How I Built This with Guy Raz - Advice Line with Richard Branson of Virgin

Episode Date: May 8, 2025

Virgin Group founder Richard Branson joins Guy on the Advice Line, where they answer questions from three early-stage founders. Plus, Richard’s recent adventures in bungee jumping, ziplining, space exploration and more—all in the name of promoting some of his brand’s latest offerings.   First we meet Lola from New York City, who’s looking to maintain a personal touch as she scales her travel accessory brand. Then Ross from Phoenix, who’s wondering how to make a splash with his above-ground pool rental business. And Andrew from Cumberland Gap, Tennessee, who wants to start selling his small-batch granola in locations beyond his juice bar.Thank you to the founders of Silver & Riley, Now Pools, and The Juice Spot/Lone Wolf Granola for being a part of our show.If you’d like to be featured on a future Advice Line episode, leave us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and a specific question you’d like answered. Send a voice memo to [e-mail] or call 1-800-433-1298.And be sure to listen to Virgin's founding story as told by Richard Branson on How I Built This in 2017.This episode was produced by Chris Maccini with music by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by John Isabella. Our audio engineer was Neal Rauch.You can follow HIBT on X & Instagram and sign up for Guy's free newsletter at guyraz.com.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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You can sign up for free at gairoze.com. And we'll put all this info in the podcast description. All right, let's get to it. Joining me this week is a legendary entrepreneur, Sir Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Group. Sir Richard, it's great to have you back on the show. It's always good to be on your show, so thank you. You were a guest on the show back in 2017. It is an incredible episode.

If you guys have not heard it, we will put a link in the episode description. Of course, Virgin is such an iconic brand. It is really well worth going back and listening. This story about how you started a student magazine in the 70s. I think you went and interviewed James Baldwin in his hotel room. Then you started a mail order, a record business when you were 20, and then you turned that into Virgin into, wow, an empire of record stores, cinemas, a record label, cola, vodka, airlines, trains, phones, phones.

banks, hotels, space tourism, like more than 200 businesses over the past 50 years. It's just an incredible story. And just a few years ago, after we talked, you blasted off to the edge of space in your own rocket ship. Yeah, that was quite a ride. And it had been a dream come true. I dreamt of going to space ever since I saw the moon landing. And then, you know, the last 20 years were trying to build our own spaceship. our own mothership and our own rockets. And finally, we got to space. So it was, it was definitely a pinch, a pinchy moment.

That's amazing. Richard, before we get today's callers, I want to ask you a couple of questions. When you started Virgin, right, and we started this record store, and you gave it this name, Virgin, at what point did you think, you know, this could be a brand that goes way beyond record stores. It's a good question. I mean, I've never really been interested in building companies with the money motive, and I've never really thought of myself as being a business person, and I never really thought of myself as building a brand.

I just was having a lot of fun doing things that I thought could make a difference. And it sort of turned out that I think because we were enjoying what we were doing, we were sticking our neck out, doing it in a fun way, that suddenly we had a brand that was, you know, perceived as one of the top, you know, top, maybe top 10 brands in the world. And, but it wasn't something that we planned. It was just something that, you know, happened over time. As somebody, I mean, who is such an important brand builder, right? What do you think a brand, what are some of the elements that a great brand, needs to have, needs to develop. I think maybe the most important thing is that you must, first of all, never let people down.

So every new venture that Virgin's done over the years, we make sure that it's brand enhancing and it's better than what we did before. I mean, if I take our latest venture of Virgin voyages, we've now got four beautiful cruise ships out there on the seas, you know, every single little detail. the team got right. It's virgin through and through. Adults only, you know, a really fun experience. And people who go on it get off singing its praises. And so that then makes it that much more easy for us to then launch the next Virgin product and will make it that much more likely that somebody who's been on a Virgin voyage will want to try a Virgin Atlantic Plain or a Virgin

active health club. And so the key thing is just to make sure you're the best in your field. So if you launch a cruise company, it's got to be the best cruise company. If you launch an airline, it's got to be the best airline. And you mustn't compromise at all along the way. I mean, there's virtually no other brand on earth that is in so many different categories. It's quite remarkable. I'm curious. I mean, today, obviously, there are thousands of employees all around the world involved with Virgin Group. And so there are people who can telegraph and transmit what it means to be a Virgin brand. But when you have to do that, how have you been able to really make sure that people understand what Virgin means to you so that they can take that idea and that

meaning and translate it into a great product or service? Well, we have an advantage, and that is that because we're involved in so many different ventures around the world, if we set up a new virgin company, I can, you know, pull in people from our trains company, I can pull in people from our airline company, and they already know what it is like to have worked for a virgin company. So, you know, for instance, we're just looking at maybe taking on Eurostar through the channel tunnel and the designer that I've got to look at designing trains that will, you know, make Eurasa look like old trains, is the designer that created the Heathrow Clubhouse in London, which, you know, has been there for many years, but anybody who flies with Virgin will talk about the Virgin Heathrow Clubhouse.

And she did a magnificent job there. So, you know, she'll do a magnificent job for our trains. what we're trying to create is completely fresh ideas with anything we do. So our team have to always go a little bit above themselves. I mean, you've taken really big swings. And you have had some very public failures. We talked about them when you were on the show back in 2017. I remember.

But you keep trying out new ideas, new businesses, even now. And I imagine you will do this until the day you breathe your last breath. what drives you to keep at it, to keep starting new things all the time? You know, you only live once, and I think you, you know, I've had 55 years of building businesses, but also building not-for-profit organizations to try to tackle the problems of the world. And, you know, apart from our businesses, we have 20 global organizations that we run on a not-for-profit basis looking at all issues from climate change through to the state of the planetary boundaries

to conflict resolution issues to drug reform and so on and it would be I think such a waste of a life if you find yourself in a position where you can pick up the phone to be well anybody in the world and get through and by getting through hopefully get things done

get change made so I don't want to waste the position I'm in I will continue working day and night, most likely, until I drop, and want to be, you know, want to be proud of, you know, what our wonderful teams are creating. And I can sort of, you know, like I'm in Canada today, launching flights from Toronto to the UK. And, you know, I've just slipped down in Niagara Falls, as you do. And it helps to have somebody who's, you know, the head of a company to be the icing on the cake. Everybody else has done all the hard work in getting the airline up and going and getting the check-ins desk sorted and the lounge is built and the cabin crew trained and the pilots trained.

And then I can come in and try to make sure that people know that we've launched London to Toronto or Toronto to London. And then it gives it a better chance of succeeding. Richard, having you on the advice line is kind of like having Michael Jordan at a sports clinic. So I'm super excited for the entrepreneurs today. Why don't we go ahead and take some calls? Are you ready? I am as ready as ever. All right, let's do it. Let's bring on our first caller. Please introduce yourself. Tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just a little bit about your business.

Yes. Hi, Guy. Hi, Sir Richard and everyone listening. Lovely to talk to you. Great to be here. It's truly an honor. My name is Lola Banjo, and I'm calling from lovely New York City. I am the founder of Silver and Riley, an ethical luxury brand that makes travel and fashion accessories. We handcraft Italian-made bags that blend gorgeous style heritage craftsmanship with modern innovation and functionality, all designed to elevate your journeys. All right. Awesome. Lola, thank you for calling in and welcome to the show. So Silver and Riley, you make travel gear, like purses, bags. Tell me a little bit more about what you make. Yeah, so we make travel and fashion bags, which include duffel bags. We have women's handbags. We have men's messenger bags. We also have

small leather accessories, like passport holders, wallets, card holders, things like that. And I heard the story of how you were on a flight one day, and it wasn't a virgin flight, I hastened. It was not a virgin flight. What's the story? She wanted a blanket, and the Sewardess said, I'm sorry, but that's just for the business class passengers. Exactly. So that experience inspired you to start a brand?

Is that inspiring? I'm going to start. Wow. Sir Richard, I'm so honored that you actually know that story. Yes. I was traveling weekly as a management consultant, right? So that's one of the reasons I was on that flight that was really freezing. And I was just like, you know, Sir Richard, you always talk about your best ideas are born out of frustration.

And I was so frustrated during their flight. Like, everyone needs to have these travel conveniences and why aren't they these travel conveniences? And that's what inspired me to start the brand. Well, Richard was inspired to start an airline because he couldn't get a flight back for the Caribbean, I think, right? Right. Tell me a little bit about how the business is doing so far. Yeah, the business is doing great.

So we launched five years ago, and we are a seven-figure brand. We're still a young brand, but I'm very proud that we are, we have clients across 27 different countries. We have nearly 50% repeat customers. 14% of our customers own five or more products from us. And that's what an average AOV of around $600. Wow. Yeah.

We're primarily direct-to-customer, but we're also partnered with major retailers. Where are you selling your direct-to-consumer mainly, but where else are you selling? Yeah, we are also partnered with Northstrom, Stacks, and the summer of Macy's Blumentdales as well. So definitely build-in. And we just launched five years ago. So I'm proud of where we are, even though we still have a lot of work to do. All right. Before we get to, before we ask you more questions, what is your question that you brought for us today?

Yeah, absolutely. So I grew up with humble beginnings, and it's been really, there's been real challenges, real tradeoffs, rejections, and failures along the way. The space is not necessarily built for someone like me to thrive in. So my question is, Sir Richard, you have built an incredible purpose-led global empire in some of the most competitive and capital-intensive industries. What helped you stake bold and mission-driven when the odds were stacked against you and resources were tight? And Guy, I'd love to hear from your vantage point as well. What advice would you give a founder like me that's building with deep purpose in an industry where those values can be at odds and where, you know, the lack of capital remains our biggest challenge? All right.

We'll get to them. Richard, I want to bring you in because clearly some parallels in the early part of your career. So, so that's for Lola. Well, look, first of all, you've got bundles of personality. you should be able to sell and sell anybody anything but thank you so much

yeah so I mean in the early days of Virgin you know we were doing something we passionately believed in which was we had a magazine and there was the Vietnamese war going on we thought it was an unjust war

and so we were campaigning very strongly against the war so we were very much had a purpose and we surrounded ourselves with other people who believed in our purpose. And so people worked enormously hard sort of day and night to make the magazine succeed. So, I mean, I think, you know, that with your company, you have your, you have a purpose. And if you can inspire your team, you know, to embrace that purpose, and I feel absolutely, absolutely sure that you'll, you'll, you'll succeed. As to the second half of the question, over to you. So,

Yeah, Lola, a quick question for you is how, I mean, with a brand like yours, I know you've broken through seven figures in sales, which is awesome. You know, you're five, six years in. I'm looking at your website and your products are beautiful. Just very briefly, how are you connecting with customers? How are you making this a personalized experience? Yeah, we actually, we probably over anchor in personalization, down to handwritten notes and, you know, just how our CRM personalize. the experience as well. Our clients are family. We address them as part of the Silver and Riley family, and I really see them as such. And I think that's why they keep coming back, you know,

almost a half, 50% repeat customer rate and, you know, just making sure that they all feel like they're part of the story. You know, we, I personally do outreach. And I know that's not necessarily scalable, but in the early stages, that's something that, you know, I have really lead into. Is it true that you wish them happy birthday on their birthday? Yes, we do. We actually have CRM that does that. But that's a great thing about many of these things are scalable, right? Like, you look at great brands like Virgin, right?

When you go on into a Virgin plane or train or use a Virgin Prater or hotel, you're going to get a level of personalization. You look at brands like Zappos or Nordstrom where, you know, you're working with them. I mean, they are one of the reasons why those brands are so successful is because they've leaned in on customer service and customer experience. And so to me, the question isn't how can we continue to do that? It's how can we not, right? Like, that's really the value proposition here. And so when you build that into the mission and sort of the culture of the organization, that's going to inform every decision you make, right? I mean, I think that's sort of the way you guys operated Virgin, Richard.

Yeah. And now, just thinking, I mean, if we, if somebody has a problem in one of the Virgin companies, generally speaking, I'll ask the companies to make sure I know about it. And if we deal with it, you know, properly, I mean, if I do a handwritten note and, you know, really take a bit of trouble over it, that customer will be your friend for life. And they'll tell another 30 or 40 or 40. people. And so, you know, with the birthdays, the more personal one can make some of these things the better and the more genuine, the better. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I think that's also why

what drives a really high referral rate for us as well. 17% of our new clients come from existing customers. I learned this also from my mother. You know, she passed away, but when I was younger, she had a bakery. And I remember every single person that walk through the bakery doors, she remember very little details about them that made them feel good. And I always took that away from that. And so the handwritten notes, which of course is not scalable, but I still do them. You know, during Christmas time, I'm writing hundreds of handwritten notes every day. And my team is like, just get it printed. And I'm like, I get the feedback from our clients that say, that makes me feel seen and valuable. I do worry about when we're scaling globally, how I can still maintain that.

So that's something that I am watchful for. But, you know, it's something that really, really means something valuable to the brand. And so I'm grateful to be able to continue that and personalize that. Just like Virgin. I remember my first Virgin flight. I was just like, this is the best airline ever. Like, you know, I didn't even have status in Virgin. And they still treated me amazing.

And I just felt really great. And I felt like, you know what? I want every silver and right client to feel like that as well. another company that we started when I was very young was a recording studio in the countryside in Oxford and you know we'd have artists coming every two or three days and in time you're just not going to remember all the little things about those artists so like say Frank Zappa comes to the manner you know and you have a conversation I would after dinner go and write a few things down like you know, the name of his wife and the name of his children,

you know, his mother may have been ill or something, you know, just little things. So that, you know, a year or two later, or five years later, they come again. And you can actually remember one or two of these personal things, which just makes such a difference. So, I mean, if you're going to a big chain of retail shops and you have a chat with the head of the retail, it's worth going to the loo afterwards and just, just taking a note of some of the things the person said because it's so good to be able to

to drop it into the conversation the next time you see them. That is great advice. It reminds me of how Bill Clinton used to keep index cards of everyone he met. And then, of course, paid back in spades when he ran for president. Lola Banjo, the brand is called Silver and Raleigh. Thanks so much for calling. And good luck or cheering you on. Yeah, following your journey.

Thank you, Guy. And thank you, Sir Richard. Guy, Guy, I have to say how I built this has just gotten me through some of the toughest time. So you're doing amazing work. So I just want to say thank you for everything you do. Great having you on. Yeah, that's such good advice. I mean, this idea of remembering details, when you see somebody, you know, even a year later or two years later,

and you remember something, the name of their spouse or a kid, like people are just blown away by that. It really stays with them. Yeah, it really, ready, really is important. All right. We're going to take a quick break, but we'll be right back with another caller and another round of advice. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to The Advice Line right here on how I built this lab. Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab.

I'm Guy Raz. And my guest today is Virgin founder Richard Branson, the legendary. Richard Branson, Richard, let's bring in our next caller. Yeah. Hello, welcome to the advice line. You are on with Sir Richard Branson. Please tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just a little bit about your business. Yeah, hi, hi, Guy, and Sir Richard.

I'm Ross Novotny from Phoenix, Arizona. I am co-founder of NowPools. NowPools is the world's first and only on-demand pool and spa company. So think pools as a subscription. I love this idea. Ross, thanks for calling in. I was just in Tucson during the middle of a heat wave and it was really hot. So I can imagine a lot of people might be really interested in a temporary pool. So these are temporary pools. You can basically can rent a pool and you go and put it in someone's backyard. That's right. Yeah, we take care of all the headaches of owning a pool. So you can subscribe to our service. We go out and we set up an above ground pool. Then we take care of weekly cleaning and maintenance and chemicals, any warranty issues. And then we remove the pool when you're done with the subscription. So you get your yard back. Well, how did you come up with this idea? So my wife and I adopted our kids when they were a little bit older and having sort of young, rambunctious kids wanting to send them outside in the middle. in the summer in Phoenix seems like cruel and unusual punishment. So we, you know, I wanted a pool but didn't want to spend the money and didn't want to lose our yard. So I thought there had to be

some sort of temporary way to make all this happen. And thus the now pools was born in that sort of crisis moment as a parent. I love it. And just briefly, Ross, what, tell me a little bit about how the business is doing. I know you started this in 2020. What are your sales been like? Yeah, this year will cross a million dollars lifetime revenue. So, I mean, you know, we're getting there. It's been slow going, a slow build, but positive, really positive reviews from clients, a lot of return clients. We've had clients for five years now that have come, you know, back year after year and we're gaining each year in our subscriptions. So slowly but surely, we're growing market share. And I'm looking at a picture of the large pool, which is quite large, actually. I mean, you could have a bunch of kids in there. How much, roughly, how much is it cost? to rent it? So it starts at 675 a month and then goes up to 825 for the shortest time period. So the longer you sign up for, the cheaper it becomes per month. Awesome. And what's your question for us today? Yeah. So question regarding marketing. And specifically Sir Richard, I'm a huge fan of yours and

you know, all that you've done with your bold, non-conventional marketing. And now pools, we're trying to create an entirely new market that's never existed before. So what kind of framework or strategic approach might you take when you're trying to launch something that the world doesn't even know exists? All right. So Richard, Ross has got this brand, this company in Phoenix, starting in Phoenix, with, I guess, plants expand, where you could rent a pool for the summer and it's built in your backyard above ground and they take care of everything. How should he start to, well, you may have some questions for him before you answer his question? Well, look, nice to talk to you, and what a great idea.

So, I mean, it's definitely servicing a gap in the market. And presumably, just for first question, presumably you don't have to get planning permission for a pool that you just put on the top of the ground. Correct. Yeah, every municipality across the country is going to be different, but no, no permit required. Which is fantastic, because, I mean, presumably, if you're digging a pool, you would have to get permission, is that right? Correct.

Yes. He would. Okay. So, and do you push that point a little bit? Yeah. We don't necessarily think we are adversarial to in-ground pools. We think we're serving a little bit different market. Somebody who wants a temporary solution, someone who may not have the funds to buy an

in-ground pool. And also, we really push the temporary nature of it. You can have a pool for just a few months at a time. If your plans change and you want to go on vacation one summer, just don't get a pool from and then maybe come back the next year. So, I mean, is it word of mouth that, you know, you put one pool in and then a neighbor sees it and they then want one for their house? Is that the main way it's being? Yeah, I would say word of mouth has been our biggest driver. We've, you know, the earned media,

we've been on the news and sort of some traditional media outlets several times. But we're trying to make a bigger splash, no pun intended, to be able to really get the word out there that were even an option people should consider. Have you done any sort of fun gimmicks in the pools, got any interesting people swimming in the pools? We were hoping you would come out to Phoenix sometime and take a dip. But other than that, we've done some events, whether it's concerts, we've done some festivals and trade shows and things like that,

and even had recently like a canine, a police dog event where they jumped into one of our pools, which was pretty fun. but haven't been able to still get that critical mass that we're looking for as far as awareness. I mean, with Virgin, what I tried to do was just do something fun that would get you on the front page of the papers or in the news or something. And I was just thinking earlier that if every time you opened a pool, you could have a mermaid for an hour or so in the pool or something which would attract attention. But whenever we launch something new, we would come up with something which would make. people smile. And did you have a strategic approach to try to come up with those marketing events that really caught people's attention? Because I do it every single time we launch a new venture,

I never quite know what's about to happen. So, I mean, when I turned up in Australia to launch Virgin Mobile, they drove me from Sydney out to a field, and there was a helicopter there. And I thought, oh, well, that's nice. I'm going to get in a helicopter. And the next moment, they're putting a bungee thing around my waist. And I then are heading into Sydney 100 feet below the helicopter and landed on top of a big cage. And I had to rip the cage open and free up everybody who were locked up with contracts on other mobile phone companies. So I think just coming up with something which will make people smile, a mermaid somehow fits with a... idea.

Some outfits with pools. But all of these things are so smart because they attract media attention and buzz and hype. And I, you know, of course, you know, Ross, you're not Richard Branson, but there are, there are elements and ideas here that I think could work. I mean, you know, obviously you want to think about putting this up for a couple of days a week, free swimming, you know, even even at like church fairs or block parties, community gatherings. Like, I mean, I would even think about doing something analog like radio. in the Phoenix area. You know, it's going to be a hot summer. Have a pool to cool down. I mean, even cool videos that you could geotarget, you know, through social media, just to specific types of customers. You want to really focus some of your attention on identifying your target

customers, right? And once you do that, you start to use stories that sort of build around the product and around the appeal of this, because to me, it's a no-brainer, especially in a place like Phoenix. Maybe once a month you could just turn up at an underprivileged school and, you know, just set up a pool there and bring some fun figures that can come and rollick in the pool with the kids or something. I mean, just, you know, just surprise the parents, surprise the school. And actually, you know, a lot of the parents might end up wanting one of your pools themselves. So I think a little bit of that might be good as well. I love that. That's a great idea.

April Fool's Day. I know it's just gone by But I always found April Fool's Day Was a great day where you could Put your products on the map in a fun way We once built a UFO as you do And we flew over London at 4 am in the morning On April Fool's Day in a UFO

And the whole of London got into a panic And the radio stations, the police, The army were called out We landed in a foggy field And the door was went very, very slowly down, and this little E.T. figure, who was a friend of mine, was dressed up in a little E.T. figure walked down, and this policeman who they'd sent out to Metis just ran in the opposite direction. But, you know, we got the headlines. All right. So, so mermaids and aliens

is what you're saying. Mermaids and aliens. Yes. It's been not, hopefully it's been useful to you. But doing a few, you know, I mean, since you can, you know, fill it up with water and then leave the next day, You can actually, you know, you can pop into worthwhile events and make people smile as well. Yep, for sure. Ross Novotny, the company is called NowPools. Good luck. It's a great idea. I can't wait to hear more.

Thank you so much to both of you. Cheers. Yeah, thank you so much. I love it. Mermaids. You could have like scuba divers in there. I mean, maybe put some tropical fish inside. I mean, right, you've got to get attention.

You've got to get people. talking about it. Exactly. Anyway, he's obviously got the business side and now it's the marketing. So good, best for him. All right, we're going to take another quick break, but we'll be right back with another caller. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to the advice line right here on how I built this lab. Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab.

I'm Guy Raz. And today, I'm taking your calls with Sir Richard Branson. Sir Richard, let's bring in our last call. caller, welcome to the advice line. You are on with Sir Richard Branson. Please tell us your name where you're calling from and a little bit about your business. Hey, sir Richard. Thanks for having me. This is an honor. My name is Andrew Perez, and I'm calling from East Tennessee. I'm the co-founder of the Juice Spot and Lone Wolf Granola. The Juice Spot's a no-nonsense, whole-food smoothie and juice spot. And from there, what we were able to do was create Lone Wolf Granola.

It's our small batch handcrafted granola that actually started as an ingredient for our Assa Ables, but it just quickly took on a life of its own. Awesome. Well, thanks for calling in, Andrew. So you're in eastern Tennessee. Where are you in Tennessee? Well, I'm in the tri-state area. It's a pretty nice little interesting area in the Appalachian area. Cumberland Gap. Cumberland Gap. There's a national park there. Famous Gap where Daniel Boone went through Cumberland Gap. You know it, the gateway to the west. And you have a very, very, very small population, but lots of tourists. So you're tapping into them. Yeah. So tell me how you, are you from there? Like, is that why you opened up this juice bar? No, no. Actually, the story is much deeper than that. I'm originally from Southern California.

And, you know, same with my life partner, Lisa, who is in on this with me all the way. And we grew up around fresh, healthy foods. It was, you know, part of just a lifestyle that shaped both of our families. And, you know, with the shared belief in the fact that, you know, foods a way of bringing people together with my degree in biochemistry. And, you know, I have a huge love for fitness. I think those things pair very well together. So how did you guys, how did you guys end up in Cumberland Gap, Tennessee with a juice bar? Well, I'll tell you this story. My Lisa, you know, my partner, she was feeling a little homesick. And I said, hey, you know what? It would be a great thing to take you out and go visit your parents. So I bought us a plane ticket. And, you know, I wish it would

have been virgin, but they don't fly out this way. And, uh, we'll put that right. Let's fix that quick. But your population's got to be more than 150 people in the city. So long story short, we took a hike and we was in the middle of summer. It was really hot. I told my father-in-law, I said, hey, smoothies on me. Let's go out and get some smoothies and some fresh-pressed juice. And he looked at me and gave me this real funny look and said, all we got is about

Mick Cafe and that's all you can get over here, you know, just a McDonald's smoothie. And I was baffled because there's a private university about a mile away from where we're located. So it just blew my mind that that wasn't available. So you're thinking there's a and there's a tourists come through here and there's nothing like this. There's no juice bar. So clearly it made sense for you guys to do this. Absolutely. I mean, I saw a problem that needed a solution.

You have this juice bar, but you also made granola, which has now become kind of a popular thing, right? You guys are selling a lot of granola. Yeah. And before we get into that, tell me what's your question for us. So, my question is, in today's business landscape, what are three tangible pieces of advice that you would give to me as I continue to grow these two distinct but very complementary brands, each with its own unique demand and growth challenges? Well, you've got a great brand. I think lone wolf granola is a very strong brand. I mean, do you want to try to get your juice bars and the granola into other outlets or more standalone places yourself? That's a great question.

You know, right now what I'm currently doing, you know, with the juice spot itself, I'm working along this private university to get in and help fuel their athletes and create a program as they're working to become a D1 school. and as far as the granola, I just want to get it out to the masses. I have a great product, and I think that everybody needs to get their hands on it, and it should be a staple in a house. Andrew, let's focus on the granola for a moment of here because I know you've got the juice part,

but the granola, it sounds like the granola is really, you want to turn this into a CPG brand, right? You want to turn this into a brand that you could sell beyond Cumberland Gap. That's correct. In stores. And I guess I imagine that you want to figure out how to do that, right? It's not easy to get your stuff. out there. And Cumberland Gap is a small place, even though you've got some tourists coming and

buying it. Have you made any efforts or any attempts so far to reach out to any retailers or grocers to see if they might be interested? I have. I work alongside of a lot of smaller farm-to-table grocers. I've been working with some nutrition shops just outside of my area in Knoxville, Tennessee to try to tap into the market there. It would be my goal. And I guess you know, I would probably need a little bit of guidance to try to figure out how to tap into that market more appropriately. I mean, if you could get one other store apart from your own to be selling it and you can then use the statistics of how well they do to then, you know, to then approach other stores, that obviously would be helpful. I mean, it's great to be able to say, well, you know, if you stock this, it's likely to sell X. I mean, what sort of advertising?

Well, you obviously don't spend money on advertising because you've only got your one store at the moment. We do spend money on advertising. The budget is fairly small, but, you know, we use a lot of social media platforms, and we work with micro-influencers in the area to get that product out. I do sample quite a bit. That's critical what you just said, Andrea. You know, look, I think that you've got a lot of things you're interested in doing and focused on, the juice spot and working with the athletes at the local university and the granola.

but I do think that you're going to have to at some point make some hard choices about how to divide and conquer between you and your partner. Maybe one of you focuses on the juice bar and one of you really leans into the granola for a period of time, because if you're going to try and turn this into a CPG brand, you've got to start in a city. And the closest city I'm looking at the map is Knoxville. And Knoxville is not an unimportant place. I mean, I was looking in Knoxville. Mountain Dew was found in Knoxville. Ruby Tuesdays was found in Knoxville, Regal Cinemas, White Lily Flower. So there are brands that started there.

I think you need to really get into Knoxville to the regional markets. There's Food City there. There's Ingalls, the Fresh Market, Three Rivers Market. Go to places like that and you've got to sample the hell out of this. You've got to be there every weekend with cups of this stuff sampling this so people can try it. I think that's the market you have to start in Knoxville because and then you can get to Nashville, which is, you know, once you're Nashville, you're a Nashville. potentially national brand. But I think you have to really make some hard choices right now if you

want to try and turn this into a real brand. Richard, what do you think? So we have a hotel in Nashville. Why don't we just stock a little bit for a while and see, you know, see whether our customers like it. And I'd be delighted to do that. So I'll get somebody to be in touch and we'll get some in that hotel. Wow. Thank you, Richard. Yeah. And then is your granola, do you add sugar to it just as a matter of interest? I do add a little bit of sugar. It's a raw, organic brown cane sugar. And I had a splash of that. We do use a raw unfiltered organic honey as well to kind of offset the sugar. And other than that, I have some peacons in there, some oats, some sunflower seeds.

It might be worth you, because granola is associated with, you know, healthiness, you might be worth you giving people the choice of, you know, granola with sugar, granola without sugar since, you know, sugar's becoming such a big thing. So if you can make it, try to make it as tasty without sugar, you know, that will definitely go well in sort of health shops and so on. Maybe agave, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, I use a gov in the shop. That's great.

I'll work on financing a formula, Sir Richard. Great. Well, I look forward to going to Nashville and having a breakfast. Thank you so much. That would be, wow. Look at that. Andrew Perez, the juice spot and lone wolf granola. Thanks for calling in.

Good luck. Congratulations on. Yeah, nice to talk, you all. Cheers. Thank you all. Wow. That's so cool. I mean...

That would be fun. I really look forward to tasting it. Do you know I make granola because when I go to someone's house, I live in San Francisco. And so, you know, what am I going to bring? I have friends who have winemakers and food, and I'm not going to bring them wine because they make wine. I make granola and then I put it in a jar and I put my wife puts like a nice label on it. And it's a really nice gift.

It's actually people, you took the time to make it. Ah, so you make it and give it and give it. I've got some in the oven as we speak, Richard. It's at 220 degrees Fahrenheit. You're going to have to invite me to breakfast sometime. Anytime. All right. Nice.

Richard, before we let you go, I want to ask you one final question. When you sort of look back on your time, Building Virgin, you know, if you could go back to the 20-year-old kid starting that mail or business and say, hey, I'm coming from the future. I've got 50 plus years of advice and experience now. I want to give you a piece of advice. What do you, what do you have said to your former, your younger self? Well, look, I'm lucky. I would not change a thing. So even my mistakes, I would not change.

Because I think, you know, as an entrepreneur, if you don't make mistakes, you're not going to achieve anything. And I just think for other 26-year-olds, they need to look out for situations in life where, you know, where they're frustrated about something, leap in and try to, you know, improve on it. And just give it a go. And you'll have a lot of fun in the process, a lot of learning. in the process and sometimes you'll fall flat in your face and sometimes it'll succeed. That's founder of the Virgin Group, Richard Branson. Sir Richard, thank you so much for coming back onto the show. Well, as always, thanks very much for having us and talk to you. See you soon. And by the way, if you haven't heard Richard Branson's original How I Built this episode,

you've got to go back and check it out. It's really truly one of the best out of the 10 years we've been doing this show. You can find a link to it in the podcast description. And here is one of my favorite moments from that interview. You know, I find the bank manager sitting on my doorstep, and stupidly I invited him into the house, and he tells me that he's going to close the whole

Virgin group down on the Monday, and I don't normally get angry, but I just literally stood up and pushed him out of my house and told him he wasn't ever welcome there again, which was not maybe the best thing to do to your bank manager. Thanks so much for listening

to the show this week. Please make sure to check out my newsletter. You could sign up for it for free at guyraz.com. Each week, it's packed with tons of insights from entrepreneurs and my own observations and experiences interviewing some of the greatest entrepreneurs ever. And if you're working on a business and you'd like to be on this show, send us a one minute message that tells us about your business, the issues or questions you'd like help with, and hopefully we can help you with them. And make sure to tell us how to reach you. You can send us, Send us a voice memo at hibt at ID.wondry.com or call us at 1-800-433-1298 and leave a message there.

And we'll put all this in the podcast description as well. This episode was produced by Chris Messini with music composed by Rumptine Arablewe. It was edited by John Isabella. Our audio engineer was Neil Rouch. Our production team also includes Alex Chung, Casey Herman, Iman, Ma'Ani, Elaine Coates, J.C. Howard, Catherine Seifer, Carrie Thompson, Sam Paulson, and Eva Grant. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to the advice line right here on how I built this lab.