🚀 Your Weekly Slice of Food, Drink & Wellness Startups #4

Hey 👋

Welcome back to the Startup Slice!

We’ve been out and about in London this week and noticed something interesting, brands popping up all over the place in food venues. XOXO Soda at Breadstall (iconic Soho pizza joint), Living Things in Coco di Mama and Sushi Dog. Seems like challenger brands are skipping the supermarket and getting shelf space where the foodies already are. Could this be the new way into retail?

In this week’s newsletter we’re exploring how negative reviews can be your most valuable customer feedback, James Watt’s (BrewDog co-founder) new fund and how lean teams can punch above their weight.

Keep an eye out on our Instagram for a fresh new look and (hopefully) some laughs 👀 

If you're tight on time, there's a 15-second TL;DR at the bottom 👇

📱 From the Feed

What we posted on our socials this week:

💸 James Watt is opening up his fund for you to invest alongside with him: Jetpack ventures (James Watt’s VC fund) is being opened up to the public where you can invest pound of pound with him 🔗 here

🍰 Mighty Slice hit the shelves in Sainsbury’s local: They’ve achieved a lot with a lean team (only 6 of them!), making the most of brand activations out and about 🔗 here

👀 ICYMI: Brand Moves Worth Watching

🏉 Jonny Wilkinson (CBE, former English rugby player. Most famous for kicking England to victory in the Rugby World Cup 2003 final) has launched One Living. It’s a drinks brand made up of 5 targeted shots for your daily health. He’s leaning into the changing consumer attitudes of a focus on health & performance. Leveraging his existing audience well, currently not known to be listed but a good one to hit the shelves for some healthy competition.

🍩 Black Milk Cereal x Krispy Kreme: A collaboration which looked absolutely divine. The teams paired up to combine their Pistachio overload doughnut for just one week in Tesco stores across the UK. This comes ahead of their soon launch into Tesco as part of the accelerator programme. It’s another case for collaborations working well when done right, two brands raising their visibility and creating a limited edition product to create hype. Keep an eye out for our LinkedIn this week where we’ll deep dive into Black Milk Cereal.

💡 Bitesize Playbook for Startups: Negative reviews might just be your best customer feedback

A one-star review, a scathing TikTok or a brutally honest DM. A negative review… a startup team’s nightmare. Right?

Actually, it might just be the best feedback you can get.

Yes, negative reviews sting. But they’re also the rawest and most valuable form of market research you’ll ever get. It’s more useful than your friends & family nodding along and saying they love it, not wanting to tread the water of constructive feedback.

It can be difficult for earlier stage startups to get real feedback. It’s often based on what a buyer thinks, and whether they think you’re good enough for they’re store or not. Not always helpful!

Here’s the uncomfortable truth. Although it might sting, a customer who is leaving you that comment is providing you with something super valuable.

Customer feedback is a powerful tool to provide growth, especially when it’s what you don’t want to hear. It’s at this point that there’s an opportunity to learn something and make your product/service even better.

Positive reviews are great, but they’re not always super helpful to tell you how to keep growing.

How to handle it going forward:

• Look for patterns. One review is just one opinion. But multiple reviews saying the same thing might signal a recurring theme that needs addressing

• Segment the feedback. Is it product? Customer service? Brand?

• Keep a feedback file. Create a folder of all the negative feedback. Not only can you use it as a bit of motivation, but its your free product roadmap to growth.

Negative feedback isn’t failure, it’s direction. If you’re brave enough to follow it, you’re already ahead of most.

📌 The Noticeboard

📚 Read/Listen

Brand Growth Heroes. This podcast is the leading podcast for the founders of challenger brands. Fiona Fitz, host of the podcast, has over 25 years of experience at Global Giants and has coached over 400 scaling brands. She’s able to ask the questions that truly matter and get you the insight to think differently and drive serious growth for your brand.

⚡️ TL;DR: This Week’s Takeaways

• Negative reviews can be your most helpful feedback. It’s painful but it’s also high impact customer feedback. Spot the patterns, segment the insights and use them to build something better.

• Collaborations are still thriving, Black Milk Cereal and Krispy Kreme collaborated with purpose in Tesco ahead of Black Milk Cereal’s launch into Tesco as part of the Tesco Accelerator Programme

• Jonny Wilkinson launched One Living, tapping into the shift towards health & performance for consumers. 5 functional shots and a focus on wellness. A smart pivot into consumer goods for the ex-England rugby player.

Thanks for reading this week’s edition! As mentioned, check out our LinkedIn for more regular updates.

👂 Got any feedback for us? Hit reply, we’d love to hear from you.

📥 Forwarded this? Sign up here to get the next edition.

📨 If this landed in spam, move us to your main tab.