Welcome And Founder Story Tease

Chris Norton 0:00

Welcome back to Embracing Marketing Mistakes. This week we've got the brilliant Ben Branson. Ben is the founder of Seedlip, which was the world's first non-alcoholic spirit. He didn't just create a new drink, he created an entire new category. This is a brilliant episode. I think you're gonna enjoy it. If you love a founder story, this one's for you. So sit back, relax, and let's get into it. Enjoy.

From Garden Botanicals To Distillation

Chris Norton 0:29

Ben Branson, welcome to the show.

Ben Branson 0:31

Thanks, guys.

Chris Norton 0:33

So, Ben, you've got you've created a product that totally changed and created a market. I mean, when I first heard about the products, I remember thinking, I wonder what it tastes like, because it's a alcohol-free spirit. So and it hasn't, it's got its own flavour, if I remember rightly. So it's not a gin, it's not a vodka, no alcoholic wine. It was its entirely new flavour, was it? So can you walk me through how you came up with that? Because you describe yourself as an inventor. So I want to hear the little backstory behind it.

Ben Branson 1:05

Yeah, so um the first thing to say is I I didn't come up with it as a business idea. Um Seedlip was really some experiments and a bit of I guess going down the rabbit hole of botanicals and herbs and spices. And I'm someone that I guess if I if I'm interested in something, I want to get to the bottom of it. So it wasn't enough to buy a bit of mint and rosemary in a supermarket or grow some basil at home. I wanted to understand all of it, all the botanicals, all the history. And so I just started growing, you know, I bought some seeds and I started growing stuff in my garden, and I was living in this little like Hansel and Gretel kind of style cottage in Buckinghamshire. And I was yeah, I was working on other brands. I had we had a little design agency, uh, I was doing some consulting, quite happy. Me, my dogs, I was learning how to do taxidermy, collecting old books, just you just threw that in.

Chris Norton 2:16

I was learning how to do taxidermy, like that's a regular thing to do.

Will Ockenden 2:20

I've definitely got some questions about that one later on.

Ben Branson 2:23

You can't see my you can't see behind obviously my screen, but I've got a full-size ostrich literally in the thorn of mine. Okay. So I was literally, I was growing some stuff and on Wikipedia, and I found somebody, thankfully, had scanned in a copy of a book called The Art of Distillation. It was a book written in 1651. It has 200 ingredients in it, and there are loads of drawings, like drawings of copper stills and distillation equipment. And some of these recipes were alcoholic and some of them were non-alcoholic, and they were basically making herbal medicine. And yeah, there was human flesh involved in some of them. I mean, they were really like kind of crazy, the alchemists back in the 17th century, Philosopher's Stone. Like it was in a it's a pretty wild time. And I just bought a little copper still off the internet just because I wanted to have a go. And you know, I don't drink alcohol, so there was never going to be a kind of need to try and make an alcoholic liquid. I wanted to just have a go at this process, and I can't tell you, I just taking mint from my garden and then making a liquid that smelt and tasted like the plant was was really magical, and it left a big impression on me. And I guess I just kept going and I kept doing it. No

Why Adults Need Better No Alcohol

Ben Branson 4:00

business idea in mind, and it probably took another six months, and then I was out in London and I was driving and got into this really nice restaurant in King's Cross with I think three other people. You get the, you know, waiter comes over, you get the kind of drinks list, nice set of cocktails, nice wine list, it's good, good ambiance, nice lighting, plenty of space. Do you want still a sparkling? You know, it's like this is a night, it's gonna be a nice evening. And I just asked if they had anything non-alcoholic, and you know, meanwhile, like the beautiful old fashioned comes over, the lovely glass of red, and over comes my pink fruity, disgusting, childish, sweet. Yeah, it didn't have an umbrella in it, but it it just didn't fit, and I just felt like an idiot. And it wasn't, I didn't connect the kind of all what I'm doing at home with uh with that occasion, but I did afterwards, and the dots I guess began to join of like, why is it so difficult? I don't, I don't even care whether someone drinks alcohol or not. It it's got absolutely nothing to do with that. This is just about choice and flavor and taste and feeling like a grown-up and feeling like you're included in the round, in the meal, in the social occasion. But I yeah, I I kind of then it was gonna be a side project, and I was gonna take it to farmers markets, and yeah, I thought I would launch something in six months, and it took two years, and I launched you know, one product in Selfridges, and yeah, it was an amazing amazing, like launching Selfridges off the straight off the bat.

Chris Norton 5:56

I've I heard you've been interviewed before talking about that, and I was

Premium Launch Strategy At Selfridges

Chris Norton 6:00

like, of all the places to launch, straight into Selfridges. It's not like you just launched into the local, you know, into Nisa's or whatever. You look you went you went for a premium location.

Ben Branson 6:10

I wanted to start at the top and start with sort of trend leading accounts, start with credibility, and ultimately as a new brand in a new category that no one's ever heard of, I was desperate to back beg bor and steal as much credibility as possible. The other thing is when you go and taste something with the Selfridges buyer, if they think it's shit, then at least you know quite quickly, right? Um, but we'd already, given how expensive it was to make and the retail price that I'd chosen, there wasn't really any other option but to start at the top because it was super premium price product and you know 10 times the price of a soft a soft drink.

Will Ockenden 6:57

How many years ago was this? Because I mean, uh am I right in saying the the whole alcohol-free category. I mean, even if you look at beer, even in back in those days, what was there? Um, was it Michelob Ultra or something? There's not even Beck's Blue. Beck's Blue as well.

Ben Branson 7:11

Beck's Blue. So this is uh 2015 Seedlip launched, and the there were no shelves dedicated to this space. Uh, there were no products other than BexBlue and O'Doul's in the US. So each kind of country had its sort of legacy, maybe attempt to non-out beer, but rubbish tasting and really poor and not really supported. And so nobody was talking about this space. There probably wasn't anyone even asking for it either. And yeah, this is yeah, this is 2015. And so this was Clip really was the first, I mean, it was the first ever kind of non-alcoholic spirit, but I guess it was the first non-out brand that wasn't an extension of of Beck's, for example, um, but was a standalone kind of brand. And therefore, I got with that amazing white space to go into and being first, and all the good things that can come with being first, but also all the bad things that come with being first, and that meant yeah, people were uh said some really horrible things, and there was a lot of disbelief, a lot of skepticism, a lot of people telling me to stop what I was doing. Seed lip actually made a lot of people very angry, which was the most interesting thing from a psychological perspective of an inanimate object actually triggering a super strong angry, and when I say angry, me standing in Selfridges and a man who's probably in his 50s telling me, Why the fuck would you work for a company that makes this kind of product?

Will Ockenden 9:12

Why would you they they feel it's an attack on it plays to their their inadequate well, they feel it's an attack on their drinking.

Ben Branson 9:20

Um threatening aspect um which yeah, which was really it was pretty visceral, actually. Um but really interesting that yeah, that the fact that something existed and was kind of showing that there was potentially another way or that there was choice or an option, people found really threatening.

Will Ockenden 9:44

Um tell us about the witch's piss um comment. That made me laugh, actually. And I I I heard that on the on the podcast. That's some customer feedback, wasn't it?

Ben Branson 9:53

So I this was you know, beginnings of uh things like social media, right? 2025 beginnings of things like Instagram was maybe two or three years old at this point, and so you had this opportunity where people could, you know, from behind their screen give you feedback. Key dog warriors, yeah, and you and you could get that obviously in real life, and we did a lot of sampling, but also you could, you know, yeah, you could just write stuff and and feedback on stuff, and so yeah, I I made the decision pretty early on to like embrace that and share it. And so when this person commented that seed lip tasted like witch's piss, you know, I made a point of kind of sharing that. Um and it's still the it's still the one. I I you know people have said some amazing things about seed lip and a and about our our kind of new new brands, but yeah, it's the it's the witch's piss one that that is imprinted on my brain.

Chris Norton 11:00

Well, it's it's behavioural science as well, because you're focusing on the weakness. It is a it is um a behavioural science trait because it's like Guinness is the number one, now the number one drink in in the UK. Well, I don't know if it's globally, but in the UK it's the number one pint, isn't it? And the actual strap line of that is a weakness, like for those uh good comes to or those who wait. Is that right? What is the strap line? I've forgotten.

Ben Branson 11:24

And then the you've got to be bold and you've got to be you've got to be brain to do this.

Chris Norton 11:30

Focusing on your on your weakness is actually quite endearing, and it makes you think, well, if if you know it's quite entertaining, it's like when um Jimmy Kimmel does that thing where he gets people to read out tweets that critique, you know, that uh mean tweets, yeah. Yeah, mean tweets, and it's hilarious where people have got to read out like tweets about they're really mean. Because let's face it, Twitter and online trolls, it's not real life, like you say, they're keyboard warriors. But yeah, sometimes there's some reality in what they're saying, but not always.

Ben Branson 11:59

I don't think you should not not when like nobody has ever, ever, from my understanding or certainly documented what witches piss tastes like, right? And so, and so it's it's kind of on the one hand, it's a really nasty thing that someone has said, but on the other, in my head, it cannot be like it it it it can't make sense, and so it's even kind of more ludicrous. But I do think in a in a new category, um, with people, brands, founders doing things differently, there is gonna be the hate, and there is gonna be the you know, and and you you guys will know the famous sayings around, you know, you don't want indifference, and it's it's better to have a strength of feeling in either direction and better to help people feel something. Otherwise, if people just think things are nice all the time, then I'm not sure you even know where you stand.

Chris Norton 14:36

It's wallpaper as well, isn't it? It's like marma marmite, you know, same thing. You know, older brands that stand for something, you know, often yeah, they they stand out. It's better to be that than vanilla, basically, in the middle.

Ben Branson 14:50

Yeah.

Will Ockenden 14:50

So after um, obviously you you launched into Selfridges, you you then saw incredibly um rapid growth, and obviously there's a there's a kind of a huge pent-up consumer demand for I mean the fact that you're creating a category as well is is is amazing. So talk us through kind of post-selfridges to just before um Diageo took a majority stake.

When Demand Explodes Overnight

Ben Branson 15:11

Yeah, so it so in my head, you know, I'd spent kind of two years like, and it was two really hard years creating seed lip. A, I didn't really know a lot about the drinks industry. B, I was learning about making liquids and tasting liquids and putting liquids together. Then I was learning about business and had set up a business, and you know, I was on my own, so I was kind of learning everything. You know, I had bought the book Business for Dummies. Like I I signed up for the wrong VAT scheme. I kind of nearly got completely scammed on trademarking the seed lip name.

Chris Norton 15:59

Oof.

Ben Branson 16:01

You know, you talk about some mistakes, like that would have been a really yeah.

Chris Norton 16:05

I nearly got that. I nearly got the trademark one, yeah, because it's quite a big one. That they they're like fake websites, aren't they, where they say global trademarks. It's um when you're a new business entrepreneur, it I remember setting up trademarks when I had to look at it and know it they are really close to the ones that you should be using, and then but then you realise they're based in you know sub-Saharan Africa or somewhere. Um it's very but they're very convincing. I yeah, I I would imagine quite a few business owners have been caught up because it's isn't it like $399 or something? It's not $399. It's not it's not like an exuberant amount of money, but it's not a small amount of money. Yeah, and so I I reckon quite a few business owners get caught up, but anyway, well done for neither of us.

Ben Branson 16:45

Yeah, it's a bit of a minefield. Um, and so I I was you know, to be honest, it got to it got to launch. I guess I was also riding the some people hate this, some people think this is genius. Well, I didn't really know whether it was any good one day to the next. And I remember like walking down Oxford Street and literally walking down Oxford Street, looking at every single person I was walking past, thinking, would they buy seed lip? Do I think they buy seed lip? You know, literally like going around in circles on it. Anyway, so I I got to the, you know, I've written this big launch plan, and I'd ultimately my goal was to get a bottle on a shelf because I'd had loads of ideas historically and never seen any of them through. And so for me, it was all about can I follow this through and following it through? In my mind, the success was getting a bottle on a shelf. So we made a thousand bottles, got them, you know, got the first set on the Selfridges shelves, and I thought, great, I'm gonna take a breath. Like, it's two years, it's been a lot of work. Let's just ease into this, you know, let's just see how we get on. And and my plan was I was gonna sell a thousand bottles in six months, get 50 great bars, restaurants, and nice retailers. Maybe get I got I was planning to get a part-time intern. That was gonna be my like hire, that was gonna be my big hire office at home. Like, let's just ease into it. And those thousand bottles sold out in three weeks, and the fucking plan went out the window, and and then the hell, and it and I hated it, I hated the first six months because A, they didn't go according to my plan, and B, it's sort of like I wanted to tiptoe out there, and enough of the market, both from a consumer and a customer perspective, were shouting back, going, Where the fuck, where's this been? Thank you. Amazing. And so we heard from a hundred countries in the first three months. You know, we had this huge evening standard standard write-up in London. Um, I was in Buckingham Palace, you know, we kept selling out of these bottles of seed lip spice, you know, lots of really nice restaurants in touch. We had lots of demand and had to scale up, you know, from a thousand bottle batches to seven thousand bottle batches really quickly. And that meant starting to outsource the bottling and then trying to find an employee and etc. Like it was stressful. Yeah, it was really steep. And we you know, I learned a hell of a lot, but I did also really not enjoy it.

Will Ockenden 19:52

Yeah, I mean, because how on earth do you skip? I mean, that that's some you must have been wildly outside of your comfort zone, you know. In your mind, you're kind of ready for quite a soft launch, and then suddenly there's huge, huge demand. So, I mean, how on earth do you do you get it right? I suppose when you when you have I mean, because you must have had to make that you know, outsourcing production, for example, you must have had to make lot been forced to make lots of very big decisions in a very short space of time.

Ben Branson 20:18

Yeah, and and look, I I launching launching food and drink stuff. Um the odds are nine out of ten of us are gonna fail, right? After the first year, and anybody that tells you they're gonna launch something in three months, forget about it. Like you want to launch something properly in this space, it's gonna take you up to two years. And so that's crackers. That doesn't make any sense. The odds are so highly stacked against us, and I I should note that I am back at the beginning and doing this again. Like the, you know, it doesn't make any sense and is not a rational choice. I am I feel compelled though to do this. Like I am, I'm so fascinated by flavor and psychology and socializing and how people get together and inclusion and belonging that I can't not do this. Um, even though and even though it's my second time, uh the odds are so stacked against us.

Will Ockenden 21:27

This is Pollen projects you're talking about now, isn't it? Do you want to explain a little bit about um the sort of the thinking and the and the um and and the uh the proposition there?

Ben Branson 21:36

Yeah, so I'd actually during my consultancy time before launching SeedLit, I'd got involved in a project

Silver And Tech Driven Maturation

Ben Branson 21:43

in America uh that was looking at some technology and accelerated maturation techniques for bourbon. And uh this amazing guy who's who's sadly dead now, Ty Tyler, um, he could kind of match 12-year-old bourbon in in three weeks. And for some people that's sacrilege, right? And that's cheating. But I was looking at it more from a like, yeah, well, why do you have to use a barrel? And like, why does it take so long? And why do we only use really one tree species for the half billion barrels that there are in the world? And why do we cut a hundred-year-old oak trees down to make only two barrels? So a lot of first principles type thinking. And this was a technology that used things like ultrasound and UV, and and I bought a jewelry cleaner um not long after Seedlip launched, and jewelry cleaners use ultrasound, and I put a bottle of seed lip in there, and I put some wood chips in there, and at the end of the day, I had a liquid that was kind of yellow and golden and tasted a bit woody, and that was enough. Like, okay, there's something there, let's park it. Seed lip's about botanicals, it's not about wood and trees. And so 12, 14 months ago, which would be 14 years later, I commercialized a maturation process that does not use a barrel but uses ultrasound and oxygen and pressure to age non alcoholic liquids made from lots and lots of different tree species. Trees are full of flavor. And so we're playing into that kind of whiskey occasion. We launched this product called Silver. It's an aged non-alcoholic spirit. And we make it at our own maturation laboratory.

Will Ockenden 23:49

Wow. So at what stage is at what stage is that at now then? You know, uh, kind of how you know.

Ben Branson 23:54

So that launched into Selfridges. Um, that launched into Selfridges and season our cocktail bitters also launched into Selfridges. Um and we were a bit more prepared this time.

Will Ockenden 24:07

Um is it easier the second time around then, or is it is it still fraught with um uh curveballs and challenges?

Ben Branson 24:14

I don't know about easier, um, because we are nobody's doing what we're doing with trees, and so that pushes me right out of my comfort zone. You cannot go and nobody can tell you what driftwood tastes like, or plum wood, or silver birch, or I mean, you name it, lots of different tree species, and so, and also we've developed this, you know, this whole process from scratch. And so that was really out of the comfort zone because you're trying to scale a process um that's technically quite challenging, uh, it's quite difficult, and we're not outsourcing that, and we're doing that all internally. Um, but yeah, silver is we have our maturation lab here in the UK. We are building another one in upstate New York at the moment. Uh Silver's on a cardo in lots of fancy bars and and restaurants. Um yeah, we're we're hopefully setting a completely new standard for what's possible with dark non-alcoholic liquids.

Chris Norton 25:19

Um a and and what what do you think that you've you learned from the first one that you've taken to the second? So obviously that our show is about mistakes. So, what big mistakes did you make on because having a business of that size starting out small and then suddenly just going massive must have been a bit of a well, it's a bit of a shock, but what so what mistakes did you make other than expecting to sell a thousand bottles in six months and it actually happening in three weeks?

Ben Branson 25:48

I mean, everything from realizing luckily not too late that we had a million

Hard Lessons From Rapid Scaling

Ben Branson 25:55

pound working capital hole. That was pretty scary.

Will Ockenden 25:59

Um, tell us let's dig into that. Tell us a bit more about that.

Ben Branson 26:02

Um I was in so for context, we took C Lib from my kitchen to 35 countries, seven and a half thousand amazing bars, restaurants, hotels, and retailers, and 30 US states in three and a half years. Um three offices in three continents. It was really fast. And and just for people's context, we built a business twice as big, twice as fast as the industry standard. So it was a rocket, like it was a rocket ship, and that was very, very stressful and intense and fast, and fortunately had an amazing team. Um, but we I was in Singapore, I was about to get on flight to Australia and was kind of called for like an emergency. Can you get on a call, Ben? And I was literally, I was sort of, I was actually running late to the flight, and I was being kind of hurried through security, but had to get on this board call um where the news was kind of delivered that like we've got this massive hole, we just found it. Um, and we can park for the moment why we didn't find it, why we missed it, who's responsible for that, etc. Like, what the hell are we gonna do? Um, and I had to get off that call because I had to get on the plane, and this was before you could kind of get any internet on the plane or anything like that. You know, this was like 2017, I think. Uh and I was knackered anyway. I was absolutely exhausted, so I was slightly on my knees, and then I was just burst into tears. And because I didn't know the solutions, because I had to get off the call, I just spent the whole flight basically in the worst-case scenario of like, this is this is gone. This is this is it, this is it. And I'm driven by a fear of failure anyway. So this compounded and validated the unhelpful, irrational beliefs I have that everything's gonna crumble and everything's rubbish. And you know, I obviously got to Australia, got to the other side, and we traded our way out of it in six months, and it was a Herculean effort by the team and our customers and our suppliers. And in the nicest possible way, and this is where the advice I would give is don't be a dick and be nice to people because because we built such great relationships with our customers and with our suppliers and and amongst our team from a cultural perspective, we could call in favors. And people people supported us and people understood, and there's real power in that in terms of just building really good relationships that are not just purely transactional or uh yeah, with un kind of unnecessary expectations. So that was pretty mistake. I mean, I launched when C dip launched, I had some photographs taken of me. Um, and I was adamant that in the photograph needed to be this taxidermy fox.

Chris Norton 29:33

And that was I mean that was a size frickin' left field. That's left field right there. A taxidermy fox.

Ben Branson 29:39

Uh nothing, and do you know why? I I mean my thought process was firstly, I love flora and fauna and I'm obsessed with nature. And secondly, the bottle of seed lip spice, the botanicals are arranged in the shape of a fox. And so I was kind of thinking that was my thinking. Anyway, that went down like a lead balloon. Um, I was I also managed to convince the whole of the seed lip team, uh, investors, and even some customers, including Virgin Atlantic, that the best garnish for Seedlip Garden, which was our product that we made with peas from my farm and hay and rosemary, super green and herbal, I managed to convince everybody that frozen peas was a really good garnish. And again, that went down like a fuck, that went down like a lead balloon. And I was like, oh, what's a garnish that everybody's gonna have at home all the time? You know, it's always in people's freezers, it's an absolute staple. Obviously, we've distilled peas for the drink. Everybody loves peas. This is a surefire winner. And actually, what happened was people did some people did start garnishing their seed lip and tonic with frozen peas, and they all just sat on the top and floated and looked fucking horrible. So that was another one. I mean, I turned up to like, you know, we were asked to do a seed lip event. I turned up thinking it was this book launch, it was a kid's party. I mean, like, there's loads of you know, from minor to major sort of mistakes, made some really bad hiring mistakes.

Will Ockenden 31:18

Um that's quite interesting. You you're sort of saying you you're you're you're driven by fear of failure. I mean, is it sounds like um you I mean, and I I read somewhere else that you're kind of you're interested what you're really interested in is problems and what you can learn from them. So is that kind of I mean, it sounds a bit cliche to say, you know, you're constantly well, it it sounds like um you're not afraid to make mistakes, you learn from them and it makes you stronger. Is that a fair um assumption?

Ben Branson 31:47

Yeah, I I think I'm I I think you can be a perfectionist as as I am in in lots of areas, and I want always to do like my absolute best, and and I want to I do want to get everything right, and I'm not the person that is in the kind of oh let's just let's just do it do something and see how it goes. I want to, you know, I'm autistic, I'm ADHD, so I think everything through, but I can also be incredibly decisive and impulsive. Um and so where I I probably not even in a cliche or non-kliche way, I don't tend to think about mistakes, or if something is a mistake, I I back, I don't know, I guess I I back I back my thinking, and and if I back the logic and the strategy and the why, then I'm gonna give it, I'm gonna give it my best. And I'm also willing to be proven wrong, right? I'm willing to I'm just willing to put stuff out on a limb and express myself, and I express myself, it seems, through things like drinks, um, and liquids and and flavor and um and my values and and putting that into bottles. And I'm in the nicest possible way, I kind of I I I can hold the tension of I don't really care what you think because this is me. It's a bit like I don't know, doing a painting. Well, you're you're you're doing that not necessarily for anybody else, right? You're doing your garden for yourself. You like I'm making liquids and these brands and these projects because it nourishes and really feeds me, and is a way I can express myself. I can also hold the tension of I want it to be a business because I want to keep doing it. And yeah, and then and then and then the rest is sort of out of my control in some ways, of like, I've just got to do my best and think it through. And you know, everything is there's detail behind everything, so detail behind every single choice of material, why we've chosen that particular wood, lots of things that sit beneath the kind of waterline, as it were, that people don't see, that people don't know, um, loads of those kinds of choices that I I just have to do. It's it's I'm I'm compelled to kind of stand behind something and tell you why. Doesn't mean it's good or bad, but I can tell I can tell you a story as to why those choices were made.

Chris Norton 35:06

Okay, I've got a question for you. If that's true, and you say obviously you sold uh you sold your business to uh Diageo and you've made your money, you've built your built your product, you've got it out there, you've come back again. So is that all to re is that you know, did you take some time out to relax and and you know, did you go on holiday? How how did how does Ben unwind and not be have all this perfectionist ism together? How have you relaxed out of it and then why have you come back?

Ben Branson 35:37

Yeah, good good question. I mean, it summer of 2019, we sold the majority of seedlit to the Agio. And the day, yeah, ten days after we did that deal, our second daughter was born. And I then took seven months paternity leave um and came back just before COVID, basically. But I did a complete renovation, I I managed a complete renovation in 12 weeks of a house with a newborn, and so I didn't really yeah, I didn't really, I didn't really relax. I I mean I do like I so I don't work weekends, I don't work evenings, I'm you know, I've got three kids, um I take holidays, uh that's really important, and we used to get really I got really angry with people, even as Seedlip, if they didn't take their holidays. Um but I love what I do, and yeah, I love what I do so much that I guess I'm now trying to do three startups at the same time, which is not I wouldn't advise anybody to do that, and I don't really I it it has forced me to be incredibly ruthless with priorities and focus um on a you know on a daily basis to kind of continue to kind of remind, and I only have three priorities, right, across all my projects, and I and I imagine that they're gonna stay as priorities for quite a long time. They all have lots of things off them, but I keep those three things as the most important things. Um, and the third one of those is time for myself. That's it, and that might be working time, reading time, thinking time, driving time, whatever, but some sort of because otherwise I yeah, I'll burn out, I'll go and I'll go crazy.

Speaker 37:53

So you've um you you've talked about your um your late diagnosis when it came to your autism and ADHD.

Late Autism And ADHD Diagnosis

Speaker 38:01

So how did that come about? And did that change anything when you when you got diagnosed as being um neurodiverse? Did you kind of look back on your journey and think that explains a few things? I mean, and how has that kind of changed things looking forwards as well?

Ben Branson 38:16

Yeah, so four years ago, I had never heard the word neurodiversity before. I had never heard the word dyspraxic or dysgraphia, and I had really ignorant, limited beliefs around autism, ADHD, Tourette's, dyslexia. Um, and out of curiosity, I'd started like I heard a guy in the drinks industry who I who I know um talk about the way that his brain worked. And I kind of was like, that's interesting. I kind of yeah, I resonate with that. Then I had another founder on a podcast, they'd recently been diagnosed autistic, and I was relating to a lot of what they were saying, and so you know, I know a lot of people go for assessments because they're in crisis, right? And things are really bad. And let me just say that suicide, addiction, trauma, homelessness, unemployment, divorce, bullying, exclusion, prison, neurodivergent people over-index on all of it. The outcomes and prospects, if you are neurodivergent and not supported, are really dreadful. And this is this is uh part of the reason why we we've set up a charity um and are trying to do something about this. But I was I was really curious, and I started Googling and ended up going for a 12-week assessment uh whilst my wife was 12 weeks, yeah. Remote, remote, kind of a remote process.

Chris Norton 40:06

Yeah.

Ben Branson 40:08

My wife was eight and a half months pregnant. I didn't tell her, I didn't tell anybody. I just kind of wanted to, I wanted to know if it answered some of the questions I'd continually had about myself growing up and you know today. Um and the psychologist said to me, Congratulations, Ben, you're autistic. And I kind of really felt that and believed that. And I then went for an ADHD assessment sort of six months later. And so I am the kindest to myself that I've ever been. I am probably the clearest about myself that I've ever been. And bearing in mind, I saw my first psychiatrist when I was eight. And I've been sectioned, hospitalized, rehab, you know, I was a heroin addict till I was 25, and tick all of those suicide attempts, trauma, addiction, homeless, prison, etc. boxes. And so yeah, it's been a wild realization. Um, and then I've again felt compelled to do something about the fact that we have these dreadful statistics, and so yeah, we and we've kind of chosen media, I guess, is our way of doing that and communications and research, and we've got a big campaign coming out later this year.

Will Ockenden 41:41

This is the hidden 20%, isn't it? 20%, yeah. Um and is that 20% of people are are neurodiverse, diagnosed or undiagnosed?

Ben Branson 41:51

Is that the received wisdom that everybody cites is that one in five or one in seven people are neurodivergent. That number has never ever been checked, studied, or validated. And so part of the reason why ADHD and autism not supporting it cost the government 50 billion pounds a year is because we have designed all these systems education, healthcare, uh, employment, and justice based on very small numbers. And we have done a lot of work in this space, and we get to a very different figure that we're going to be talking about later this year, um, and a kind of request that we start designing the right-sized systems and support for people so that all these downstreamed bad things that happen in people's lives may be able to be changed, improved, and brought down. And this is a this is one where I am totally out of my depth. I, you know, I sat down with you know, experts with you know 20 letters after their name who've been in this space for 40 years, right? And I've sat down with loads of them. I've listened for the last two years, and we've shared that publicly as a podcast. But I'm so out of my depth. I've never run a charity before. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm trying to do all the drink stuff as well, but I can't not do it.

Chris Norton 43:39

You're driven, which is which is I mean, to come from where you've been in all those dark places and been able to do what you've done. You sort of take you must have been right down to the bottom, and you've come right down, you came right out the other side, and that fear of failure's driven you on and on and on, and you aimed high to go straight into the you know self ridges, and then build a category, and then the fear of failing, and then being on that flight, it's the whole story's brilliant, it's really interesting.

Ben Branson 44:07

I'm a bit deluded, Chris. Like, I think I'm a little bit oblivious to the risk of well, you're starting right at the top. Why don't you like you're saying, why don't you just go to like the farm's market? No, no, it's gotta be it's gotta be the top.

Chris Norton 44:22

Yeah, yeah.

Will Ockenden 44:23

I think most people would still be procrastinating on the first business idea.

Chris Norton 44:28

You know, then you mean you know, you said you did consultancy work. What so is your background marketing then? Or what were you consulting in?

Ben Branson 44:37

So I would so I my dad's in the design, like my mum's in farming, my dad's in design, and so yeah, I'd get like suspended from school and have to go and do work experience, uh design agency at 13. And that was not a punishment to me, that was fascinating, and yeah, I fell in love with like gazing at products in supermarkets and this idea of brands and packaging design. And when I got my first proper, proper job at 25, I went in, you know, on 17 grand a year into a design agency. And I would, I was, I don't know, I think people thought I had a good brain, and I was very, very curious. And so I started getting involved in naming projects, sort of uh research projects. You know, I'd I'd kind of be handed a 500-page report because he didn't have Claude and Chat GPT in those days. Here's a 500-page quant report about Dairylea. Tell us what the hell we should be doing. And so I'd mine that and found I could spot patterns and distill complex data into like a design strategy. And I could take that into mood boards and aesthetics and a creative direction.

Chris Norton 46:08

Amazing.

Ben Branson 46:09

And so I left that agency three years later on £70,000, presenting, you know, to like, I don't know, global CMOs of Domestos or Pampers Nappies or Veuve Clicqout or Heineken. So yeah, I was like 28 when I left. And then I got asked to do this project with the Nike Foundation in Africa. And that was a kind of nine-month project in Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Rwanda for their kind of teenage charity brand. Um that was all focused on girls and empowering girls. And yeah, that was absolutely amazing. That was absolutely incredible. Um so yeah, I guess I've always I don't know what am I what am I kind of good at? I'm good at uh absorbing and being a sponge and understanding what's going on maybe in the world, or um good at thinking stuff through. I'm good at coming up with tight focused laser bean strategies and what that then means in terms of product and brand. Um I'm good at kind of systems and spotting patterns and joining seemingly disparate things together to make sense. Um and then I guess I yeah, I back my my palate and my nose.

Chris Norton 47:36

Uh yeah, what's what's the sort of future, what you're looking to do next then? Well, obviously you've got these two projects that you're kicking off, and you've got the

Pattern Thinking Across Brands And Life

Chris Norton 47:42

charity as well, which is amazing. I mean, I've got my my son is um my son's confirmed ADHD, and my brother, my brother, my brother suffered from depression. And I've sadly sadly lost my brother to it. So um, I've been through the whole world of all of it. Um so mental health is something that is well versed in my family, uh, and I'm well aware of all of it. So the fact that you've doing something great like that is is really great. And the and it's to have somebody with your brain behind it driving it is you know, I think you know, you should be commended for that because every everyone can do something, and the fact that you've been driven for that is is is really amazing. Yeah, thank you.

Ben Branson 48:20

I I kind of I realize that actually all my heroes are are either believed to be or or are neurodivergent, you know, everything from Agatha Christie and Steve Jobs and Hans Christian Andersen and Spielberg and Alexander Graham Bell, and you know, we we owe so much to diversity of of mind, and we don't realize that you know the screens that we use and electricity, the music we listen to, sport we like watching, etc. So many of those people, it's a it's a natural evolution of the human brain, and we've over-medicalized it, and we've therefore made it stigmatized and and a deficiency. Um, and not that it's all it's all kind of it's not all wonderful, and we don't even realize as a society all of these bad things that are happening, we haven't joined them up yet. And I'm looking at this from a like blueprint strategic perspective of everyone's fighting all these individual battles and everything's fragmented, and we need to kind of unite and there'd be a focal point. And anyway, so I I'm driven to kind of I've got to see that work through, Chris. Like that, that's a yeah, it's a big focus. We've got a small team, um, but we've got some really exciting stuff coming up, which is is great. And we've got been lucky to sit down with neuroscientists and neurobiologists and like worldly autism experts, and amazing people with just amazing stories doing amazing things, and that feels like a real privilege to have access to that.

Chris Norton 50:15

The pattern recognition and stuff you were talking about is a prime autistic thing, isn't it? The some of the world's best minds have been able to see patterns where they're not because they've got the autistic it's uh it's it's a it's a talent as well. I mean, it's a lot of the um the secret services use use puzzle breakers, don't they? And a lot of them are autistic. So, I mean, the whole thing's fast, the whole that area is like you say, um, I'm not I I know about it, but I'm not an expert in it.

Ben Branson 50:44

But I've I've witnessed a lot of it, having been and if you are, you know, if you've got your own business, regardless of making food and drink stuff, you know, your your number one job is to be a detective, right? And you are I am constantly assimilating um clues, right? To understand if something's working or it's not working, or we need to change something. I'm constantly looking at signals. So when a guy I know in the drinks industry, you know, what's out to me earlier today and he sends me a photo of a tree because he's like, I was just thinking about you, Ben, and I saw this lovely tree. I know that what we're doing with silver, as wild as that sound, is working because people are seeing trees and they are thinking of silver. You know, and that that's a great kind of mental um connection to make. Um, but yeah, we've got so we've got big plans with hidden 20%. We are building this next maturation laboratory for silver in the United States um this year. So that'll be making liquid over there this year, and then season, which is our sort of cocktail bitters. So our play on Angostura um yeah, is already in, I think, nearly 10 markets, um, already in 500 amazing kind of listings here in the UK. So more growth um for that. Yeah, so every everything kind of needs to grow basically in its own sweet way.

Will Ockenden 52:22

And and um not not at the same rate as um the early days of um seedlit, because that's that sounds too stressful to me.

Ben Branson 52:29

No, yeah, I I I don't want to spend 200 days away from my kids in a year, right? I just I will not do that. Um yeah, I will not.

Will Ockenden 52:39

I love the balance you've got actually, you know, in and there's this kind of quite toxic hustle culture from the US, isn't there? You know, is is every single hour of every single day needs to be spent productively and hustling. But actually, you know, have having time to recharge and regenerate and think is so important as well, isn't it? And then just focusing yourself on those times are when you're in work when you can give 110%, and then the times when there's downtime. And I love that balance you've got.

Ben Branson 53:07

Yeah, thank you. It's it's taken a it's taken a it's taken a lot to get here, I think, and a lot of doing it the wrong way and learning the hard way, but and it and it feels it feels quite strict, you know, which doesn't always feel as relaxed and fluid and kind of carefree. Um but I'm learning that actually having you know I love routine and I love structure, and so having those in place, yeah, does serve me well. Um and it does it does actually focus me more when I am working on being efficient and effective with the work that I do in the time that I have. Um ruthlessly prioritizing, I bet. Yeah. Ben, that was absolutely amazing, fascinating story.

Chris Norton 54:01

Ben, how can how can people get hold of you if they need to, if they want to drop you a line and and and speak to you? What's the best way to get hold of you?

Ben Branson 54:07

Um, probably on LinkedIn,

Where To Find Ben Online

Ben Branson 54:08

actually. I'm I'm Ben Branson on LinkedIn, I'm Seedlip Ben on Instagram. Um, yeah, and our I guess our projects are the hidden 20%. You can find these all across you know social and LinkedIn the Hidden 20%, Silver, and SEASN.