Innocent - A Book About Innocent

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Published in Penguin Books 2009

Text copyright Dan Germain and Richard Reed, 2009
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The moral right of the authors has been asserted

Thanks mum

ISBN: 978-0-241-47876-9

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First of all, thanks for picking up this book. It contains the story of how we set up and have been running innocent, and the things weve learnt from doing so. Our mistakes, lessons and bright ideas are all in here, to help anyone wanting to start their own business or accelerate their existing one. The theory is to avoid the things we got wrong and maybe use some of the things we got right (and hopefully not the other way round).

Its been ten years since we, as a group of three friends, sold our first smoothies from a stall at a music festival in west London. Over that period, the business has grown to have a turnover of more than 100 million and our drinks are now sold in over 8000 outlets across 13 different countries in Europe. We can honestly say it has been the hardest thing we have ever done we faced rejection from the whole investment community and the entire food and drink industry. It has taken its toll emotionally, physically and personally. There have been periods of hot sweaty panic, despondency and sheer exhaustion.

But no matter how tough its been, no matter how many times weve been told no and it wont work, not for one second has any of us regretted that moment in August 1998 when we resigned from our jobs to set up innocent full time. Since that moment it has been, and continues to be, the most exhilarating, life-enhancing ride, and were extremely grateful to all the people drinkers, retailers, suppliers and team members who help make innocent possible.

If youre thinking of setting up your own business, we couldnt recommend it highly enough.

And hopefully, in some small way, this book will help.

Good luck.

Its difficult to know whether entrepreneurs are born or made, but each of us showed signs of having entrepreneurship in our blood from an early age. By age 11 we were all separately embarking on our first business ventures: Adam was doing his classmates Maths homework in return for cash, Jon was in detention for selling bangers and cigarette lighters hed acquired on a day trip to Calais, and Richard had a nice sideline trading Smurf stickers.

This common entrepreneurial trait was something we discovered when we first met at university, bonding over a shared desire to improve the night life options in Cambridge, which at that time was not going to be difficult. Asking around, we knew there were people (like us) that wanted an alternative to drinking beer and singing rugby songs in the college bar. So we decided to start organising dance events.

Between the three of us there was a clear division of labour: Adam and Richard would DJ and promote the nights; and Jon, the only person in the college with a computer in his room, would design the flyers and posters.

We had the most fun with a fortnightly house night called Please, which became so popular the college authorities eventually shut it down. Still, we got to keep the decks in our room, and it allowed us to offer budding female DJs late-night DJ lessons back at our place.

The success of Please taught us several things:

1. Where theres an unmet need, theres an opportunity
2. It was possible to start something successful from scratch with no experience
3. We enjoyed working together and made a good team
4. The DJ lessons tactic didnt work; back in our rooms, the name Please became all too appropriate

Those first three points really resonated with us, and came to form the basis of a conversation that we would have many times over the coming years; namely, wouldnt it be great if one day we set up a business together?

Certainly, the idea of avoiding a regular job appealed. But when college ended, we found ourselves taking the safer option of going to work in established companies. Adam went to McKinsey, the management consultancy, and then Virgin Cola; Jon chose Bain, another consultancy, and Richard went into advertising. Throughout these early years, we continued to share houses, meet for drinks most weekends and go on holidays with each other. And one thing remained constant: the conversation about wanting to set up a business together.

Four years later, driving through Switzerland to the resort of Davos for a snowboarding weekend, the topic was raised yet again. One of us said simply, We either have to stop talking about this, or get on with it, otherwise well drive ourselves nuts. So on that trip we made a simple commitment to each other: by the end of the weekend either we would come up with a business idea that we were excited by, or we would drop the topic for good.

To come up with an idea, we looked for areas where we could identify a problem, and then solve it; to follow the need as we now call it. And we wanted something we could be proud of, something in addition to the pursuit of money. So we set ourselves the challenge of coming up with an idea that would make life a little bit better and a little bit easier. A thought that played to both our altruistic and our lazy sides.

The first idea that we came up with was the amazing Electric Bath. It scored points for originality, if nothing else. This was a bath that would fill itself to a pre-designated temperature and pre-designated level all at the touch of a button. Bath time would be revolutionised. As the marketing guy, Richard was excited about the consumer benefit: no more water that was too hot or cold, no more baths that overflowed. As the commercial guy, Adam was excited about the size of the market: we could sell it into hotel chains around the world. But it was Jon, the one who had done the degree in engineering at Cambridge, who was really champing at the bit; this was the perfect opportunity to validate his geeky degree course, and he enthusiastically outlined complicated plans of how the bath would work.

Later on that evening, over beers in a bar, it finally dawned on us that we had missed a small design flaw the central idea featured water and electricity in close proximity to each other. Rather than make life easier and better for people, we were likely to be making their lives shorter. Not good.