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Daring Creativity
"You need to understand what gets you out of bed in the morning" (Barney Mauleverer bonus episode)
00:13:15
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- [00:01]
A
Hey, welcome to this bonus episode of the Daring Creativity Podcast. This is where I revisit the interview published earlier in the week. Providing me with the opportunity to zoom in on a few standout moments for extra value and meaning gives me time to digest the goodness my guests share with me every week. And this is the bonus episode, number 13, featuring some of the standout moments from my conversation with Barney Mauleverer. And I absolutely love the fact that I managed to get someone from the other side of the branding equation, because I've been in branding for a very long time. And when you spend most of your time talking to other branding designers, other branding directors, and having conversation with founders, we see the equation of creating a new product very much from just one perspective. One side, one. Even though we tell everyone how much strategy work we've done and insight and research and all of that work, we still see it as kind of creating the one and not necessarily understand what the zero is. So zero in this equation being the problem, the one not going from zero to one is to create the actual product. And I love chatting to Barney because he's managed to create a food product based on listening. And the story is fascinating because usually founders and product makers are very much focused on, like, I'm gonna solve this problem. This is my product. And now how do we find the audience? So let me start with the first standout moment, which is Barney's story of how they created the Red Bull of granola.
- [01:44]
B
Don't know what the buyer was actually doing at that show, but we could see that they had a Tesco badge. And. And he said, don't worry, I don't buy popcorn and stuff. And we asked, well, what do you buy? And he said, well, I'm the breakfast buyer at Tesco, and just here for inspiration. Quite like your brand. And we got talking to him, and he said. We asked him, what's going on in breakfast and are there any. Anything, any opportunities? And he said, yeah, I'm trying to find the Red Bull of granola. Granola is the only category growing at the moment, and energy is a big thing, obviously, outside of the category. I want to try and bring energy into the category. We said, well, what if we found you the product and had a really good brand? Would you consider having a chat to us? And he said, well, look, if you think you got something, book a meeting and come up and show me. Literally, I left the trade show then and there and got the yellow pages out. And granola manufacturers in Europe, anywhere, any manufacturer, and found four manufacturers told them that we already had 600 stores guaranteed from Tesco, said that we've already spoken to Bear Grylls about putting his face on the pack or. And if it's not Bear, it'll be Jamie Oliver or something like that. And four factories around Europe put together the Red Bull of granola in their various different formats. And I had samples coming into my office in Dorset. Can't remember which samples came from where. And we went up for a meeting and there was one particular manufacturer that had absolutely nailed it. And the buyer said that one. And during the meeting, he ate the whole pack pretty much. And he said, okay, that's it, we'll go for that. And he literally said, I'm going to give you 600 stores and. And you've got to be ready in 16 weeks. Oh, by the way, what's the brand? And it was. That is how fuel 10k ended up being born.
- [03:34]
A
That story is everything because it shows you that whatever the plan, whatever the idea you might have is nowhere near good enough to what actually the problem needs solving. So the story of the buyer coming to their stand, asking them questions about X, Y, Z them. Asking questions. And listening to the buyer from Tesco's was. It's a revelation to branding designers because you're like, oh, right, okay, this is how you really solve a problem. And I love that Barney shown what's known in the world of retail. It's just a sort of proof, the proof of concept that you pitch something to buyers from the likes of Tesco's or Waitrose or whoever in the UK or wherever you are in the world, and they buy into the concept and you've got time to make it. Rather than having a warehouse full of stock going, would you like to buy some? We got a very good example of how very profitable and very valuable company got created based on the fact that someone spotted a question, someone spotted an answer, someone spotted an opportunity and then built a company around it. Absolutely love that story. And the conversation of Vivani is worth just for that alone. The second standout moment is about Barney's view on the food inventors.
- [04:57]
B
And so last November, I booked the Royal Geographic Society, the whole place for the day. And free to enter, free to attend, not for profit. We had six amazing judges. We had speakers who came in to frame the future of food and what's coming down the tracks. We had 105 entries which we had to whittle down to 16 finalists. And we spent the day championing entrepreneurial endeavor in front of 350 people in the food industry, from investors to retailers to journalists to manufacturers. And we were talking about things like how do we reduce plastics in our foods, how do we, what are we going to do about ultra processed food? What's the impact of weight loss, drugs? What are the different things that the entrepreneurs can create and add value to in this food ecosystem? And we know there's change, we know populations are changing, we know ice caps are melting. And so that was our first iteration.
- [05:58]
A
Since Barney's exit from fuel 10K, he's been creating something called the future of food competition, future of food movement, where he's putting focus on people who are solving future problems. And he quite rightfully in his quote says that we need to celebrate innovators because those are the people who take risks. It takes emotional strain, as he said, because it matters. And it highlights how the hierarchy can stifle the innovation. So yes, you got a buyers, journalists, investors who are kind of part of enablers or amplifiers in this equation. But they are no good to anyone without the people who actually create a real innovation, real product, real opportunity and put their life fuel energy behind all of this because they believe in it. The third moment was about testing and learning.
- [06:57]
B
Genuinely, we were a test. I was test and learn all my life. And I think what really helps again get you out of bed when you're doing stuff like this and you hit massive rejection and disasters is what the alternative looks like if you don't get it right. And the older you become, the more deeply unemployable you think you are. And with more kids arriving on the scene and you kind of go, well, if that didn't work, something, let's try this and let's try that and let's try this. And so I think the personal motivations helped a lot. And I think you gotta be a bit careful that you're not flogging a dead horse. And you just keep relentlessly making mistakes and may maybe you're not the right guy for this, but I just knew that we had something and it was worth just getting that one more time, just one more time until luckily we cracked something. Having had so much rejection and failure of all the other brands as well.
- [07:54]
A
In my conversation with Barney, he very much identified his journey as a generalist throughout his life and from doing all sorts of weird and wonderful jobs in his early 20s, working in the city in London, mixing cocktails, wheeling patients in hospitals, it can be seen of like, hey dude, have you really thought of like having focused journey to become an Entrepreneur of a very successful food company. But I did reply to him in our conversation with the fact that you know what, that's the beginnings of being a well rounded entrepreneur that really cares about a development and understanding how society humanity works. Like not working on a complaints line for insurance company. You get to really understand real people's problems and then you can go and build your own knowledge and armory as an entrepreneur and understand the bumps in the road that's ahead of everyone. Because I'm sure you've heard me talking about this million times before and I can't really say, I will never say it again, but there's no such thing as end of problems. There's no such thing as nothing in the way that it's going to be a smooth sailing just because we've done one thing over and over again and that should guarantee easy roads towards whatever destination we've decided to have. So there was a story when Barney and Fuel 10K have created their first product and and have packaging created in and PowerPoint. It was a bit of a disaster, but it didn't stop them. There was no sort of emotional breakdown, there was no sort of feeling of despair. It was like okay, we messed up, we're gonna fix things. This is what we do. It's okay because mistakes will happen, failure will happen. But when you deal with other people's problems most of your life, then when you come to dealing with your own, you'll be okay. The fourth quote is about a future of food and the potential for innovations for aging generation.
- [10:06]
B
There's no surprise there's so much strain on our resources but we need to adapt. And I think thank goodness the sort of robotic AI era is coming through. And so what I'm really excited about is like and this should be about opportunity rather than issue and pointing fingers and blame. The opportunities are. We know that populations are swelling and getting older so how can we use the tools of today to to feed them in. So keeping it within the food industry, of course there's clothing, there's energy, there's defense, there's all sorts of other industries. But I'm going to keep it in the food industry because that's a bit I vaguely understand but what are our kids going to be doing? So if my kids come in to and follow a similar journey to me in 20 years time the world's going to be quite a different place. Where's a good place for them to start?
- [10:55]
A
So Future of Food is an excellent example of how like minded people who care about the future of the population and the planet come together and showcase their innovations. And I was lucky to be at the year one event last November 2024. And the highlight of some of the talks was the fact that we're going to have very much an aging population very soon. If you can think of the food categories and whatever marketing you get to see in your daily life, it'll be mostly the protein. Like how many grams per protein can a micro millimeter can have? And I'm trivializing this, but that's how it feels. You will also be most aware of the fact that there's a lot of food for kids. There's been marketing and advertised, but that's only a tiny percentage of the food market. We will need to have food for aging population. And it's like how to feed ourselves for longevity and how do we create categories that will help us live longer and better? And the fact what Barney was highlighting in the conversation was the fact that, you know, David Attenborough was born, have I got it right? 99 years ago, which was only 2.8 billion people on the planet. Ever since, 6 more billion people have arrived and we put in strains on all sorts of systems. We've got issues here and everywhere, and I think what we need to see as the situation is more of an opportunity. So I very much enjoyed Barney's views on everything that he was talking about, because you can tell from our conversation there, he's been thinking about innovation and product for best part of 30 years. And conversation is very open, very honest, very generous in a way. And if you happen to be in the food and drink space, check out the episodes. You might get a lot out of it. And yeah, do get in touch with Barney on LinkedIn and ask him any questions because he's one of the most generous and passionate people in that industry right now. Thank you for joining me on this episode, and I look forward to seeing you on the next one.