Episode Transcript
Nina Huchthausen (00:07.488)
All right. Welcome everyone to the Makers Business Tribe podcast. My name is Nina. I'm the founder of the Makers Business Tribe. We help product companies like yours to get you into retail and help you scale the offline way. And in today's episode, I have the honor, and I want to say honor because I think Joel's done some really cool stuff. So I have the honor to have a conversation with Joel Fraser, founder of Kaizen Nutrition.
And for those who don't know the stats, let me read them out to just brag a little bit because I think it's pretty cool. And then we're going to get to know the human behind those numbers. But here they are. So Kaizen Nutrition, number one, under the company, he has built a seven figure health and fitness retailer with two stores and a pretty large e-comm presence. But he also developed
two health products that made it into the shelves of over 450 retailers across Australia until he then decided, all right, that's it, let's sell it. 2023 was the year in which he sold it to Australia's largest health retailer. And now he's not just been sipping Pina Colada and doing nothing, but he's really busy consulting to other brands and helping them get built up. And he's also playing with another 15 SKUs, selling it direct to consumer and
retail. So this guy's busy. Yeah. And has achieved a lot. Joe, welcome to the podcast. Thanks, Nina. Nice to be here. Been following your work for some time now. It's been really impressive actually. So pleasure to be here. Thank you. Thank you so much. And Joe, now, of course, I rattled down some numbers and that's all cool and shiny. You know, we could talk about your Ferrari and your boat and all of that stuff. Fine.
But who are you as a human? You know, I feel like this is probably a bit, a bit more important than the bling. Well, I think once you spend enough time in business, that somewhat becomes your persona. Everything is a business minded after a while. But for me, I've been very engrossed within health and fitness for a very long time. And then naturally business sort of fell in and around that, you know, so.
Nina Huchthausen (02:30.935)
born and raised into Aussie rules and boxing. And that kind of fell hand in hand with health, nutrition, and then your own external fitness too. You know, so I grew a real passion for that. And then ultimately built a business around that, you know, and that started from quite a young age when I was 21 years old, actually. Yeah. Who, what, like boxing was like your mom, like, yeah, cool. Just get yourself bashed up or was it in the family?
Funnily enough, AFL brought on a far larger range of injuries, know, lot more concussions, a lot more busted joints. yeah, yeah, that was a big push into the Aussie rules from the family. And then I kind of gravitated more myself towards the boxing. But yeah, I loved it. Loved it. Loved the challenge mentally and physically. And I think that kind of held with me throughout my entire life there afterwards. You you appreciate hard work and you feel the
you feel the reward on the other side of it. You you try and start seeking that almost in an addictive nature and other facets of life too. So that would probably summarize myself on the base front. A lot of other works there afterwards. Boxing and business. Cool. Okay. So you started the business at 21 years old. Like how did it, how did it start? Like what was your dream back then? So
Well, idea like, you know, yeah, guess the idea really started when I was 19. I applied for a job at which I believe at the time was the largest health and fitness retailer in the world. They might still be today. They're not very big in Australia anymore, but huge global presence. And eventually I got the role as a sales assistant. So I found myself on the floor feeling very out of my depth working with
mostly nutritionists and naturopaths, but basically helping customers on the floor sort of navigate this very, very wide landscape of health and nutrition, supplements, sports nutrition, and how they could apply that to particular ailments that they're addressing in their life or even just optimizing good things in their life. And I really did that process and kind of got addicted to it. Even my lunch breaks, I would just pull out the big...
Nina Huchthausen (04:49.259)
nutrition bibles and just spend the first hour reading through those and absorbing any bit of information I could. And ultimately became a manager about a year later of their two flagship stores for Canberra. we did really well, but I was butting heads with the corporate head office almost on a daily basis. They had a lot of, they had a lot of KPIs and I respect KPIs for sure, but I thought their KPIs were absolute bullshit.
And I have to say your body language, if anyone could see just like this is, is my position. Every phone call I have with those guys, like KPIs are important, but yeah, can respect them in different natures. You know, if you're working at maybe a clothing store where you're selling t-shirts, socks, shoes, KPIs are important. Yeah. You want to upsell the socks for sure. You want to sell the extra set of underpants, whatever, get that bigger sale, you know, but.
I was butting heads because head office had these stringent KPIs of every customer needs to walk out with X amount of products in their basket. Your average order value needs to be this high. Every customer needs to have a multivitamin. And when you're dealing with customers that are putting these products in their body, I didn't align with that at all. And I was getting written warning after written warning, even though our store performance was going up. And so I just said, you know what, screw it. I'm going to do this on my own.
launch a business on my own where we don't have priority to our own brands, even if they're inferior. We don't oversell customers things that they don't need that they're effectively putting in their body. And there can be repercussions from that. And so I took the plunge, left that role, and then opened my own store independently. And that store was called Oxygen, Oxygen Nutrition. So I did that early 2012. I came up with the idea, left the role at
I won't name the company because I'm just going to get on them. Four to five months later, we were in construction and opened up my first store and just tried to find flight there afterwards. Yeah. That's pretty awesome. That's pretty ballsy, you know, but at the same time, like the cool thing is about retail, right? Everything is a process. And once you've done it and you kind of seen into wind how this works,
Nina Huchthausen (07:16.726)
Right. If you have a problem solving mindset, you can literally sit down and go through every single process and say, I'm going to make this better, this better, this better, this better. And you get your formula. You're exactly right. mean, they show you a lot of what to do, but a lot of what not to do simultaneously. You know, and that being said, there is a difference between coming in from sales assistant level to manager level. And then the level where,
I'm managing my own accounts now. I've got to answer to the account and the tax man and I've got to figure out advertising and everything else in between. Put this whole puzzle piece together that I thought I already had made. So it definitely wasn't immediate smooth sailing. Yeah, put you in the boxing ring. Yeah, yeah, and that's exactly how it felt actually. Exactly how it felt. There was an episode
Funny you mentioned that there's an episode of, Simpsons that I loved as a kid. don't how many people have seen this one, but, Homer Simpson started boxing and he was absolutely dreadful, never threw a punch, but he just had a rock solid skull and all of these opponents just got so exhausted from punching him in the head that they collapsed in the ring and he ended up, he ended up winning, you know, and I kind of, kind of saw my business journey as that, as being very tolerant of punches in the head.
Plus you're pretty tall, know, so you got that advantage. Yeah, you've got more incentive not to hit the ground for longer. So, okay, so you decided to set this up and somehow you managed to get the capital together because I mean, that's a, you know, just a small hurdle to overcome to set up your store.
How did you start? What was it like, like those first 12 to 24 months? OK, I can start on the capital front. We might need to beat this out later. I'll have to check with the lawyers. I had no capital. I had no capital. And banks didn't want to finance a 21-year-old kid that's starting his first business with a lot of overheads. So I got an unsecured vehicle loan.
Nina Huchthausen (09:41.634)
for a non-receipt requiring car, literally walked out with a cloth bag of $50,000 in cash from my personal bank, walked across the road to my business account and deposited $50,000 in cash. And that was the highest risk, stupidest play that one could ever do, I think, in starting a business with so many overheads, committing to a huge lease with a large shopping center.
puts you in such a sense of urgency that you have to make it work. And I think that was probably a tool that worked in my advantage by the long run. So that was, mean, in terms of the capital, that's how we started out directly from day one. But thereafter, it was a matter of learning as I went, just trying to jump off a cliff and effectively build my wings on the way down. That's particularly on those things like
accounting and advertising and these nuances that you don't really think of when you're just managing a store. And so that was a very tiring process where I was just figuring it out bit by bit. I think I need an accountant. The accountant says, I need to use this software. OK, I'll need that software so I can invoice. How do I do that? just day by day just learning by the trade itself, which was exhausting. in hindsight, learned that that can be.
definitely sped up if you find the right resources to do so. But I took the long route and just worked and iterated constantly for, honestly, the first four to five years. And didn't need to take that long, but learned a lot of processes throughout the way, a lot of lessons. And then once we hit about year five, six and onwards, started to really innovate and find our points of difference and really start to excel and get attention from.
not only clients, but competitors and industry insiders too. A lot more recognition is coming that way. How big is the store? How many skews are we talking in there just to visualize? Yeah, so we were holding at our peak about nearly 2,500 skews. big range. Big range. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Nina Huchthausen (12:02.71)
And that's what you started off with? No, that was over time we built into that. Initially, I actually started off more as a, I don't want to say boutique, but probably a little bit of stubbornness from my end. I had it in my head what products are good. I know what brands are inferior. I don't care if they have a bigger brand name or otherwise. I want the product that's best for the customer. And I'll tell you that.
And you know, I got the feedback and my balance sheet showed the feedback, you know, were coming, I want this brand. I go, well, here's this brand and here's X, Y, and Z reasons why it is better. And often sometimes customers would just leave, you know, and find it elsewhere. So I had to swallow my ego and expand. And, that was really enjoyable. I would never compromise on a product that was genuinely poor quality. Cause again, we're dealing with.
instead of going into people's bodies. But I was being too particular, I think, in my early days as to one or two brands for each category that I believe to be the truest and best because I'd been doing this for so long at that point. But there is uniqueness to everything. Branding is valuable. It's not just your opinion. And so that was a big learning curve for me.
I feel like you just touched on a really important point for two, really, but for anyone in this business, whether you are a product maker or retailer to consider, right? there's point number one. It isn't about you, whether you're a retailer or whether you're a maker, you know? And that's
I know how hard that is for pretty much everyone to really internalize that doing business well isn't about what we think or we think is best, but what our consumers are looking for and the decisions that they have made and they have been, it pretty much.
Nina Huchthausen (14:19.694)
programmed or conditioned through advertising, their friends, opinions, or whatever that is. But based on what they are looking for is that that's where the formula to success lies. Yeah. It's so hard because that means ego goodbye. Yeah, the market will give you the most honest feedback more so than any friend, family or business connection ever will in the market.
The market is transparent and ruthless. How did you switch from because I don't know just the way I've gotten to know you and you showed me your body language, which told a thousand words after the strong opinions that you were holding working for this retailer. How did you have that conversation with yourself to say, Joel?
I know you're a smart cookie and you know these products are best, but we gotta need to dance a little bit with what the market is asking for and how the market is responding, as well as holding up or not jeopardizing your values.
Well, in business, you tend to feel intuitively as well as your balance sheet tells you quite literally what's going on. But I reached a point where I was still working 70, 80 hour weeks and just feeling like my head was just above water. We were just getting by with rent, just covering my own personal expenses at the bare minimum.
I was only just keeping afloat, Realistically, was just day in, day out grind, but missing family events, missing family barbecues, early Christmas lunches, things like that, fretting over going out to dinner. What's that bill going to look like? There is something structurally wrong here because there are other people that are succeeding in this field. There are people that are doing better.
Nina Huchthausen (16:33.102)
there is absolutely no reason why you can't be one of those. Why am I feeling on a daily basis that I'm not where I want to be? You know, I set out with the grandiose visions of, course, building a better product for the industry, servicing people in a better way. And that truly brings fulfillment. But, you you start business as well to have a, have a lifestyle, you know, you don't want to build your own prison, which effectively I had, you know, and it reaches. Yeah.
It depends how long your tether is, suppose. yeah, mine was pretty long and it took about year five to six where I was like, is, yeah, something needs to pivotally change because this is, you know, it's good and we've survived more than most of our competitors have, to be honest. But there are other folks that are absolutely killing it. There's something different here that needs to happen. And then I started really observing, taking a third person perspective, visiting.
what other stores are doing that I believe should be doing really well, including large box retailers and seeing what could I do that they do well and add a spin to that, you know, just constantly innovating and testing different things and having a ton of failures in between it, you know, but then eventually hitting little golden nuggets and you accumulate those over time. So everything was sort of slow transition. There would never one immediately pivotal moment, but all progressive accumulations of good and bad. Does that make sense?
Yeah. So, but that in itself, like for five years you were trying your way until you were like, well, let's look out, let's observe and pick up on other people's ideas. And I guess, did you have to lower your values, your standards, what you were believing in much? Absolutely. How did you see that? No, absolutely not. Because
Okay. Yeah. What I was describing before was really dictated by ego. I was thinking about my perspective, not about, as you said, it's not about us. Right. And so again, you could compromise on that, you know, especially in the sports nutrition field, there are a lot of sketchy products that you could dabble with. And a lot of our competitors did dabble with that. You know, I saw them be burned for it too. You know, whether that was regulatory fines or horrific PR.
Nina Huchthausen (18:57.442)
You know, the things that burn, but you can keep yourself accountable to your core values and let the ego fizzle away. You know, that was the big pivotal point for us, I suppose, coming through that, albeit progressive. Yeah, that's powerful because to me, five years is a long time to what you were saying in your words, surviving to be like, let's step back.
observe and move this business into real profitability and something that I'm sure has been quite life-changing for you. It was stupidly long. It was completely unnecessarily long. But the problem is you do lock yourself into these sort of prisons in the sense that when you are in a, especially if it's in early stages of a business and
You're just keeping your head above water in many ways. You were just stuck working in that business rather than on it. really have time to poke your head above the clouds and see what else is out there because you're just engulfed either servicing customers on the floor or trying to figure out what went wrong in your bookkeeping or trying to figure out why your ad campaign just got shut down by meta. I mean, you fill in the blank. It's infinite.
But it's very, very easy to find yourself just trapped, trapped in that ongoing hands on work, you know, and the hands are on the wheel, anything but that. So, yeah, you have to really take an active step, even though it's scary to take your hands off the wheel, even if it's just for a few hours a week, you know, but enabling yourself to do that can sort of allow you to have that clearer vision, know, and broader vision too. Yeah. And I think that's probably really, really
important tip because nobody does this for you. And I mean, every business owner falls into this trap, right, of just like swimming, swimming, swimming. And there's wave after wave coming, right, without thinking about, man, how about I swim to the side, stand on shore a little bit so I can look out and observe what's happening.
Nina Huchthausen (21:16.706)
so that I can move with the tide versus trying to like frantically pedal against it and just being bashed by the waves. Yeah, that's a great analogy. Thank you for sharing this because I don't know if I had the stamina to do this for five years. If you're just surviving probably because of your age, you're like, yeah, 21, cool. Okay. You've got endless stamina. If you're like,
in your 30s or 40s, which a lot of business owners are, if you've done corporate for a while, maybe don't do it for five years and try, Yeah. What would you what would you because now you've gone through this and like five years, man, long time. Yeah. And and a lot of also time missing out that you can't get back. You know.
And you know, can get back if you're really falling into that trap, doing anything. What if you could go back in time to your 21 year old self, what what would you have told yourself differently?
What? I would have I think the biggest lesson that I would be able to give to 21 year old myself, especially relevant to what we were just talking about, is your environment and your network are everything in your ability to grow and your ability to to develop what your your true self is, your true business is, you know, so I was I was in an environment with.
lovely friends and and loved ones that great people but they were very much not driven in the same direction that I was in many ways. know, love them fully but when I started spending more time with people that are also running businesses enduring similar struggles have overcome certain struggles and have already worked walked a very difficult path.
Nina Huchthausen (23:27.18)
I'm able to piggyback on that. I'm able to follow a roughly trodden map and expedite that process. So what did take five years didn't have to. It was only when I started really aligning myself with a broader network of people that are similarly ambitious, similarly driven, addressing similar troubles as well and challenges that I started to really break free of that too. And I realized, you can take
you can take a step back and reevaluate everything you're doing. You don't have to just get stuck in process, you know, but the network and your environment, which I think a lot of people underrate, I definitely did, but your environment, you want to be excited every day. You know, if you can build that sort of environment around you, you'll grow much quicker. Yeah. And it is so powerful. Like oftentimes we don't realize that, but we get given so many little
messages from people that are surrounding us, right? And if you're just getting little messages and cues from people who might just be working a nine to five job or living a completely different life, like those cues might not just not be helpful, but maybe also hindering. Whereas if you are around people who are 10 steps ahead, right?
They might just give you random pieces of wisdom that you're like, my gosh, this is gold. And it moves you forward and it breaks, breaks you out of the space that you are stuck in. Right? Because you're like, when you want to grow, you're constantly like, you get one level up, now you're in level two, and then you have to get to level three, you got to need to break out of that pattern again. And then you're in level three, you're playing and
practicing a pattern, but then you got to break out again. Exactly. Exactly. And you're right. It's not only on the inverse of that, not only can it not be necessarily helpful, but it can be a hindrance. And I think that that was a little bit of what happened in my earlier years was that everyone else was working nine to fives. And I started treating it almost like that, a nine to five where it's just rock up and
Nina Huchthausen (25:49.506)
get everything you can done, but mine was more like a seven to seven. It's exhausting. I think you align to the people that you're around, you know, and it's not to say that people that have different ambitions and goals and challenges can't be absolutely important loved ones in your life, but to have others that are aligned with where you want to be and what you're trying to get to, that that's the biggest difference. And it was the biggest difference for myself. So
put a big fire up, 21 year old myself asked to get that ball moving quicker. Network, out. It's not all about you. It's not a one man show. It doesn't have to be. no. so like even if you're just because also, you know, at 21 everyone has a real big ego because you're just defining and finding yourself. But even if you're at that stage and like, I don't want to listen to anyone.
Well, then flip that shit and say, well, I won't do that. I won't do that. And make your own choices based on the cues that people give you. Because we can either just we can accept it, but we don't have to. But if we don't, then we can at least say, well, let me make my own choice based on this information. And no matter what we do, it brings us forward. Awesome.
One big question that I wanted to ask you at the start, but then we delve right in, like, has this been a 10-year journey from starting to selling? A little bit, yeah, 11 years. 11 years. OK, cool, cool. That's a journey, right? A bit of a long marathon. If you were to describe this marathon in a picture, if you drew it for me, what
How would you kind of like draw up with that journey with a pencil? What was it like? How detailed can I make this drawing? Describe. Because we're one another journey. I've tried to visualize this before, actually. It's very hard to encompass, especially all 11 years into one picture.
Nina Huchthausen (28:12.214)
If I could, I've got my pen in front of me right now, actually, pick that up. Maybe draw a, think of a big messy swamp, right? But there's some beautiful solid ground at the end of that swamp. And there are little stepping stones throughout that look like a clear path to getting to that solid ground on the other side. But,
those stepping stones, especially the ones closest to us, they're very small, sometimes too far apart. Some of them are slippery. So even though you've got the perfect map of stepping stones laid out to your solid ground, you're falling in the swamp, you're falling through the muck and eventually you just come to terms with learning to love the process and wading through the filth of that swamp and eventually you make it to that solid ground. If I could picture that.
That'd be the easiest way I could, which sounds like a pretty messy picture, but that would probably be my story. Yeah. You've got to go through the grit and then eventually you find your path and you'll find some nice stepping stones along the way and find your solid ground. Yeah. So when you were going through the messy part, what was like a situation where you were like, fuck.
well, there's plenty, plenty of those none that were, suppose, like an instant cause and effect. But I do recall as we were just starting to face COVID, having brick and mortar stores was a challenging time, you know, so our store was getting closed down every other week. And there was, we suffered from that. was bleeding 20,
thousand, twenty five thousand dollars in a week in some weeks, you know, and I remember one point in time at the fuel station, I had a maxed out credit loan, a maxed out credit card, and I didn't have enough money on either to fill up my tank to the fullest. And I was like, shit, we're in real trouble. Like this could be a matter of weeks sort of trouble. Yeah. Yeah.
Nina Huchthausen (30:33.582)
That was a very big, shit moment. Those were peppered throughout the 11 years for sure, but that was probably the one that resonated the most. That was the one where I actually, I felt that in my stomach at that point in time. Not even being able to fill up the tank full. How did you work through the whole COVID situation? That didn't even cross my mind that you were in business during that time.
I mean, if I to work it from that point, it kind of put me into a do or die position, basically throw your Hail Mary, you've got nothing else to lose. Like what happened this point? You're already going to be facing effectively bankruptcy, you know, if everything keeps going to shit, what do you have to lose here? You go all or nothing at this point, you know? And so I went all or nothing. It was high risk. I ended up taking out
further debt. And that was where I really aggressively started taking a third-person perspective on my own business and a very first-person perspective of other businesses that I saw still surviving that thing. I'd grown the business considerably at that point. We had a bigger ranging. We had a bigger client base.
To backtrack as well, the business was always growing throughout even those first five years. just never felt like it. I was just always feeling a bit above water. we've grown still. And then I just said, screw it. Let's go absolutely all to the floor on this. And I filled that store from floor to ceiling with product. A lot of my inspiration actually came from Chemist Warehouse, to be honest, and a few of these other big box retailers. I like, why are these guys still crushing it while everyone else is dying at this point in time? I was like, damn.
They're exciting. This store is vibrant. It's messy, but it's of organized chaos. It's floor sealing with stock and you kind of go in there excited, just going, what deal will I find today? And so I said, what can we adopt with this with better brands, better service and products that you will not find anywhere else. You've only ever seen on a website somewhere. Let's get really creative with our product ranging. so I not only
Nina Huchthausen (32:56.686)
I changed the product ranging, I changed the store to a point where you couldn't fit a trolley through it. I put in more aisles to our store. I was buying bookshelves from Ikea against all regulations from our landlords and just filled that store from floor to ceiling. This is our bigger flagship store. And we took further debt, another $30,000, $40,000 worth of product onto the floor and just made that store look exciting. And anyone that came in going, you?
Did you get a bigger space? Did you extend? I was like, no, we just filled this. We filled this thing to the fricking rim, you know, and, made huge adjustments that way. Big neon tickets everywhere screaming at you how cheap these products are versus what was realistic prices too. Well, when the rest wasn't, went aggressive on product ranging full to the rim, finding products that were hard to find elsewhere. And a lot of us just didn't want to do that. You know, niche products, startup brands that
had not really had their foothold anywhere else. They were maybe recognized from Instagram or otherwise, but never been seen on a shelf. And we became the guys that had everything. We became the everything store for health food, supplements, and sports nutrition. And the people started coming. There's an old saying, I think it's quite an old retail saying, stack it high, watch them buy. And again, holding true to our core values, we were never bringing in trash.
but we brought in a lot of good products because there's so many out there. And I was able to recognize that and get the feedback instantaneously. And then I just got addicted to that. And from that point moving forward, my job rather than business owner was more product sourcing, you know, and that was the funnest. Yeah. Yeah. Which I think a lot of retailers are reluctant to do. A lot of retailers can still sometimes be stuck in that, you know, in that swimming process you described before.
stuck in the swamp. So that was a very big turning point for us. And that's where all of our growth throughout COVID, because this was all at the start of COVID. most of our competitors, even some of the biggest brands in the country, were seeing losses of 30%, 40%, or going bankrupt. We were growing 20%, 30%, and consistently, and started getting that recognition from the select few other brands that were also doing well, and ultimately,
Nina Huchthausen (35:21.006)
Ultimately, one of them bought us. Yeah, that's how we sort of prepped for that. That's a pretty awesome system. I mean, like, my gosh, like if I had a hat, I would take it off in front of you right now. Because if you are completely maxed out and somehow you found some person to give you more money without with maxed out credit cards.
to do this in your business versus just holding on tight, right? What the majority of retailers did during that period, that takes huge cuts. I don't know if I would have been able to do anything crazy like that during that time, but you squeeze that lemon hard. Yeah, well, it was a Hail Mary position. was just... Yeah.
sizing up the prospect of making those changes, was like, I really can't afford $120,000 of debt. I was like, I can't afford $70,000 of debt. So what's the difference, right? Okay, cool. you like literally, so you came out of COVID and you were like, okay, now we're killing it.
Yeah, I mean, was progressive, but it was like, hey, something's working here. And then that emulated. And so how did you take this now? How did you take this then post COVID to make it so attractive that these guys knocked on your window and kind of like, hey, Joel, want some cash? Want to give us your business? Like, did you plan? Did you put that into your cards to sell? Did you set it up for sale or what?
No, look, I think every business owner ultimately sees that as a light at some point in their journey, you know, but it wasn't on my roadmap. In fact, at the time of the time we were approached, I was I was already prospecting. I think we were going to extend our our warehousing by about tenfold in terms of floor space. We were going to extend our product ranging by another 2000 plus SKUs. So we were going aggressive and
Nina Huchthausen (37:40.674)
It may have been the case, aside from our competitors saying that we were doing well when most weren't, they also saw the expansion coming and it maybe was get a thorn out of their ass early rather than a big thorn later. So a little bit of both on that. But it certainly wasn't something that I envisioned. But the other facet to it is when
business starts going really well, that gets easier to start innovating and that gets easy coming up with new ideas. You need to get that first leg up. really hard to come up with new ideas and take new gambles and try new ventures when things are not going well. I was fortunate to be able to have a couple of those take traction during the tough times, but when things are going well, more and more ideas start flowing and we started innovating like crazy.
we bought it, built out a custom protein station. yeah, and technically got a patent on it. I don't know how well that would have held up in any court if we needed to enforce it. But we had a protein station that was this big, big utensil that customers could come in and we would serve them out bulk protein or micro servings of protein as well. And they could do it in their old packaging. So we were recycling old packaging, reloading it up with new stock. And we would just be in,
any kind of innovation like that that would hone in a point of difference and get recognition again. And I think that just started bringing our attention into the biggest spotlights where we were ultimately acquired. Yeah. I think that was it. You find a good correction and then more ideas start flowing. You compound on something that's working, but you've got to figure out the right infrastructure to begin with. right. Yeah. Yeah. That's very hard to do in those early phases when either you don't know what that looks like.
or you're just engulfed in the nuances of business, you know, day in, day out. Yeah, yeah. That's why I think there's nothing more important to, like, build a team early so that you have capacity to breathe and step out somehow, right? Which I think that's like, that's one of such a big challenge, because it's also an ego thing, right? Most people say, no, nobody else can do this. Only I can do this.
Nina Huchthausen (40:03.468)
Like, can't hand this over, I can't do that. But as you were saying, like, don't have... If you can't go for a drive to let your brain wander, to innovate, to step back, to take advantage point, like, it's very easy to crash and burn against some wall because you didn't even see it coming. Because you were so in the thick of it. Like... I think COVID shone that light brighter than ever before.
Yeah. It was sink or swim at that point. And if you're not moving, you're not swimming. Right. So yeah, I think that was the biggest expose we've ever seen. You know, it was, it was rough. mean, it's terrible, but it definitely exposed whether or not you can and can't innovate. Yeah. That's not better say for all businesses. There were some businesses that just had their hands tied. That was horrific. You know, but that definitely
And I think also probably the state that you were in, right? Like I would assume, you know, if you'd been in Victoria, it would have been a lot harder for you than you were in Canberra, right? Yeah, think Melbourne had the longest strips of it for sure. But yeah, the nation as a whole, that was rough. know, our store wasn't even getting closed for immediate contact. We were getting closed because all my employees, mobile apps were telling them that
one of our customers had been in close proximity to someone else that may have had COVID. And then we were just without employees. I didn't give a damn. I switched my mobile app off. I just worked at the store seven days a week, packed all the online orders as best as I could. We were getting a little bit backlogged, but just bunkered down for it. Awesome. So that was one big ol' fact moment.
I would love to hear because when you were deciding, we're going to fill this store up, up to the brim, like how did you choose your range to stay, but still staying true to your audience that you were that you were attracting and the vision for the store? How did you get that right? Or how much did you get wrong by maybe just just
Nina Huchthausen (42:26.978)
buying shit that didn't end up moving.
Nina Huchthausen (42:31.95)
That's a good question. So obviously we didn't get 100 % right. There were some products that just didn't take off. And I was happy to take that gamble. But our vision and our ethos had always been very, very clear and transparent, not only from how we conveyed ourselves, because of that principle from the day that we opened, that I opened that business, the principle was we are not going to be biased to our own products.
we are going to be only biased to the products that we believe are best for our customers. And that was reflective. mean, customers could, even without us saying that, our customers could see that from the shelf. Do you own any of these? They know we don't own any these. We are only bringing what we believe to be best. And so we had a reputation for that already. that held quite strong when we were introducing all of these new products. It's like, Oxygen backs this product. It must be good.
It's kind of an endorsement. It's an endorsement of that product. And I think that's a lot of the value that retail can offer. It's effectively a billboard. It's free marketing for your products. And because we had that reputation already and that ethos, there was a lot of trust. And obviously, there's a lot of due diligence that needs to be carried out. You don't just take an order list and go, yeah, I'll take two of everything.
Give me the full package. You've still got to audit and verify what is and isn't right, what's trending in the market, and then still has some study to back it up. And that industry study to back it up is important. But there's a lot of due diligence, a lot of time that's required. honestly, a lot of research and keeping your finger on the pulse as a customer as well. So I actually found a heck of a lot of products that were just starting to get some traction.
early traction and attention just through social medias. They weren't really in retail stores, but I saw them getting a lot of attention from their social channels. And I would reach out actively rather than them approaching me. I would actually approach them also, you know, so yeah, that it kind of worked in in harmony. A lot of people saw our range expanding and started coming in and approaching us. They had a bit more courage to do it. And vice versa.
Nina Huchthausen (44:46.734)
I was just actively reaching out to you. My job really became product sourcing. How fun. It was so much fun. And I got a little bit carried away. Some of my products started to get a bit ridiculous. We had a very, very large range of functional coffee brands, for example. OK. This is cool. I wonder if our customers would enjoy drinking this coffee out of
extraordinarily cool coffee mugs and started sourcing like handmade artisan coffee mugs from around the globe and they took off great. I was like, wow, that works. Okay, let's see what else we can start bringing in crockery and cutlery. Yeah, high end crockery and cutlery. We sold a few and then I just ended up keeping a ridiculous supply of crockery and cutlery and gifting it out for Christmases for years to come. So some of it didn't stick but
surprisingly went very far, know, do you have like one product that you were like, you found it early and now it's gotten like really big and you put, had back then put a fair bit of trust in it. Hmm. Well, that's testing my memory. were early adopters for a lot of brands. The ones that are coming to mind, they had a fairly large.
presence online, but zero presence really in retail. actively reached out to those guys and brought them on board. And then they flourished hugely within retail, not as a byproduct of my doing that. But we were very early into that sort of process. And that was nice to see. So that was brands like, well, brands like VPA, sports and true protein.
We were quite early adopters to getting these companies, know, these brands on our shelves and customers loved it. They loved coming in and going, wow, I've only seen this online, you know, and just from the one website too, mind you. those are some brands that are coming to mind. I'm trying to think of some others, but I might have to come back. True. feel like it's a good one. And they stuck for such a long time only online, you know, that I, that.
Nina Huchthausen (47:06.871)
That's super cool. I've even been true in a few Woolworth shells, I believe, these days. Yeah, yeah. I think they really took off over the past few years. So you as a retailer, something that before we talk about the sale, because of course I want to know what that whole journey was like. But my question about you as a retailer and then becoming the chief
product sourcing officer and I envision you as this real connoisseur, know, with your white gloves testing the products and being very, very critical about every product, completely made up story. But what was like, what was like the key things that were important to you when you were doing business with a true protein, with a VPA, with.
a maker with someone who was creating, making, and selling products. Because, I mean, as part of the Makers Business Tribe, we help makers to actually become good at the art of having effective sales conversations with someone like yourself. But what was like something that you're like, this is really important for any new brand to show up like this versus like that.
Mmm.
For me, mean, obviously you have your basis to cover in terms of what's unique about this product versus X, Y, and Z product on the market already. You know, just the standard things for sure. But a big one for me was how does this reflect on my store? You know, does this uphold our core values? Is it helping make the world a better place than we left it?
Nina Huchthausen (49:00.605)
And is it doing that via the product itself? Is it doing it through product initiatives? So they partnered with the charity organization, things like this were definitely things that I started to source out because our customers valued it too. And then from maybe an aesthetic purpose as well, if the product checked those boxes or at least some of those boxes on the base quality and unique propositions, can it illuminate my store in some way or another? Does it look vibrant on the shelf? Does it pop?
Does it look exciting? I'm trying to build out an exciting store that is floor to ceiling that people want to stay in for half an hour and explore like you'd spend on Amazon just clicking recommended item after recommended item. Can I take customers on this exciting journey of cool, unique products that all have their own purpose, whether it be functional to the customer itself and thereafter functional to the world, the environment, to other people or initiatives.
That was the primaries that I looked for. Yeah. Awesome. And that's, think, is really, really important point for a maker to remember because often times what I hear people start off really well with, they're great to talk about their product and how it works and the benefits and look, my product is the best and everybody should use it. But it's
I feel like it's always to people surprised when I ask them, okay, cool. That's so cool. That's all about you and your brand. But at the end of the day, a retailer is creating a space for people to either want to hang out in and want to come back to or not. Cause that's the most important thing. That's to me, the key value proposition of a retailer, because me as a maker, can't be everywhere at the same time.
So I need to find people that can create, that can basically keep sending out invites to people and create a party, right? So when I have my product there, everybody would want to take a look at it and want it. But we need to, as a maker, also remember, okay, I need to do my bit to become an exciting member of this party. Because if, and that,
Nina Huchthausen (51:24.141)
comes when you were saying, you know, the illumination of my store, or does it make people want to stay and keep browsing and keep looking at it because there's a magnetism that I think is often a forgotten responsibility of someone who's starting off in the space. Very true. And I should emphasize on this too, because every point I agree very much with what you've said, but
I probably haven't highlighted enough how important that is through, at least through my lens as a retailer, how important that was not just to my brick and mortar shelves, but to our retail website, you know, our store, all the same rules apply, you know, this just as I want to have the biggest and best catalog for people to walk into a store, it's exactly the same throughout e-commerce site as well. And I held a lot of value to that too. If.
If a brand was putting in effort to have eye-catching, captivating content that I could utilize on my website as well, I could plug and play into my website and have beautiful product displays, not only on the product images, but hero images within the product pages themselves. although we had very successful brick and mortar stores, my business was 70-plus percent online.
And retail is retail. It's as applicable to the storefront as it is to being on the website. So I think I should emphasize that because I think that's really important. Sometimes overlooked, but it's exactly the same rules applies from both sides of that table. It's just as valuable to have your free advertising on a big retailer's or just a reputable retailer's e-commerce store as it is to being on their shelves too. The more omnipresent you are, the better.
hold equal weight to both of those often more sometimes. In my case, it was even more to our e-commerce presence. Yeah. And that comes back to branding. I think you mentioned it very early on in our conversation. Yes, of course, as a maker, might take you years to perfect your formula, your recipe to success of this amazing product. But if the branding doesn't pop,
Nina Huchthausen (53:49.523)
If it doesn't, at the end of the day, illuminate your online or offline store or for people to be like, my gosh, what is that? I don't even know what it is, but I want to take a look because there is a magnetism. If that's not it, if you're just putting a product into a white plain bottle and write out what it is, very hard for people to buy it. And then even if you're stocking it with Joe Fraser, who can tell you why this is the best product on the market.
If it doesn't pop in my eyes, the value perception is really hard to create. Exactly. Exactly. There's a lot of incentive from a retailer's perspective to utilize that. We put a lot of time, a lot of time into what products are paired with other products, what are recommended as upsells to other products, whether that be on the shelf or in the e-commerce store as well. And that decision could often be swayed by the quality of that product's presentation too.
Obviously, we vet and make sure the quality of the product itself is sound. But when that product pops, it's vibrant. And if a landing page even or on shelf or otherwise also pops, you're more incentivized to recommend that. We've got a better shot of upselling that too. Yeah. That's I think a low input, large output sort of return. Yeah.
Exactly, like when it's macro mic, right? Because I'm like the whole time I have magic mic in my head, completely different story. exactly. But when macro mic came out, right, and the first time I saw it in a big supplement store in Sydney, right? I was so close to buying it just because I love the branding so much. I was like, shit, this looks different. Right?
And I don't think it's the best tasting product on the market, but it's looking really good. And at that time that was like, that really popped. they had like really good point of sale display and all of that stuff. And it's like, well, this is definitely a magnet. Yeah. And Macro and Micro, they're authentic. They like having fun. And that's consistent across their branding, everything from the flavors of their products.
Nina Huchthausen (56:13.495)
to their promotional products that they include in bundles. All of these things, they just have fun and you kind of gravitate to that. Customers love it, retailers love it too. We'd order a Macro Mic package and then just receive a hundred units of silicon baking trays and baking spoons and just funny wacky thing. I don't even know what to do with this, but I kind of love it. And then the customers love it and then the brand just exploded. So Macro Mic was one of our biggest sellers for a while there.
them to that branding, but also being authentic to yourself as well. That seems kind of cliche, but when you do it right, authenticity goes a long way. Just like with True Protein. True Protein was adamant on quality over everything else, and they made that very clear on their packaging, to their product sourcing, ingredient sourcing, everything. Yeah.
And it's like two different brands and they complement each other well. I think if you had your whole store just with true protein, wouldn't pop because it's missing the pop. Pairing with Magic, Magic Mike, Macro Mike, you know, that's how you get the casters in. it's, it's, it's, think it's when we are designing our brands and putting a product together and we're like, man, I really want my brand to pop. Putting that lens on.
to really see, how could I make this freaking fantastic in a retail store environment and then working backwards from there, I think is half the battle to introducing your product and getting it in. chances are there's already a product that you have on the market. So you've got to need to differentiate. And the eye does a lot when it comes to us giving something a go. So I love that you were.
talking about this so much and that it is one of the key things that is important because I think in the tribe we talk about this a lot. And I hear this all the time, my gosh, that's another five grand to put into branding. I don't know. I think what I put together on canvas kind of good. But if it doesn't, if it's not a banger, I think to me, any maker is skipping on the wrong side of the coin here.
Nina Huchthausen (58:33.197)
Because I mean, to sort of make a cost analysis, like what's more expensive? Use your $5,000 example, $5,000 to put out the bang of product from day one. Or what's more expensive in sacrificing the sales you could have had for six months, iterating, adjusting and reprinting labels, reproducing products and packaging, you know, you can quantify the costs just by redoing everything three times over because it just didn't work.
It's hard to quantify the stress, the headache and the loss sales from not getting it right from day one. That's a massive metric and hard to quantify, but it would far outweigh just doing it right from day one for sure. Exactly. And I would assume once you've said no to a brand, how likely were you to keep looking at it if they keep knocking on your door?
Nina Huchthausen (59:27.893)
In my early days, yeah, very unlikely. And the message was pretty clear. I just didn't get the second knock. But there were some brands. And that was part and true to my evolution as well of squashing that ego. If I could recognize if I'd done something better, then I could come back. But again, I would have had them on the shelf six months earlier if they were in that position from day one.
Yeah. So I was able to eventually squash that. And yeah, I bit my lip and I brought some new products onboarded that I declined for six or 12 months prior, for sure. But obviously if you can get it right from day one, just save yourself the headache of so much time that was wasted. I could have made more money as a retailer. Yeah. manufacturer could have been on my shelf six months sooner making their money too. I love this. So simple and easy.
But I can tell you how many conversations I had about trying to convince branding is important. So thank you for bringing this message home. Now, the last bit of this story, you sold this baby in 2023. long from what was it like? Just tell us this story, because this is the exciting bit.
Did they call you? Did they walk in store? Did they were like put like the traditional way, like two big luggages of money on the table and say, you take it. What, what happens? there was a couple approaches and I think ego was coming into the room from probably both sides of that table a little bit. And I'm not sure how to put this lightly.
comparing d sizes, like a better term. There was nothing coming of this. And then I think on the third approach, I just said, Hey, what are we doing here? You know, we're, we're just kind of flexing at each other and nothing's getting done. Clearly I respect what you guys are doing. You've been doing it even longer than I have. You're bigger than I am. I respect what you do as a company and clearly that that's mutual. You know, let's, let's just pull these walls down, cut the shit and just start a deal here.
Nina Huchthausen (01:01:49.397)
you know, if at all, because I'm just about to expand our warehouse sixfold in space and sixfold in product ranging, you know, this is never going to be a conversation that's ever entertained unless we want to look at this today, you know, and I probably wouldn't have, but I was also just starting to prospect launching a new brand of my own, my own products, you know, and that was coming at the same time that this conversation happened. And so just thought,
maybe this is worth considering. I've ran two businesses before and one business is enough work as it is. And so this conversation started rolling at the time that I was getting ready to launch my own products to market my newest range. And it just seemed like the timing for the first time in a very long time was was sinking up. And I'm not sure if there was something behind that. Just odd coincidence. But everything all-stars seem to align for once and just
it was smooth sailing there afterwards. We had a very realistic conversation and within three months we had pen to paper and we're getting the ball moving. So it was a bit of a shock to the system. I had my baby for 11 years and I was intending to keep that for many more. And then all of a sudden, wow, okay, we're out of here now. But 11 years is a good ending and I felt it was in safe hands. And so far that's been the case. It's only grown and it's a very prominent company.
in that space now in the industry as a whole. yeah, it was a good result that way. But oddly smooth sailing as far as I've seen most business sales go. Three months and three months. That's pretty short. So in three months, you sold it. You obviously sold it for more than $1. What was it like? Last day done.
you sort of leaving the space and then how did you how did you feel the next day?
Nina Huchthausen (01:03:57.805)
I think I was lost for the first week or two. was like, what do I do with my hands? I don't know. Once I got used to that, I took a little bit of time off, traveled the world a bit, and enjoyed the fruits of all of that labor for a little while. then very, very quickly came back to HomeTurf and started launching project number two, I should say.
You know, jump right back into that deep end. You know, and so it was it was a mixed bag of emotions, I suppose, parting with something that you've you've built in love for so long, but also a relief, you know, just to know the statistics of how many businesses never see that day, especially after Covid, to see how many competitors just considered themselves incredibly lucky to to exit their lease without debt.
you know, and just like up shop, not sell business, just exit with minimal debt was like a massive achievement, you know, so there was an overwhelming feeling of gratitude. That's kind of hard to put into words, but a lot of gratitude and there is a fulfilling feeling to that of just knowing I created something. It was a success by all the standard metrics, but I feel good about it. And my baby gets to continue growing.
in safe hands and still doing what it was originally intended to do, which is offer the best products for the best value to people. And that's, yeah, I've been seeing that still to this day. I've even done a couple dummy orders myself just to see, just to make sure that they're upholding our standards. Product is super affordable. Packaging was nice. I was like, thank you guys. I feel good about this. I would have been devastated if it dismantled and...
and horrific, you know, so that was that was pleasant to her. That's awesome. That's awesome. Menjo, I feel so much gratitude for you that life gifted you this crazy journey. Yeah. From where you started to where you are today. Now you got 15 skews as venture number two. You're working with a couple other companies and helping them grow as a consultant, you were saying. What do you feel as my last question?
Nina Huchthausen (01:06:24.045)
You looking three to five years ahead. What's that mountain that you're kind of climbing right now? Where do you want to be? What top do you want to celebrate in that next period? I struggle to look past 12 months because every time I go further, my trajectory is so different by the time I've reached those 12 months. But yeah, the new project I'm
I'm really excited for, I'm really passionate about. fortunately having sold the business put me in a position where I've got the base necessities covered for the foreseeable. So I don't have that urgent pressure on that front. I've just got the ability to have fun with this project and grow out my product ranging and bring it to as many people as possible. So I just want to see how far we can push that envelope.
enjoy all the creature comforts that I've been able to afford since selling that business and just honestly play the game. Consider it a game and just see how many points can I accrue. And that helps me through the darker times in terms of when things were really rough. This is just a game and unfortunately, money are the points at the moment. it sort of detached you a little bit from the dire consequences that you know.
And now on the other side of that coin, I'm just looking at it as that game, how far can I push this in the right direction, helping as many people as possible and building something long lasting as well. Cool. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time, Joel. This was a really amazing conversation, very inspiring, you know, for me anyways, because...
How many people take that risk? How many people really do the things that they dream about doing? And especially when things get hard, you went all in. And that is inspiring for me. And I hope you're with this episode, but you're sharing your story. You're going to inspire thousands of other business owners because it's a scary road, you know? But hearing it from someone who made it through to the other side of that sticky, stinky swamp at times.
Nina Huchthausen (01:08:41.833)
onto those beautiful pastures. Thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, sharing Joel. I really appreciate your time. was my absolute pleasure, Nina, and I hope it brought some value, but it was an absolute pleasure because I see the value that you're bringing. It's honestly exactly what I could have used to avoid that first five years of headache and heartache. You know, so it was a pleasure to sit down and talk with you because you're bringing that value that I needed. Yeah. Yeah.
We bring it into the future for past Joel to dream about and somehow it'll come together. Thank you so much, Joel.
