Inside My 70+ Hour Week Building a £50M Brand

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:01]I think the coolest thing in business is when an idea comes out of somebody's head and then that idea gets brought to life by the team and you see it come to life something like this.

[00:00:11]>> Good morning team. Big one on the cards today.

[00:00:14]>> We've currently got so many things going on within the business at the moment.

[00:00:17]>> I thought it'd be a great week to show you behind the scenes.

[00:00:20]>> We're currently developing new products, pushing really hard to try and close out our first ever million pound month.

[00:00:25]>> And this weekend I'm also running the hackne half. So, it's going to be a packed week.

[00:00:37]Today is really exciting. Today, we've come up to Leicester to come to the manufacturing facility to produce a Pure Sport ready to drink can for the first time ever. So, the campaign this month is all around Orange Lemonade, us launching a new hydration electrolyte flavor. And about 6 weeks ago, we thought it would be absolutely sick to put it in a can. So in and around the campaign, the marathon, the shakeouts, the runs that we will be able to sample it with the community and through these flaps here, uh we're going to be seeing the cans for the first time, which is really cool. So the campaign's all in and around the yellow can, which is the one that we can see here. We've also done some variations in the uh blood orange, just to see what that looks like, but they're running them through the uh machine here, which is pretty cool. Mick was up there last week. Uh, so he got to see the 500 can trial run and then today we're running 5,000. I think the coolest thing in business is when an idea comes out of somebody's head and then that idea gets brought to life by the team and you see it come to life. Something like this. Like 6 weeks ago, we tasted the flavor for the first time. We then said, "Oh, we maybe we could put this in a can." Emma's designed the can. Next be working on the project and now they're coming off the line which is absolutely sick. So all the all the cans get loaded into this bit here. They then get fed into this machine which then fills them up with the uh the liquid. So this is the orange lemonade flavor in here. We've gone for like a lightly carbonated uh version.

[00:02:10]They get filled up through these pumps here and then we put the caps on. I think that we're allowed to try and take one.

[00:02:20]freezing cold.

[00:02:25]Oh, that is so cool.

[00:02:29]So, they put the caps on here, they seal the cans on top. Uh they go through a little bit of a clean here, cleaning the tops, and then they head around this track here into the pasteurizer.

[00:02:40]It's about 77° in there, and they're in there for about 2 minutes, and they come out the other side. They go through another little cleaning process on this side here and then they go down ready to be packed. So for us the the the campaign in and around the marathon this year it's all going to be about yellow. So this is the orange uh lemonade box that we're doing. So we really wanted to do a have a can that really like fed back into the main part of that campaign and something that our our customers our community could hold in their hands all in and around the events.

[00:03:12]The big focus for us over the next four weeks is to create as much excitement as possible in and around this yellow can.

[00:03:19]And that ultimately is going to drive eyeballs for the brand, people visiting the website, looking at the sachets. Uh so for us, it's a bit of fun, but something that I think could like really blow up the brand, but also blow up the campaign. So the development process on this, it's been really tough. Uh we've been trying to turn it around in 6 weeks, which is a really short amount of time. a few sleepless nights on trying to uh bring that together because there's so many things that we don't know about carbonation levels, ingredients levels, pasteurization, pH levels, but Nick and I have pretty much had to get a PhD and ready to drink in the last 6 weeks. And lots of the suppliers, lots of people we've been working with, they've really bent head over heels to make this happen. The boxes only got delivered yesterday. Uh so it's been really tough, but I think it's really rewarding.

[00:04:22]Today we're running Hackne Half Marathon. Yeah, I've done it every year for the past 3 years. So, such a great London race. Haven't really done any running from uh since London. So it's meant that um I'm kind of actually just like looking forward to it because it hasn't been like oh London right got hackne need to go out and do x amount of sessions.

[00:04:43]My theory is kind of like I'm fit from London so just go out and enjoy myself. It's always such a good day for the brand cuz uh just so many people from the like London community do it. Uh we've been doing the training plan up at Hackne for the past 12 weeks. So I've been taking loads of people on that training journey. So it's always a day that you see loads of uh loads of friends flavors. We go 25 minutes, 50 minutes, and then one at 110. So, it's more as like a keeping the tank fuel than uh needing to fill it up, you know?

[00:05:48]Heat. Heat.

[00:06:12]Heat. Heat.

[00:06:35]Heat up here.

[00:07:10]It's pretty dark actually. Like it was cool good starting in Apin because you can start never overtaking but [ __ ] I got overtaken by so many people because there's all the people in Bpin at the front who are actually probably like you know sub 120s runners so they're all going past you. It was um I was happy with the end result. Like low 127s would have been a great race to me. High 127s is a is a good race. But there was bits in there where I was like, "Shit, man.

[00:07:37]This is getting pretty dark cuz I set off at like too fast." I definitely wasn't like my mind wasn't as as good today like in it. For London, I was really even the bits where I was dark, I was a bit like stay in the fight type thing, but today just wasn't as good at that. Postmatch debrief. Pretty happy. I think if I if I'd had an amazing day, I would have been a bit about 30 seconds quicker than that. But I think that's a great result off the back of uh not really knowing where we were going to be and what's been a full-on week.

[00:08:21]Here we go.

[00:08:35]I think I think coming to the clubhouse has probably been the the best bit of the day. The finishers van has just gone past us since we just packed down. But but here from the clubhouse over the past 12 weeks, we've been running a training program for all these people building them up to this. So, even by the time I got here, still seeing people who were like part of the part of the Hackne community running past, that's the bit that I think is the best for me today. Like I I ran I actually ran well, but I probably didn't enjoy it that much. So, I think like coming back to these things, it really grounds you in it again of like there's actually such a bigger picture here than just, you know, trying to do your own PBS and things. I think one of the really cool things today was that um four of the team were running. So, I was running, uh Rory was running, Liam was running, and Olivia were running. And that's a really cool part. You know, we talked about a little bit during the week um about the buzz of that, saying good luck to everyone. The WhatsApp groups kind of buzzing with saying good luck to people. And I think like when you're in and around it all the time, it's also good that you also live it because there has been times in which we've been preaching this outward message of for the long run and look after yourself. But inwardly, we're just sat over our laptops working all the time. So, I think that's a special part of the business and a special part about the group of people that we have. And it was really cool. But I haven't actually seen any of them post run yet. So try and catch up with them now. See how they did. But all the crew got to see them run past here, which was cool.

[00:09:59]>> Uh Phil, we'll start with you. Any highlights from last week work and personal?

[00:10:05]>> Uh seems so long ago. Did we have a board meeting last week?

[00:10:10]>> Yeah. So let's go.

[00:10:12]>> What today has really been about is there's been so much buzz around the brand. So much messiness, so many things going on last week to make everything come together about refocusing everybody in on what's going to drive us towards our our goal of a million pound month across the next 3 days and sort of maximizing all of that work that we've been doing, the eyeballs on the brand, the content, the orange lemonade launch.

[00:10:35]Taking all of that buzz and actually turning it into commercial upside now, which is something as a brand we've we've been really not that good at across the last 5 years. We've always been able to create the buzz, but how do we make it count when it matters? So, this morning's meetings have been have been good. That felt quite high stakes because we're currently tracking 1% behind on the goal, which is only £10,000. So, it was about is there anything that we're focusing on right now that we shouldn't be? Is there little things that we can do to pull some of those levers? Things for us like that are in and around payday. people are more re receptive to be ordering, topping up on their on products, etc. Can we be sending a few more emails? Is there any ads in the account that are going particularly well that we can push a little bit harder on? Is there any retail accounts that we could, you know, push on? Rich mentioned that we've had a reach out from an Asian distributor who would look to place an order of around 5 grand and that making up 0.5% of our deficit would be absolutely massive. So, it was good to just get everyone in a room and pull on some of those things.

[00:11:37]Uh but it wasn't without tension. And the tight rope that you're always trying to balance on is we ultimately want to push really hard across the next three days to hit our goal, but we don't want to do things that then sacrifice things beyond this, you know, month. And there was a lot of tension in the meeting there about protein moving out further and whether we would bring in another one of the hydration flavors that were formulated. I just think yeah, if we've moved protein back to September, I think as we've seen like having new things to talk about is really important, especially if we're really wanting to push sales targets. I think we should be doing more flavors more often.

[00:12:22]>> I think the challenge is with all these things is promising it, right? I thought orange lemonade would be ready 3 weeks before the marathon and then pen, you know.

[00:12:32]supply issues with an ingredient and it ends up being like two days before. I think we can probably like with a good wind, I think we could probably launch that at the end of June, but it's just I know all the planning that has to go into campaigns and particularly we've got a third party, it just becomes harder. We've just launched Orange Lemonade. We've just got our first like glimpse of starter pack traction. We could literally just focus on this for 3 months and we wouldn't even be exploiting it properly. Plus, we're going to launch Boots and Holland about Barrett, which is another one of our commercial goals for the year. So, we need to make sure that those things are done right. 12 weeks of focus on orange lemonade starter pack, getting Amazon humming again after a month of some stockouts. That'll absolutely fly by. We then roll into protein after that. It's a really really tough decision and there's probably no right answer in that because my view on it is that I just think that we just stay focused. We just sweat the things that we've got even harder but growth team's point of view is actually more flavors helps them to grow more new audiences, new people, new things to talk about. So that that caused quite a lot of tension in the meeting but it's good healthy tensions because we both well we all just want to get the best result. My view obviously was 650k month in January to a 900k month in March. No flavors. I appreciate that we jumped from 900 to a million with a flavor with all those other things, but between January and March, it all just came down to focus around getting ads in behind the variety pack, getting Amazon working. My preference would definitely be over the next three months that we focus on getting the starter pack right that we work on the go to market plan for the protein and the RTD cans which could be multi-million pound unlocks for the business so that they can focus and on the marketing side we become better at being a business that's not just good at campaigns. We're good at campaigns.

[00:14:26]We've always been good at campaigns.

[00:14:28]What we're not good at is everything in and around that's not a big campaign.

[00:14:32]And that's what I've t tked Mikey with about how do we tap into these cultural moments in in and around campaigns that people feel seen with. So I'd rather focus brand marketing resource on that would be my preference cuz that's only May, June, July, 12 weeks away.

[00:14:48]>> The purpose of that meeting is a very top level to sort of reflect back on, you know, what's happening in the week.

[00:14:53]But probably more importantly, what does that mean going forward? you know, if we're just constantly marking our own homework, we're not making any decisions about the things that actually is going to drive the business forward. So, at a top level, it's about that, but it's also about making sure the team's grounded in the mission of what we're trying to achieve. You know, actually the detail of the channels happens at a at a at a level, a much more personal level. We're not going to necessarily stand up here and go over all the detail with people individually about what they can do. So, it's about making sure that everybody's grounded in the mission. I really want the team to always be leaving these meetings, you know, feeling like inspired about what we're doing, not just walking out the door and being obsessed about a number that's that that they need to report on or something that we're slightly behind on or slightly ahead on. It's about knowing that results win championships, but ultimately we are building a legacy here and what what we're building matters more than just the numbers inside of this room.

[00:15:58]Okay, [ __ ] this joint like a roll call Spanish.

[00:16:16]Okay, I'll come.

[00:16:20]So, I stopped 75 hard. Uh, I only did it for the first 75 days of the year and then post that, focusing on the marathon and then having a bit of break after the marathon before hackne. I think it probably didn't teach me anything that I didn't already know. But I think what I was really good at was making sure I was disciplined around booking that training time. The other thing that I was really surprised how much I enjoyed as well was the reading. I've been really bad at reading over the last 5 years. just always feel like you haven't got enough time. So getting back into that habit of having to read 10 pages a day, I actually really enjoyed. So I'd say the main benefit of it is is if you're someone who's looking to like adopt discipline into your life, it forces you to have to do it because you can't just like squeeze in drinking four lers of water. You can't just squeeze in two workouts with a 3-hour gap. So I think that's what it's really good at if you're looking to like make change, have discipline. That's the number one thing I think it's really great for. Yeah, I would. Especially young entrepreneurs. I think if you're like me, you know, you've already got quite a lot of discipline in your life. I'd say there's other things that you could do, but I think if you're young, I think it's something that could be really transformational for how you think about your time, how you think about prioritizing yourself and all those good things that come into that with discipline. Yeah. So, actually, even in the buildup to the marathon, strength training was probably a little bit off, but then post that, I literally haven't this the first time I've stepped in a gym in 3 and 1/2 weeks now. So, I think after the marathon, just keen to have a break. It could have been a really intense period both with pure sport both and with the running. And then now that I'm through that, trying to get back into a little bit again, see if I can put a couple of kilos back on and uh just find that enjoyment in training again.

[00:18:04]Okay team, that's a week in the life done. We've got so much in the works that I'm keen to continue to show you guys. We really appreciate the support on the channel. So, this week we're going to be doing a giveaway. If you drop a comment down below before the next video, I'll pick a winner. I'll send you out a few bits of apparel and some uh nutrition products to help with your training. And we've got so much to come for the rest of the year. So, keep tuning in and uh we really appreciate the support.

[00:18:32]Heat. Heat.