Episode 456: Aaron Trotman of NON
In this episode, Fiona chats with Aaron, founder of NON and a successful entrepreneur in the hospitality industry, to uncover his valuable insights on building strong partnerships and maintaining balance while growing a business. Aaron shares practical strategies for launching new products, scaling successfully, and staying true to your brand's identity. Don't miss this inspiring conversation!
You'll Learn How To:
The lack of hospitality or family business background
Overcoming challenges scaling the business
The impact of data-driven insights on marketing
The unique process behind creating NON’s flavours
Consistency in branding and design
The creation and success of NON’s award-winning bottle stopper
The importance of naivety and curiosity in business
Tips for launching products and partnerships
Managing multiple markets and global expansion
Balancing personal life and business responsibilities
Hiring good people and strategic advisors
Navigating cultural differences in different markets
The significance of brand advocacy and street cred
Maintaining product consistency while scaling
Staying innovative and future plans for the business
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You have to have that naivety to jump off clear from building a plane on the way down. I truly believe in that. And just be curious. Go and ask those questions. If you want to be somewhere, go and just ask them. They can only say no. And it shouldn't shatter your hopes and dreams that one person says no. If it does, then you're probably not in the right business anyway by starting your own business because that's not how it works.
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Welcome to episode 456 of the My Daily Business podcast. Today is an interview episode and if you've ever wanted to do something very different to the other careers that you've had or the other businesses that you've had, then today it's going to be super inspiring. There's so much in this chat that you'll take away. I know I felt super invigorated afterwards and it gave me food for thought about lots of different things in my business. Before we get stuck into that, I want to remind you that if you are interested in getting your first book published by a traditional publisher, then you may want to check out our course, How to Get Your Book Published In It. I go through everything I've learned from having two books now published with a traditional author as well as ghostwriting a bunch of books and now also having two audiobooks recorded.
We're going through all of that from how to pitch yourself, what to expect in your contract, how to market things, as well as all the information that I have got from doing a postgrad in editing and publishing years ago and also working in book publishing. There's so much in it. We had somebody graduate from the first cohort who recently emailed her pitch. For me to have a look at it she said, I don’t know how anyone does this without going through your course. There's so much in it. If you're interested, check the course over at mydailybusiness.com/courses. We won't be offering it again this year. The other thing of course is to acknowledge where I'm coming from and acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of these beautiful lands. And that for me here in North Warrandyte is the Wurrung and Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation.
And I pay my respects to their elders past and present and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded. I also acknowledge that it's been a year since the referendum in Australia. And if you are First Nations, I hope that you have support around you. If not, I hope that you reach out to services like 13Yarn. We'll link to that in the show notes, which is helpful for Mob. I would also urge anyone who's reading to go and check out the incredible blog article, which is called It's Still Yes. And that was created by Clothing the Gaps. We will link to that in the show notes and I just think this is such an important piece of content for anyone in Australia, but especially after the referendum and just understanding what can be done, what can we do, how can we all work together? First Nations non-First Nations. We will link to that in the show notes. Clothing the Gaps has an incredible education part of their website. If ever you want to look at it, it's clothingthegaps.com.au and from the navigation you can go to education, also check out their blog as well. Let's get into today's interview episode.
I have talked about a few times that I gave up drinking alcohol at the end of, well it was New Year's Eve 2017, I guess from day one of 2018 and I've just kept it up. I think maybe I've had two glasses of wine in six years. And it's because I just realised it doesn't do anything for me. And honestly, if you've known me in my younger years if you're reading this and you're like, what? She gave up alcohol because I loved a drink, I loved a party, I loved a drink. What I've found is that I can still party. I just don't have to drink. I don't have to have the hangover or the waking up with a dry mouth or whatever. That's been an interesting journey.
One of the frustrating parts of not drinking alcohol is people do not consider you when you go to an event. Often it is tap water, it is Diet Coke. The amount of Diet Coke I have drunk since giving up alcohol. But there's rarely an adult drink for you to drink. And recently in the last few years, there have been a few more non-alcoholic options out there. One of these is called Non. What I love about this is that it's not trying to replace wine, it's not trying to replace gin or all these things. Sometimes you go and you have some of these non-alcoholic things and it's just like crappy. It doesn't hit the spot. But it also is just like sweet cordial or something Non is completely different. I first encountered Non, when I was having a client dinner, I went to a nice restaurant in Melbourne and I had taken a bunch of clients out and we were having a session of just chatting and everyone else was having champagne or Prosecco and I asked what they had that was non-alcoholic.
The guy who was working there just was so incredible. He is like, you have to try this drink Non, it's amazing. And they used the best ingredients and he went on this whole spiel and I was completely sold. And then I had the drink and it was amazing. It tasted so good. And ever since that has been my drink of choice. If I can have them recently when we did our book launch in Melbourne, we will be having another book launch online in November. If you're interested in that, just go to mydailybusiness.com/booklaunch. But when we had the physical in-person book launch in Melbourne, I knew that out of everyone else I wanted there to be drinks from Non, I wanted people to see this to see it's an option to taste something and think, this isn't trying to be like fake wine or fake gin.
This is in its category. Yes, it calls itself Non a wine alternative, but it is an alternative to wine to having to have an alcoholic drink because yes, you go out, you're social, you want to be holding a drink, you want to have a drink, you want to feel part of it and non allows you to do that. In today's chat, we are going to talk to Aaron Trotman, who is the founder of Non. We're going to talk about how he has managed to get non all over the world, how it's become a global leader in this space, how they came up with the incredible ingredients and also how he got into the hospitality world when he was in a completely different career. We talk about all of that much more. It's such an interesting conversation and again, whenever I'm talking about not drinking, I'm not trying to make anyone else not drink, I just want people to see that there are other options out there.
It might just be reducing, it might just be, this tastes so nice that whether it's alcoholic or non-alcoholic doesn't bother me. I just enjoy the taste. I hope that today opens your eyes to what else is possible. Not just with drinking or not drinking, but just in business in general. I love Aaron's attitude towards business to have a go-to getting out there doing things and doing things at a high level and creatively and curiously. Here is my interview with Aaron Trotman, founder of Non.
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Welcome to the podcast Aaron, how are you?
I'm great, thank you. How are you? Thank you for having me.
I'm excited to talk to you and I'm a big fan of your business I was just saying stuff before we hit record, but I have been shouting about your business to so many people because it's helped me in my journey and we'll get into that more. But for people who haven't heard about Non, your business, what is it? Why did it start? How did it start? When I was reading this myself, it was a pretty interesting story. Tell us all about Non.
Sure. In 2017, my wife and I, then went to London on a Europe trip, I was having a wine pairing at Clove Club. We chase Michelin stars and World 50 best or go to a city where Bourdain eats things. And since we went too well some of them that we could afford and some of them that we couldn't. Anyway, one of them that we could get into was the clove club and that's in London. I was having the wine pairing, my wife was getting the non-alcoholic pairing and I tried one of her drinks and I was like, I understand this a lot more. I understand food, I understand these flavours. Did I know what they were doing? Absolutely not. But I understood it and I understood how it went well with the food and just before we had our daughter Penelope like that's one of the things that we did.
Couples have their thing and that was one of them. At the end of 2018, I was like, why can't you buy that drink in a bottle? And then that there wasn't any market research, there wasn't any particular gap in the market type thing. I was like, that feels like a good idea, I'll just do it. And we made the wine alternative, we kicked off the category globally and now we sell in some of the best restaurants and hotels all around the world and some of the best retailers and that's what we do.
You say that very humbly like we just sell in these places that we were very excited to get in and even eat at and now we are a stockist in them. How do you go from that? Because like, I haven't drunk for seven years, I've given up drinking a while ago and I've thought this a million times. I've thought, oh they should have a better option. Or this should, this should happen. Or I wonder this but I don't go and do anything about it. How did you get it to happen and are you from a hospitality background, are you from a family of restaurateurs or drink makers or something how did you know how to even start this?
None of the above essentially. I didn't have any experience in it, which has probably been the best thing because of the naivety in building something like this, there was probably a good reason why I didn't exist 'cause there was so much to figure out, in how to scale it. Invite a chef down to our facility now who might make whatever they make in their kitchen in a 50-litre pot. We're talking about doing that in 15,000-liter sizes. With the same amount of raw materials and ingredients just at scale. They're like, you guys are psychos. Back to the study question. When I did it, I had friends in hospitality so from restaurants and the like. I said, can you try this? They're like, this is cool, I'll introduce you to this person. I was introduced to that person.
That's unique what you're doing. Went out and tasted with the guys out. No may and beacons feel and here that was the one where they're two had a restaurant. They can make these drinks themselves but they hate making them. They're laborious and painstaking to make and they're like great you just save us two days' worth of wages and we might still make our stuff but we don't have to make it all now. And then that fit is just been a global fit essentially. And nothing's changed. That moderation is increasing. Less people are drinking even more so out more and more as options become available in restaurants do you need something well to go with the food that comes out of the kitchen and the wine space is the one where you drink wine with food essentially? You have beer with food but you drink wine with food predominantly. You don't have cocktails with food and that's where the problem needs to be solved.
Are your parents entrepreneurs, maybe not in the hospitality space, but are you from a family of small business owners? Again, even just the understanding and I understand like you know you've got this network in hospitality but then there's also the business part of like selling it and your branding is good, your emails are good. I was mentioning your emails to somebody recently and saying this is a good example of a brand that you wouldn't expect to hear that much from but you hear and they're good and they're valuable and, and you have like classes that people can do or workshops or something. Where did all that knowledge come from?
I grew up pretty poor with our family. My stepfather was a sheet metal worker and my mom was a stay-at-home mom. There wasn't a lot of money going around and that didn't create any entrepreneurial spirit of spirit. But what it did create is probably grit and tenacity. To not want to have to change that destiny going forward in terms of the entrepreneurial spirit that I probably have that started when I was 18 when I went to uni for like six months to do physiotherapy and I was like, I'm not doing this. And then I bailed on that and then I love music so I was like, I just going to DJ at clubs and see what happens. I'll get a job if I have to and whatever else. And then basically I did that for 10 years and I learned a lot from that because the industries aren't too much different.
You are dealing with a lot of hospitality people in that industry when they were going and having their knockoff drinks or whatever. It's all pretty intertwined, especially here in Melbourne. But you are your brand you get work from going out and creating relationships and networking. And then once I got over that, I started a CPG brand, which was just like beard oils and men's grooming products and stuff like that. And that's where I learned how to build a product and a business and I lost a lot of money and I wasted a lot of money and I tried to not replicate that as I, as you keep going forward, you don't always win with that and you go, I did do, I've already done that before. I'll try not to do it next time. But I think there's just that hustle and grind and that grit is where that entrepreneurial spirit comes from.
Thank you for sharing that. And there's so much in that. With the beard oil company, is that still going or did you finish that before this? Did you sell it?
One of the partners bought me out for not much.
Not enough to necessarily be like, I'll just bankroll a completely new business.
I wouldn't say I was an Exed founder, that's for sure.
With this, we are both based in Australia and Australia has a gigantic drinking culture. It is something a lot of people know about us. It is sometimes a bad stereotype when you go to places like England and stuff and it's like the Aussie larrikin that's out there getting drunk all the time. But it is a big part of the culture and in the last 10 years, you have seen a massive shift of more people, like you said, choosing not to drink or just not necessarily not drinking at all, but just reducing how much they drink. I had a woman on the podcast a few months ago, Catherine from the alcohol mindset coach and we had so much feedback to that because the biggest drinkers are women my age in their forties and fifties and women, it's women in Australia that are drinking more.
But coming back to what you sell, so you have it matched with these like fancy restaurants that are, some of them are already doing some version of it, but how did you get it into other places where they may have gone, the percentage of people who come for fine dining and don't want to drink is small so it's maybe not even worth our problem. They'll just have mineral water or they'll have a diet Coke, which is what I've always offered. Do you want a Diet Coke? It's like, no, I'm so sick of Diet Coke. Like how did you start selling it especially a few years ago when while it is getting more popular, it's still a smaller percentage of people who will choose to not drink. Did you have any pushback from people or were they like, no, like that person said, you saved us some time, we were going to do this anyway. Or were most people happy and open to it or do you have to sell it in? Because it is different to the standard.
You have to sell it and you have to taste people with any market launch or any product launch, you want to get the best of the best. That you can for your product and fit as your first customers. Then the top 5% sorts out the rest of the pyramid essentially. Did we get lucky maybe? Do we have an excellent product? Food and drinking are so important in this country and important to like the way we socialise and the way that we share meals and do all those sorts of things that it became important to a venue to maximise what was spent per head in a venue.
While it was still pretty fresh and young five years ago, probably in the last 12 months, everyone's like, this is happening now. It's happening fast. I travel all around the world for work and the data's pretty consistent. One in four people at a dinner table aren't drinking anymore. That's not to say that one of those four is not having one glass and then switching to something else. It's just gotten speed and I think that's just because quality's gotten better as well. And an option and availability and all those sorts of things. You can look through reams and reams of data and basically, the biggest roadblock is still availability, but also major retailers alongside fancy restaurants and whatever else. They're like, we need non-alcoholic products to help support our business for the alcohol as well because people are buying for both now. You have a dinner party with four people, one's not drinking you have dinner at a restaurant one in four.
It's crazy. Even my siblings are all immigrants to this country. We grew up in a very Irish family, with lots of wine, and lots of drinks. And I noticed when everyone came for Easter, I was like, they bought non-alcoholic champagne and they bought non-alcoholic beers. And I was like, what's with everyone? Am I having a rub-off effect? But I think more people are just like, it doesn't have to mean you're pregnant or you're this or that. It's just, that I'd rather not have a hangover tomorrow. Or I'm just trying something different or I like the taste of it. That thing. With that, when you said you've got lots of data. When you guys very kindly came on as a sponsor for my book launch, which I just had recently it was so lovely and you were the number one brand I wanted to have at that launch.
But your colleague who works with you, Dylan had all these facts because I had no idea how much to order 'cause I was like, I don't know how many people are going to have this. And he had so many facts about how many people when people drink non-alcoholic, drink slower than alcohol. He had all this stuff and you just mentioned all this data, where are you getting this information from? And also like how often do you look at the data? Because you won't necessarily think that you guys are looking at all of this all of the time, but it's amazing.
I think some of the day, it depends on how you look at data and analyse data. You can take so much of it with a grain of salt just as much as anything. But for us, we are certainly in a market leadership position being the biggest wine alternative in multiple countries. We fly around, we listen to customers, it's just important to talk to people and you go, I think I'm seeing this. And then if you ask the right questions to your customers, they're going to be like, that is what's happening. How do you know? And we're like, some of it's a bit of a hunch, some of it's data-driven. If all things are equal from this report, then that should potentially equal that. And then it's just time collecting data well and then being able to get it as you go into a form that's useful to give insights to other people. And then also just having clever people around you that don't go, Hey what do you think? It's tailoring things properly and putting a bit of thought and effort into it and then just going from a few key questions, you should be able to get a good result for someone.
I find this fascinating and I find quite a few companies I've worked with recently have put a bit of their marketing spend behind insights and reports that that's not part of what they usually sell as a business. But one in particular had a hospitality group and then they looked at trends and everything else and then had that insight. I just feel like that's a whole other section of marketing that a lot of businesses don't do and don't then share with their audience. I think it's great that you are doing that in terms of NON’s popularity, a huge part I would say is, well your branding is next level, it looks beautiful, but also it tastes nice and they're interesting flavours. And I know you work with chefs and different people on that. How do you come up with that and what's the initial process? And when you very first started, were you trying to replicate something you'd already tasted or were you like, let's taste these flavours or let's pull these things that are trending or like how do you come up with the flavours because they're different?
When we first started it was more like, that sounds cool and it tastes good. That was it. It wasn't trying to fit into a wine occasion or be very specific about it whatsoever. It wasn't until probably about 18 months before I started to hire actual drinks professionals into the business. Someone who was the GM essentially and was like, what do we stand for? What's our vision? What's our mission? I'm like, I don't know, we just make yummy drinks. There wasn't anything formulaic about it whatsoever, but there were things that existed that we just hadn't defined yet. That ended up becoming that there's a fruit tann tannin salt and acid component and that's what was consistent across the products. But we never thought of it like that. We just like, let's make an interesting drink that blows people away first.
But that was all made up of a structure. And that's why wine has these key pillars as well. Fruit floy bits, there's a, that we talk about tannin, they're talking about the minerality or the salinity and then they're talking about the acid in the drink. For us we always have that, those building blocks now as a fundamental base. We would say all the acid comes from saw from the Barossa, it's a blend of the Shannon and chardonnay grapes and that's all natural, beautiful clean wine, with great acid. And then there's a salt component as well. In most of them, it's my river salt. But then a lot of them as well have a different umami factor in them. It could be from Olive Bryan to soy sauce or whatever it is. And then from there, you're like, you need a fruit there.
Everything's driven by fruit. And then how are you going to get tannin into the drink? And then most importantly, what's the interesting finish? Because The interesting finish goes, what just happened? I'm not even thinking about wine or what I'm missing out on, what I'm thinking about is what's going on in this glass right now. I love it and I'm engaged. I want to talk about it to someone else and share it with them rather than going, well no, you don't want that. You just have what you are having. That's the experience that we create.
You nail it because as you are saying the first time I had your drink was at Marion wine bar and I'd taken a bunch of clients out and everyone had champagne or Prosecco or something and they said, we've got this NON, it's an alternative. I had it and it was exactly that. I wasn't going, this tastes like champagne, but it's not, it was completely different. It was just like, what is in this? This is nice Tommy. Then the person came back and I got another glass and then it was that. And then I started thinking, I wonder where I could buy this. I wonder where that's e exactly. I think you've completely nailed what your vision is. Because That's exactly the experience that people have.
Then in terms of the brand part of it, when you were DJing a DJ is a brand it's one of the first like personal branding because you'll follow them and you like their music, you like their way, they hype people up or whatever. Did you have a good understanding of the brand then, or was it in the oil, the beard oil stuff that you cemented it because of the actual visuals, your tone of voice, the way it comes across your website like everything matches and there's a consistency and I feel like that is missing a lot of the time. And people spend a lot of time just on the visuals and then their tone of voice is crap or it doesn't suit or their social media doesn't match the website. But yours all is consistent. Did you get help with that? Did you know how to do that yourself from your businesses in entrepreneurship? Where did all of that come from?
Before Non, came into my head I was trying to work on a luxury cosmetics brand. And from that I became razor sharp on how good brands are consistent and I've always liked the minimal design and the minimal aesthetic. But just anything that's loud and busy to me, quite hard for me to process.
I'm just showing you the cover of our book right now. Loud and busy, that is us.
Then for me, I was like, let's make the label black and white, the bottle clear and the only color that we show is the liquid. We're always highlighting the colour. Never any wood, everyone's got wood. It's always meant to be a little bit more harsh, masculine, and sophisticated in many ways should be that piece you're happy to show off. And then the tone of voice has always been probably from the start, I didn't even know what to say. I don't think the first Instagram Instagrams had any like captions on them. Because I was like, always put a dot there, whatever. It's always just been like that. And then it's just stuck that way. But I still also like it, I don't like a lot of fluff and a lot of rubbish. We don't have to dress anything up because what we do is, umtty special.
We take the time and effort and have the right people to help us do that. And then also it's not just me. It's the agencies that we work with like weekdays creative and who did the stopper and mm. It's just finding those people that if you think you get them then they get you. And then it's better to work like that. Not going, you did that for them. Can you just do that for me? It's more so cutting your path and sticking to it. But again, you need to have that grit and determination to go with what I have felt in my gut, don't listen to your head. Because that's when you start to get mixed messages and you go, you could look at the competition and that thing went crazy for them. And then you're like, we'll replicate that and then it's not, it's never going to work. And then you start to become inconsistent.
True. Congratulations on your stopper because I saw that you just won Thank you. An award for that. Tell everyone what that is. Because if people are not following you on Instagram, they may not have seen that or been aware. What is that? And also how does it fit into the NON world.
I think for us, well the first reason for it was venues don't want wastage. We didn't want venues to have waste as well. We don't like to be wasteful. We try not to have too much waste within the business and all parts of the operation of it. That was the first part. The second part was that the actual functionality of most of the champagne or sparkling stoppers around the world isn't very practical. They went on with the spring, they weren't very efficient. They had mechanical parts that were broken. I mean you throw them away and they can pop off in your car and you lose a liquid anyway. The whole point of putting the thing on in the first place is completely useless. We went to Vert based out of Redford in Sydney, and said, we wanted to make a stopper.
They came back with that design and there was, there was six in total and I was like, that's the one for sure. No mechanical parts. Super simple, super clean and minimalistic helps with our product, but let's not make it exclusive to our product. Let's just make something for a sparkling bottle. Anyone can use it for whatever reason and then keep it in their kitchen drawer. They can be proud of it. They could pull it out at a dinner party and show off if they want to. They were all the things and through the process, it was more about that. But then as it started to develop, it took about 20 iterations to get there because there were no moving parts, every single 0.012 of a millimetre movement in it would make it inefficient. We ended up getting there in the end.
There are bits that I didn't realise that I didn't have silky business cards in my backpack in London when I was taking bottles around from the stopper popping off. And it was just things like that eventually, we didn't think about them, but it happened in the end as well. It was also just to keep the carbonation. We did a lot of product testing against other best-in-class stoppers out there and stuff as well. Our carbonation tests were feeding everything and the waste and we're reducing wastage. We're like, cool, amazing. Push your head.
Then it goes with the name Non Stopper, like the Non-stopper. Because It just keeps you drinking it and doesn't flatten your stuff. And it's good all around on that. When you were finding these people to work with and you've been in hot restaurants and all of that partnership, what tips or advice would you have for somebody if they're looking to either launch into a stockist or launch their product somewhere? Like you said before, if I can get the top 5%, the rest will take care of itself. Is that the number one strategy or what advice would you have for people who are reading this who might be thinking, they partnered with this great company to do the stopper or they did this like one, how did you find those people, but then also what was your strategy to approach them and to get into partnership with these places?
You have to have that naivety to jump off clear from building a plane on the way down. I truly believe in that. And just be curious. Go and ask those questions. If you want to be somewhere, go and just ask them. They can only say no. And like, it shouldn't shatter your hopes and dreams that one person says no. If it does, then you're probably not in the right business anyway by starting your own business because that's not how it works.
For me, that was it. But also it probably felt more natural to love what you're doing and wanting to get into that space in some way, shape or form. If I was to go, I'm going to start an AI company, like I couldn't care less about tech so it's like, it wasn't, that would be hard for me to be enthusiastic about it and find where to go. I think once you make a few friends people want to help people naturally as well. If you are just a good person. If anyone came to me for that, you gotta lead here. I'm like, here you go. If people didn't do it for me, I wouldn't, I wouldn't be where I am and vice versa. I think it's just what comes around and goes around in that space.
But I think it's, you might not get them at the start be like, this is where this is going to be and I'm going to figure that out. That's just understanding what's valuable to that person. And as a customer and in hindsight now, I didn't know as much as I do now about like what value, what margins they want to have and all those sorts of things. I think the least and you just asking questions is probably the best way to do it.
You have no idea. It's like, Ignorance is bliss in a way. Yes.
Totally. I think I heard it on a podcast the other day and I was thinking about it as well, it's just like, I miss that naivety where of like lack of experience. Because you go, should we do this? And is there a fit for it? It's a lot more calculated rather than just going off that feeling. And then once you learn it, you can't unlearn it. And you think about it that way to make smarter decisions, but sometimes they're not that smart.
You have to have a little bit of both in there.
Yes, totally.
Then with your business, it's in like you're innovating and you're in an industry of hospitality that is often late, late nights, early mornings, you're talking to people when they can catch a breath, which is in between all of their other stuff. How do you manage to run this business? You said you travel a lot, you're world leaders in this space. How are you doing all of that plus having any life outside of it? And you're also a dad and I feel like women every single time get asked this. How do you juggle it all? How do you do it all? How are you having this innovative company and also having kids? I'll ask you because you're also a parent. How do you do it all? Do you have any balance in your life at the moment or is it just okay? We're still in the young stage of this.
It goes in ebbs and flows. Right now I've been a little bit better at going to the gym for 20 minutes here and there. And then other times I'd just be terrible at it. I think you just need to find those times when if you've got some downtime or you're not feeling it, you don't try to push through it and just spin wheels and do nothing. I think that's probably the most important thing that I do right now, just going, I'm just going to leave this for 90 minutes or two hours or today and just not going to happen. Nothing's going to happen. I just, I'll figure it out tomorrow. Then in terms of just running a business at this scale, I'm learning more and more every day it's new things come up and new challenges.
It's people will say stay focused and just do one market and the market or two markets or whatever they are. And we're in multiple markets and I see now probably more of the complexities that come up as you grow and you have growing pains in multiple different places. But that they're just things that we're figuring out. Honestly, if and when you get the chance, just hire good people who are much smarter than you and listen to them. And they're always going to be looking for you for that frisk aversion or like just, this feels good. Go for it. They're always going to look to you to go, what are we going to do here? And throw caution at the wind. And then there's other times where you're like, I don't know what to do here. Or what's the experience, what's your experience say to do in here? It's just all hands on deck, everyone with the same grit, and tenacity to make a startup work is just, I don't think there's any rhyme reason or formula to it. You just do it because you believe.
On that, on hiring people when you went to new territories like I have a lot of clients who will launch into the US or launch into parts of Asia and some of them have gone and found a PR agency over there and got their media strategy for people who know people on that part of the world. Did you try and do it yourself or did you go, no, we're going to get somebody in that territory that's an expert or was it just connections that you had between the restaurants that you travelled and things like that? Or did you go, we need to have a team on the ground in that country?
We've got the team on the ground in Australia and we've got guys in the US as well and someone in London too. Creating a code for the markets and what you need that market to deliver for your business and your overall objectives I think is probably the way to look at it. If we say, we need Australia to be 35% of our business, how much resource and investment does that need? If we need the US to do that, what is, what resource and investment does that need? And it's like, well what if we get this key retailer? How are we going to get this thing off the shelf? It's all about, how you can break it down and codify it pretty simply from that point. If I give an example of let's say Singapore, we can do that with just a distributor, but it's the right distributor.
That has their team that we can help and support and go over and visit now and again. But it's more of a shopping window rather than the place that's going to move the dial in terms of your revenue. You can be in these markets and you want to think about where your customers or consumers are travelling as well. And then like closing that loop so it's not essentially like, it's in one state and they stay in that neighborhood and they eat at all the restaurants. That's not how I look at it. And I realised this when I was in Singapore. I was like, I did a talk at a private club, the Mandela Club. And then I bumped into a guy and I met him and he was the general manager of the Kimpton Hotels in Thailand. And that's when it clicked to me.
I was like, these guys travel to the hotels and eat the restaurants here. Because The hotel culture and eating in hotels is different than what it is in Australia. You don't need people everywhere. You need support and advice and it just depends on what it is. If it's a like for like you can probably do it yourself. Australia, the US and the UK, I think you can probably do it yourself and put your resources on, manage the time zone, and do all those sorts of things. When it comes to somewhere like Asia where every single country is different culturally, then I would say put someone on that's an expert. And then, we haven't dug into Europe too much, but assuming Europe's probably not too bad, but again, I still don't know. And we just figure it out as we go cool. If we go in we've gotta make sure that we support it and make sure it works as well.
So many good tips there. Thank you. And on that note of finding these people and finding help, I guess, have you had mentors or have you had people in the hospitality industry that have helped you? Have you had any particular books that you've read or films or documentaries that you're like that were instrumental? Whether it was for non or for the other businesses that you've had?
I've been extremely lucky to have good support advice from mentors. Not in a super formal arrangement. But also just being able to have a conversation with someone and say, can you help me figure this out? Or what would you do in this situation? That's always been good for us. Also, like even hiring some strategic advisors on a consultancy basis for go-to-market strategies if you need them. That's just finding someone who's done it before, who's done something similar to you. Not hiring someone that goes, I left big corporate and now I'm an advisor. It needs to fit what you've done. They know the steps that happen and all the things that go wrong along the way in terms of books. There's a book by Adam Ferrier that says Stop Listening to the Customer.
The pink book.
Yep. That's one of my favourites. And if I listen to the consumer, the NON wouldn't look like it looks and feel like it feels. I think that that's one of the greatest books ever. And then I think Shoe Dog, sounds cheesy and probably commercial.
It's a great book.
It's a great book. It's just like boom or bust. I think that's an interesting book to read as well. And then there's another one called Rand Hustle and I forget the author's name but it's worthwhile looking up.
We'll put those into the show notes. Thank you for that. Final question before we get into what you're most proud of, but what advice would you give if someone's listening to this who has a unique thing or something that hasn't, isn't huge yet, and they can maybe see a trend happening like people not drinking alcohol. What advice would you have for them if they're thinking it's just too hard? I don't want to be the first doing this, but I do want to be the first, but I'm scared. What would you say to them?
I would say that if it's new, then get the right people and brand and it's going to be big or it's going to pop off. Or people who don't see it yet get the right people behind the product. First to help the advocacy of it. Because There'll be an opinion leader or a taste leader or whatever they are. It could be a famous chef or whatever it is. And then you can build your brand advocacy that way. Because then once you start, humans are creatures of habit. You're like, they see it, why don't I see it? I get it. If like someone just says, I like this song. And you go, I don't like that song. And they go, hang on, I'll listen to it again. If they said they liked it. It's the same way that we work. Is that an influence? And I would just say at that point, if get it right.
Think about where you want it to go. If you want it to be in trend-leading places and it's going to take that to do it, then don't put it into major retailers to start with. Don't go there, do it for me. I always think that you end up there anyway, you will. And if someone acquires a business, you're going to end up in National Grocery or whatever it is, but you can't do the street cred bit at the start first. Get that street cred bit right. And then honestly, don't spend heaps of money going, if I spend more money on ads, then that'll make it work because that's not what's going to be the thing. And that's probably the biggest mistake I made. It's like, you do marketing now, don't you? And it's like, no, you don't do marketing. You need, you need to have the push and pull of the physical availability and mental availability. Just understand that before you start, if it's not, if you don't feel like it's working, don't start throwing money at it because it's, there might be something else first. Throw money at it when everything's fixed. Do it the other way around.
Such good advice. what are you most proud of? We ask everyone this, what are you most proud of from your business journey with NON so far?
The fact that we got it to scale has been huge and kept the product completely consistent. I think that we've been around for five years and we're still because we spend the time and effort and we've stuck to our guns on our beliefs, on how we make the product, we're still the market leader and we still have the best flavour. I'm incredibly proud of and proud of my team and everyone that's working hard to do this and make it happen and be alongside me on it because it is stressful and it's difficult. We've built a culture. I haven't built it, we've built it together to grind and grit it out. And the proof in the pudding, like to be able to sit around everyone and go, Hey guys the fat ducks, one of our best accounts in the world, when this wasn't even the thing five years ago is it's crazy. And we have some of the best restaurants and hotels in the world and it's just a privilege, it's an honour to be able to do that. It's just, that I'm proud that we get to be able to positively impact people's lives. It's like, I've got something now that's adult. And it goes well with my food and I'm happy to share it. All those sorts of things we don't, we are part of that narrative and changing that culture. It wasn't one thing that was forced.
No, it's so good and it's so true. I feel like you can feel on the outer for all sorts of things, but not drinking puts people on the outer, especially if they've got a social circle where everyone does drink. And I feel like having a drink like NON allows people to feel like, exactly like you said, an adult. I don't have to sit here with my can of Sprite feeling like an 11-year-old who sits at the table too. what's next for you and how can people connect with NON?
Next for us, we'll continue to do some innovation outside the bottle and inside the bottle. Some new things are happening for us and we'll be probably going into some new markets while increasing some of our presence in some other markets. And then to connect with us, Instagram's probably the best, someone's on it all the time, ready to pass on the message to wherever it needs to go and screenshot it on Slack or email it. There's that. Also, you can try it in so many restaurants. All that stock is thrown on the website. Any questions, just reach out.
Thank you so much for your time I know you're super busy so we'll let you get back to it. But appreciate it and appreciate everything you've built with NON, it's fantastic.
Thank you.
Thanks for the time. Bye.
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So many pieces of information in there. So much to think about and digest for your business. I know that after I chatted with Aaron, I had just so many thoughts about my own business, where it's going, and what I want to do in 2025. I run a very different business, two NON, but so many principles of business are universal regardless of what you sell. And I think that there's just so much in what Aaron said, I'm going to highlight two things as I always do. But I'd love to know what you are taking away from this particular conversation. I'm sure Aaron would love to hear from you as well. We'll link to NON and all of the places that you can check out and connect with them in the show notes for this. But if you want to go on over and find out more about them right away, you can go to NON.World.
They're very cool. They've got a different suffix, but @non.world and on Instagram, it's just the same @non.world. You can find 'em on TikTok and everywhere else. But we will link to that in the show notes, which for this particular episode will be mydailybusiness.com/podcast/456. The two things that I wanted to highlight. One, and I think this is present throughout the whole chat with Aaron, is just how much he is playing his own game. He's playing in his lane. He's not getting so sidetracked with what everyone else is doing and he's doing it his way. And I love that he talked about coming up and finding people to collaborate with people, to partner with people to work with who get you and that you also get them. And it's not like you are going and trying to clone somebody else's business or somebody else's campaign or somebody else's X, Y, Z, that you're coming up with your stuff.
I love that he said that because regardless of what industry you're in, so often we can look at everyone else and we can start thinking that, oh, I need to introduce that revenue stream, or I need to be doing that, or Wow, they're doing this and thinking, is that right for me? Is it right for my business? Is it right for where we want to go? Is it right for the vision of the company? And sometimes it's not. It's just absolutely not. And that's cool. They go them, they're doing it and that's working for them. But we don't want to do that. We want to do this other thing. And I love that he talked about that, but also that he talked about finding your people. I think that's such an important thing to think about in business, finding people who get it. When I first started this business, it was a lot of people telling me what I should do, essentially just to make more money that I should have 10 coaches that I should license the way that I coach and that other people could land that and I could just be making all this money off the top of them.
I had so many people tell me that I should have a membership group, that I should have hundreds of people in there and it's just not the way that I want to run my business. Also, I don't want to train people to be little clones like I want to do business my way and I don't want to have to manage a whole bunch of people as well. I have a very small lean team, always had it that way. I happily have managed lots of people in the past in different positions, but I like the way that I run my business. You've gotta take other people's opinions sometimes with a grain of salt and be like, but what do I want to do? What am I trying to do here? Also, find the people that think similarly so, and think in this creative and curious way.
I've found people over the years who aren't just consumed with how much money we all make, but in consumed more by what life am I trying to create here. What freedom do I have to take time off, and do what I want with my day as well as work? I think that's so important. He talked about just finding the right people, but also honing in on what it is you are trying to do and not getting sidetracked with what everyone else or other people in the industry might be doing. The other thing that I love that he brought up, and in the new book Business to Brand, you'll see this as well, and it's something that I've regularly talked to different people about, is this idea of where are you positioned in the market? And he talked about getting in with the right people first and in his particular case, getting in with these top restaurants, these very well-regarded, respected restaurants and hospitality institutions that people just absolutely adore and trust.
If you can get in with them, then the others will follow. Now this concept is brought home, I guess, by the Rogers diffusion curve, which is also known as the bell curve of influence. And if you imagine a bell curve, you've got at the start the innovators, then you've got early adopters, then you've got early majority, late majority, and then the lag arts. Now if you want to go into this in more detail, yes, it's in the new book Business to Brand, you can also just google the Rogers Dub fusion curve and find out a bit more about it. But when I work with people, and I used to do this even back when I was working full time in other companies, where are we positioned? Because a lot of people want to be innovators and early adopters. A lot of people think that that is their audience when the majority, which is the early majority and late majority, which is 64% roughly of society.
That's a great place to be too. I mean, if you're in the majority, you have a big amount of people that are spending money with you. And yet a lot of people think either that they're just in the early adopters and innovators, or they want to be, but they're not taking the time to strategise that and think, okay, well how do we get in there if we're about to launch something? I love that he brought that up because it can be partnerships, or collaborations, thinking about these things so much can help in terms of whatever it is that you're launching, thinking about how are you positioning it. And if you haven't got an audience yet, you want to be leveraging other existing audiences. Now that could look like a media partnership. It could look like getting onto podcasts where they already have that community.
It could be looking at what he did, getting his product into certain places that are going to be seen and respected by other people in that industry who then may be like, if they're there, then we want to be there too. We want to have their product in our places as well. I love that he brought that up because I think it's something that sometimes gets missed or that people think my product's so good, I'll just put it out and heaps of people will come and I'll get those early adopters when you need to strategise about that and have a plan of action. I love that he brought that up because it's such an important part of building a brand and a brand that has longevity and is going to last versus just going to get out hard and fast and sell as much as possible and not think about what is the brand reputation and what do we want that to be long term.
Then how are we going to reverse engineer to be like, where are we starting from? If that's where we want to end up, where are we starting from and how are we creating those relationships and nurturing them and getting those people and those brands on board first so that we can have that longevity and nurture and maintain and build our reputation? That is it for today. As I said, if you want to check out non and the amazing stuff that they're doing, including their delicious drinks, you can just go to non.world. You can find them on social media under that same link as well. I just want to say a massive thank you to Aaron for coming on and also to Non for sponsoring our book launch earlier this year. Thanks for reading and I'll see you next time. Bye.
