Selling and marketing a superfood – with Simon Fineman – Haskapa

undefined: 00:00:08

Welcome to the Bring Your Product Ideas to Life podcast, practical advice and inspiration to help you create and sell your own physical products. Here's your host, Vicki Weinberg.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:00:22

My guest on the podcast today is Simon Fineman, together with his wife, Dr. Evie Kemp. Simon runs Haspaka selling nutritious products made from the little known but amazing little haskap berry.

undefined: 00:00:33

In a previous life, Simon ran a large timbering court importing company pioneering the use of sustainable timbers for industry and construction. A lifelong vegetarian. Simon is passionate about the environment and believes in the power of healthy eating in order to improve one's self and the world around us. I'm not sure if you've ever heard of a haskap berry. I certainly hadn't before. I, um, met Simon and I was really fascinated to learn about them and about their amazing properties and about the product that Simon and Evie together have created. This is an extremely interesting episode as all of our episodes are, and I really think you're going to enjoy what you're hearing about the haskap berry and some of the benefits of that as well as the product creation process. So I would love now to introduce you to Simon. Hello. Hi Simon. Thank you so much for being here.

Simon Fineman: 00:01:19

Hi Vicki. Nice to be here.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:01:22

So can we start with you, please give an introduction to yourself, your business, and what you sell.

Simon Fineman: 00:01:26

Okay. Well, um, I'm Simon. I am 62. I've been in business pretty much all my working career, but most of my, uh, I was in the timber industry, um, and uh, the timber industry led me into my current business, which is completely different. I sell haskap berry powder. And, um, it's freeze dried berry powder. And as I'm sure we we'll talk about in the next few minutes or whatever, the haskap berry is an extraordinary berry and, uh, my life nowadays is devoted to selling and marketing this product.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:02:13

Amazing. So actually let's start by talking about the haskap berry. Um, tell us, you know, why did you get interested in, in the berries and why they're so good for us? Because I know they are considered a super food. Is that right?

Simon Fineman: 00:02:25

Yeah, they're a super food, super berry. Uh, and why did I get interested in them? Well, um, it's a, it, it's probably a, um, a, a, an unusual route in, in the sense that I mentioned I was in the timber industry. I was very into sustainable forestry. I still am. And, uh, to that end, I, uh, managed to buy myself a small farm in. Um, I say a small farm. It was about 300 acres. And when I say a farm, that's what Canadians call a wood lot, and this was two hundred and eighty, two eighty acres of woodland and 20 acres of beautiful green fields.

undefined: 00:03:14

And my friends and I looked at those green fields and we thought, what waste? Nobody is farming these 20 acres of beautiful green fields. And we uh, literally went onto Google to look for an interesting crop and we found haskap berries. And we bought 100 bushes and planted them. I think it was about 2010, and we were so impressed with what we got the following year that we started to ramp up and that eventually grew into Haskapa, the business that I run nowadays.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:03:49

In a moment. Let's talk, we'll talk a little bit about that, Simon, about the evolution of Haskapa and, and you know, and where that took you. Um, but let's talk a bit about the haskap berry. Why are they so good for us?

Simon Fineman: 00:04:01

Well, they are, um, they're an arctic berry. They grow naturally in very cold northern climates and in order to survive in those kind of environments, the plant itself is extremely hardy because it, it's growing in, um, winters of minus who knows what, 20, 30. Um, and uh, therefore because it's such a hardy plant, it produces an extremely nutritious berry. This is my totally unscientific explanation. If you, if you want the real science, you have to go to my wife Evie, who's much cleverer and understands all the science. But I think in lay terms, um, this very hardy bush produces an incredibly nutritious berry.

undefined: 00:04:54

And what's amazing about the berry is it's a very deep red color. Um, and that's, uh, that color is associated with something called anthocyanins. And anthocyanins are the deep red colors that you find in fruit and vegetables. They're one extreme of the kind of eat the rainbow idea. Um, and, uh, the berry itself is packed full of, um, antioxidants and anthocyanins. It's got, um, three, three times the antioxidants of a blueberry and four times the anthocyanins. So it's, it's much more nutritious than a blueberry, and that's mainly because it's got a thick skin and it's got this deep red flesh all the way through. If you were to cut a blueberry in half, you'd see white flesh. And you are only really getting the antioxidant and the anthocyanin from the skin. Uh, but a haskap berry, if you cut it down the middle, it's deep colored all the way through. Uh, add to that, it, it's delicious. It tastes great. I mean, it's, it's the most berry thing that you'll ever eat. Um, and so at, there are occasionally people who don't like the flavor of berries, but most people, they just love it. They're knocked over.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:06:19

Thank you for the explanation because I'm not sure, um, how many people would've heard of the haskap berry. And so when you started growing them, did you have any idea about what the berry was and about all of its properties? Or were you just looking for something, you know, any sort of crop that might take?

Simon Fineman: 00:06:35

No, I think when we started growing it, we. We knew, like most people know that berries are good for you. Uh, but the truth is we didn't know any, I didn't know anything about the science. Um, and, uh, we just, uh, we, we kind of had a vague idea about this super berry status and we knew a little bit about the enhanced um, antioxidant, anthocyanins profile, but actually when we first started, Evie wasn't involved. We started to make things like jam and juice and we, we played on the, uh, great taste of the berry, assuming that we were producing nutritious jam and nutritious juice. And really it was only because, uh, Evie literally overheard repeated conversations I was having with my colleagues and she pointed out, look, if you are making jam and juice, you are adding tons of sugar and you are processing the berries, boiling them often for kind of, you know, in the case of jam for hours, she said there won't be much nutrient left in them. You can't claim that it's a really nutritious product. So, that kind of got Evie a bit engaged, which was a real blessing because her curiosity was kind of aroused as to how could we make this into something that genuinely was nutritious. And we started searching around for products that captured the nutritional value of berries. And we found, uh, bear in mind, we were in, uh, Nova Scotia, Canada We still, uh, the farm still is in Nova Scotia, Canada. Um, and we found in Newfoundland, uh, uh, both of these provinces are on the cold extreme east side, the Canadian coast. We found in Newfoundland a little factory that was making, uh, powdered fruits. So we commissioned them to make some haskap berry powder and they actually did, they did a pretty good job for us. Um, they didn't use freeze drying. They used a different technique, which I won't go into, but it really got Evie and I thinking that, you know, if we want to be a health brand, and we are talking about 10 years ago here, if we want to be a health brand. We can't be doing juice and we can't be doing jam. And uh, we did wine and gin, we did all sorts of products. We had a little farm shop and we, and we were selling good, good amounts of product, but we thought we couldn't be doing those things. We have to do something that's genuinely healthy. And, uh, we had a, uh, we had a great August one year where we started pushing the powder and we were selling a lot of it and this health line obviously, Uh, uh, chimed with certain customers. And, uh, then really the scene was set and Evie and I, Evie became much more involved in the business and it, it became totally focused. We dropped all the other products and we became totally focused on this health message because, um, oh, we are not allowed to make health claims, of course. Um, but. Uh, most people like, uh, like I did at the beginning, they understand that super berries are associated with a healthy diet.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:10:06

Thank you. And so at that point when you decided, okay, we're going to start a haskap Health brand and we're going to do something with this, um, what happened then? So did you have to do, sort of Go for a product development stage, um, to end up with the freeze dry powder that you have now?

Simon Fineman: 00:10:25

Well, um, a little bit, yes, but actually the, the, uh, the bigger issue for us was, um, a. Uh, our own people understanding what we were trying to do. And, uh, we were in, uh, we were based in the UK, the business was based in Canada and it was really, really difficult to uh, bring our staff who were working full time in Canada into the, uh, kind of ideology that Evie and I were taking on board about, uh, the health message. I haven't mentioned this, but you know, I know Vicki, but Evie's a doctor. So, um, uh, so eventually four or five years ago, we took quite a painful decision that you asked about product development. The product was kind of developed. We, we, we, we knew that freeze dried powder was the way forward. Uh, but we decided, um, four or five years ago that unless we started running the business ourselves at very close quarters, day to day, it was never going to succeed with the, uh, message that we wanted to convey, that we wanted to, uh, the brand that we wanted to promote. So at that point, we decided to move the whole business to the UK And, uh, that was an, an expensive and, um, and it was a, um, traumatic exercise, but it was really worth doing because it meant that we could work very, very, uh, uh, in a very focused way on building the brand around the product that we developed, in the way we wanted the brand. Uh, and, and, and that's pretty much essentially the brand you can see today.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:12:24

And had you already launched a product in the brands when you moved the operation to the UK?

Simon Fineman: 00:12:31

Yeah. Yes. Uh, not, not, not quite in the same format as it is now, but very similar. We decided when we got to the UK, when we got it back to the uk, we decided to, um, redesign the packaging. Um, and, uh, we relaunched the website. Uh, which were, um, big exercises. I mean, we're a very small business, you know, we've only ever been four or five people. We still are. Um, uh, but we, we, we got good people with us, you know, um, and they took it on board and, and we were able to do that. And ever since then, the business has been growing very nicely.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:13:14

So did you originally launch in Canada, um, or did you launch in the UK at the same time?

Simon Fineman: 00:13:20

No, we, we, uh, we originally launched in Canada, but in Canada the powder was only really one of a number of products, and, um, we just came to the realization that so long as it was, uh, sat on a shelf next to Haskapa Gin or Haskapa wine, or Haskapa, uh, jam. We also did, um, a, a chutney that was, it tasted great, but these weren't, these weren't healthy products. They, they were lovely products. They were delicatessen products, they were premium products. But it, it, we, we wanted to focus on something that we thought would be part of a healthy diet and, uh, the Canadian business in the Canadian. That was really only one small part of a bigger picture and we wanted it to be the main part.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:14:20

Yeah, that makes sense. And I can also see, I can, I, I can definitely see how it would've been a really painful process sort of moving the business to the UK, but I guess based on all that history you shared with us, I think that it does make sense.

Simon Fineman: 00:14:36

Uh, yeah, I mean, uh, look, looking back on it, um, I, I don't regret what we've, uh, what we've done. I think we did the right thing. It was tough at the time, uh, but I think it's really paid off since.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:14:51

So did that mean that production move to the UK, so, I mean, I know the berries are still grown in Nova Scotia, but does production move over?

Simon Fineman: 00:14:59

Well, one of the problems that we had in Canada, one of the uh, uh, perpetual problems we had in Canada was that we're a very small, almost cottage size business. And it was very difficult to persuade Canadian, uh, on, and let me say North American because the USA is involved in this as well. Uh, we. Factories to produce ti relatively tiny quantities that we needed. I mean, when we talk about tiny quantities, you know, we'll, we'll regularly process 10 or 15 tons of, uh, berries, uh, but to an American factory, and that includes Canada. Uh, that's a very small volume. And what we discovered was that there was also a very vibrant and interesting haskap berry and general berry industry in Poland. And Poland had a completely different attitude to small volumes. And we found factories in Poland where there were only too happy to take orders for 10 or 15 tons and so it was quite easy to switch production to Poland and Poland had the added advantage that there was a ready supply of organic berries in Poland, which we couldn't get in Canada. So we grow our own berries in Canada and uh, they're not certified organic, although I assure everybody and anybody that we are an all natural farm. We don't use chemicals on our farm. Um, but it, but, but, but in Poland, we're able to buy organic berries. So that gives us, uh, a nice second, uh, uh, kind of, uh, arm to the business so we can offer an organic and a, and a non-organic product.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:16:53

Oh, that's brilliant. And you mentioned as well that Poland, the haskap berry was more well known over there. So I wanted to talk a little bit about how you launched a product into different countries, because I assume that it's been different. You probably had a different experience in different countries based on whether they actually knew what haskap berry was, um, whether they're familiar with it. Um, can you talk a little bit about that, please?

Simon Fineman: 00:17:18

Sure. Well, we, we, uh, we sell really mainly in three countries, uh, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States. And, um, it actually, it's only in Canada where there's a significant awareness of haskap and even there, it's, it's not great. I think if you walked up to 20 people in Toronto and asked them what a haskap berry is, I, I'd be surprised if more than one or two of them knew, uh, but that's, that's a much, much bigger response than you'd get in London or, or any American city. It's a very niche product. It's a very special product, but there aren't that many haskap berries grown in the world. The country where they're best known is Japan, uh, because they were traditionally grown by the Ainu people of the island, the northern island of Japan, which is Hakaido. And so in Japan, they are quite well known, but they're really not well known. So it, that presents a really difficult challenge. Uh, how do you educate the consumer, um, uh, that you have a really new berry. Um, and it's not a berry that set, that keeps well as a fresh berry. So it has to be sold in a, uh, in a, in a, in a freeze dry format. Uh, so you are, you are also asking people to understand what to do with berry powder as opposed to berries. Everybody understands you buy fresh berries, you put them in a fruit salad, you eat them. Um, they don't necessarily understand what you do with powder. So the education part of, of our, uh, challenge is massive. Um, it's made easier in Canada when people have heard of haskap. Um, but it isn't easy wherever we are. It's always been, uh, tough. And actually the, um, the, the format that we find is easiest, um, in terms of selling the product is probably face to face in exhibitions where, uh, people, uh, get, the first thing we do is we say to people, do you eat berries? Say, yeah, we eat blueberries, say, have you tried a haskap berry? They go, oh, what's a haskap berry? And we, we show them what a haskap berry is, and we get them to taste the powder. And once they've tasted the powder, while people are generally knocked over by the flavor, and then it's relatively easy to, uh, sell them a pouch. And, and we have a customer.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:20:15

Yeah, that does, that does make sense because I think especially when it's something that's very unfamiliar, it's good for PPR to be able to see it and try it. So at these exhibitions, are you, are these, um, exhibitions where you're reaching consumers or, or more like trade events? Or are you doing a bit of both?

Simon Fineman: 00:20:31

Uh, well we do mostly consumer events. So we've done shows like, um, uh, uh, just the, and we've done, uh, uh, food festivals, uh, in November. We're doing the BBC Good Food Show at the NEC. Um, and, uh, we are also branching out next year in 2023 into, uh, sports exhibitions because, Um, there's a whole long story to tell you about how has it's clinically proven to, uh, help, uh, sports people with their e exercise endurance. You want me to tell you about that?

Vicki Weinberg: 00:21:16

Yeah, go for it. I'm in, I'm interested.

Simon Fineman: 00:21:18

Okay. So, uh, Evie being a doctor, uh, said early on, uh, in, in the evolution of our business, that we had to have clinical evidence that haskap was a healthy food. And, uh, to that end, we at clinic clinical trials of any product are extremely expensive, but we put the money together to do two clinical trials. The first one, which I won't talk much about was, um, was connected with cognition, uh, in the over 50 fives. And it was found, uh, that it, that eating haskap every day helped. People over 55 includes me with, uh, word recall. So it, it, it sharpens the brain a little bit and also it helps, uh, to, to reduce blood pressure a little. Um, and actually if I talk about the second study that partly explains the, uh, the first study as well in terms of how the berry works on the blood system. Uh, really I'm not the person to tell you all this Evie is, but I'm going to try in my amateur way. Uh, so the second, uh, trial we did was with Northumbria University and they set up student athletes running 5K and they fed some of them, um, um, haskap uh, about T two teaspoons every day and they fed some of them at placebo. And what they found was that those that had taken Haskapa were able to knock something like 21 seconds off their 5K run. Uh, which is for a runner, that's a big improvement. And it's all to do with, um, boy, I'm, I'm really not going to get into explaining the science because I'm just not a scientist, but it's all to do with, with the, with the way that the, um, the, the anthocyanins in the berry open up the blood vessels and get the blood flowing better around the body, and therefore get oxygen around the body and oxygen. That's why I said it's connected to the first study as well, because, um, it, the, the cognition study was all about oxygen getting to the brain. Uh, the, the, uh, the exercise study was all about oxygen, getting to the, um, uh, to the muscles. Uh, so both clinical trials really successful and have kind of given us a, a, a big leg up in terms of the identifying the markets we want to target. Uh, so runners are a really obvious target because if you can stand in front of a runner and say, Hey, you, you take this powder. And, uh, you've taken it Vicki, you'll hopefully testify that it's very tasty. Uh, you take this powder every day, two teaspoons a day. Take it with your yogurt. Take it with your breakfast cereal, put it in smoothies, have it on your fruit salad, whatever, and you'll run faster. Well, that sells it. It's a good, it's a good message. And, um, it, I'm a runner. I've been a runner all my life. I know it works because I've felt it's an impact on my own body, but we've never measured and nor will we. Um, but we have measured it at Northumbria University and there's a film kick knocking around, um, a YouTube video that's on our website that goes into much, much more, um, um, uh, detail than I possibly could about how it all happened.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:25:14

Oh, well, if you send me that link, we'll include that in the show notes for the episode. So anyone who wants to can go and have a look, yeah. But I think that was a very good explanation. Thank you. And then, yeah, I'm a runner as well, so I was, yeah, very interested in that. And so having the clinical trials done, I guess, does that, I know you still can't make health claims, but does having the clinical trials mean you can say this will help you run faster, for example, or this will help with cognitive recall in the over 50 fives. Can you make those claims now that you've had the trials done?

Simon Fineman: 00:25:48

I think in a roundabout way, I'm not an expert and we are incredibly careful about the, of course, about not making health claims. Um, and in any cases you well know if you start making health claims, you are straight away, you are, you are, you're not backed by Amazon and Google and yeah, Facebook, they won't let you. You can refer people to the science and there's, there's, there's nice ways of doing that. Um, I mean, for example, I think we've got an email going out fairly soon where we have a call to action, a button on the, on the email that says, press here if you want to run faster. Um, and there's obviously a bit of narrative around. Um, and we've got, I think, uh, good, um, uh, blogs and articles and, uh, definitely videos explaining the, the actual facts of what we did. But you, you know, you can't make health claims, um, and there's no point in getting upset about that because it's very clear what you can and can't do, and you can't make health claims.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:27:04

Thank you. And I think that's really good everyone to know that as well because I think people can get tripped up particularly on Amazon, which we'll talk about in a minute. Um, because Amazon obviously take any kind of claim extremely seriously. Um, and you don't even have to make a health claim for them to say you've made a health claim. So yeah, I do get, it's the, and I think that does present a challenge of a product like yours that is so good for you, um, in that you can't always say how good it is for.

Simon Fineman: 00:27:33

Yeah, it's a, it's a huge source of frustration. Um, but I get it. I mean, I understand, uh, I understand where the regulators are coming from. I think what's really frustrating is that, um, brands that, brands that feature foods that really are not good for people are able to make such a huge splash advertising, um, and, um, and yet there we are this tiny little brand, which it is very hard to argue that eating a berry powder, any kind of berry powder and certainly has berry powder isn't, isn't good for you. It's, it's, it's really very highly likely to be a component of a healthy diet. Um, and you've got to be very careful about what you say. So it's frustrating. But those are the, those are the rules we have to live with, you know, and we do.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:28:39

Yes. And let's talk a little bit now about selling on Amazon because we've said, um, it can be a challenge selling into marketplaces where people aren't aware of haskap they're not aware of the berry, they don't know what they are. And then on Amazon, obviously you have the additional challenge of all the things you can't tell people. So if, for example, on your own website you can say a lot more, yes, you can't make claims, but you can still talk a bit more freely. Um, so let's talk a bit about what your experience selling on Amazon has been like to date.

Simon Fineman: 00:29:07

Yeah, I wish I, you could probably explain it to me better than I could explain it. Uh, Amazon is there, it, it, it's, it's kind of a, a mystery. You, you, you, um, you go on, uh, I mean, it's okay to say, isn't it Vicki, that you set us up on Amazon, um, and you did a great job and from, from somewhere we don't know where people come and find you on Amazon and they start buying and they come back and they buy again, and you don't know who they are. And, uh, all you know is that every day the sales seem to roll in. And, uh, we, we experience, uh, continuous growth on Amazon. We'd love to know who we're selling to, but we don't really know who we're selling to. Um, but it, it works, uh, I have to say it's expensive. Um, we, we don't make huge amounts, uh, on, on the, uh, powder. We sell on Amazon. Um, but the volumes are, are, are really, you know, they're too, they're too good to ignore. So we keep doing it.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:30:18

I think a lot of people have that same experience, which is that yes the margins aren't great because as you say, it is expensive. Um, however the customers are there and I think that's one of the advantages is that you are not having to get people onto your website or you know, find them through Facebook ads or whatever it is. They actually are there on Amazon and as long as sort of you are ad you are listing and ads if you're running them, are sort of targeting the right people. Hopefully, and, and you've obviously got your set up well, um, hopefully they'll find you.

Simon Fineman: 00:30:51

And Yeah, they do. And I, I would agree with every word you said. It's like you've just got to be there. Do you know, tick all the boxes, make sure you are, you've got everything in order and, and things move on. We, I, we had a recent scare with Amzon, because, uh, I, I, I don't know, I think in common with quite a lot of other niche food brands, Amazon took a funny stand on this, um, uh, HFSS business, which for those of you who don't know, is, is a traffic light, uh, marker system, um, pointing out what foods are healthy and what foods are less healthy according to the content. Well Haskapa is very tasty, partly because it's 50% natural sugar, but, um, we sell 100 gram pouches. A hundred grams is 30 portions, so a daily portion is about three grams. And that's about one to one and a half grams of natural sugar. Well, the, the regulations judge us on the amount of sugar in the hundred gram pouch, not on the amount of sugar in a a daily portion. So it really isn't much harm for anybody to take one or one and a half grams of sugar a day. It would be quite harmful if they were taking 50 grams of sugar, but nobody in their right mind would eat a whole packet of haskap in one go. It just, it just wouldn't happen. Amazon enforced the rules very, very enthusiastically and we pointed out to them why we were exempted from, uh, having a red sticker, uh, on about four or five different, uh, regulatory, um, uh, basis. And, uh, to my knowledge, they still haven't fully excluded us from that. And I understand from social media, there are thousands of brands caught up in the same problem with Amazon. So, uh, that's a frustration. Uh, I'll be honest, it doesn't seem to have affected sales yet, but it potentially could.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:33:13

Well, I hope not. And um, yeah, I do think there's something worth people knowing actually, that Amazon tend to take a hard line on anything. Um, I think they always err on the side of caution and, and perhaps, in my opinion anyway, go a little bit too far in enforcing certain rules. Um, yeah, but I, I think it's good it hasn't impacted your sales. I really hope it doesn't, and I think it is also just good for everyone to know that these things do happen. They will happen, but actually you can always get around them. It's just very frustrating, as I'm sure you agree, Simon, at the time.

Simon Fineman: 00:33:47

Yeah, it is. Well, business is like that. Every business is like that. You know, all my life I've been in business and you never go a week without some big blow coming along, and you think at first, oh wow, how are we going to get around that? And then you work it out. You, you sit back, you, you think about it and you, you work it out. Yeah. Yeah. This isn't as bad as it looked. Um, and uh, this business with Amazon, it's just like that, you know, we will persuade Amazon. I know we will, that it doesn't apply to us. And um, so will the thousands of other brands who are impacted unfairly and uh, life will go. And so, um, I kind of, I say this as though I'm really relaxed about it all, although I promise you every time it happens, I, I lose my, Evie will tell you that there are countless occasions when I say, oh God, let's give it all up. But we don't, we keep going because, uh, after I've had that 10 minutes to reflect on it, and Evie's calmed me down. Um, we realized, no, this isn't as big as we thought. We'll find a way around it. We can carry on, and so we go on.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:35:01

Yeah. Thank you. And I, you know, I think that's really good for people to hear because we have people listening who are very early in their business journeys, perhaps just starting out, and I think it's really assuring to hear you say yes, things will go wrong. They might go wrong quite often, but you will get through it. And you'll keep going. Um, because as you, you may remember, so I mean, you've been a business a r a long time, but the first, I think the first setbacks you get are almost the hardest because you're not expecting them and they do seem insurmountable. But once you've sort of dealt with setback, after setback, like after blow, you realize actually I, I'm quite resilient and I'm going to get through this.

Simon Fineman: 00:35:39

Is absolutely part of business. I mean, when I was running the timber business, it was a much, much bigger business. Uh, wow. The number of things that came along where you thought, oh, that shouldn't happen, you get really upset about it, and you learn over time. No, no, no. You mustn't get so upset about it. You just gotta take it in your stride and you've got to get life in context. You know? Um, I, um, I, I sent somebody a, um, a, a, um, it was a newspaper article a few weeks ago. We were discussing a problem that we had in business and I sent him a newspaper article pointing out that there are 3 billion people in the world who can't afford to eat a proper diet, and that puts into context all of my problems, whatever my problems are with Haskapa and the frustrations with Amazon or whatever. It counts for nothing compared to those poor 3 billion people who don't get a decent diet every day. So, you know, you have to sit back and think, yeah, I'm a lucky person. I get to deal with these business issues. Wow, that's great.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:36:56

Absolutely. And that's a really great mindset to have. And I also really liked what you said earlier about taking 10 minutes to be upset and do whatever you need to do to get out of your system. Then going, okay, I've been upset, let's move on and deal with it.

Simon Fineman: 00:37:09

Yeah. And having a great partner is part of that, isn't it? You know? So, um, my wife is, uh, she's so great at just sort of not, not dismissing it, you know, she takes it really seriously, but she's very good at saying, we'll find a way through it. Come on, let's think about it. And sure enough, we do.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:37:29

Yeah. I think you, I think you two make a good team.

Simon Fineman: 00:37:31

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's tremendous. I, I, I, I don't know if you want to talk about this, but you know that we, we've, uh, we've had, we've had separate careers up until our sixties, and Evie's only just turned 60 and I'm 62. Uh, but working together in, shall we say, the twilight of our career, it's been amazing. I, I, you really after. We've been together 40 years and we've discovered things about each other from working with each other that we really didn't appreciate previously. So I can thoroughly recommend, um, uh, partnering in business with your wife or husband or whatever, or partner.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:38:14

Yeah, that, that's really nice to hear. And have you got any, um, advice on how to make it work? Is there anything that you and Evie do, you think, that means it, it works so well.

Simon Fineman: 00:38:25

Yeah. Uh, the best bit of advice is to, uh, to remember that she's cleverer than me, and therefore, never ignore what she says. It doesn't mean, uh, it doesn't mean I have to agree with everything she says, uh, but what I'm really saying is you have to respect one another's views. You have to listen carefully to what's being said. Never get defensive. Remember that you're, you're both trying to do the same thing, which is push the business forward and open your ears and really listen to what's being said to you because so often it opens your eyes to things that you hadn't thought of.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:39:11

That's really great advice. Thank you. Has Evie been in earshot, by the way? I bet she would've liked to hear that.

Simon Fineman: 00:39:17

Oh no, no. She's in a different room.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:39:19

Oh, well she'll hear. She'll hear it. Hopefully she'll hear it when it comes out. Yeah, that would be nice. Um, well thank you so much Simon. And my final question for you is what would your number one piece of advice be for other product businesses?

Simon Fineman: 00:39:35

Um, well, I, I, I think it's to stay focused. I think that, uh, we, we, um, we, it's so easy when you read about business and you hear about, you only hear about mega successful businesses to think that, oh, it's easy, you know? And therefore when you start a business and you realize after the first few months that, hey it's not as easy as I thought it was going to be. That can be very demoralizing. And I, I say that not just from Haskapa, but you know, when I ran the big bus timber business, we were forever starting new initiatives. And the important thing is if you believe in it, you've got to keep going. You've got to keep going. Don't worry too much about profit and loss. Only worry about cash because profit and loss never really directly ruined the business, but if you run out of cash, you've got a problem. So you've got to look after your cash and just stay focused and stay with it, because eventually it'll come good.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:40:38

Thank you. I think that's great advice. And actually part of the reason for this podcast is so that people can hear other business stories and experiences and realize that everyone has their setbacks, their, you know, their, their problems along the way somewhere. Because I think you're right, when you look on social media particularly, sometimes you get quite a rosy picture, but that's not the reality. That might be the last couple of months, but it doesn't tell you the five years that company took to get there and, and what that involved.

Simon Fineman: 00:41:05

Yeah, absolutely. I, I, I, you know, it's a real problem, isn't it? And, um, and getting, and, and of course nobody wants to talk about the struggle while it's happening because that's admitting that it's, it, it, it's not going so well. So you just don't hear that news. But believe me, just like you said, most businesses, they go through years of struggle before it starts to click into place. And certainly with Haskapa, it's um, if it's clicking into place, it's only about now, it's really still, um, uh, in its infancy in that respect.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:41:46

Thank you. So thank you so much for all that you shared, um, and for being so open and for these reassuring as well. I think, I really hope that this episode will really reassure people, particularly those early on, um, and that they will learn from all of your experience. So thank you.

Simon Fineman: 00:42:00

Oh, well thank you for having me. I enjoyed, um, it sharing my experiences.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:42:05

Oh, good. I'm pleased.

Simon Fineman: 00:42:06

Okay.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:42:08

Thank you so much for listening right to the end of this episode. Do remember that you can get the full back catalogues and lots of free resources on my website, vicki weinberg.com. Please do remember to rate and review view this episode if you've enjoyed it, and also share it with a friend who you think might find it useful. Thank you again and see you next week.