So we came up with the shaving oil and then the aloe-based alpha gel, the shaving gel, lots of aloe in it, which is good for your skin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Those were two unique products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Incredibly, the pushback only really started after 1999 when we were on the top shelf at Boots, we\u2019d signed Ted Baker, the fragrance licensing deal to previous year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Boots had that as well. Fiona brought that into Boots too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So we got in King of Shaves, we got in Ted Baker, and we got in Fish. I launched all of those three with Boots, and we were on top shelf, and then we\u2019re on mid-gondolas. And then when you\u2019re on a mid-gondola, which is the big slice of shelf on the top, and you\u2019re doing 3 for 2 or \u00a31 off, well your numbers start to rocket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So we went into this epic double-digit growth and then people took notice and Nivea for Men launched in \u201999, of course. And that took them 11 years to get to overtaking us in number two position incredibly. And L\u2019Or\u00e9al Men Expert launched in 2004.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So incredibly, we\u2019d had an 11-year run with just Gillette as the competitor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then, of course, it was easy to poke fun at Gillette and be a bit cheeky and be a bit controversial. And the internet came along and all of this stuff happened, and I guess we were just lucky and a lot of life, Bex, is timing. We were just lucky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I mean maybe lucky I was made redundant, otherwise I wouldn\u2019t have done it. Lucky the internet came along in the mid-nineties, lucky men\u2019s magazines came along in the late nineties, you had magazines like FHM with a million monthly circulation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We would be in there with an advert or editorial, and therefore we started to get really noticed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ve since spoken to people in the industry and incredibly, they said there are two CEOs of big PLCs now, and they said, \u201cWhat you did, you just showed that the big guys could be challenged, and that gave us permission to create our businesses and believe in our brands because we saw what you did with your little shaving oil and what you became in the mid to late noughties, 2010, 2015 and so on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And that was incredible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But to go back to the products, it\u2019s all about the product. The product\u2019s got to be great. That\u2019s why iPhone\u2019s such a popular global product. And it\u2019s like, Tesla\u2019s such a good electric car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These are great products, and they did have visionary entrepreneurs behind them, Elon and the late Steve Jobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But it\u2019s all about the product. If the products sucks, you\u2019re going to go nowhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The product was great, but you also had a particular tone of voice that was just so cheeky. I mean, we\u2019re so familiar with it now because everyone does it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You buy your oat milk, and you see that same kind of voice on the side. But at the time you and maybe innocent, it was all brand new, this idea of a brand that reached you in a different way, communicated a different way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Without a doubt. And definitely I came to know the innocent guys quite well. I think they launched in 1999 or maybe a year earlier. And a lot of them they said when I met Rich Reed and the guys behind it, they said a lot of our learnings were shaped by what you did because you gave a humanity and a tone of voice and an authenticity to your FMCG or your products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Clearly Mr Gillette had died a hundred years ago, so he wasn\u2019t able to, and by this time Proctor and Gamble were looking to buy Gillette, and they definitely were never going to give Gillette a humanity as such that we see today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Obviously passed that in the mid noughties, when Mike Dubin launch Dollar Shave Club, which is the standout direct to consumer success story in the 2010, \u201920, he was a standout comedian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I mean our blades are great, and he went on there, and he crashed a website, and it went out and then of course got his exit to Unilever in 2016 for a billion dollars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The only D2C brand who\u2019s managed that level of exit, even though he\u2019d lost $400m and Unilever since lost I think another $300m with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But as by the by, he got his exit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But again, he had that tone of voice and that tonality and that authenticity and that genuine rapport, which I guess brought us together all the years ago when you were journalists and looking to cover startups or scale up or gross stories like we did at King of Shaves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And you were saying that product is everything, product plus personality, I think in this case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But were there any decisions that you remember making in those early days that you think were really pivotal to the growth?<\/p>\n\n\n\n And I know you said about being very persuasive and very persistent for example with buyers, but after you first got your run at the consumer, what were the smart decisions that really stood you in good stead?<\/p>\n\n\n\n So I think the smart decisions that the get go definitely were that we stuck to our knitting in terms of King of Shaves. So we did a shaving oil and then for two years we just had one shaving oil. And then we thought it\u2019s selling all right, maybe we could have two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So we went up to Boots, and they said, \u201cOh, if you\u2019re going to do another shaving oil, why don\u2019t you do some shaving gels?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And we\u2019re going, \u201cOh, if we did some shaving gels, why don\u2019t you stop them?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And they\u2019re going, \u201cWell yeah, because your sales are kind of on fire. So you\u2019ve got a brand awareness and then while you are at it, why don\u2019t you do men\u2019s skincare? There\u2019s no men\u2019s skincare.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n So we did men\u2019s skincare in 1996.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And I think listeners listening to this in 2022 will think, hang on a minute, we still see all this hype about men and skincare now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is like 25 years ago and these guys were doing a men\u2019s moisturiser, an exfoliating scruff, a cooling post shave balm. And we did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And when we were given, I guess, the permission by the retailers to go and basically make whatever we wanted to make, which we then did, you then get a confidence and then a belief, yeah, as long as you stick to what your core competency is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And definitely for the first nine years, we were very good at sticking to the core competency of King of Shaves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We were lucky to get Ted Baker as a fragrance licensing deal because we\u2019d written to Paul Smith and then Ray Kelvin, the founder who\u2019s now stepped down, but was the shareholder then. Their sales were only \u00a315m a year. They hit a market cap four years ago of a billion pounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our timing was good and that we had King of Shaves in the mass space, so shaving lives, and stuff, but of course fragrance is great.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And if you have a brand name like Ted Baker, that was roofing it in the late nineties with Britpop and everything, you had fragrance and fragrance has a lot of margin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Also, it\u2019s a huge number of sales at Christmas for Christmas gifting. So we had a belts and braces shaving brand, King of Shaves, and then we had Ted Baker as the licensing, the licensing gig. And the two of them seemed to coexist very well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There wasn\u2019t any crossover between what I was doing with shaving or fragrance was doing with Ted. So that was nice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can kind of keep your eyes on two brands at once and see where they\u2019re going. And I think sticking to your knitting at the get go is imperative and also, I guess, embracing new opportunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So I have a trait curiosity for what are things, and why are they happening?<\/p>\n\n\n\n So for example, when the internet came along, you\u2019d see this HTTP:\/\/www.firstdirect.co.uk\/welcome. Oh, what\u2019s that all about?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course that was the start of the internet, and I was able to buy shave.com for \u00a318 on a credit card because at the time everybody\u2019s going, there\u2019s this internet web thing coming along and what does it do, and it\u2019s never going to take off and remember we were on dial up. So 2.4 kilobytes upper second, 2,400.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019re now, I think I\u2019m on 195 mg download at the moment. I mean, it\u2019s incredible, but that, and in recent terms with what\u2019s happening with NFTs and board eight yacht clubs and the whole crypto thing and now web three and the metaverse and this and that and the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ve always been very good on looking at what\u2019s coming down the track at me and then see if it would have an advantage to a brand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So focus on your brand. Just keep it tight, but also be open to new ways of marketing it. And we were very open to those, and they were very inexpensive as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You were talking about other rivals in the sector who have exited. And over the years with King of Shaves, there were loads of rumours, loads of big brands courting you, but it never, tell me about that journey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How come you never sold and made God knows how many millions?<\/p>\n\n\n\n I never founded it to sell it, and so many founders I see now they get on the runway, and they raise a pre-seed series A, B, exit, exit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And you think, no, why don\u2019t you just build a damn good business?<\/p>\n\n\n\n And you know what? It may keep you going all your life. But if somebody does offer it to you fine, you might sell them. I think a lot of people get extraordinarily fixated, especially now on a three-to-five-year raise, burn, and then exit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You\u2019ve seen in recent days with this cost of living crisis that these stock markets crashed in terms of package goods and stuff and brands like that, because people won\u2019t be spending as much, but I digress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So in 2012, \u201913, we\u2019d been working on a hyper glide razor, the super hydrophilic coated one that you just add water and shave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We launched that and an investment banker called William Blair got wind of us launching it. We were then approached by a big online retailer, even bigger now about being bought by them, and then William Blair wanted to rep us. So they became our investment bank and they repped us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And that was just carnage because I\u2019d launched this razor, we had some teething manufacturing issues around the blades and the cartridge, which is painful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I was to and from Japan where we were sourcing the steel blades from, and the handle was designed and made in the UK and the cartridge was made in the UK.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And then we had this deal going down and then the company that were going to buy us flaked on my birthday in 2014, literally walked away because we hadn\u2019t got a patent through on hyperglide in North America, which subsequently did come through, because Gillette were agitating against it. But we said that was ridiculous. We\u2019ll get it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By that time it had been in the press, and I was tired in 2014, I was really quite wiped out, and I took the decision to step down, and it was in the press on the front page of The Telegraph and the Tell and everything, The Times, on the business section, the king steps away from throne, all this stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But truth be told, I was just tired and disappointed that these big companies didn\u2019t follow through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But anyhow, that there is a silver lining to the story, of course, because what I then found out is, well, hang on one of the company that walked away from us, I can\u2019t name them, but walked away from us. I rang him up and said, \u201cWhy should you walk away?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And then he says, \u201cWell, you haven\u2019t got a patent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I said, \u201cWell, we have now for hyperglide, is that what you wanted then? The hyperglide factory tech, is that what you wanted? Not King of Shaves?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And he goes, \u201cWe were never really interested in King of Shaves, but we love your technology. Can we buy it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n We sold it for a lot of money and that was a lot of money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And what that meant, I guess it took us out of proprietary shaving manufacture, i.e. our own unique cartridge and handle, but it delivered a great return on investment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By then you\u2019d had Dollar Shave come into the mix and Harry\u2019s. They were financed by huge venture capital out of North America. Both of them raised just shy of $400m each. So they were punching massively in the UK.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think perhaps our timing with selling the hyper glide tech and therefore exiting the hardware as I called it and going back to the software, the shaving gel, and oils, then maybe that was time. But then that was all of the stuff, and we always get inbound even now. I mean, we get inbound all the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But because I\u2019ve not been CEO for seven years now, but I\u2019ve shaped the narrative of the business and the brand, we\u2019ve got a great new packaging refresh coming down the track, and it\u2019s lovely, but it\u2019s like, look, if somebody really wants us, and they\u2019re going to be not stupid about it and fine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But a lot of any founder or any scale up business, listening to me talk and if you get courted by an inquisitor, whether it\u2019s private equity or a big private company or a PLC or a competitor, you\u2019ve just got a tread weary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because so many of them flake, and often they just want to find out what\u2019s your special secret sources. They genuinely do want to see if they\u2019ll get a chance to look under the bonnet and see if there\u2019s an electric motor on the wheels and therefore no engine, or if it\u2019s just got a conventional engine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You got to be careful of that in business because there\u2019s a great value in know-how.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can protect innovation with patent like we did with hyper, but know-how is mission critical, and they can get your know-how, and you got to be careful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But that\u2019s where we are today. Still privately owned, but you never know what might be coming down the track.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, it\u2019s interesting because we had someone come on the show a little while ago talking about how many rival companies will, for example, take a tiny stake in a crowdfunding round just to get access to your financial documents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And to get advanced notice when things are coming and you just, it\u2019s easy to forget that companies can fight dirty and-<\/p>\n\n\n\n They do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yeah, and they do, exactly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They genuinely do. And especially the bigger ones, because you have bigger companies, but they of course have them employees out there. The behaviour of the employee might determine the face of the company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If they do something silly, like we had guys that Gillette who were caught turning our razors around in Sainsbury\u2019s, yeah. So that (beep) me off. So I actually just got it in the press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And then Justin King rang me up whom I became friends with and said, \u201cOh, you know, could have at least told us before you put it into the national paper that Gillette is going around, turning your razors around, we\u2019d have looked into that for you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I said, \u201cWell, that\u2019s fine, Justin, but I put like 15 million quid into this launch and it just (beep) me off me, to be honest with you, I wouldn\u2019t do that to Gillette. So why did their field sales force feel they wanted to do it with us?\u201d Ridiculous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How did you find that out? Did someone give you a call and say, well, you\u2019ll never guess what I just saw.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yeah. Yeah. We got a photo of the field merch team out there, just turning them around on the displays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Oh my God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But that\u2019s rampant, that behaviour. I mean, if you remember Richard Branson\u2019s Virgin Coke and the behaviour of Coca-Cola when he launched in North America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Coke were never going to let Branson launch Virgin Cola in North America ever in a gazillion years was that ever going to happen, let alone British Airways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Remember the scandal with BA and Virgin when they tried to do the dirty tricks in the late nineties with that, I mean that was front page news every day and that was British Airways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was great publicity then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Great publicity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And Will, I\u2019ve talked about how you were a pioneer in terms of a disruptor in the shaving category, but you were also a pioneer in ways that you raised finance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I remember writing about the shaving bonds at a time when this was almost completely unheard of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Can you tell me about clever ways that you have raised growth capital for the business and how you\u2019ve kind of changed the relationship? This is like before crowdfunding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Changed the relationship between a business and their customer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I mean, it definitely was, Bex and going back to the names, shaving bond 007%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When we did that in 2007 is what\u2019s called a retail mini bond, which I\u2019ll admit ends a bit sadly really on all of this because it got very misused and is now regulated by the SFO [Serious Fraud Office] and the FCA [Financial Conduct Authority], but I\u2019ll come on to that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But at the time in the mid noughties, we had so many inbound people who wanted to buy shares in King of Shaves. People were calling up, \u201cCan we buy shares in your company?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n We go, \u201cNo, it\u2019s private.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOh, well you going to float.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And we go, \u201cNo, don\u2019t really fancy it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOh, OK. I\u2019ll carry on buying your razor or your shaving gel.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And I bought, I don\u2019t know why I bought it. I bought a domain. I used to buy hundreds of domains. I mean, I used to go bananas about, I would buy the trademark as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And I bought, you remember saving bonds? Yeah. Savings bonds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And I thought I just bought shaving bond. I thought that\u2019s funny. It\u2019s just to play on words. So a saving bond, shaving bond. And I bought it. This was before I decided to do it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We had quite a cool lawyer called Memory Crystal, and I was their entrepreneur in residence when I stepped down at King of Shaves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I did a three-year stint working with Leslie, the chairman and Nick, the CEO. I said, \u201cOh, we want to raise money, we have people wanting to buy shares. I mean, can\u2019t we just do something to give them an involvement in our company? Could we issue a bond like a PLC did? Can you do a bond, like a premium bond?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Leslie says, looks at Nick or looks at her advisor and says, \u201cCould they?\u201d And he looks back, and he said, \u201cWe have to ask Deloitte.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n So they got Deloitte in, and they say, \u201cRight, this guy, he\u2019s got a profitable company. He wants to issue bonds in his business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHe wants to pay 7% coupon on him because he thinks he\u2019s funny. He\u2019s shaving bonds. He\u2019ll get some good press on it. He\u2019ll give the bond. He\u2019ll return the capital and interest after three years and people will get some free products, a copy of his book and a certificate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n So they go, \u201cIs he going to be able to repay the money? Is he going to use the money to buy private jets or yachts or what\u2019s he going to do with his bonds?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And of course I\u2019m going, \u201cI don\u2019t want to do that. I mean, we\u2019re just going to put it into the company and scale a business and goodness sake.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course that\u2019s what people did with it down the track, which I\u2019ll come on to, which is sad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But in 2008, \u201909, we launched a shavingbond.com on the papers, and it just took off. The press went bananas around it. I don\u2019t, if you remember, I think Patrick Hosking wrote a really aggressive art piece on it in The Times about trust his razors, not his bonds, and this and that and the other and ah and this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But it was new, and everybody loved it and came in, and then of course it went massive because Memory Crystal, where we\u2019d created this retail mini bond is what it became called for a retail company, a retail mini bond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I invented it basically. They did all the legal and then Memory Crystal made probably millions doing the jockey club bonds, or this or that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Crowdcube then launched, and they were doing the platforms, and they were looking at it and then everybody was doing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then of course in around 2018, there were companies using it to raise \u00a3200m to \u00a3300m of the bonds from gullible investors or gullible is the wrong word, unsophisticated investors, who thought their money was being invested in property and with a return.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And of course it wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was being spent on cars and jets and planes and all the (beep) that I said we would never do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sadly at the end of having created that lovely piece of ability to raise money and pay people for being involved and give them shares and give them ownership and involvement, of course it got abused.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But now I would advise listeners hang on to your equity at all costs. That\u2019s the most expensive piece of finance you can do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On Dragons\u2019 Den, you see Steven Bartlett in there saying you can\u2019t give away 50% of your company for \u00a330,000 to Deborah Meaden. Yeah, that\u2019s not right. I mean A, she\u2019s rich already. B, you\u2019re (beep) in terms of any future raising and C, it\u2019s all over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So you\u2019ve got to try and get either bank debt or invoice factoring that we used where you take a Boots invoice, and then you get paid to, give them a sort of premium to the people who advance it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I had credit cards, early days, loans, friends, and family. We then had business grants for the government, DTI loan guarantee schemes in the late nineties, which the government guaranteed 85%, if it went Pete Tong and no businesses were told about it because it was like the loan of last resort that Barclays would ever want to give out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If it went wrong, it meant that the government\u2019s going to pick up the tab, and it makes Barclays\u2019 sort of asset checking and risk, the risk team look (beep). Yeah? And so nobody talked about these debt loans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So it\u2019s like buying a house. You can\u2019t buy a house straight up \u00a3400,000 in your first year. You buy it over 30 years, 25 years on a coupon. And if you\u2019re able to raise the debt on the basis, the company\u2019s got a shot of succeeding, that\u2019s the way to go and sell your shares as late as you can.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I still remain the biggest shareholder with King of Shaves after 30 years, incredibly, which is kind of good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m quite happy about that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n No, that\u2019s interesting because you hear a lot of positive reviews of the whole investment angle, and you are saying go debt, and we don\u2019t often hear go debt. We hear avoid debt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, I think you\u2019ve just got to be sure what debt you can repay. I think, remember when we were doing our business, the interest rates were higher. I mean, interest rates very low now, or the base rate is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you have a venture capitalist, let\u2019s say they buy 30% on a post money of \u00a32m. They\u2019re going to be looking at a 10x on that, because it\u2019s got to make the money work for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So if you are \u00a32m company, when they\u2019ve come in and given you some spends, you can\u2019t turn it into \u00a320m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, the next round then other people will be going well, hang on a minute, it\u2019s not worked out there. Then that\u2019s a nightmare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s even worse if you raise too high, say you raise at a \u00a310m or \u00a350m valuation and get \u00a32m in, but then there\u2019s no sales. Then you have a down round, which is the nightmare of all nightmares, because it\u2019s going to zero.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course, you have SEIS [Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme], and you have EIS [Enterprise Investment Scheme] and you have let\u2019s just call it tax efficient investment schemes that people can do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But end of the day, if you can end up owning or hanging on to as much of your equity in your company as possible, and you believe it has a future, and it has a success chance, it\u2019s better to own a hundred percent of something than 1% of something, if you see what I mean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But I\u2019ve never owned a hundred percent of King of Shaves apart from the day I founded the business when I then had to sell some shares, and I sold 35% of shares for \u00a315,000. There we are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A year later I sold 10% for \u00a310,000. And within years it was valued at \u00a322m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But you had to get those raises. You had to do that. You had to go through that process to get it to the \u00a322m. Otherwise, it would\u2019ve just stalled anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Well I think a lot of the King of Shaves growth, going back now 20 years, a lot of it was organic. I mean we just lit off like a rocket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When you\u2019re in a hyper growth, you\u2019re doubling your sales every year, every year, every year, every year you got no issue money coming into the business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The banks love you. You\u2019re posting profits. You\u2019re posting growth. We had a profile, as you\u2019ll remember, in the SME space, the entrepreneur space. And it was lovely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But if you need money, you need money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But there are other ways of hustling and getting money and getting there. And maybe it\u2019s just good old-fashioned selling of your great product, but you need to sell more of your product to finance the growth of your business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not raise more money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It sounds radical now, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Just fund your growth by selling more of your product. Don\u2019t go out and raise loads of money. Just be really successful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the margin, and make sure you have a really good product margin. You\u2019ve got to have a strong margin, so you\u2019re not just buying it at a pence and selling at two pence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s got to have a good margin built in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And Will, the concept of a play on words, I feel this has been a running theme in your life, in your businesses because you had like Will King, King of Shaves, you bought the shaving bond because of the saving bond. There\u2019s been all these stories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I remember there was a story about you and the paper calling you King of Shades instead of King of Shaves. And then that led you to start a sunglasses business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The sunglasses. Yeah, I know. I know I\u2019m sucker for the punnies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes. What happened to the sunglasses?<\/p>\n\n\n\n So they\u2019re there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So all of this, this is going back 10 years when I was with Tiger, Mike\u2019s wife, and we were at an event, and I was written up as being the founder of King of Shades. And so I trademarked it as you do, because you thought why not? And got it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When you have a name King it infers it\u2019s the best sunglasses. Yeah. Infer it\u2019s the best. It\u2019s like it could be Ray-Ban, King of Shades, for example. And Budweiser was king of beers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But because I\u2019ve got form with King of Shades and owning that forever, then I was able to get it. I spent a lot of money, raised money, debt actually from friends and family. I said, \u201cWell, that\u2019s funny, that looks good.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was a bit of a side hustle, and it was flipping hard, and I wanted them to actively hug your face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They\u2019re called shug sunglasses, I have them out of stock at my blooming website because I can\u2019t get the factory to make them in the UK because they\u2019re rammed with other stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But that\u2019s by the by, that\u2019s a teething issue, but thought why not? And they\u2019re sunglasses that hug, and they like the razor we developed with the active hinge that actually hugs your head. But it was hard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I did it myself with financial backing from some old friends of mine who just thought, \u201cOh, that\u2019s quite funny, and we\u2019ll give him, he can do it, and he can keep it out of the King of Shaves space and there will be no confusion.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n We launched it and well of course Covid happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So we launched it on Kickstarter during the pandemic, which was probably not the best thing to do. That was my optimism shining through hard and strongly. Therefore, even though we are locked up inside, people would buy my Will King sunglasses, which of course they did not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nobody\u2019s meeting anyone. We\u2019re not trying to impress anyone because we\u2019re stuck indoors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My timing was off then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then we launched them and was very, we had a lot of challenges with the manufacturing in the UK, not with the lenses, but with the frames because the UK factories weren\u2019t able to work at the precision levels that Chinese ones could.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But I didn\u2019t want them done in China because I felt the active head-hugging frame design would get ripped off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I chose to do it in the UK, and we had massive issues with the factory. We had Covid. We got the tool running, we got a couple of thousand pairs made. I\u2019ve got brand ambassadors wearing them in the Olympics and sailing and stuff like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But we couldn\u2019t bring the cost of goods down in a way I hope to from our \u00a369, I think \u00a379, it\u2019s on the website, \u00a363 with 10% off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I wanted to get it sub \u00a340, even \u00a330 and I couldn\u2019t do it. I think it\u2019s one of those moments where I\u2019ve got some great patents on it, which I love. They\u2019re good for another 15 odd years. So I\u2019m relaxed about that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ve got people saying to me, there\u2019s one guy in particular saying, \u201cWe\u2019ve got to do it, we\u2019re going to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And I\u2019m saying, \u201cYeah, but the timing it\u2019s not quite right yet. I just need to work out on the tooling with the tooling guys, why it\u2019s been so difficult to make these frames when it should be so simple, and then we\u2019ll go again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n What I think people don\u2019t necessarily realise is that before Dollar Shave Club launched, he\u2019d launched a year before, and it was a complete disaster. Then it was pulled off the internet, and it was rebooted, and then it launched massively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So I think nobody gets everything right all the time. I\u2019m wearing them when I\u2019m sailing on teams in their classics yacht regatta next week, the crew will be wearing them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But it\u2019s selling tens of thousands of them in year one. No, we sold a couple of thousands. It was painful. The company owes me a lot of money, but it is what it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m pleased I did it, but not everything works out, listeners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, you don\u2019t know, you don\u2019t know how this is going to pan out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As you said, you could come back brighter and harder, and we could be talking in another 10 years\u2019 time, and it could be even bigger than King of Shaves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It could be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Will, you\u2019ve talked about the challenging trading environment out there, like insane price rises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Does it help that you\u2019ve been through recessions before?<\/p>\n\n\n\n If I remember in 2008, and I was asking you whether King of Shaves would survive the recession, and you were like, well, what do you think? Do you think beards grow more slowly during a downturn?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yeah. Maybe I was a little flippant about that one. It was when the bids came in, wasn\u2019t it? It slowed us down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But I\u2019m wondering what you\u2019ve learned from being through these cycles before, which you think has prepared you to make better decisions this time round.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I mean, I founded King of Shaves in the recession in the early nineties. So you\u2019re creating a business at low water, so you know the tide\u2019s going to come in sooner or later. And that was good timing, but it was also super tough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The financial crash, I mean now is a shocker really because the world was looking pretty good, to be honest with you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019d just been at the America\u2019s cup and in Valencia, and we were actually on the verge of winning a big business competition then with H Boss, Halifax Bank of Scotland, if you remember them, and of course they then ceased to exist within the year and were nationalised by the government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That presaged along with a lot of changes in working practices, you had social, YouTube was big by now. Google was big. Twitter was about to be launched. Facebook was getting big and people were now like, we are communicating, Bex, via the screen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whereas in departs we\u2019d meet up in the coffee shop or at the office, and we just do this over a mic, that\u2019s what we\u2019d do. Now we\u2019re doing it over tech. Seeing that happen, then of course we had the whole Brexit horrendousness of well we\u2019re coming out of there. So that was a hiatus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n More recently, of course Covid, which was the unexpected recession for many companies, and for us included, nobody could go to Boots or Superdrug to buy a product. So Amazon became our number one sort of sales channel for about six months. It\u2019s now not anymore, but it was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But I think to answer your question, yes, of course, if you\u2019ve seen what a storm looks like and how ugly a hurricane might be and what to do, if it\u2019s a bit windy out there, and you\u2019ve still got your sails up, and you know that you pull them down very quick and run for a nice mangrove swamp, if you\u2019re in the Caribbean and dodging a hurricane, that\u2019s what you do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think a lot of younger entrepreneurs, especially the Millennials and especially the Zoomers now the Gen Z, they\u2019re seeing these come almost one after the other, after the other. And they must think, \u201cHey, give us a break.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n So they\u2019re seeing it, but of course, if you know what it looks like, you\u2019re better equipped to deal with it rather than thinking it\u2019s going to be OK and blow away, and it\u2019ll be gone tomorrow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And of course it often isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But do you then stop spending on marketing, for example, that\u2019s the classic, or do you then put a halt on growth plans and wait for things to get better?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Or are you more of a contrarian where you think actually this is a good time to invest, this is a good time to build stronger relationship with customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With the exception of Covid, I would normally double down on my marketing during a time of economic hiatus, because you can probably get more bang for your buck. If you\u2019re selling a commodity product like a shaving gel or a shaving oil, the more market share you can get.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It would\u2019ve been madness for anybody to spend any money on marketing in Covid because you could go nowhere, and you could do nothing other than order in stuff. And shaving, guys would then just went from shaving every other day to not bothering to shave for a week or two weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It didn\u2019t matter, only if the missus or the partner might have said, \u201cOh, you\u2019re a bit stubbly now, might you have a shave?\u201d And he said, \u201cWell, if I have to.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think any amount of marketing then I think would\u2019ve been money poorly spent. Coming out the other side, yes, it\u2019s important to rebuild the trust, and you\u2019re seeing that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But I think in a recession, normally I would be contrarian, but the pandemic was an unusual global recession, and it was just goodness me, save the ship. We don\u2019t want to die. Like everybody else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n No. A hundred percent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You talked about marketing just then, and you are one of the people that I see as being an ultimate marketing whizz, some of the incredible campaigns that you put out for King of Shaves, just so eye catching. So hilarious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So how do you reach customers today? Are you on TikTok? I know you\u2019re still on Twitter, but what media do you use now?<\/p>\n\n\n\n So I think where King of Shaves is now, we are a nearly 30-year-old brand. So we\u2019re a bit middle-aged, really.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019re having a reboot with our packaging, which will be coming in Q3, early Q4 this year, which will hopefully help us to appeal more to a younger demographic. I hope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019ve never really had, I would call structural success with social advertising, and I don\u2019t think any or many shaving brands have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s like, if you do a TikTok, and it\u2019s a video of hairstyling, or a makeover. For example, Revolution Beauty they\u2019re huge on TikTok. It\u2019s huge on Instagram. It\u2019s huge on socials. It\u2019s huge because it\u2019s a beauty and makeup brand business and skincare, they\u2019ve just done Rev Men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But shaving it\u2019s well, I\u2019ve had a shave, and I\u2019m now not known to stubble and well, that\u2019s exciting then. I\u2019ll flick down and get rid of it. A and B, yes. We\u2019re looking into it there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We did have King of Shaves on TikTok two years ago, but we were too early, and now it\u2019s a massive learning channel and going forwards I think again, it\u2019s very, very hard for brands to work out how to attract customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ve got a 22-year-old son, Cameron, who plays in championship rugby, I have no idea how you\u2019d market to him. He doesn\u2019t watch linear TV. Everything\u2019s on demand. It\u2019s all WhatsApp, private chats and secret stuff. I don\u2019t know how, I do not know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think I am quite a smart marketing guy, but I\u2019m sure TikTok would come into that arsenal, but then men aren\u2019t into it, or young men aren\u2019t into it in the way that younger women are into it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s now much more of a learning channel as YouTube has become.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s a learning channel. It\u2019s not so much a funny dance channel, dad dance channel it\u2019s much more of a Discovery Channel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But word of mouth, I think the big brand that\u2019s done super well is George Rawlings\u2019 [dating] app called Thursday. Cleverly the app only works on Thursday, you can only download it on Thursday. That\u2019s it. That gets to cut through for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course, it\u2019s got such a following now that they\u2019re taking over bars with singletons. That\u2019s amazing. That\u2019s community building.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think any brand owner or business owner out there now, we are now living in the age of the community. It\u2019s about being direct community. You\u2019ve got to appeal to the tribes of people out there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019ve had historically Apple fanboys, we\u2019ve had people who love Tesla\u2019s, IBM never had any fanboys, you just didn\u2019t get excited to be bought it. But it didn\u2019t have that piratical, fanatical tribal community to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you look at brands like Dan Murray\u2019s Heights, the brain food supplements, and he\u2019s built the brand and the business around a single product, a supplement, and a community. He\u2019s gone from nothing in two years to \u00a36 million AR I think and does super well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Everything I now look at, whether it\u2019s Above and Beyond, that\u2019s very community driven, and then King of Shaves, we\u2019ve got to, let\u2019s say reboot it to be community driven, but we live in a very different world, Bex, to when I was 27 and everybody was clean-shaven, unless you were the geography school teacher or the mad professor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now everyone\u2019s got big itchy beards. It strikes me though that if you don\u2019t know how you would sell to Cameron, your son, you should hire Cameron, your son, to actually tell you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yeah. He doesn\u2019t want to work for me. He\u2019s grown a beard. He\u2019s grown a beard, that\u2019s not right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Oh, the traitor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The traitor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And Will, I have one more question for you, which is actually about sailing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You mentioned that you are going sailing in a week and I think I remember correctly, actually, the job that you first wanted to do when you went to university was that you wanted to design yachts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So talk to me about sailing, your great passion and how much of your time are you spending doing that now?<\/p>\n\n\n\n And how is that complementing you as an entrepreneur?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Absolutely. I mean, that\u2019s a great question. I mean, sailing is my absolute passion and had I passed my A-levels in 1983 and not got a C and two E\u2019s I\u2019ve been studying ship science and yacht design at Southampton University and gone on to be, I hope, a famous yachts designer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But I failed my A-levels and did a degree in mechanical engineering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the entrepreneur side of it is really important. And a lot of entrepreneurs do sail. So Larry Allison, Charles Dunston, Jim Ratcliffe, INEOS, and there\u2019s a reason for that because there\u2019s a vast amount of data points that when you\u2019re sailing, you have to be aware of and be able to deal with, especially if you\u2019re yacht racing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So you\u2019ve got, of course, you\u2019ve got the yacht, you\u2019ve got the sales, you\u2019ve got the ropes, you\u2019ve got the crew, you\u2019ve got the direction, you\u2019ve got the tactics, you\u2019ve got the strategy, you\u2019ve got the navigation, you\u2019ve got the starting time, racing lots of different sails that you put up at different times, depending on your angle to the wind and then different weights of sails that you put up in different wind strengths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So if you\u2019re listening to this thinking, goodness me, that sounds kind of complicated, it kind of is at that level of sailing, but there are also yachts, dinghies that have a single sail, like a topper or a laser that I started sailing with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So entrepreneurs need to be able to really process and act on a vast amount of data, really very quickly to be successful because change happens fast, and it\u2019s only getting faster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you are able, not necessarily just you, but have people around you that I say you can delegate to great people. I\u2019m always big fan of this hashtag delegation, delegate to great people. On a yacht it\u2019s the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although I\u2019m part of the crew, there\u2019s an Olympic class strategy tactics guy, the owner\u2019s driving the boat. You\u2019ve then got an amazing guy who runs what\u2019s called the mast, which is pulling the ropes up and down, a future Olympic hopeful on the fore deck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You\u2019ve got a lot of talent around you, but of course there\u2019s no point sailing your yacht fast in the wrong direction, Bex, that is not fast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So in anything like in life, just make sure, you are clear about the direction you\u2019re going in. And you\u2019ve got the right skills along with you and the right sails up at the right time to deliver on the promise of hopefully of a win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anybody who thinks sailing is expensive is elitist, and it\u2019s this and that it is not actually. There are always people looking for crew. There\u2019re always ways of getting into it. It is accessible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m sailing actually with my first hero, Eddie Warwick, who I met when I was 14 at the National Sailing Center, and then I became the UK\u2019s youngest sailing instructor at 15, the following year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Full circle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s lovely to be reuniting with him after 39 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, best of luck on the voyage. And I love a sports analogy. So I love that point about reading all the data and adjusting your course and how that\u2019s useful in business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Will, thank you for all your insights this afternoon. It\u2019s such a pleasure catching up with you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Such a pleasure, Bex. Thank you so much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wherever you\u2019re listening or watching, subscribe to Sound Advice on Apple iTunes<\/a> here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We are also on Spotify<\/a> and anywhere else you get your podcasts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Join our community to share your insights and stories on Twitter @SageIreland<\/a> using the hashtag #SoundAdvicePodcast, on Instagram @SageOfficial<\/a> or in the comments below!<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can check out King of Shaves on their website<\/a> or Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\nUse redundancy as a launchpad not a setback<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Back in the day of the Yellow Pages<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Solve a problem and fulfil a need that isn\u2019t already being fulfilled<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Building an authentic tone of voice<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Be open to news way of marketing and look for advantages to your brand<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Keeping your business privately owned<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Rival companies will play dirty<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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The downfall of the shaving bond<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Fund your growth by selling more of your product<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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How Covid impacted King of Shades<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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In the eye of the storm\u2014businesses battling recession<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Being direct to community should be your marketing strategy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Transferrable skills from the yacht to the boardroom<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Inspired by this small business story?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Want to know more about King of Shaves and Will King?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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