The Tech Stack of a Beauty Retail Giant: A Deep Dive

Our guest this week is Rakesh Aggarwal, the visionary owner of beauty giant Escentual.com. He joins us to share his insights into the world of technology and its intersection with the beauty industry.

The high-end online beauty retailer, which stocks brands including Burberry, Clarins and Dior is a family-grown business, launched by Rakesh Aggarwal more than 20 years ago as an online arm of his father Raj‘s chain of pharmacies in and around Cardiff.

From humble beginnings in his parents' garage to riding the dot-com boom wave, Rakesh's journey is a testament to grit, entrepreneurial spirit, and a visionary approach. This episode is a masterclass in brand storytelling, purpose-driven retail, and navigating the challenging terrains of securing funding rounds that could potentially affect company culture.

During the conversation, Rakesh shares his experiences as a business owner and the tech stack that has driven the business to a multi-million-pound turnover. Learn how to make informed tech investments that promise a significant ROI, and how to avoid some of the common pitfalls of adopting technology.
 
 He also discusses the challenges he has faced with adopting technology and the importance of renewing and updating your tech stack to stay ahead in today's rapidly evolving landscape.

The beauty industry is a dynamic space where trends and consumer preferences change rapidly. Escentual's ability to bridge the gap between technology innovation and customer demands has been the core ingredient of its success; Rakesh’s story provides valuable insights that can inspire businesses and drive meaningful success.

Lastly, he shares his insights on how to retain employees with a clear vision and decision-making autonomy. This episode is a must-listen if you're passionate about e-commerce, entrepreneurship, and technology that makes a difference!

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Transcript

Caroline Baldwin: 0:02

Hello and welcome to Retails. I'm Caroline Baldwin and this week I sat down with Rakesh Agarwal. He is the founder of an e-commerce beauty brand called Essential, which started in his parents' garage way back in 2000s and rode on that dot com boom. He talks to me about standing out in a crowded marketplace, brand storytelling and the importance of purpose driven retail. He also really opened up on whether or not to go for that next round of funding to really make his business boom and how that may or may not impact his company and the culture that he has created today. So I hope you enjoy this one from Bright Pill. This is Retails.

VO: 0:46

Welcome to Retails e-commerce growth stories, when we unveil captivating tales of triumph, word earned lessons and the secrets to success in retail and e-commerce. Join us as we sit down with e-commerce titans, disruptive challenger brands and industry experts to explore winning strategies, market and leadership insights, and future shaping trends and innovations. From AI to venture capital, global expansion to automation these powerful conversations will fuel your growth trajectory. We believe every story contains valuable lessons. Retails is your ultimate destination to uncover them. Now to our host, Caroline Baldwin.

Caroline Baldwin: 1:31

My guest today is Rakesh Agarwal. He is the founder of Essential, an e-commerce beauty brand, sometimes dubbed as the Amazon of online beauty. He started his business in his parents' garage back in 2000 and it grew into an incredible e-commerce platform. Rakesh has reshaped the way people shop for beauty products online, achieving an impressive turnover of 23 million in 2020. He also spearheaded the Sun Poverty campaign, which has made a lasting impact on the sector, and I'm sure we'll hear a little bit about in a moment. Rakesh, welcome to Retails. How are you today? Very well.

Rakesh Aggarwal: 2:06

Thank you for having me on this show.

Caroline Baldwin: 2:08

Thank you for joining us. So, yes, maybe start by telling our audience a little bit about you and your business.

Rakesh Aggarwal: 2:14

I'm Rakesh. I started this online beauty retailer just over 20 years ago now. We specialise in the premium end of the beauty market, predominantly brands which you'd find in a good department store or which we describe as available in selective retailing. So we focus on the global premium beauty brands and make them available and accessible to the whole of the UK.

Caroline Baldwin: 2:41

And you started this in your parents' garage. That's a kind of classic start-up story that everyone loves to hear. Tell us a little bit about that and how much change you've seen in the sector over that period of time.

Rakesh Aggarwal: 2:54

Yes, so yeah, classic story. I actually turned back to Cardiff to do my Masters in Business Admin in Cardiff University. During an informal family event I ran into somebody who was building a website for a mobile phone company. He wasn't particularly kind of yeah, he was technical and he was doing complete science at the time and he was first he commenced platform and it sort of sparked an idea. I thought, well, you know, it was the kind of start of the dot-com boom and it sparked the idea that you know, this is a great sector and it would be great to have a platform where we could sell these kind of products online and make them available. Me and him went on a course in Reading for four days, I think it yeah, four nights, five days learned to code. So I learned to code for the first time and we built our first website Incredible, you know, took about three months to. The hardest part was populating it with kind of information and etc. But yeah, it was a long journey.

Rakesh Aggarwal: 4:04

Things have changed dramatically over the time. My role has changed very much over the time, from being very much hands-on to being the person that literally would code the website in the mornings or update product information on the website to taking the orders, hacking them, putting them in envelopes, putting a raw mail sack over my shoulder and driving down to the raw mail depot. So those were the kind of days initially. We grew out of the garage and a small office space, started increasing the size of the team. And I guess nowadays I guess my role is changed significantly. I see myself kind of as a person that fills the gaps in between the teams. So I might age to their mind, but my role is to be the glue. Of course I hold it all together.

Caroline Baldwin: 4:55

And the industry has changed so much as well. I'm just thinking, you know, back in the dot-com boom you'd have beauty products online and people might know their beauty product that they use and they know the colour of the foundation or the smell of the perfume that they like and they can replenish it via you. But it's only been what in the past five, six, seven years, where you've got things like augmented reality to help you try new products and merchandising, and even the department stores have started to change how they merchandise beauty, away from brands to kind of product-led. It's a fascinating industry that's gone through so much change. How have you managed to keep up with that customer change?

Rakesh Aggarwal: 5:33

Yes, it's been a tremendous change. When we first started, it was predominantly about giving access to products that people may not have had. So if you're in the upper Hebrides or, I don't know, if you're in a small village quite far away from a good department store, you weren't able to access these premium brands, but you still maybe Red Vogue and still had a desire and aspiration to have these brands. So that was kind of where we started. A lot of our initial business and a lot of our initial customers were people looking for things they couldn't find locally. Also, they were also looking for things that potentially were discontinued or with department stores' shelf space reductions, so they weren't available. So I think that was where it started. Also, I think we found that the customers were very much single brand focused, so we would have a customer who was very loyal to a single brand and would buy multiple products from that brand, be they skincare, the whole regime. That has changed dramatically over the years, especially in the UK.

Caroline Baldwin: 6:38

It's so interesting, isn't it? You see, the beauty departments. You know you'd have the Clinique counter or the Dior counter and now, even just thinking, things like Beauty Pie and such have really opened it up and made people not be so brown loyal. Has that been helpful for your business or, more difficult?

Rakesh Aggarwal: 6:53

Well, it's helpful in lots of ways because I think what is focused on is heroes, so every brand is focused on their hero products and their products which have a point of difference or uniqueness in the marketplace.

Rakesh Aggarwal: 7:06

The UK is specifically a very, very different market to most in the world. The beauty consumers in the UK are very much what we call pro consumers. They're very well informed, they're very well educated, they're very much social in terms of their influence by social media, dramatically, and eunice, whereas in other parts of Europe beauty consumers are a lot more loyal. They're beauty consumers and they are really, really focused on what is the latest and greatest, and I think it's a kind of a vicious circle. The media are always wanting to talk about the latest and greatest and obviously they're looking to, I suppose, explain their expertise and introduce products that people aren't aware of, and then that feeds into the consumers being a trialing. And I think the access then, because the beauty market is so mature in the UK, then the access to all that kind of new product, especially online, because online market in the UK is much, much more significant than it is in most countries.

Caroline Baldwin: 8:15

So give us an idea of that market then and where you kind of fit into it. That would be really useful.

Rakesh Aggarwal: 8:19

Yeah, I mean the estimates now are online place approximately between 36 to 40% of UK beauty sales, whereas I suppose in most countries it's still in the mid-20s, so it's a significantly stronger. We specialize in a very specific part of the beauty market which we describe as a selective beauty, selective distribution part, which is a kind of very much more premium end of the beauty market. And we will, we are. The data shows that we're normally about 12 to 14% of that selective distribution piece. So in terms of the whole beauty market that might potentially we go down to single digits. But in terms of the space that we're focused on, yeah, it's a very small space with obviously quite high barriers to entry. The brands are obviously very protective of their brand imagery and obviously they're global brands who are spending billions on marketing and promoting their brand. So I think they're very careful about the last mile retailer. They, they, they entrust, yeah, of course, brand and that kind of experience to the end customer.

Caroline Baldwin: 9:34

Which is quite unusual. Really, in other parts of retail that's not really the case. People be like take my products and sell them, but you know you're having to almost convince them to work with you. That's, that's quite a thing to explain to them. You know that you're trust, they can trust you with their products, and tell me, how do you? It's a small market but it it's still quite crowded within that, within that space, it's quite narrow, isn't it? I suppose how do you stand out next to some of your competitors? Just thinking, especially in the last few years, there's been quite a few that have popped up.

Rakesh Aggarwal: 10:04

Yeah, I think I mean to be honest, you know, I think it's the standard retail disciplines. I think you know the standard retail disciplines are caring for customer. Attention to detail is our big focus. So we know we only have the single one chance to acquire a customer and please that customer. So we, you know, attention to detail, interest from the product imagery to the product title, to the weight of the product, to the size of you know that is crucial for us. So it's not relying on third party datasets and actually physically checking and Cucing every product that comes into our business. So I think that's a huge focus for us.

Rakesh Aggarwal: 10:44

Obviously, the standard retail disciplines are having the right product at the right time and the right quantities. You know Supply chain is hugely important and ensuring that we have invested in the right depths of stock and fortunately, being a privately owned company, we can and we have, you know, probably over significantly invested in in the depth of our stock range. Then the last part is the experts we have in the business. You know, and a lot of the people in my business are at least, I'd say the average is 12 years longevity and most are at least 10 years. So of the people who are especially the people who are kind of customer facing and they are Beauty passionate experts through and through, regardless of what role. So you'll have somebody, you know, in what maybe described a technical role, but I tell you that's probably one of our amazing fragrance experts who would, who will be able to advise and Discuss fragrance, you know, till three, four in the morning, I think. That's what you know.

Rakesh Aggarwal: 11:46

I think we're really fortunate to be in a vertical which is so exciting. It's so much newness and so much storytelling. The brands all have a story, they all have a history, they all have a heritage, which makes it really an easy job for us to kind of Express that to our customers. So we know, when we talk about being a good beauty retailer, about being a good curator, our job, our job is to make sure you know there's a thousand mascaras out there. Our job is trying work, using our content and using our Whatever mechanics we can to make sure the person gets the right mascara for them at the right time, not necessarily which you know. So, regardless of price points, and that way is, you know, help that journey because there is a mind field beauty retailing and the beauty product market. You know it is huge, it really is, and I remember at a conference years ago Someone saying you know, you can be an expert in all things beauty.

Caroline Baldwin: 12:37

You can be that person that reads, reads, vogue and all the beauty mags, or you can just be. The majority of consumers are actually not that expert. They might be stuck in that same brand, and being able to Advise and encourage, put somebody to spend potentially a significant amount of money on a new brand is quite, quite a challenge, and over the course of this podcast, you know we're hearing this Reoccurring theme when it comes to storytelling, especially getting your brand across in in when you know e-commerce is exploding. There's new, what new websites popping up all the time, so it's really interesting to hear that you're you're leaning into that as well. What I'd love to ask you about is you talked a little bit about inventory and making sure that you're all hot on that area of the world. Are you using any technologies at all to make sure that your inventory management is up to scratch? And how about your tech stack? Let's have a little chat about that.

Rakesh Aggarwal: 13:27

Yeah, so I guess being homegrown, and so our tech stack is kind of quite diverse.

Rakesh Aggarwal: 13:35

I guess we use what we describe as whatever products fits Fit for purpose products, and often that could end up being Arranged from Excel sheets To kind of purpose built product, and most have been built in-house. We have what we suppose cross-functional training, where people are Support each other in different teams in terms of how to build small apps or how to build Automation in. So we kind of hopefully Build build learnings from each other's teams in terms of how best to kind of manipulate data, how best to kind of store data, how best to kind of Formate. Insights in the next steps are obviously people in the business are starting to use kind of AI and all those kind of great tools are out there and start sort of being able to analyze bigger data sets and we can do human yeah.

Caroline Baldwin: 14:31

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Caroline Baldwin: 15:13

It's really great that you mentioned that. Obviously, a lot of your team or 10, 12 years into that career with you, which is such a testament to you as a business, is that been helpful in terms of homegrown technology as well? I always always think of the phrase legacy spaghetti when it comes to Building your own technology from the ground up and this there's nightmare or somebody. Somebody owns this piece of technology, but then you know their time with it, with the company ends and they leave and nobody knows how to use it. Have you ever had any occasions where that's happened and how have you overcome that?

Rakesh Aggarwal: 15:44

Yeah, you know. I think you know, as with anything we have, everybody has an element of what they call technical debt I think there's another terminology for it and yeah, we currently have a tech team working through. That I suppose describing what they describe as we platforming. But I'm really conscious that the tech is working. We have orders coming through the doors, the customers are happy, so you know it does work. So I think you know we're not about to throw away. You know, throw the water at the bath for the sake of change.

VO: 16:17

Yeah, it's very true.

Rakesh Aggarwal: 16:19

So I think, yeah, no, there is. You know, there is modernization in every business that needs to happen. In terms of technology, I think, kind of the new kind of elements of no code or low code, the new integrations of AI. You know, even our technical people who are kind of software developers and system architects, are using kind of these new tools to even write the code that they're writing. I think, obviously, being, I suppose, a business owner and a sole business owner with kind of you know, no external parties, you do. I suppose this is probably a control thing.

Rakesh Aggarwal: 16:55

It's quite nice to own your own technology rather than be reliant on third parties.

Rakesh Aggarwal: 17:01

It's often been third parties in the past that you know, let us down, or you know, be a carrier, or be even you know someone digging up the road and severing our lease line, or you know, it always seems to be, you know, yeah, it always seems to be kind of more.

Rakesh Aggarwal: 17:19

Yes, we do have challenges and we are going through a process of renewing or updating our technology, but yeah, I think I think also, I suppose what it does do, it does force you when you have it, it does force you only to do things which are actually really really business crucial or customer crucial. I think you can get very I think it's. You know, you can go to these conferences and you can see a lot of technology and it's very easy. You know, I personally do it as well. You get excited, I want to implement that and then, you know, sometimes having constraints around technology actually forces you to kind of be very focused on only implementing what. Yeah, I suppose we know that. Yeah, what bubbles up to the surface of being the most important thing to be doing.

Caroline Baldwin: 18:08

Investing in the right thing and making sure that that investment is, you know, is spent well and also you can fail fast and be agile, move on all those kinds of all those kinds of things. I completely understand. How do you imagine you're going to those trade shows? What do you kind of go with? A bit of a shopping list, or is it more of an inspiration? When you go there, how do you look to buy and invest new technology? Is it more right, this solution we need to find something to it or is it more from the inspiration side?

Rakesh Aggarwal: 18:35

Yeah, both of these, yeah, so sometimes obviously we've got areas which we know we could improve, where you know they may be lacking efficiency or, but, yes, always nice to see how other people have solved. I think we all most of us have the same problems. So it's always interesting to see what solutions other providers have thought about or what they've addressed. And I think the other thing is it's also interesting to see potentially what problems that you don't even realize that are, or potentials more than more opportunities. So, yeah, I think that's always interesting to see. You know, I think obviously most products have had a development and there is a core idea of why that product lives in the marketplace and what it's there to do. So I think, and I'm really pleased now, that there seem to be a lot more, rather than these big kind of monolith type products which are trying to serve every man and every purpose, I think that people are much more focused on kind of smaller products which do one particular purpose very, very well.

Caroline Baldwin: 19:38

Yeah, no, that's very true. And which part of the business do you think has been most dependent on the technology side of things going forward? Obviously your tech-led business. That's quite a wide area, but you know, if you really narrowed it down, what's the main area?

Rakesh Aggarwal: 19:53

I think, obviously, operational efficiency being an online retailer margins, as all online retailers will know and margins are very tight, you know, and costs are continuing to increase.

Rakesh Aggarwal: 20:04

I think focusing on operational efficiency be that kind of warehousing, order management, shipping integrations I think both ads are really crucial for the cost base, but also really crucial for the customer-exerves experience. So having a really strong operational tech stack that ensures that when we show that this 12, something in stock on the website, that is absolutely accurate in terms of what's physically in the building, so that the customer is a disappointed customer, and then the ability to kind of receive an order, process it pick, pack and dispatch it within sort of 20 to 40 minutes, is really crucial for us. I think that helps, especially when you're not a high street brand. I think there's a trust element. You need to get the customer over on placing their first order with you and I think you know all those little bits about dispatching something very quickly, being accurate with your stock levels are all feeding to that kind of or reduce what I was calling the dissonance that you could feel after you place the order.

Caroline Baldwin: 21:18

So let's talk a bit more about those customers. What has been the most effective way of attracting new customers to your brand in recent years?

Rakesh Aggarwal: 21:26

So I think a number of ways, I think. First, our first one is loyalty. We've always had a strong loyalty scheme which rewards our customers with points which they can then redeem against further future purchase. There's been an increasing focus over the last few years but it's been really popular with our audience and it's really a very simple scheme. You know, it's no complications around, kind of minimum reviditions, and I think that's been a real kind of key part of our business.

Rakesh Aggarwal: 21:55

Obviously, again, being a small business, I think we've been really focused on customer retention rather than acquisition. Yes, but in terms of customer acquisition, I think it's about personally, I suppose we've used public relations, so we've used our experts in-house to build our brand name and our reputation with the consumers. So being able to comment, being insightful, being there to suggest and recommend to both journalistic influencers and direct to consumers, I think that's great. Obviously, we've used the kind of standard digital marketing tactics of you know search, you know shopping, social media, but social media more on the retargeting side of things rather than the kind of initial acquisition side.

Caroline Baldwin: 22:41

It sounds like you've built some really strong communities within your own company as well. Let's talk a little bit more about the talent. Why do you think people in your business are staying with you for such a long time?

Rakesh Aggarwal: 22:52

Oh gosh, that's a question, isn't it? I think we're very lucky in terms of our geographics. I think we're really fortunate to be based and headquarters in Cardiff and Wales. I think that allows us a huge talent pool from the local universities. So we've got two great universities in the city which kind of are our feeders. So most of our kind of temporary workers are working our operations, our university students doing four hour shifts outside of the lectures, etc. And it's been a great predominant feeder into other parts of the business.

Rakesh Aggarwal: 23:25

You find people doing an English degree while they're in university and then doing a shift in the operations and then identifying their work ethic, identifying their commitment and then moving them into a communications role and, I think, giving people that ownership and trust early in their careers, I suppose, and valuing their opinion, because at the end of the day, a lot of our consumers are in that age group. Our predominant consumers are 22 to 36. So there are graduates or young professionals. So I think having that match, I think being exciting and growing, is interesting. I think people always want to be in part of something which is moving.

Rakesh Aggarwal: 24:15

I suppose having, I would hope, a clear vision of where we are and who we are and what makes us different and what we stand for. If that makes sense and, I suppose, less being driven by, I suppose, need for market share or need for, I suppose, appeasing shareholders or external bodies or even the bank, you know us to stand in our own feet and ability for us to kind of make those decisions. It's been great. I think that helped with the longevity. I think, yeah, from my perspective it's kind of, you know, it's giving people that authority early on, giving them high expectation, but also giving it's kind of double-edged sword in a high expectation. But then, you know, at high level autonomy, you know they're the experts, they're much cleverer, much brighter, much harder working than I am. So you know.

Caroline Baldwin: 25:09

That age group as well. I just find really fascinating. You know, the younger side of the workforce. They align themselves with businesses that have got strong CSER as well, which I'm just thinking that. Does that play a role into the purpose-driven side of the business? You know, let's talk a little bit about the Sun Poverty campaign. You know this is a campaign that's really helping to prevent skin cancer. I mean, you'll tell the story a lot better than me. Tell our audience a little bit about that. I'd be intrigued to know if some of your workforce are aligning with you because of this purpose-driven activity that you're pushing.

Rakesh Aggarwal: 25:44

Yeah, I hope so, I think you know. I think that the whole point is that you know, as with anybody, you know, as a human, as an individual and as an organisation, we want to do good, we want to have a positive impact in where we can. So I think it was a really very interesting. It started off a very small conversation with, you know, with Chelsea, who became very much kind of passionate about Suncare and, you know, very educated, and we realised what we kind of were discussing, you know, very much over a coffee was our memories of when we were our childhood, you know, being on that summer sports day and no one even thought of applying sunscreen.

VO: 26:27

So true.

Rakesh Aggarwal: 26:29

No one even thought of a hat or even a bezebo, which is you know it was. You know we were sat all day long in the beaming sun and running around. It was very enjoyable, but no one but. And then, when we were shared the statistics about the majority of you know, preventable skin cancers, and you know have started their origins in before the age of 18.

Rakesh Aggarwal: 26:54

We thought, ok so then, when we talked about then, the people didn't. You know, the opposite solution is sunscreen, but there's going to be there's a lot of people who go to school, who are struggling to have breakfast, struggling to even, you know, have a good lunch, and in those families we thought, you know, sunscreen is going to be quite a low priority in their, in their pecking order of things to, you know, to think, to think about. So, yeah, so our approach was you know, we have some partners, we have some expertise in this area. How can we get, actually make an impact? You know, even if we could, if we can prevent one person from having, you know, a preventable skin, that is that, you know, that's a huge thing for me, you know, hopefully we've prevented more. But you know what, you know, even if it was one person that we, you know, prevented from that suffering or, you know, or even a fatality, yeah, so what we decided to do, with work with some of our partners, we developed a sunscreen which we spent a bit of time working through, because I've got children.

Rakesh Aggarwal: 27:54

So we kind of developed this little sunscreen which we thought would be perfect for children, like we've got a little area where they can write their name on it so they don't lose it when they go to school. There's a little clip they can put on their school bag. It's lightweight, so it's not kind of you know it's, and the formulation was kind of perfect. So it kind of absorbs well, no white cast etc. And it's actually the same formulation the Australian government use in their public health drives. So so, yeah, we've got that.

Rakesh Aggarwal: 28:23

So what we decided, so what we were able to do then is kind of corral our teams, corral our partners to find ways of producing the product and then distributing it, using our charity partners, to the right people, so that you know during during the year that children that may not have had access to sunscreen now do you know, also focusing predominantly on families that are eligible for free school meals. But yeah, and then there's that's the kind of first part of it, that's a practical part of the campaign I put the other part of the campaign, which is now got some sort of more political support brand, is abolishing the VAT on children's green, so that again, that makes the price more accessible. So you know, if you are making those decisions, people can either buy a better quality one that they may and they may have wanted to, or may now be able to, afford something that they weren't able to afford.

Caroline Baldwin: 29:18

That's so important and really, really worthy cause there. Rakesh, well done on spearheading that. So, as a self funded bootstrap business, you've done so well to grow to your current size and to scale to become this, this, this huge business. Give us an idea of, kind of like, where you are in that, your revenue stats and how you've managed to get there without any external funding.

Rakesh Aggarwal: 29:42

Yeah, I think okay. So you know, we're in the circle of 30 million turnover at the moment. As I said, we're in this, in the vertical that we measure, or, you know, in premium beauty we're, we're about 12% of the market share. So, in terms of how we got to this size, in terms of without needing external funding, I suppose because being cautious and organic, slow growth, you know being very careful about acquiring customers effectively and retaining them.

Rakesh Aggarwal: 30:09

You know I still have customers that I used to answer the phone to 20 something years ago. They're still buying from us once a year every Christmas Excellent. And fortunately that person still got my phone number, my mobile number, in place and won't place the order on the website but just brings me up every Christmas. But but it's lovely to have that, that loyalty of customers. You know 40% of our, 40% of our orders every day are from existing customers. So it's great to be that kind of, to have that kind of slow, organic growth. I think we'd be very careful about how we've invested. Obviously, you know we have this approach about even headcount. Every time we employ someone, we consider it that we're going to be pulling that person or we do the scenario that we employ that person for the rest of our lives and their lives. So you know, we kind of budget that in and make sure that we're sustainable.

Caroline Baldwin: 31:00

So you're at this stage at the moment, which you've become very organically, got to that circa 30 million revenue. What is the next stage and what is the next stage to become that really big business, that 100 million revenue? Do you want to get to that stage even, or are you quite happy where you are now? And if you do want to get to that stage, what are you hoping to do to achieve that?

Rakesh Aggarwal: 31:22

Yeah, no, I think you know growth is always important. You know, I think it's, you know it's. Yeah, it is an interesting space. I think there's very few organizations, when we look around the space, who are in that kind of midpoint between the sort of 1300. I think there's a lot of you know, household names that have sort of you know established themselves and you know, in this you know over 100, 150 million mark in the UK. Yeah, I think that's pretty.

Rakesh Aggarwal: 31:50

It's a difficult question that we ponder internally what does it take? What structures do we need? What, again, what technologies do we need to enable us to do that? Transition it? Yeah, it does. It need an external investment. Is that where you know it is something that can't be done? You know incremental growth can't, is too slow to get you to that point.

Rakesh Aggarwal: 32:16

Because you know, if you talk to kind of some people around the DTC beauty brands, a lot of it's about velocity. You know you need to make your DTC brand work. You need a certain, you need to get to 10 million within year, one or year. Otherwise you know you're not going to have the traction and you're not going to have that kind of momentum that you need to kind of cut through, cut through all the kind of, I suppose, cut through, cut through all the gray, you know, cut through all the voice. There's so much, there's so many retailers, there's so many brands. So, yeah, it's an interesting conversation. We ponder it constantly. We ponder how it would change our culture, you know, how it would change it from like what we just still describe as an independence, more family business, you know, to maybe, you know, a corporate. And what does that? What culturally do that mean? Does that mean we have to make different types of decisions internally? Does that mean we, you know, we have to be more inflexible?

Caroline Baldwin: 33:16

Yes.

Rakesh Aggarwal: 33:18

Yeah, so it's an. You know, it is probably something we we we would love to learn from the experience of others who've done it. They don't seem to be many. They seem to be people who have really shot into the stratosphere with their bit. Yeah.

Caroline Baldwin: 33:34

Rather than the slow burn. It's always the like the startup that's come out of nowhere and like really surprised people rather than like, yeah, how do you slowly gets that point? So what, under what circumstances do you think you might try and get some maybe potentially private equity investments? And, and yeah, what might make you make that decision?

Rakesh Aggarwal: 33:52

I guess it'd be for the good of the business If it felt that investment would, I suppose, help us increase our brand awareness.

Rakesh Aggarwal: 34:00

I suppose, share how good we are to more people, you know, that's, that's the key, isn't it really? You know, we want, we want more people to know how great our businesses and how great the people are in our business are. So if that kind of investment would help, I suppose it helped the de-risking of, you know, maybe larger marketing campaigns or learn from others, experience and you know how you know. You know I think there's some really great people who've got, you know, great models in terms of, you know, customer acquisition and how they can expand to acquire customers and long lifetime value. You know, but it is. Yeah, I suppose our biggest worry is what that would mean and what that would mean to our decision making. You know, would we make decisions which potentially aren't right for us in the long term because we have pressures to achieve targets or goals? I think we're very fortunate at the moment that we kind of what we describe as we will we try to make a good decision.

Caroline Baldwin: 34:58

Yeah, and you have to relinquish a little bit that control at that point and at the minute, everything's down to your decisions. But yeah, external. Then there's a few extra questions to be answered, I suppose, and other people to be answered to.

Rakesh Aggarwal: 35:10

Yeah, I think the expertise will be nice, a bit of support, interesting mentorship. Maybe you know, first time I've done this. I've never done it before and none of us have. So a lot of us in this business are kind of, as you said, homegrown. So no one's we, you know we haven't. It's not the second time round, or it's not the we're not learning. We're kind of learning as we go.

Caroline Baldwin: 35:31

Yeah, well, watch this space. So we're coming to the end of our conversation. Before we get to the quick fire round, which I will end on in a moment, I just want to get your, get your understanding of you know what. Just take a moment to think about where you've gone from the pet, your parents' garage, to a e-commerce brand which is really truly inspiring, over the last over 20 years. Is is just a fantastic story, but what advice would you give any budding entrepreneurs out there that are dreaming of similar success?

Rakesh Aggarwal: 36:01

I think believing yourself, I think tenacity, I think you really have to you really consistency, tenacity and resilience.

Rakesh Aggarwal: 36:07

I think you really, honestly, you can have days which are great and days which are which are not so great, but I think having that belief that you are doing a good job, that you have a point of difference and you're satisfying in, you know, a need, I think you know, if you maintain that core beliefs and I think you can keep driving through it, a self belief will, I think is the key to driving forward, because I think it's very easy to give up and I think for me it's from my perspective and talking to my team member it's really even identifying that every day, identifying that small win. Everybody wants to come to work and want to go home and feel that had an impact or something good. So, just literally, even if it's just anything, but just trying to identify what before you go home, what was the small win I had today? Forget all the other bits. What was the win?

Rakesh Aggarwal: 37:01

I answered an email I'd been putting off for two days, or anything. It could be the smallest thing, but I just think. I think everyone needs to go home with a little win.

Caroline Baldwin: 37:12

That is such great advice for just life really Like, what's that small win? Let's try and take some positivity out of today, even if it's been an absolute car crash. Rakesh, right, we're going to go into the quickfire round, so, as it sounds very quickfire, don't think too much about your answers, so I'll ease you in to begin with, are you a Netflix or a Disney Plus watcher?

Rakesh Aggarwal: 37:33

Netflix.

Caroline Baldwin: 37:34

What do you say do to stay mentally and physically fit?

Rakesh Aggarwal: 37:39

I do a bit of exercise Swimming is my one-on-one and mentally self-reflection. So self-reflection is my thing. Some people might call it meditation, whatever you want to call it. Just a little bit of time in quiet and reflection.

Caroline Baldwin: 37:57

What's your Sunday morning guilty pleasure?

Rakesh Aggarwal: 38:00

A lion, a lion and a play with my four-year-old daughter that's the joys of my Sunday Excellent.

Caroline Baldwin: 38:09

And if you had five minutes with the Prime Minister, what would you ask from them? What?

Rakesh Aggarwal: 38:14

I ask for the Prime Minister. I would ask for as much as possible an even playing field for both homegrown brands and brands who are able to profit. Move between jurisdictions Got you.

Caroline Baldwin: 38:31

Very good one.

Rakesh Aggarwal: 38:32

How that would work, I'm not sure, but I would ask that people like the Amazons of the world, potentially who are able, through their structures, to move monies and profits to different lower-cost jurisdictions, to have even playing field for all of us.

Caroline Baldwin: 38:49

What is the one metric you advise retailers to obsess over? What would the one metric be that you would choose to obsess over?

Rakesh Aggarwal: 38:58

ROI, your cost literally. We're really old-fashioned retailers. Every one pound we spend we look for a 10-pounder revenue. And just keeping that really simple, just thinking about that constantly, do I need to? I'm a real believer. It's much easier to save a pound than it is to acquire 10 pounds.

Caroline Baldwin: 39:20

Another very wise one there. So, and lastly, what do you know today that you wish you'd known at the beginning of your career? Consistency pays off. Consistency pays off. Rakesh, it's been wonderful chatting to you today. Thank you so much for all your insight and I hope our audience enjoyed it just as much as I did. Thank you so much, it's fabulous.