The Remarkable Business Show Episode 5 final.mp3

Jon: [00:00:00] This is The Remarkable Business Show on a remarkable.fm. I'm Jon Moss and this is episode five. It's all about tasty nutritious food. 

VO: [00:00:10] Cyclist, skier international fugitive and all round curious guy. Here's the latest episode of The Remarkable Business with your host, Jon Moss! 

Jon: [00:00:24] Hello and welcome to the show. We now have approaching 1300 downloads for the episodes so far so thank you very much for listening. Can you believe it's July already, mid July? 

Jon: [00:00:38] My word time is flying at quite a staggering pace. So, the question for you is how is your year going? I've started to keep track of the few things by doing a weekly review and a quarterly review. Now some of you may do this already but it's something I've never really done but it's paying dividends and I'm really enjoying it so I thought I'd just tell you a little bit about it. 

Jon: [00:00:59] Now, these don't have to be a huge deal especially the weekly one. So, how do I do this? I've got a recurring task in my To Do App which reminds me every Friday afternoon to look at the following things: How did the week go? Did I meet the right people? Did I focus on moving forward in my chosen projects? 

Jon: [00:01:19] Did I make time for my partner, my friends, my projects? Did I make time for myself? Now that could be health, learning, exercise, fun, catching up with someone. So remember: do provide your highest point of contribution to your business and others. You do need to be in a good place yourself. What did I achieve and can be proud of is another thing I always think about and also, did I do something stupid or downright bad? And importantly, what must I do to learn from this and avoid it happening again? I also look at what do I need to tweak and improve. And last of all, next week looking and in particular have I got some breathing room? Now breathing room. *breathes* Deep breath. This is something I've learned from Shawn Blanc and he calls this Margin. I am delighted that Shawn and I caught up a few weeks ago and he's gonna be on a future episode so watch this space. So this breathing room is incredibly important because without it you can really struggle. So when something unexpected happens and you haven't got that margin or breathing room, it really starts to become a lot stressful. 

Jon: [00:02:27] Now the quarterly review is similar but looks more long term goals and also the things that went well plus the stuff that I need to change or completely get rid of. If you don't do this you can bumble along doing the same old thing and before you know it, another six months goes by and you've not improved anything which is not great. So being conscious of what you do, how you do it, and importantly who you do it with is essential for not only your personal life but also your business life as well. Now I made a huge change in my life just over a year ago. I was deeply unhappy and to be honest not in a great place but from the moment I decided to make a change, I've not looked back. Not once; and in fact the best decision I've ever made. It takes courage but man, making that big change in your life makes all the difference. We do not have infinite time in our lives. The clock is ticking sadly. So you need to make the most of every day. And this brings me to this episode's quote which fits perfectly here. "Your time is limited so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma which is living with the results of other peoples thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your inner voice and most important have the courage to follow your heart and your intuition". Now some of you may have already heard this before and it's by the legend Steve Jobs. Good old Steve. What an amazing guy. 

Jon: [00:03:55] It brings me nicely onto something that you've probably been using today. You might be using right now and certainly something I've got right in front of me. In fact I've got two of the damn things and that's the smartphone. Steve stood up on January 9th 2007 and showed the world what Apple had been working on. Of course I'm talking about the iPhone. It went on sale in the US on June 29th that year and it changed our world and our lives. So 10 years of the iPhone and the start of a revolution. I'm convinced that no other tech product in history has had such a profound effect on how we go about our daily lives. Lets face it: We are addicted to these things. So how did it do this? Well there's a few things to consider and these are the things that just change beyond our wildest dreams. It gave us the internet in our pockets and you know the internet's been pretty successful hasn't it? It suddenly enabled us to start taking a whole heap more photos. So to this day the most popular camera on Flicker, iPhone is. And the photography suddenly got so much easier and more convenient. And now Apple as well as the other major smartphone players, they focus a lot of the engineering and marketing effort on the quality of the cameras in these devices. The lenses, the image stabilisation and a whole raft of other stuff. It's a really big selling point and the thing that always gets upgraded every time a new version is released. You also then need to consider the App Store. 

Jon: [00:05:25] This revolutionised how software was created and distributed and sold. Also the iPhone accelerated and made possible apps like Uber, Instagram, Snapchat, and of course Facebook which is mostly used on mobiles. Smartphones are used everywhere and we still have many developing countries have not really started this journey yet. Then you also have the success of Apple itself. Check this out for some stat. Apple's 2016 revenue came 63 percent from the iPhone. So a not too shabby. Two hundred and sixteen billion dollars. Oh my God. The iPhone also caused the growth of companies like Samsung, OnePlus and also help Google grow of course with their Android platform. But it also killed companies like Nokia and BlackBerry. It's also meant that some people are literally glued to their phone. We all know who you are and cannot go a minute without looking at them. They are addictive. So turn off those pesky notifications for God's sake. It's astonishing really just how big the smartphone has become so it leads me onto the question: Is this going to continue? Are we going to see a radical change to the iPhone or indeed any smartphone this year and this year we've got the 10th anniversary of the iPhone and we've got loads and loads of rumors. So it could have a curve screen, an edge to edge screen, an OLED screen. Is the touch I.D. going to be discontinued? Are we're going to have a facial recognition system? Is it going to have some sort of VR built in? Yeah there's a lot of people talking about this. So inside the actual device it's expected to have a new A11 chip. 

Jon: [00:07:04] So that's going to be faster, more efficient plus rumours are suggesting that we're going to get induction based wireless charging. Now, this is something I really would like. My battery life is fine for what I do. So I'm never running out on a daily basis but I'd love to get rid of the hassle of the actual wired charging. So something where I can just pop the iPhone on my desk and charge without having to plug it in. Big thumbs up from me. Now in higher end models with a dual lens camera - that's supposed to be coming. Both lenses are expected to feature optical image stabilisation. Now, I use the iPhone a lot for photography but I'm not that fast. If it's easy, simple to use, produces great pictures, fantastic. So the iPhone's front facing camera apparently may include some sort of advanced 3D sensing capability. So that sounds pretty cool. Now Rene Ritchie over iMore has the best thoughts on all of this though. So imagine a future iPhone where authentication is ambient and perpetual not requiring a specific fingerprint or biometric challenge response but continuously grabbing snippets of biometric and other data and imagine it would use that data to maintain a state of trust where your iPhone is simply unlocked for as long as it can be reasonable or strictly depending on settings. Certain, it's in your possession. Challenging only when that state becomes uncertain. So that sounds pretty incredible. There's also these rumours about an iPhone pro. Gruber over at Daring Fireball talks about this and it would probably make a great deal of sense following on from the fact the MacBook line of laptops and iPads have a kind of pro version as well. 

Jon: [00:08:43] Anyway we really do need a very accurate crystal ball for all of this stuff. Whatever we get the decisions on the hardware and the design were made around 12 to 18 months ago possibly longer. Why is this? Well, Apple ships millions of these new devices on the first few days after they go on sale and they have a second to none operation scheduled on supply chain. And this is one of the things that Tim Cook excelled at before moving into the top job. So to have all of these devices ready, they are being made right now as I'm talking as you are listening. So we've talked about the hardware, the software, the cool new features that might be coming. But I tell you what really scares me? That's the price. Get saving boys and girls. This baby is going to be some serious dollars especially in the pro guys and due to a certain decision made last year even more in pounds. I'm going to try and stay off controversial but man what a mess. Okay that's enough of that. So one thousand pound question...and yes the iPhone Pro could be that much. Who's in? Are you going to buy one? As you may know I run an iPhone 7 right now and also an Android device of OnePlus 3T which is pretty damn good. They've just released the OnePlus 5 which looks on point and is packing some serious specs now starting at Four hundred and forty nine pounds. That's a very compelling option. Of course it doesn't run iOS. 

Jon: [00:10:06] So if you are going to be going for the new iPhone whether that's the iPhone 8, the iPhone 8 Plus, or indeed the iPhone Pro, prepare to spend some cash. We shall see. So let me know what you think. Pin me an e-mail jon@jonmoss.co.uk or on Twitter. Are you going to buy the new iPhone and what are you really looking forward to? What particular feature do you want? 

Jon: [00:10:29] Now some of you may know that I'm a big fan of nutrition and living healthily. I've transformed I guess my health over the past five years. Taking up cycling. I don't drink. Haven't done that for 10 years maybe more. I've slimmed down. I've gone from a 42 chest to a 38. My waist has gone from probably around 36 maybe even a 37 to a 30 or 31 depending on whether I'm lean or not. And I'm feeling pretty good. I'm getting stronger and fitter as I grow older. I used to be pretty porky when working for a large company and I was entertaining a large percent down spending a lot of time eating out and I was drinking then. So yeah I wasn't very proud of my stomach. 

Jon: [00:11:17] I've always thought that in a good way of thinking about how you feel in terms of your health and your shape and your weight is - wait for this - whether you'd be comfortable standing in a shopping centre in your underwear. I know. Pretty random. But let's face it it cuts to the chase. Are you embarrassed about your physique proud of it? Sadly we seem to be in a world where there's just an epidemic of obesity and people don't take responsibility for their health. I am certain this is going to have to change in the future. Eat well and move more - Earth shattering logic. This is not. So when exercising, you also need to eat well and both before, during, and after. This is especially so with endurance sports like cycling which I do a lot of. Now brand that I found this year I saw the first on Instagram where I seem to be finding more and more remarkable businesses and brands is Veloforte. 

Jon: [00:12:10] Now their founding belief is that every rider, runner, or someone exercising should have access to exceptional quality delicious real food as part of their endurance nutrition. None of this kind of chemical nonsense. Marc and Lara Giusti launched Veloforte in the spring of 2016 and they haven't looked back. Veloforte is actually based on an ancient Italian fortifier called Panforte which is a delicious blend of fruits, nuts and spices and a speciality of Siena in Tuscany. Panforte has been made by generations of the Giusti family and the recipe is a fiercely guarded secret. Mark and I caught up a few weeks ago and we talked about a load of great stuff which I'm sure you're going to find interesting. So what do we chat about. So we looked at how the business came about. We looked at the challenges of a start-up selling a physical product. We talked about the marketing that really worked for him. A brand versus a product. The opportunity to challenge as a start up. The power of being small. Testing in the real world. How he connects with customers and prospects. The advice he would give to a company that's growing. And the importance of the business plan and the investment plan. And also a little bit about the software he love. So enjoy our chats. This is a great conversation with someone growing a really remarkable brand. 

VO: [00:13:30] Accessible, authentic and useful. The Remarkable Business Show speaks to remarkable people. 

Jon: [00:13:36] Right well we are sitting here in the office I'm in good old sunny Hull and I'm delighted to be welcoming a new guest to The Remarkable Business Show and that's Marc Giusti from Veloforte. For people who don't know Veloforte, they are a new exciting natural food brand which is probably underplaying them slightly somewhat so I'm going to ask Marc to say hi and explain exactly what they do. So Marc welcome to the show. 

Marc Giusti: [00:14:05] Thank you Jon. Nice to be here. 

Jon: [00:14:06] No I really appreciate your time. So tell us a little bit about Veloforte 

Marc Giusti: [00:14:11] Well before it was founded whilst riding a bike and it was somewhere between Manchester and London I was trying to decide why I was feeling so strong in a bike when I'm not in anyway a born athlete or a lifetime athlete and those around me were suffering with the typical sort of gastric discomforts that come from you know normal [00:14:33] nutrition gels and bars and so on. [1.4] When I realised that the food that I was making for myself and that has been part of my family for the very longest time, hundreds of years was probably the culprit. And so somewhere along, you may know what town it was in but it's over to Manchester and London the idea was born to say well it works for me then let's see how we might make it work for others. And so we set about building the proposition we now have which is 100 percent natural endurance nutrition. That means no processing, no stabilisers, emulsifiers, all the kind of normal dehydrated processed rubbish that goes into what people call 'Sports Nutrition'. Instead, we are just getting exceptionally high quality raw ingredients - nuts, berries, honey syrups and so on and bringing them together and put them into currently in bar form and they are delicious. 

Jon: [00:15:26] They are absolutely delicious. 

Marc Giusti: [00:15:27] They are. The good news is that they are absolutely delicious in what we currently have three flavours. There are more to come this year and actually a whole load of things coming along the line. But yeah they are all interestingly they come to the heritage of this is that. I think it was even earlier in the Crusades. There's a way back in thousands of years there is documented evidence of a food that's a specialty in Italy called Panforte and Panforte is from a town in Siena near Florence and which is where my family are from historically. And it was a very originally a fortifying food that was designed and created for the legions to march with to give them power and energy with food that last forever and taste delicious and it's stuff you can pluck off trees as you stormed through Europe you know and from there it was, you know, as the Romans moved through different regions, they collected interesting new spices and herbs in then it started moving from being a fortifier to becoming more of a delicacy. It would be something that would feed to the Caesars rather than the troops. Over time it's over very long period. And so that's why Panforte now is the very beautiful and very delicate food that you find. It tends to be eaten seasonally as a sort of speciality of the area. But really its humble beginnings are food to keep marching and going. 

Jon: [00:16:59] It now keep cyclists going 

Marc Giusti: [00:17:02] It does. And we're also we're going way beyond cycling too. So while our heritage and our provenance is absolutely in cycling that's where it started and where we have been focusing since the beginning. We were already supporting racing drivers, tennis players, rowers, hockey teams and cyclists still are our I suppose centre of gravity really but it isn't. It is the sort of food that is exceptionally powerful, sustained endurance food so anyone that is doing anything that you know, over 90 minutes and into multiple hours you can get quite a bang for your buck from our food compared to the stuff we find in the shelves. 

Jon: [00:17:41] I love what you do. That's one of the reasons why we kind of connected and I said you know you're doing some fantastic stuff. I'd love to have you on the show. It's very nutritionally dense this almost isn't it? You know a bar really goes a long way and I'm so pleased I said a food brand that at the top of the show because I suddenly thought "is it cycling brand?" and you just explained it's not just cycling it's other sports as well. 

Marc Giusti: [00:18:06] Yeah. And the simple point is that you know active lifestyles people doing endurance sports are on the up. Cycling has been leading the march for that in a very long time. It's pretty much the largest consumer of mid-sport or you know food you need to keep yourself going because we all know what it's like to bonk on a bike and it's pretty miserable experience so people very quickly realise any powerful stuff. And they also quickly realise that typically the synthesised food that they buy tends don't agree with them. And you know it has all sorts of strange things when you eat it in the sorts of volumes that are recommended. So people tend to go for self make or they try to look around for natural alternatives. And frankly there really isn't anything that is as powerful, as dense, as delicious, as portable, as considered, as refined as ours. So yes it's... I think something that the most common response we get is "Oh my God it's delicious. I never expected sports food to taste like this". And the second thing it very quickly said is and [00:19:11] "Blimey this works" [1.4] because the calorific content is pretty high. It's 70 gram bars in around 290-ish calories. Some just under 50 grams of carbs in very high carbs five or six protein four or five fibre depending on which flavour you have. So they're very very balanced. (It's) focused on keeping you going. And the three flavours are there. 

Jon: [00:19:35] Yes. 

Marc Giusti: [00:19:35] Deliberately to help you fuel you know on a long day. The last thing you want to do is keep repeatedly eating the same sort of [00:19:41] gloop. [0.5] So we've designed it to be, you know, to keep your palate fresh, keep your legs going and keep the morale up and that's half of it. 

Jon: [00:19:49] I agree. And what's been the biggest challenges over the last few years when you've been you've been a start-up and now you becoming more established. What would you say were the the challenges you've overcome? 

Marc Giusti: [00:20:02] Interestingly, we didn't even have a product until June last year. So we're... 

Jon: [00:20:08] Right. 

Marc Giusti: [00:20:09] We're almost a year old and people. 

Jon: [00:20:13] Happy birthday 

Marc Giusti: [00:20:14] Well yes, it is a [00:20:15] literally [0.8] either in the next couple of weeks or a couple of weeks ago can't remember. But people think that we're much much more established and we are. And so I think that's been part of some of our challenges that a lot of the industry has been around a long time. They sort of set the standards in the conventions and a lot of that is about sort of huge giveaways, packs of powder, and pallets of gels and all sorts of things taking over sports events in [00:20:41] logos and flags in all sorts. [1.8] You know the expense you know to run these businesses tends to be pretty high. We don't necessarily believe that that's how you need to go to market. In fact we're influenced by brands that are much more about how they help people do the sport that they're trying to do in a better more refined I suppose more premium way at Rapha being a perfect example of a sort of cycling brand who sort of prove to everybody get sartorial elegance and you know, premium pricing, great experience is content. And so on were all part of a brand story. And we are very much approaching things like that. We're very much a brand and you know not just a product. And so that I think has been interesting for us that we are creating new ground there. So there's a challenge in that but it was in a sense trying to design our own path that didn't have to compete with the existing established approaches. And we found that it's been a great success so far. I know long way to go but so far so good. 

Jon: [00:21:50] I think you I think you really got something there in terms of its product which is competing in a crowded marketplace but it's not a 'me too product' I would I'd say you're almost a challenger brand in terms of doing something new and doing something really well and differently. 

Marc Giusti: [00:22:08] I think that's the opportunity of the startup. You know, is to say when you're launching your business, if you can't do it at the beginning, if you can't turn round at the industry you're interested in the products you want and sort of say well we have an opportunity to do it in a way we believe is better. So being a startup whilst it has all sorts of revenue based problems, you don't have the limitations of established organisations so you're kind of strangled and free all at the same time. It is a challenge but it's one that when you are clear about where your compass heading is and you believe in your product and you know that your product can stand up to any criticism, then you know, why not? So what happens is really the best advice I could give to anybody who's trying to launch their business is trust in your instincts. Trust in what you believe is right and go because momentum is an amazingly powerful thing. And you'll also be surprised how quickly people are prepared to help. So, many people through all of branches that you know, we never even met before - all of a sudden introducing you, helping you, getting you stocks whatever it might be. That kind of help doesn't tend to go towards larger more corporate companies. So yeah I'd advise people to to look for that in and use that while they can. 

Jon: [00:23:34] That's that's really good to hear. And also the the marketing side of things - you've got a great story as well and I'm a massive believer in story sell fax tell. And I think that if that family background that the Panforte recipe in coming from Siena it's yeah something different but it's not just fluff. It's real. 

Marc Giusti: [00:23:57] No no it is actually. Anyway we have The Classico which was our first product certainly when we were prototyping our products it was the one that we were focusing on first and that is a we've got it. I still have it actually. We haven't laminated it we put it in as sort of a plastic sheet but it's directly from a great great grandmother's recipe book and we've obviously had to adapt the ingredients slightly and we've made them much more about you know power and nutrition and thinking about the format in the way you mix the food so that you can consume it easily. You know at [00:24:33] tempo and so on [0.9] but the fundamentals are very similar. And and that's when Lara, my wife who is really the brains behind the recipes in the food is also a multiple award winning Panforte chef and she's had great taste awards prior to this venture. And so she understands the product implicitly and she's also a Heart-Lung respiratory specialist so has great insights into recovery, performance, physical ability, digestion and so on. And so you know when you bring the heritage the ingredients, the recipes, the talent, the capability, the opportunity for natural products in our market that is so dominated by synthesised food you know where I think all of those things are bringing our story together and helps us not just be blending into the rest. 

Jon: [00:25:28] And it's not about that almost old fashion marketing and advertising of just volume and noise. Having a having a terrific product and building a community of fans, as Seth Godin says, a tribe of people who love what your doing is absolutely the best thing to do. 

Marc Giusti: [00:25:45] Totally. And it's a strange as a blessing and a curse but having no money as a start up from a marketing point of view means that you you don't even consider doing reach and frequency campaigns. You know there's no point in trying to sort of buy your way into the market short of having millions of pounds to go and blow on marketing and so you don't think about that. And in fact what you do is is what real people do which is they talk to each other. And you introduced into things a new you have something interesting to say and you become part of the fabric of way people live rather than a conceit that's trying to sort of force its way in by shouting at me. So in a funny kind of way that's a benefit of no budget. 

Jon: [00:26:29] That makes me a lot of sense. So Marc, people listening want to try some delicious Veloforte. Where can you buy it? 

Marc Giusti: [00:26:37] We have our own website which is Veloforte.cc and that's predominantly where we're building the business from and the bulk of our customers have come to. We are we also within that are able to build a community you know, do our events and exclusives. We have our race teams and we put together some opportunities for people to be part of the brand as we were talking about before. And so that's our focus. But retail is a huge part of how we get our story told and those partners have been immensely helpful for us and we will continue to develop our retail presence. We're currently in an I think 29 or 30 stores in the UK. We have over about two and put some in to the U.S. and Canada interestingly and we're already were in Rapha Copenhagen. We have really now one or two other and in other European countries which are mentioned another time. And so it's just starting to get some good traction for us. But the the start of all of this really was if I'd sort of back track of it was back in June of last year when we thought we had developed three products. Really it's prototypes we wanted to you know think of how on earth we get it out to people? How do we find out what people think? So quite literally I stuck a whole load under my arm and we went to Majorca and we were doing. I was doing to the stages of Dallgaghio Cycle Slam I thought well I'll feed it to a load of blokes on bikes see what they say - and we did. It was incredible. I mean we never expected to get the response that we did. We don't really know what they say. I mean we knew we liked it we knew it tasted good and you know my mum said she liked it. So that was good. But you know getting it out there and you know in anger people you know climbing [00:28:43] Sa Colobra [0.6] and thinking you know what are they really gonna say when they get to the top you know what are they going to say after doing a three thousand meter day in a 180k. And so you were just overwhelmed. And so eight days or so later we then went over to [00:28:57] Ibiza [0.5] and did some riding there and same again and as we came back we were really giving us great encouragement. And so we went to Sigma Sport in Hampton Wick which is a very well-known bike stall and they were great. Said you know what we want it's delicious fantastic. Let's get started. So we started selling to them really not knowing what to expect and I just went mad. We were literally couldn't make enough. So we were suddenly presented with a whole host of opportunities. And then virgin phones up and kind of out the bloomy and says we're doing an event called The Virgin Strive which was from the Matterhorn to Mount Etna and created a huge event. It was 26 days top of Italy. Well Switzerland threw down all the way down through Italy down to the toe of Italy, swam across the straits in the sea and rode up Mt Etna, did it and then did a half marathon run to the summit. That's an insane thing. And there were something like 400 odd participants and we fed them exclusively from Matterhorn to Mt Etna. And so for us it was a experiment really to know how we never had so many customers eat so much food in one sitting you know twenty six days of it doing such high tempo work I guess. And again it was just overwhelmingly positive. And coming back from that we've had all we now have to turn down a number of the written requests and we've been able to focus our retail on the... I think what people would regard as the finest bike stores cafes in the UK so far and we.. So we're up in Ronde in Edinburgh. We're down Costa so many that there on the website but we are at we have all the other good stores that the London stores like Rapha, we have Pearsons we have Sigma Sport. We got Vive Le Velo. But in our house we have. .. 

Jon: [00:30:59] Vive le Velo is literally just down the road from me 

Marc Giusti: [00:31:02] Yes there are and a great shot there and obviously we're going to Giro in now an Athlete Lab. So there's a whole host of retail outlets and what we're finding is that people are going into their stores and genuinely there are retailers are able to say 'Look there's in genuinely something new and interesting has happened in the in the nutrition market'. It's no longer just the same old sort of silver and plastic food that you might have bought before. It's something that's new that means something that's trying to do something interesting and different. And as soon as people try it we have a 96 percent conversion on taste. It's amazing. So we're yeah it's a huge part of what we want to do. So if you do have a look at the website you buy from us directly or if there's a retailer local to you it will be listed there. 

Jon: [00:31:49] Very good. So Marc if someone who's listening and they're thinking 'Oh my God I've got this amazing idea', How do people or how did you take the idea of Veloforte and turn it into a product which is available now in multiple countries and people. 

Marc Giusti: [00:32:08] All at once a simple and yet enormous question. So what did we do. Yeah I guess you've got two obvious points: One is the product itself. And what is that? How are you going to make that? And then the other is the funding and the commercials need to be true to support it. So the product part of it obviously it's a software product then that's got a certain set of requirements. Ours isn't. Ours is a sort of physical product so we looked in and we built our prototypes. It has great similarities certainly for my part in building technology platforms and policies. Now you go into prototype you go into very fast agile creation of all things. That's true of making a food product as it is. Obviously different but as it is of doing so. So some of the analogies are the same. Some expectations and the steps sound very similar. And we built out. We literally created a whole baked and cooked up our product at home first and we would literally take it to friends and family. I mean it was a very simple and very humble. And when we started to you know get the feedback in that customer testing and so on. That was a very natural and open and it wasn't forced or contrived in which is literally hand somebody something similar do and say we started to realise and get the confidence in the fact that our thinking was on was right. And then you have to look at the commercials quite quickly and you have this sort of status. Well how are we going to go from spending a few hundred pounds a few thousand pounds here and there on just getting something together that people can try to then turn it into a business? An investment is a part of that and what's probably the most helpful thing we've done is build an investment strategy and a commercial plan because the questions you have to answer in the process of doing that so that you can gain investment are all of the fundamental questions you know - What is it? What do you say what isn't ? You know. What's the market size? What's the market opportunity? When are you going to go there? Who are you going to go with? How are you going to do that? So all of these very irritating questions. Hugely important because they allow you to define for the first time which of course you can change whenever you like but you get the first expression of what you think is right. And we, I think in probably the latter months of last year early months of this year working very closely myself and Steve who is our [00:34:47] MD, Steve Marson [1.4] who joined the business at the end of last year and having been an avid customer by the way. That's a nice story in of itself. Is he ate it for 26 days riding across Italy and said 'You know can we get together.' And Steve's past is 20 years in the bike industry so there is loads of native cross over there. So he's been an amazing addition to the to the team. He and I basically sat down and designed over the course of couple three months what we believed very serious investors would ask us and we weren't necessarily looking to go and talk to various investors but we were looking for how they thought and that would help us make sure that our questions and our thinking was rigorous enough. 

Jon: [00:35:30] Excellent. 

Marc Giusti: [00:35:31] So we built a deck. We were very disciplined about that. And that deck spat out a pay now cash flow and a brand strategy and a name and a proposition and a go-to market and an audience and all those crucial things. And you need to turn your your idea into essentially 10 slides that you could present to somebody who doesn't know you. Who can see that you understand yourselves, your limitations, your opportunities, your benefit, your product where it fits, where it doesn't fit, and what you think the commercial opportunity for this business is in a way you're going to start without that really everyone is left in a sort of best intentions environment. And that runs out of money very quickly. This is the reality. So I guess it's trying to think. I don't know if that's that's all made sense but that's where we came from. 

Jon: [00:36:24] It Has. 

Marc Giusti: [00:36:24] We knew we had a beautiful product. We had to be as rigorous with our go-to market as we were with our recipe. Otherwise we were too lopsided. You know it's a business after all. Yeah is that an answer? 

Jon: [00:36:37] That is that's really helpful Marc. 

Marc Giusti: [00:36:39] Great. 

Jon: [00:36:39] That's what that's more than an answer. 

Marc Giusti: [00:36:41] Thank you. 

Jon: [00:36:42] Couple of last questions Marc. What are the plans for Veloforte in the future if you can say anything at all. 

Marc Giusti: [00:36:49] Yeah. World domination by the end of the year. 

Jon: [00:36:54] Perfect. 

Marc Giusti: [00:36:54] The important thing for us in the very near term is that we can get the product into people's hands and mouth. And so the focus is on providing people with truly exceptional quality food as best as we can. Then there will be by the end of the year some announcements on our product line. 

Jon: [00:37:15] Excellent. 

Marc Giusti: [00:37:16] And then will also be some announcements in terms of some very significant collaborations which we will be launching with other very well-known brands and some individuals too. I mean we've started already with Sarah Storey we were supporting her race team and exclusively and we have the more Morvelo Basso team who were in Utah series this year for the first time and we've been invited to be part of a number of other athletes as well. As well as other teams in other sports too. So this is quite a lot to announce over the next few months. 

Jon: [00:37:50] There's a lot going on. 

Marc Giusti: [00:37:52] There is. And then of course there's the international thinking about sort of European markets and then that starts to put pressure on you know production and being a bit more of a grown up business there. So a lot to get right. So far we've done that and we hope to continue to. But our hope I guess would be that we would be the natural product of choice for endurance athlete. I guess is where we're heading. 

Jon: [00:38:20] That's a really nice way to put it. So I would I absolutely agree with that. And last question Marc. If I could say have you spotted anything recently, it doesn't have to be cycling related that any brand product or service that you've been super impressed with? I asked this for all of the guests on the show because it just interests me and I know we've chatted about you know the importance of brand as well and the service and product as anything you've done it's really caught your eye recently? 

Marc Giusti: [00:38:53] God there's so much at the moment I know in another part of my life. I do have up until recently been doing a lot of technology advisory in because my past has been our brand strategy, product service design, product market fit for tech businesses. So there's just a plethora of great products and services being designed. But interestingly I was at when I now that I'm kind of my own client I have my own product. How you are able to take your product to market has been a great focus for me. So I'd have to say that Shopify, the platform which we are web site is built on it's extraordinary. We were able to literally you know for a matter of I think about 20 pounds a month I think is their lowest monthly option. And you get a fully functioning international, if not global e-commerce represents that's almost plug and play as long as you've got some photographs and some copy. You can be a business in five countries in 10 minutes. It is the most amazing thing. Of course you don't get a lot of apps that are built in around the system for businesses to manage their analytics or distribution or their content or whatever it might be. So I think that's probably the one that matters the most to me because that's basically the plumbing in the wiring of my business. 

Jon: [00:40:19] I think that's a great choice. Very interesting for us to learn that. 

Marc Giusti: [00:40:26] I think it's also interesting because it has democratised what was otherwise very complicated HTML requirements and developer requirements and now we can work with developments very specifically on very high end services and that's part of something that suggests this is our future as well. We'll be seeing a lot more of that soon. It allows you to run the business rather than trying to find resources to get simple things done. 

Jon: [00:40:52] Yeah I think it's a fantastic platform and funnily enough, Shopify were actually a sponsor of a previous show and had. 

Marc Giusti: [00:41:01] Really? 

Jon: [00:41:01] Yes. Had one of our guest Keir Whitaker who works on their Shopify partnerships team in the UK. So he came on Episode 3. So if people are listening and want to know a little bit more about Shopify, have a listen and have a look at Episode 3 with care. But yes it's a great platform and one I'm hoping to use more in the future. So Marc thank you so much for your time. 

Marc Giusti: [00:41:25] Thank you for having me. It's great 

Jon: [00:41:27] I really really enjoyed it and I really appreciate you coming on the show and people who want to connect with you in Veloforte so Veloforte.cc and social media. What are the channels you're on? 

Marc Giusti: [00:41:40] They're all the same. So Veloforte for Instagram @veloforte on Twitter and Veloforte.cc on Facebook. 

Jon: [00:41:47] That is wonderful. Thanks again Marc. I'll speak to you very soon. 

Marc Giusti: [00:41:51] Thank you Jon. 

VO: [00:41:53] The Remarkable Business Show. 

Jon: [00:41:56] So lots of great learning there from Marc. Do say hi to them on Twitter and do try some. Their site is called Veloforte.cc. That's V E L O F O R T E dot C C. The good news is that Veloforte have kindly provided a very special discount for you people out there. If you go to the site on your first purchase of some delicious Veloforte just use the code remarkable 15 on check out and that'll give you 15 percent off. So thank you very much indeed for that Marc. 

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Jon: [00:43:48] Goodness me. Time has flown. And we are at the end of Episode 5 so thank you very very much for listening. I really appreciate your valuable time as always. So the good news. Now great news is that I got another 5 amazing people interviewed and ready to go. [00:44:05] So Shawn Blanc, Sean McCabe also known as Sean Wes online. Tyler Koalas from Cloud App, Brendan Dawes and Steve Leighton [8.6] and also a couple more people up my sleeve which I think you're gonna love. So let me know what you think of the show. Send me an e-mail jon@jonmoss.co.uk . If you've enjoyed this episode or indeed any of the episodes on the show please let someone know. Send him a message or an email or tweet about the show you can share this episode easily by clicking the shared link at the top of the page on Remarkable FM. If you listening to this on the web or simply use your sharing function on the podcast app and paying someone a message and say hey have a listen to this. Thank you so much. I would be very grateful. Also please leave an honest review for the remarkable business show on iTunes or Stitcher ratings in reviews are super helpful and they make a huge difference for the show's visibility. Anything you write. I promise I will read and or feedback is great because I want to produce something that you really enjoy listening to and provides a lot of value as well. All that remains is to say thank you very much for listening. And until next time enjoy life and make every single day count. 

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