Episode 314: Building a Sustainable Business with Charlie Bowes-Lyon

---

Starting a business can be a daunting task, filled with ups and downs. For many entrepreneurs, the road to success is paved with challenges and lessons learned. Charlie Bowes-Lyon, co-founder of the brand Wild, knows this all too well. With two successful startup exits and a thriving business under his belt, Charlie has valuable insights to share with aspiring business owners.

Charlie Bowes-Lyon shares his entrepreneurial journey, starting with his first business in the publishing space and his experience in sales. He then discusses the challenges and lessons learned from his previous startups, including the importance of finding reliable partners and the value of test and learn strategies. Charlie also explains how Wild, his current business, aims to tackle the plastic waste problem in the bathroom by offering sustainable and effective products. He emphasizes the need for varied marketing channels, a strong brand, and a multi-territory approach. Charlie concludes by highlighting the importance of launching imperfectly, working hard, and maintaining optimism in the face of challenges.

Charlie Bowes-Lyon is now Co-Founder & CMO of Wild working across all marketing, brand and tech initiatives + product roadmap since launch. Wild is a UK-based company on a mission to remove single-use plastic from bathrooms with natural, refillable alternatives. Founded in London in 2018, it was recently listed as the top UK start-up to watch in The Times shortlist. Last year it achieved sales of £26.2 million, under its co-founders, Freddy Ward, 34, and Charlie Bowes-Lyon, 33. Wild has sold over 15 million refills since inception and replaced over 500,000 kgs of single-use plastic from bathrooms globally with over 20,000 5-star reviews.

Show Highlights:

• Find reliable partners who will stick with you through thick and thin.
• Launch imperfectly and iterate based on customer feedback.
• Have varied marketing channels to avoid over-reliance on a single platform.
• Build a strong brand through continuous testing and learning.
• Expand into multiple territories to diversify and mitigate risks.

Links Mentioned:

Get your Business Growth Secrets SUCCESS PLANNER for FREE and profit like a pro: https://adamstottplanner.com/free-book47315172

Adams website: https://adamstott.com/?el=Pod

Watch the Episode on Adam’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/adamstottcoach?el=Pod

Connect with Adam on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adamstottcoach/?el=Pod

Join Adam’s network on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-stott-coach/?el=Pod

Business owners: Monetise social media, get more clients, increase your following, and make more sales: https://socialmediamonetisation.com/unlockfb?el=Pod

Coaches, Consultants, and Speakers: lower your marketing costs, increase ticket prices, and get more high-ticket clients: https://personalbrandunlocked.com/fb-event-reg?el=Pod

Transcript:

Please note this is a verbatim transcription from the original audio and therefore may include some minor grammatical errors.

[00:00:00] Adam Stott: Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Business Growth Seeker. You’ve got an amazing guest with me today, and I’m really, really, really excited to bring on Charlie Bowes Lyon, who is the co founder of an amazing brand called Wild that’s achieving some excellent things. He’s also scaled and successfully exited two previous startups as well, achieved some amazing success and really, really looking forward to getting deep into.

[00:00:29] Charlie’s journey. So welcome Charlie. How you doing, buddy? You okay?

[00:00:33] Charlie Bowes-Lyon: Yeah, really good. Thank you, Adam. Thanks for having me. Excited to be here.

[00:00:37] Adam Stott: Well, love, love the business, love the brand. We’ll just say that again. Love the business, love the brand and really looking forward to talking about everything that’s gone in behind it.

[00:00:48] But I think it’d be really good for the audience and everybody to get to know a bit about you personally, about your background, where you’ve come from. Having now started and successfully exited two startups and having this great company in place. Now we’ve got a lot of business owners on that. Maybe they’re looking to get their first business going.

[00:01:07] You know, there may be a time in their lives where they’re pushing, they’re struggling, things don’t seem to be going right for them. And they’re just looking for that. How do I get going? How do I get started? So if you took us back to the start, what is your business journey been like? And have there been some ups and downs and lessons that you’ve learned?

[00:01:25] Charlie Bowes-Lyon: Yeah, I think definitely. I mean, my very first business, um, I actually started in my last year of university. And it was one of those things where I didn’t really have a plan, um, I started working on it, it kind of took off and suddenly I was able to make a bit of money and I was like, Oh, hold on a minute.

[00:01:43] Maybe I don’t have to, you know, go train to be a lawyer or become a doctor or whatever. I can, I can continue with this. Um, and so I ended up doing it, I think for four or five years. Um, and it was essentially in the publishing space online, and I was selling, I had several kind of online magazines and was selling the, um, the advertising space, and I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.

[00:02:07] I was kind of completely making it up as I went along. Um, I think faking it, do you make it, doesn’t, doesn’t even justify probably the level of the baking that was going on, but, um, but it, it sort of worked and, you know, we had. We had huge traffic. So we got, I think, um, to about a million, uh, uh, organic online views every month.

[00:02:30] Um, and that was, you know, without spending anything on, on marketing. And I suppose that was my first kind of foray to, uh, the world of marketing and doing it organically and how to create an audience and things like SEO, um, as well. Um, and probably, you know, if I’m honest at the time. never felt like I was doing something particularly successful.

[00:02:55] Um, it always felt like I didn’t really know what I was doing and like internally you have imposter syndrome, especially I think at that kind of age. Um, but looking back, I think it, you know, really gave me like a very solid foundation for the rest of my career. I learned a lot of stuff, essentially myself through speaking to others, um, that I probably wouldn’t have learned if I’d gone into kind of a grad job.

[00:03:21] Um, and, and it was a pretty amazing experience. I still have, so I sold the majority of that business. I still have a few bits of it, which. Kind of make me passive income today and actually, you know, through, uh, starting while the very beginning obviously wasn’t much of an income, um, kind of sustained me financially for, for a bit of time, which was, which was great.

[00:03:45] Um, so yeah, it’s, it’s, I think that. The kind of core lesson there is, um, if you have imposter syndrome or you feel like you don’t know what you’re doing, don’t worry. It’s probably the case for most people who are starting out in a business. And it’s, it’s also the best thing you can do because you, you’re just going to learn so much.

[00:04:04] And some of that might be about failure, but some of that will inevitably be success as well.

[00:04:10] Adam Stott: You know, learn a lot more by doing right than you are. Yeah, exactly. You’ve got to take the actions. There’s no doubt. And after you went into that foray, you built that business. What happened next? What was next for you?

[00:04:21] You learned those lessons. What was kind of your next step on your journey?

[00:04:26] Charlie Bowes-Lyon: Yeah, so I did a few things. I think I kind of identified the. areas that I felt I was weakest in. Um, so there were parts of that business that I knew had the infrastructure, had the audience. Um, and I knew I could be essentially monetizing it way better and, and doing a better job if I was just like better at kind of basic sales.

[00:04:52] Um, or like, you know, had a bit better network for people to contact or how to find clients to advertise. Um, so I, I went, um, so after selling that, I actually worked, uh, for a little while as a headhunter. Um, and part of the reason for that was that I knew I could earn a pretty decent wage, but I also knew that that was about sales having a role as you do.

[00:05:18] And I felt like if I went into that, I’d be able to learn what was missing from my first business. Um, and, you know, back then, not that it’s all that long ago, but, um, it was still kind of fairly hardcore recruitment. You had to do 150 calls a day or whatever it was and hit all these KPIs. Um, and, and quite sort of stringent nineties sales.

[00:05:42] Um, and I think, um, you know, it was, it was great. Wouldn’t have been able to continue doing it for too long, but it was really great for my, my learning curve and enabled me to then go on to, you know, do much more in my sort of future businesses and be much more capable because I was confident in pitching something in or selling an idea.

[00:06:05] Um, which, you know, as anyone starting a business who’s looking for funding knows it’s like an absolutely core. Uh, ability to

[00:06:12] Adam Stott: have. It’s incredible. Any young person asked me at any point, what should I do? And, you know, I want to be successful and you get it a lot. You get young people come to my events or, you know, young people like my nephew or anyone asked me, what should I do, Adam?

[00:06:28] How do I get on this journey to become more successful? The first thing I do is say, go and get a sales job. Right. Exactly. It’s a fundamental skill, isn’t it? That you’re going to need is going to come up again and again and again and again, and you’re going to have a lid on your ability if you can’t sell because you’re selling ideas, your products, your services, your vision, you’re always selling.

[00:06:47] So it’s really cool that you identified that. And did something about it. Right.

[00:06:51] Charlie Bowes-Lyon: I think that’s exactly right. I mean, I couldn’t agree with that more. I think, you know, it’s a life skill as well. If you can convince someone to do something, you know, you can get places in life, even outside of business. And it’s, it’s such a.

[00:07:06] A core and actually relatively simple trait to learn, um, but learning it is, is, is worthwhile.

[00:07:17] Adam Stott: And you do go through a little bit of pain, right?

[00:07:19] Charlie Bowes-Lyon: Yeah, exactly. It’s a bit miserable to begin with, to be honest, picking up the fade a hundred times a day, but, but it was worth it, I think.

[00:07:27] Adam Stott: Brilliant. So you went off, you learned sales, you got better at that, and then you went back into business again, right?

[00:07:33] Charlie Bowes-Lyon: Yeah, so actually the next business was kind of, again, came about slightly unplanned, so I was working as a director. at a business called Hatch Group. And, um, they mostly specialized in sort of performance marketing and marketing for tons of the kind of biggest startups that, um, you’d hear about today.

[00:07:57] And Uh, we, so I was working mostly on a separate side of business consulting with a lot of these companies about hiring in, um, you know, leadership teams or what they should be doing with their marketing functions and how they should be building them. Um, and at the time I kind of felt like, um, I really wanted to be sort of practicing what I was preaching and actually doing, um, you know, some of the stuff I was telling these kind of.

[00:08:28] Big companies, companies like Harry’s and companies people have heard of, um, you know what to do. And yeah, there I was having never really done like paid marketing myself, just kind of knowing theory. So I set up my second business, which was a business called Climate Cups. Um, and the idea was. Reasonable coffee cups, essentially with, um, That were collapsible at the same time.

[00:08:54] And this was around the time that I think it was David Dazenborough’s Blue Planet 2 came out. So, you know, people were just waking up to the fact that plastic waste was an issue. Supermarkets were considering bringing in a charge for plastic bags. All that stuff was going on. So it was, it was pretty good timing.

[00:09:14] And I think, um, I launched. Very basically, my wife was helping me, um, literally from my living room and within the first month, I think we sold like 10, 000 cups, basically through Facebook ads. Uh, and a little bit of branding, um, and we, we were sort of fulfilling them from our living room. I think my, my night business partner came around one day and it was like boxes packed to the ceiling.

[00:09:42] It’s like, what the hell are you doing? Um, and yeah, it was, it was kind of really crazy and I was like, wow, this, this, you know, if I really applied myself, um, this, this could be something quite big. Um, So that, that’s kind of what led on to wild because I, we, we, I looked at it, the business with my current business partner, um, and we were like, is there something, you know, we should try and take to the next level, get some funding, um, increase our marketing.

[00:10:10] And we sort of felt, um, probably because the whole idea was that, you know, customers get something for life and don’t come back, it was going to be hard to make it work on DTC because. Any DTC business basically needs good retention, um, of customers to succeed, unless you’re selling kind of very, very, very expensive items.

[00:10:33] Um, so really, so I ended up selling it instead, um, and a kind of private sale, really simple, but, you know, for what was essentially half a year’s work, it was, it was a really sort of great experience. and gave me confidence that, you know, I could do the sort of paid side of marketing, which I hadn’t had all that much experience in, um, previously.

[00:10:55] Um, and yeah, that, that sort of led on to the creation of Wild.

[00:10:59] Adam Stott: Which is, um, a really smart move to look at, hey, these people are only buying once. I’m going to saturate my buyers. Not have any way of bringing people back in to generate revenue. So, you know, really, really interesting that you went for a different model and, and what you’re doing now looks like it’s achieving massive success, right?

[00:11:18] And you spent a long time, didn’t you? Actually building out this model. Um, am I right in saying you did over two and a half years worth of research to really get this right for this?

[00:11:28] Charlie Bowes-Lyon: Yeah. Well, yeah, so initially, um, it was about a year for the initial product. Um, but in that time, so, uh, Wild basically sells reusable, um, bathroom products, and you get refills, you get a case that’s reusable, and then you get refills, which are zero plastic and can be composted or, um, recycled.

[00:11:51] And our first kind of core product was deodorant, natural deodorant. Um, and. The issue we had was that we had very little money, so we were bootstrapped with a small amount to kind of… get a product out there to market in front of investors. Um, and in that first year, it took probably about 12 months to create and design the case and by 12 months as well to create a sort of natural deodorant formula that actually worked.

[00:12:23] And we sort of naively Gone in thinking, you know, how hard can it be to kind of create these things? Like, we’ll get it right. And then, you know, 35 iterations later, there we were, still not quite happy with the, the natural deodorant itself. Um, and it also turned out, um, which again, we were probably a little naive about that, removing plastic from packaging is just incredibly difficult.

[00:12:47] And, you know, plastic is actually the most amazing material in what it can do. Um, and getting rid of it for a cosmetic product is so, so tough. Um, but we got there, um, we had to do about six, Months of fundraising as well, which, um, inevitably was quite tough to because we didn’t have anything to show for ourselves yet.

[00:13:09] Um, and got it to market. And then, you know, the latest product, which I think you were referring to the body wash that has taken about 2. 5 years. Um, again, I think almost a bigger challenge in some ways. So we. The reusable casing, and again, the, the refills that are zero plastic. Um, the issue was this time that, that whilst the Deidre is solid, the, the, um, body washer is obviously a liquid.

[00:13:35] And keeping a liquid in a compostable material that has zero plastic is really, really difficult. So, you know anything from. Your paper, um, coffee cups from Starbucks or any of those shops all have a plastic lining in them and they’re actually quite difficult to recycle because you’d have to separate that plastic lining from the paper.

[00:13:59] Um, and basically all products that appear to be paper carry liquid have that at the moment. So, this I think is the world’s first. bottle that is, um, properly biodegradable and compostable, um, and has zero plastic that’s, that’s capable of carrying liquids. So we’re, we’re kind of super excited about it.

[00:14:19] Adam Stott: Absolutely. And how this business has gone very far, right? In the fact that you sell thousands and thousands and thousands of products and the business is growing, you know, very, very, very much is, you know, the notes I’ve got is the, you know, this business in its last year. Is that correct? They achieved over 26 million pounds worth of sales.

[00:14:42] Is that right?

[00:14:43] Charlie Bowes-Lyon: Yep. Um, so last year, 26, um, 26 million pies. And I think this year we’re on track to 15 million refills. Um, and hopefully be double. Roughly double the size of last year. So it’s, it’s been being kind of crazy, crazy, crazy, to be honest,

[00:15:03] Adam Stott: success. Right. So 26 million pounds worth of sales, but also the, the side of saving 500, 000 kilograms of, of plastic, but also the customers love it.

[00:15:15] Cause you’ve got 20, 005 star reviews. Yeah. So you should be really. Really happy. Um, what’s the site? Do you want to tell the website for anyone that wants to go and check that out?

[00:15:26] Charlie Bowes-Lyon: Yeah. So it’s, uh, we are wild. com where you can, you can just type in wild to Google and it will, will come up. Um, we are,

[00:15:37] Adam Stott: the products look amazing.

[00:15:38] I’m certainly going to be a, be a customer and, and, and test those out for sure. Absolutely. So look, massive, massive success with this business. What have you learned along the way? You know, what are some of those big lessons for you that in building this business that you could share with other entrepreneurs?

[00:15:54] What would you say that top five are?

[00:15:56] Charlie Bowes-Lyon: I think, I think so many, um, lessons to be honest. So we launched, uh, We launched in April 2020. Um, and obviously that was the same month that the pandemic started. Um, and the first thing that happened was that all of our manufacturers who were about to be creating our products just disappeared overnight because, um, you know, suddenly people weren’t working there or whatever was going on internally with them.

[00:16:28] We were at the bottom of that list, like a tiny. You know, startup first run of products, and we just weren’t the priority. So, um, I think what we did learn, uh, in from that is that the people who you can rely on, or the rather the partners, whether it’s manufacturing partners or 3PLs or whatever it is, who do kind of stick by you and help you, like, even if they have problems, it’s worth Your loyalty, um, to stick with them because ultimately those are the guys that if something do go wrong and in the sort of life span of any business, normally there’s a period where something goes wrong.

[00:17:10] They’ll stick by you and like, they won’t sort of drop you in a hat. And, you know, the people that did drop us, um, and kind of ghosted us, we haven’t worked with again because. We just, we know that they’re not reliable. We know that things can go wrong. And, and, you know, the same thing, um, obviously we were, we were much bigger, but the same thing happened when, uh, Russia invaded Ukraine because Ukraine was, uh, one of the biggest exporters of some of our ingredients.

[00:17:37] And overnight, I think prices went up by 300%. It’s incredibly hard to come by some of our kind of core ingredients. And again, like those same partners who had helped set the first same partners that Um, you know, maybe gave us a bit of leeway on margin or maybe agreed to, um, you know, fix, even fix like the, the exchange rate for the dollar pound if we were ordering in dollars because the pine was dipping.

[00:18:03] So there was like a, a lot, uh, a lot to be said, I think for, um, finding good partners who will stick with you through. Thick and thin. And that does go both ways. Like sometimes those partners will drop the ball. And obviously you have to address that, but giving them a, like a bit of a chance to write themselves is, is, um, pretty key, I think.

[00:18:26] Adam Stott: Yeah. So build, build those relationships has been a big, big, big lesson, like you know, to,

[00:18:35] to build the business through to. Um, and I, and I believe that you’re in charge of the market, right? To build that business to, uh, uh, funnily enough, the last couple of days I’ve just been with my gold circle clients, which is a group of clients that I mentor and coach and really training them on ads and getting them to buy into the concept of getting ads out for, for their business.

[00:18:55] And so it’s just mad because once you understand how to do this stuff, it can just change the game. You know, what’s that been like for you? You know, how have you got this business into multiple eight figures? And what’s your strategy been like?

[00:19:09] Charlie Bowes-Lyon: Yeah. So I think there’s probably, um, two key strategies, which we’ve, we’ve tried to employ from the beginning.

[00:19:17] Um, the first is. having varied marketing when it comes to paid media. So, you know, if you put everything into Facebook and that’s your channel, then you risk one day, Facebook getting much harder. I should call it Meta now, sorry. Meta getting much harder, you know, something saturated, whatever it is, and suddenly you’re, you’re stuck.

[00:19:43] Um, so I think the key, the key thing we’ve tried to, to do along the way is like have. Several channels, none of which we are completely over reliant on, obviously, you know, matter some reason when out of business or something, it would hurt us, but it wouldn’t kill us overnight. And I think what we’ve seen, uh, what I’ve seen certainly in my career when consulting for other businesses is they’re just, they become over reliant on any one channel.

[00:20:11] Um, and as a result, you know, it’s like they’re going along nicely and then suddenly they saturate for their audience and overnight. Often, literally overnight their CPMs double and it becomes twice as expensive to acquire customers, um, and they, and they can’t take that. Whereas if you have kind of a, a wide, uh, marketing channel mix, you have the ability to move budget in and out of those channels, um, across the whatever.

[00:20:38] And it just allows you a little bit more flexibility, um, to. Make way for for kind of bad performance and likewise for good performance as well Like you can you can ramp anything up if things are going well So I think we probably have five or six and core channels all of which meaningfully bring in sales whether it’s You know matter tick tock Influence Affiliates, whatever.

[00:21:05] There’s there’s there’s like a lot of effort put into each of these And then it’s alongside that see the brand And that’s probably the other lesson. We didn’t go out and spend a hundred K. on an expensive brand age, uh, brand agency to, you know, make us look absolutely amazing before we’d sold our first product.

[00:21:27] And so many companies do that. They, you know, they get a bit of funding. The investors tend to say, brand is so important. You need to Like really, um, you know, look great and like everything needs to be perfect. And they spend a year doing, creating this like incredible website. And then they go out and they find out they don’t even have product market fit.

[00:21:46] And it’s all been a waste of time. Um, the key I think is just to like test and learn. So you just do it yourselves or, you know, pay a freelancer to do the bare minimum, find out what’s resonating. And from there, continue to iterate basically on what you’ve learned. And I think with Brad, that’s. You know, something that at some point you do end up investing quite a bit more in, but probably in our first year, we spent maybe two grand externally on developing our brand.

[00:22:18] And, and like I was running the Instagram, it was absolutely awful. And, you know, people used to comment on how awful it was sometimes, but, you know, we learned a lot. And that’s fine.

[00:22:28] Adam Stott: I love, I love your answer because. Test and learn is the way, right? You know, you don’t, the market’s going to tell you, you know, what, what is wrong often.

[00:22:37] And if you don’t get, give the market opportunity, you never find out. Right. And a lot of time. So I think that’s a big lesson, isn’t it? Right. To get out there. It sounds like you’ve done that a lot.

[00:22:48] Charlie Bowes-Lyon: Yeah, I think it applies, applies across everything to be honest, um, you know, whether it’s tech or CRO or marketing or, or your product, you’ve got to just constantly be testing.

[00:22:59] And I don’t know what, like, I can’t even tell you what iteration of our deodorant we’re on now, um, but we’re still constantly trying to improve the formula, like find better and better, um, ways of producing it. So, you know, across the business. I think you should never stop trying to improve every kind of, um, asset that you have.

[00:23:22] Um, and then I think the other, the other big kind of marketing, um, thing that we sort of try to do or less marketing, but, but kind of strategy is, um, being multi territory. So, um, again, when I was consulting, there were companies who were just UK based or, um, you know, just stuck in one country. Like sometimes You know, sometimes it’s harder to not do that if you’re a physical business, but if you’re an online business, you have the ability to be multi territory.

[00:23:55] It can add just so much to, um, to your business because essentially, you know, just like with marketing channels, you can have A bad period of time in a given country or like all that country can have a bad period of time. You know, you’ve got the current, um, cost of living crisis, for example, that will be businesses suffering because of that.

[00:24:19] And potentially there are countries that aren’t seeing that so much. And if they were able to switch them off expense to those countries, then as a business, they can kind of get through the tougher periods. So we started out, um, expanding into Europe, I think. almost in our first year, uh, and kind of really talk to Germany as a sort of second territory for us.

[00:24:42] And, um, you know, there’s a whole, whole load of lessons in that as well. It was, it was pretty tough. And, um, you know, you can’t, you can’t just be like an English company in. In Germany, you have to make it feel authentic, but once we did crack it, um, you know, I think Germany now is probably 75 percent the size of the UK, um, for a while, and it’s like a big meaningful market with nice, you know, seeing similar things in other EU countries and also trying stuff in Australia as well.

[00:25:13] Again, it just gives you a lot of flexibility, especially as an econ business, if you’re able to, um, I guess, spread your bets a bit and have the flexibility. For where you spend your, your marketing budget.

[00:25:26] Adam Stott: And also just more heads, more people, more population, more, which is, uh, which, which is awesome. So, where, where are you going next?

[00:25:35] What’s the plan? So, you know, you built this, this great business. It’s, uh, doing really, really well. What are your, what are your future plans? Where do you want to take it? What’s your sort of next moves?

[00:25:45] Charlie Bowes-Lyon: So I think we, um, that’s a good question. I think we, I think we want to essentially in the future have, have a situation where you walk into a bathroom and every product you see is wild.

[00:25:59] Um, and therefore there is literally zero waste that that comes from the bathroom. Um, and I think the problem, you know, the problem is we see it is, Twofold. So number one, there’s a huge amount of like plastic single use wastes. I think something like 20, 000 plastic bottles per person, uh, from the bathroom in, in, in, uh, the average lifetime.

[00:26:26] So, you know, if you, if you add up a city’s worth of people, that’s like a crazy, crazy amount of waste. Um, and then the other thing is recycling. It’s. The amount of products that are actually recycled from the bathroom is very low. There’s, you could go on Google and you get all sorts of different statistics and different numbers.

[00:26:49] But part of the problem is people today in their kitchens often have like a recycling bin and a normal bin and sometimes a compost bin, but in their bathroom they tend to just have like one bin and then they go and empty their bathroom bin into the normal bin rather than sorting through it like the average person does.

[00:27:07] Um, so a lot of stuff just. Ends up in, in landfill that you’re getting into the oceans or whatever. So I think for us, like the ultimate goal is to have a range of genuinely innovative products that solve this problem. So maybe it’s, you know, we’ve got deodorant and body wash, it’s shampoo, it’s conditioner, it’s hand soap.

[00:27:29] It’s all, all those products. Um, and to do, to do that in a way where the product. You know, first and foremost is really effective. It smells great. Like ultimately it doesn’t matter how sustainable you are. If you don’t have a good product, no one wants to buy it. So first and foremost, really, really great product that smells really great.

[00:27:49] And then, you know, natural ingredients, which we believe is, is, um, you know, it’s nicer to know what you’re putting on your body, um, rather than like a whole list of kind of chemicals that you don’t know what they are. Um, and then, yeah, and then, and then the sustainability element to kind of solve the core problem that I mentioned.

[00:28:10] Adam Stott: Absolutely. Is it something you’ve always been passionate about? Or, you know, from the beginning, you, you as an individual?

[00:28:17] Charlie Bowes-Lyon: Yeah, I think so. I mean, I wouldn’t say I’m a kind of hardcore, um, eco, um, yeah, eco warrior. I’m, I’m, I’m, I think it’s like most people over the last five to ten years. My awareness of it is grown.

[00:28:35] Um, I grew up in fact, both my business partner and I grew up in Scottish countryside. So despite the lack of absence, so we, we kind of have a bit of an appreciation for the nature and, you know, where I live, there’s like tons of forests and it’s, it’s kind of very, very, uh, rural Britain. Um, and I think.

[00:28:56] Living now in London, you know, it is quite a stark change and you do just like, you know, we, we, so we did a, um, charity day, um, cleaning, helping cleaning up the tents the other day as a business. And it’s just insane the amount of rubbish that is there. And there were, I think, like 80 percent of that rubbish is wet wipes, by the way, which is kind of crazy.

[00:29:17] But, um, we, we were literally digging and we were like, oh, isn’t that sort of sand or whatever? And they were like, no, that whole kind of. 10 meter by 10 meters is just wet wipes buried on top of it. There’s probably like a million wet wipes in that small space. Um, And it, you know, amongst that are obviously all the bottles and kind of all the other, all the other crap.

[00:29:37] But it’s, it’s sort of, yeah, it’s, it’s kind of eye opening. And I think for me personally, I, it’s something that has become more of a thing. The older I’ve got, I’ve got a one year old kid now and another on the way. I don’t really want, you know, if it continues the way it is, I can’t imagine what it will be like in the future.

[00:29:58] Because There’s however many billion people on earth, if they’re all contributing, you know, 20, 000 plastic bottles in their lifetime, like, where’s it all going to go? Like, we can’t dig holes forever in the ground. Um, so yeah, I think, I think it’s, it’s increasingly become one and it’s, and it’s definitely the cornerstone of, of this business is sustainability.

[00:30:22] Adam Stott: Absolutely. Well, I think it’s been amazing to, you know, hear about the journey. Here are some of the lessons, uh, and the different aspects that you’ve gone along the way, you know, some, some great lessons there for people. If you give the entrepreneur some tips, just, you know, as a last question. On their mindset, you know, the, the challenges that you go through in business, the ups and downs, what are the kind of three things or two things, or maybe even one thing that you do to keep your mindset sharp, to keep yourself focused?

[00:30:54] Is there any kind of things that you have like to do with the challenges and the ups and downs?

[00:30:59] Charlie Bowes-Lyon: Yeah, I think, I think there’s, there’s possibly two, two bits I’d say. The first one is, you know, internally, you’re always going to doubt yourself a bit, or you’re playing. Work and and therefore the best thing you can do is just do stuff in perfectly don’t try and be a perfectionist and most entrepreneurs probably are perfectionists.

[00:31:23] Um, don’t try and, you know, design stuff for a year before launching or, you know, waiting forever before you get anything out there like the best. single best thing you can do is just get something out there and see how people react to it. And the best and most important lessons you’re going to learn are from consumers themselves, because they will very quickly give you the feedback that you need to know, to know, to iterate your product.

[00:31:49] Um, so I think, you know, that, that’s probably the big one, like launch them perfectly. Uh, and I always say that to people because I know people who’ve spent years kind of Gearing up to launch, and then they never even launch or they, they, you know, or they don’t have product market fair. Um, so that, that’s probably the first one.

[00:32:09] And then, uh, in terms of kind of mindset, I think. You know, you get a lot of stuff online on LinkedIn these days about, you know, I think you get two camps, like the people who, who sleep two hours a night and, um, work for the other 22. And then you get the camp of people who are very against that and, you know, they do yoga in the middle of the day or whatever it is.

[00:32:32] Like, I think you. You you can do it whatever way you want. There’s no one set way or rule to become successful. I think there are a few key attributes. You’ve got to work hard and you’ve got to be prepared to work hard. You can’t like half heartedly do something. You can’t really do another full time job and successfully, like really successfully launch your own business.

[00:32:53] You can start it, but probably not sustain it. Um, and I think basically, you know, it, it comes down to how much of yourself you’re willing to give and there’s always There’s always going to be like a chunk of you, um, that it takes to start a business, but that doesn’t have to be a kind of bad thing, you know, as I said, I’ve got a family.

[00:33:13] I’m not neglecting them or I’m not missing out time with my daughter, um, she kind of grows up for a business. It’s just not worth that. But at the same time, when I am working, I’m going to make sure that I’m really driven and doing my best at it. Um, and then the final thing is, I think, you know, it doesn’t have to be blindly optimistic, but I think being optimistic is key, even if you don’t.

[00:33:39] Feel it in the moment, because normally there’s a solution for any problem and most problems in the moment feel way, way bigger. Then then they actually are. And there’s like, definitely be times in the last four years where I’ve been seriously stressed or like, close to tears because I’m like, Oh, my God, how are we ever gonna solve this problem?

[00:33:58] Um, but actually, two weeks later, you pretty much forgotten about it. And it seems meaningless. So I think, like, be optimistic, know that you can solve pretty much most problems. And, and yeah, and then you should be okay.

[00:34:13] Adam Stott: I think there’s some great, great guidance and great advice there. You know, thanks so much for coming on, uh, Charlie.

[00:34:20] Go and check out wearewild. com. That’s correct, Charlie. You know, I’ve got that right? Yeah, correct. Yeah. Go and check it out. The products look absolutely amazing. Do some good for the environment and sustainability and check out what Charlie and the team at Wild are doing. It’s really, really impressive.

[00:34:38] And of course, thanks for listening for today’s podcast. For more amazing guests like this, make sure that you’re subscribed. Make sure that if you’ve been enjoying it, that you go and share this. Perhaps you know. An e commerce entrepreneur or somebody sending products or services. And if you do share this episode with them, so they can really get the highlights of what Charlie has been saying, or maybe just a business owner that needs those fundamental tips on launching their products or service.

[00:35:03] Go ahead and share this episode with them by clicking the link and share it with someone to brighten up their day. Thanks again, Charlie. It’s been absolutely amazing. Really enjoyed talking to you and really enjoy, you know, I’ll be keeping a close eye on, on this business and how it continues to grow and do lots of good in the world.

[00:35:18] Charlie Bowes-Lyon: Thanks again. Brilliant. Thanks very much for having me. Pleasure.