Riding the wave: How I launched the UK’s first CBD gin

When I launched my gin brand in 2019, I was fresh out of university, earning just £10 per hour and completely inexperienced in the world of entrepreneurship. Little did I know that my first business would completely change my life.

At the time, I was working for a small film production company. It was my first exposure to someone running a business and it was like a light switching on in my brain. I found it inspiring. Running a business was not really presented as an option at school or college.

I started to get my own business ideas. And before long, I chanced upon an incredibly exciting and growing space… CBD (the non-psychoactive compound found in cannabis).

After using CBD oil for a few weeks, I followed my gut and started developing the idea that eventually led me to launch the UK’s first CBD gin.

Don’t overwhelm the consumer with lots of new concepts

The best businesses solve problems, and with CBD I quickly identified three main issues:

• The first was an image problem. Back in 2018, there was still a real stigma surround CBD due to its association with THC (the outlawed compound also derived from cannabis that produces a ‘high’) which made people hesitant to try it for the first time.
• Secondly, after ordering a bottle online I noted that the actual vessel – and method of consumption (an oil you drip onto your tongue) – was something people weren’t familiar with.
• Finally, the oil itself tasted bitter and unpleasant.

In short, there were simply too many obstacles for the consumer to overcome before they tried CBD—or had a positive experience. Not a great starting point for my new business.

So, I knew I needed to create something that looked familiar, tasted great, and provided a positive and fun first-time experience of CBD for a curious consumer.

Things will go wrong, and that’s ok

Having never started a business before, I was really making it up as I went along. Not only was I inexperienced in business, but I was working in an emergent industry so there was no playbook to refer to.

The only way I could fund the first batch of gin was by collecting pre-orders which I managed to get by soft-launching the product to journalists. I wrote a press release using a template that I found online.  

Once I had those first orders so much went wrong. From the labels not fitting the bottles, to the finance company freezing the money from the orders, and finally a forklift driver dropping an entire batch of the finished product. It was far from plain sailing. I had to resolve each and every difficulty. This was incredibly challenging at the time but I was too invested to give up. Plus I had customers waiting so knew I had to deliver. It was a question of preserving and telling myself to just keep going.

There’s a rule in entrepreneurship which is FAIL FAST. We will all run into obstacles but by picking myself up and trying again, I became more resilient. And ultimately managed to get the business off the ground.  

Confidence is a muscle you need to strengthen

A big part of my business journey has been around tackling my fears. Growing up, I suffered from low self-confidence and was determined to face this head on.

I have a rule now that if something scares me, I go out of my way to do it. The more I make myself do things, the braver I become. It has led to a significant amount of personal growth in a short amount of time—much like my business!