John Stapleton, who co-founded and successfully exited the New Covent Garden Soup Co and Little Dish, is now an investor and business growth advisor through his brand accelerator, Mission Ventures.
Speaking on the FounderMetrics podcast, hosted by Vestd founder and CEO, Ifty Nasir, he discussed the challenges facing the food industry and shared his four pillars of success for owners looking to grow their food business:
“The food industry is in disarray,” he said. “Whether it’s the obesity pandemic or concerns around ultra-processed food, there are a number of issues and opportunities which need solutions across the sector. Corporates can learn a lot from entrepreneurs, and we’ll help to bridge the gap to finding solutions.”
Stapleton discussed the success of founding the New Covent Garden Soup Co in the late 1980s, securing its first lines in Waitrose and scaling the business before successfully existing in 1998.
He also spoke about the subsequent failure of Glencoe Foods Inc – the business he co-founded in 1998 to bring the concept of fresh soup in a carton to the US. He explained: “The experience from the New Covent Garden Food Co was a baptism of fire. I learned a lot about the food industry, as well as about business and myself. It was a great success, but the downside of that is you think that’s how life is, you have success.
“There was a cockiness about what I did next. I thought if anyone knew anything about fresh soup in 1998 it was me, we’d ridden the wave and thought we could take it to the States, but it didn’t work.”
Stapleton suggested that that failure set him up for subsequent success with toddler food brand Little Dish, which he founded in 2006, commenting: “Success is a lousy teacher, you don’t learn much from success.”
After exiting Little Dish in 2017, Stapleton co-founded Mission Ventures, which provides insight, incubators and investment opportunities to help early-stage businesses achieve high growth.
Stapleton explained the four pillars of success he now shares with founders to help them achieve growth.
Keep calm and trust yourself
“Imposter syndrome is a real challenge for founders. I remember sitting in many Covent Garden meetings thinking ‘I’m not qualified to make this decision’, but actually I was the best person in the room to make a decision, and everyone was looking at me to make it.
“Everyone is winging it to a certain extent. A lot of time the person that wings it the best is the one that’s most successful.”
Have courage in your convictions
“It’s easy to say, ‘I am convinced and I’m going to make it work’, but that’s not enough. You have to have reasons to be convinced and to convince everyone else.
“In F&B, you have to have customer insight so you know your customer. You have to have a defined customer to see, as you’re building your brand, does it talk to your customer. If it ends up selling to everybody, you end up selling to nobody.
“So you need a clear sense of what’s the why? Why are people going to be better off tomorrow because I’ve had your product today?
“To have the courage in your convictions, it has to be rooted in really strong customer insight. You can’t just will it to happen.”
Embrace adversity and learn from failure
“This came from all of my experiences in all of the businesses I’ve ever been involved in, but particularly Glencoe Foods, which was a failure. That was a mammoth failure, but there were lots of little failures in all of the other businesses.
“The opposite of success is not failure. The opposite of success is not trying because you’re afraid. If you do fail, allow yourself to feel bad about it because it’s a really hard place to be.
“It hurts like hell, but if you allow yourself to feel that pain, it will galvanise you to success, or certainly never to feel that pain again.”
The power of authenticity
“This life is so difficult, but if you try to do it like you think somebody else would and you’re not authentic, then it’s even more difficult. If you allow your personality to shine you’re giving yourself an extra hour of the day or an extra leg up.
“It’s incredible at times when people see others who are successful and think ‘that’s how I’m going to be successful’ and, well, that’s how they’re successful.
“I sometimes look at football managers like Carlo Ancelloti, and you’d look at him standing and chewing his gum and his team scores, and there’s nothing. Inside he must be in turmoil.
“Then you’ve got Jurgen Klopp who’s running, high-fiving up and down the pitch and cheering on the crowd with his heart on his sleeve. They’re both equally successful, so which direction are you going to go in?
“What they’re doing is leveraging their own personality. They’re being themselves – like them or loathe them, it doesn’t really matter. When they go back to the dressing room they have a way to motivate that team by being honest, genuine and authentic.
“By being yourself, you’ll have that ripple effect all around you. People will listen to you, people will follow you and be more authentic themselves, and you can find a synergy that you wouldn’t have had otherwise.”
