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Recipe for Greatness
Recipe for Greatness
Building a New Beverage Category: CANS | Dominic Rice
Dominic Rice, co-founder and CEO of CANS, is on a mission to build a new category of non-sweet, no-sugar, no-sweetener soft drinks. After 16 years at Red Bull, Dom is applying his beverage industry expertise to create a genuinely healthy alternative that doesn't compromise on taste.
The idea came over a steak dinner in Prague, where three friends shared the frustration of living sugar- and sweetener-free and finding their only drink options were water, tea, or coffee.
CANS is built on radical simplicity: Alpine spring water, real fruit, and bubbles — simplicity that took 40–50 test rounds to perfect without any sugar or sweeteners.
They are carving out a “third category” in soft drinks, showing that non-sweet drinks can be satisfying, refreshing, and cool to hold.
Growth is built patiently, can by can: the first six months focused on laying foundations — distribution, awareness, and trial — before sales reached 500,000 cans in year one.
Sampling drives both trial and insight, letting people taste without risk and giving the team direct feedback on reactions and habits.
Dom applies the best of his 16 years at Red Bull, from sales and distribution playbooks to in-store execution, while unlearning corporate habits that slow a startup — prioritising speed and subtraction over complexity and addition.
The UK launch shows how ready the market is, with both retailers and consumers actively rethinking soft drink options for health and enjoyment.
Sleep underpins his productivity and resilience, supported by morning gym sessions, weekend nature breaks, kickboxing, and time with his wife and friends.
Self-doubt is met with progress over perfection, leaning on his team and personal relationships to stay grounded as the business scales.
Their approach to change is human, not preachy: they focus on making a drink people genuinely enjoy and are proud to hold, letting habits shift naturally.
Three, two, one zero and liftoff, liftoff, liftoff.
Jay Greenwood:Hello and welcome to another episode of the Recipe for Greatness podcast. I'm your host, joe Greenwood, and in this podcast we interview the founders behind some of the best food and drink brands to find out how they got there and any hints and skills that we can use from them. Today's guest is Dom Rice, co-founder and CEO of Cans, the fast-growing drinks brand, on a mission to build a new category non-sweet soft drinks. Before launching Cans, dom spent over 16 years at Red Bull in a senior global roles, giving him deep insight into brand products and growth. Dom, welcome to the podcast.
Dominic Rice:Welcome, Hi. Thanks for having me.
Dominic Rice:So I want to go back and talk about the steak dinner in prague and can you take us through the moment where the ideas of can sort of started being spoken about, when the idea sort of clicked for right, let's, let's do this yeah, I can, um, so so the history there's three of us co-founders, so there's me, there's yada, there's yan and um, kind of leading up to this steak dinner with the three of us was, um, was I think yada had been in the us, um, and he'd experienced and tried a few products such as like spindrift lacroix, which uh, kind of flavored waters, and um, that had sparked an initial thought in him which was like hey, there's nothing like that here in Europe. So which led to the dinner. Because Jan, who's our creative lead and who does all the beautiful branding that you see, connected me, yada and him and said, hey, let's go for dinner and like talk about it. Me, yada and him and said, hey, let's go for dinner and like, like talk about it. And from my side I'd been also kind of on a journey leading up to that, that meal, um of sort of personal health discovery. I'd worked, obviously, at red bull for a long time. Um, drank my fair share of soft drinks and caffeine and and all this stuff, right, so, um, at some point I I did a lot of reading around um sugar sweeteners you know the effects of those things and I I decided to to sort of radically reduce alcohol at the time because also drunk a lot, read a lot about alcohol and how bad it is for you, etc. So I was like, right, try to be healthier, move more, eat better, etc.
Dominic Rice:The so, coming into that meal, I had been experiencing the frustration that I think anyone who's going through on that journey had been experiencing, which is that you go to a cafe or you go to a bar or you go somewhere and you you say, right, I don't want any sugar, I don't want any sweeteners, and and you have no choice. I mean you basically you can drink coffee, but not necessarily in the evening, because then I can't sleep. Or you can drink still water and sparkling water, which, by the way, I love. But there's just this question of like, okay, well, what else? Like I don't have something tasty or something different that I can enjoy and everything offered to me is either water or sort of sugar and sweetener based. So I'd come into this meal kind of with that frustration. And then Yada mentioned hey, so I was thinking about this and I, you know, like, what about if we made a non-sweet drink? And I was like, yes, this would be great.
Dominic Rice:So it was kind of a short meeting in the sense of, like you know, he mentioned it and I was just so ready because I was so frustrated as a consumer that I hadn't, uh, I couldn't find something else. And um, uh was finding it really difficult to to make that choice because, actually, like there wasn't any choice for me. So, uh, you, you know, I was sticking to water, I was trying to be good, but it was hard because because of so little choice, and so I had a lot of frustration. So so, yada is the real spark, I would say, of the idea. Um, I was like, yes, because I was feeling the consumer frustration.
Dominic Rice:Um, and yan was like, yeah, like I can design the can, and um, you know, this is going to be cool. So so we all got very excited, yeah, and um, it kind of started from there and it went into because we were all doing other things at the time, as you, as, as is the case, when you normally start something right, it's not like you you're not doing something else. So it was evenings, it was weekends, it was like lunch times, it was um, yeah, um, but it was really fun, to be honest.
Jay Greenwood:So, um, yeah, and the product has three ingredients, is there's like no sugar, no sweetener quite a lot of constraints when comes to creating a product with having just that that sort of requirement. How was it developing the product? How did you go about it? Were there any challenges that sort of you face when trying to creating a product with having just that that sort of requirement? How was it developing the product? How did you sort of go about it? Were there any challenges that sort of you faced when trying to create this product?
Dominic Rice:yeah, it's, it's interesting because it sounds so simple, like so many things, and it's just. It's just not because, um, for some reason, when you're dealing with small amounts it's, it's very hard to get the formulation right. So it's a lot of trial and error, it's, and it's a lot of like very small changes of different factors. You know, just like bit more fruit, um, bubbles, you know which is all we've got to play with, right, the source of the water obviously, like, affects the taste as well. So you know, we found a really great Austrian alpine spring water in, you know, for about an hour, outside of Salzburg, I think, which, you know, the profile of the water also affects the taste as well. So they're kind of our three main components and just playing with those things, um, and also testing different flavors.
Dominic Rice:So you know, in the beginning we we launched with cherry and lemon, uh, but we we've tested lots of others and and at the time they were the two that we could get to taste the best, because, weirdly, you can have a feeling of a chemically taste and not a natural taste if you don't get the balance of these things right, and we really wanted to avoid that.
Dominic Rice:I think, one of the things people worry about the most. When they say, right, I'm not going to have a soft drink or a drink that include sugar or sweetness, the first thing they worry about is how it's going to taste, because we're also used to the sweetness kind of giving it the good taste, um, and maybe even some other like things being added. But I think that's the people's biggest concern. So for the great tasting element of it for us was like really important to make. So then I don't know how many rounds you know 40, 50 like rounds of like testing until you actually kind of go yeah, that's it, um, but yeah, it just takes time. It's just trial and error.
Jay Greenwood:You just got to keep trying yeah, it's crazy because I always think about when that because I'm one of those people now I always look at the back of a product now to see and so the the cascade of ingredients. And just looking at the back of the cans you're just like, oh wow, there's a few ingredients. You're just like amazed it's such a such a contrast to what you used to totally agree.
Dominic Rice:I like um. I posted something the other day because I saw it on instagram and I liked it and it was something. It said something like people should count calories less and ingredients more. Yeah, that was quite a nice saying, because actually now I don't know if you have the same experience, but when I go into the supermarket, um, I kind of imagine I've got goggles on right, which um, which basically gray out everything that's got more than five ingredients and most of the supermarket is gray. You know, just spend the time in the whole fruits and vegetable section meat, you know, and a few other things and, um, yeah, the the label watching is crazy when you start actually doing it and you start really reading what's on the back of everything.
Jay Greenwood:It's the whole food chain, it's, it's um yeah, I went into a uh, well-known upper, upper scale supermarket the other day just to get an egg mayo sandwich and I couldn't believe, agree to and like, just like it's quite an upmarket supermarket and the amount of e-numbers that were listed, and so I was like, yeah, this is nuts like I did never, you never would have imagined it until you actually pick up and actually read the back of the packet. So it really is everywhere.
Dominic Rice:Yeah, it really is so. Yeah, encourage everyone listening to look at the labels.
Jay Greenwood:Read the ingredients and I read I think sort of like the mission and sort of like the plan is to become like the, the diet coke or the coca-cola of non-sweet drinks. So how do you think about the category you're entering, or are you trying to create a new one with cans? So how do you sort of categorize yourself as the product?
Dominic Rice:yeah. So I think you know like, uh, we, we have this mission right, like that, we want to try to create a new category like and okay, it's all about perception, um, and so the perception we're trying to create is that, if you think of soft drinks, um, your choices right now are sugar sweetened soft drinks or artificially sweetened soft drinks, um, and we think, within that, there should be a third category that says, you know, non-sweet drinks, basically, they don't have artificial sweeteners in them and don't have sugar, and um, and this is a perception thing, because, um, right now, with the product lineup we have, um, we get firmly placed by the, by the status quo, if you like, into flavored water, and, and that's fine, um, because it's probably accurate for now, because actually, what we've launched initially is, you know, flavored sparkling waters, um, but our long-term ambition is to create other types of product that are non-sweet and I think when we get to that stage, um, then we can start to really drive the perception of, like a category of, of non-sweet options. So you know, um, so the, the people who are drinking soft drinks currently have genuinely like other options um than a non-sweet, because, because our mission overall is to reduce the over-consumption of sugar and artificial sweeteners in the global diet. So the only way that's going to happen is if we convince people who are currently drinking sugar-sweetened beverages or artificially sweetened beverages to switch into non-sweet. So that's why it's important to us to kind of it's a very long-term ambition. Right, it's not something we're going to be able to do overnight, um, but it's important that we start getting people to understand that there's this third option.
Dominic Rice:And I think what's interesting is, if you look at soft drink sales in some markets it's 50, in some markets it's more of of soft drinks are actually now dire or zero, you know, artificially sweetened. So you, so everybody wants a healthier option. Everybody wants a healthier soft drink. Um, but the um, the issue, like uh, status quo, um from the industry is to offer a diet zero solution which is artificially sweetened but also brings its own issues. I mean, yeah, there are so many studies, um, in that area. So but what's, yeah, what's positive is that people want something. They just haven't been given a genuine alternative. I think the taste's great, you know coming back to that as well, but it's got to taste good, it's got to deliver. So, yeah, internally, our ambition is to become the Coca-Cola of non-sweet drinks to try and create a new category. But to do that I think we've got to build category. But to do that I think we've got to build, we've got to succeed by creating more types and varieties of drinks, not just sort of the flavored water that we've started.
Jay Greenwood:I was just thinking as well, because one big piece is obviously education, but then at the same time you want to create a fun brand, but then also a brand that's not lecturing people, telling them what to do. So how do you battle that kind of educational piece? Is it more just trying a product that people want to try? Is that how you kind of take it on?
Dominic Rice:yeah, absolutely. I think, like it's very tempting, you know, to like, especially when you I don't know if you read a study like it's very tempting to just tell everyone about it and the logical thing is people will go, oh, I see, that's, that's bad for me, I won't do't do it. But unfortunately we're not, we're not logical. Everything we do is kind of, you know, somehow emotionally driven and I think, like. So, in the end, I think the way that you create this positive change is to create a brand that people just like, like and love and think is cool and and a product that they enjoy.
Dominic Rice:So I think we have to get the two right.
Dominic Rice:You know, like, you can have a great brand that people think is awesome and it does paper over a lot of cracks, but ultimately, if the product's not right, um, it will be difficult.
Dominic Rice:So you've still got to get them both right, um, but definitely it's about making it fun and cool to be drinking these kind of drinks, you know, and um, for that to be the vibe, for that to be the thing that you know makes you stand out, and um, I think that's the way to create change, um, otherwise we won't do it. So we really, yeah, we try to stay away from lecturing. There's so many great experts out there who are, you know, far more informed than we are, you know, um, and I'm really happy to kind of give them a platform and and support them sort of behind the scenes, but it's not really uh for us, I think, to, like you know, share studies and lecture and stuff, but but we can make a big difference by, you know, doing something fun that people want to be part of and in your first year you sold 500 000 cans.
Jay Greenwood:So can you run me through what those first six to twelve months looked like? How did you achieve that? What was like the operations like at the time?
Dominic Rice:yeah, so we we kicked up. We, we all live in Prague, um, in Czech Republic, although I'm originally from the UK, from North London um. So we were like, well, if we're going to start somewhere, let's start in Prague, because you know we're here. Um, it's a it's a good market. Um, I've worked for Red Bull across multiple markets and I would say that the Czech Republic's actually like quite a nice, um sized market 10 million people. It has all the same like retailers and all the same sort of structure as any western market. So it's kind of a good place to like get your proof of concept right in a manageable way.
Dominic Rice:Um, so we started in prague. We we launched initially on on canscom, um, you know, with the online ordering and subscriptions and um, and yeah, like initially we we did some pr around it, we did some events and we just sort of got moving and, um, then the first six months were kind of like I think for anyone who hasn't been in beverage before, they were kind of flat, like they were still growing, but there wasn't like any like wow, you know, explosion. It just takes time because actually you've got to build the distribution and you've got to build the awareness alongside that You've got to build some trials, some love of the, the brand, some word of mouth and all these things, kind of you're working, working, working and then nothing's happening really for a while. Um, but I think the tipping point then came in sort of january. So we launched in august, 23, august, august was good, great early reception. September, october, november Even went backwards a little bit because it's the seasonality effect, like we're going to Christmas, like Coke and Pepsi were everywhere and you know. So you're battling these things.
Dominic Rice:But then all the work that was happening in the background that nobody was seeing was, you know, conversations with retailers, conversations, building distribution, um, doing events and and all the marketing we were doing started to pay off in like january, february, where we really started to see things to, to tick up and like then the march and april really started to take off. Um, and to be honest, we had already I'd already seen enough in the in the previous months that I could see it was going to work, because I knew, like the conversations we were also having in the background. So so it was that point, february 24, when me, yadra and Jan kind of stopped what we were doing and moved full-time into cannes. Um. But if you look at the chart, it's like, yeah, it's used to kind of a hold your breath moment because you, you don't know, like, is that uptick gonna come? It did so now we can look back and say, yeah, it was always gonna come.
Dominic Rice:But, like when in those six months it's um, it's hard because you're investing money, you're um, you're having to believe in the product, believe that consumers are gonna pick it up and that sales are gonna come, that distribution is gonna come. Um, but thankfully it did. And then you know. So I would say, in those first few months it was around 80 000 units, but but from the August to like the end of the year, and then it would, then it went to like 500, you know and I read that sampling such a big strategy for you guys.
Jay Greenwood:Is that? Why is it so important for you guys, just for the sampling to be so key?
Dominic Rice:yeah, I touched on it before. I think, like, um, the biggest concern, I think, when people think of a non-sweet drink or a drink without sugar or sweetness, is they're, they're worried it's not going to taste great. And I think, um, in terms of like human psychology, um, and also, like you know, the the way our ancestors were programmed. It's like we don don't, we don't like risk when it comes to food in general, especially like if we really observe, for example, like what we order at our favorite restaurants, there's, there's quite a pattern to it. It's like very rare that somebody's always ordering different stuff and taking risks on it when they go out. Like we just don't do it, we don't like it.
Dominic Rice:It's about self-preservation. So the way you de-risk that is by just giving somebody a can, explaining what it is, giving it to them cold, in the right environment, in the right moment, um, and then they try it and you've just de-risked the whole thing. So then when they, when they maybe go online or when they kind of find you in a store if they liked the product, there's now no risk to picking up a can. So I think trial is so important. There's also the understanding aspect of it.
Dominic Rice:We're trying to build a new category. We're trying to get this perception of what we're trying to build a new category. We're trying to get this perception built of like what we're trying to do, um, and whilst it's sort of a relatively slow build, like sampling, done well, it's sort of can by can, interaction, by interaction, um, so in a digital world it's like you know, from a scaling perspective it's not quite the same, but but the quality of the interaction and and the human to human touch, done in the right way, I think, also leaves a positive brand imprint. You also understand the story and the reason behind and, um, it's easier, I think, to build a community that way. That's quite deep in terms of like its connection to you.
Dominic Rice:So it's not the only thing, obviously, but I I think it always has a place honestly, but I mind you, I would say that because you know I spent 17 years at red bull right and I think it's also a big part of like red bull, but, um, but at the beginning, like they needed to de-risk that product because no one understood what it was and it tasted very medicinal, very different from anything else.
Jay Greenwood:So, um, so yeah so I guess that's probably a perfect jump off point there, because I was going to ask to explore sort of the contrast between sort of cans and red bull. So any lessons that have shaped, lessons that you've taken from red bull that have shaped how you've approached cans, is it the sampling? Is there anything else that's sort of sort of a big company that you've taken into cans?
Dominic Rice:yeah, I mean I would say so many things like probably too many to kind of list fully here, but, like I would say that the things that I took from red bull in terms of sales, like whether it's key account management field sales, how we build um distribution, how we build customer relationships, how we execute in store, how we um you know, uh, give the can the best possible chance of being picked up, like all the sort of push side of of um, of like the, the calculation, if you like, because I see the calculation sort of simply it's like push plus pull, meaning like the marketing side plus the sales side, you know, generates rotation at the shelf and ultimately rotation is everything. So I think that's the, the marketing mix from rebel, all the different pieces and the way that we approached putting that together. Like, I took all of that into cans. Obviously, um, I changed, we've changed some of how we do things now, so I haven't taken it one for one, but I think um inspired by a lot of it and it's been so, so helpful um. But but having said that, like, I think where being at red bull hasn't helped me, frankly is also like, but I started in 1999 at red bull, I was a student brand manager in manchester and um, the relatively young company then, um, very entrepreneurial, but by the time I I left on my second stint it was like 2020, um, 2019, I can't remember um and naturally it's a huge organization now.
Dominic Rice:Naturally it's more corporate, naturally like you have big teams, you have big budgets, you know and like the way you're sort of taught, like to that's, that's a business that needs just constant optimization. It's not, it's not the same as a startup, right, like in a startup, it's like constant creation, not optimization. Is that these are totally different things and I think the negative going into a startup is like when you come from that background, it's like unlearning. That way of being is actually really, really hard. Like you think you're doing it and then you catch yourself. You look back on the things you did the last month and you're like why did that? And it makes no sense. We're a startup and so um, so it's a little bit of a double-edged sword. I would say like loads of great things, but um, yeah, as you know, you've spoken to so many people in startups like it's a completely different thing and I want to now talk about some you've now launched in the uk.
Jay Greenwood:Are there any surprises that you've found sort of contrasting the czech republic to the UK, any challenges you faced or something, anything that surprised you particularly?
Dominic Rice:we thought, oh, I didn't expect that to sort of be a thing yeah, I think I think there was a positive surprise for me in the sense that, like, um, I didn't realize because obviously I'm, you know, I'm from the UK but I live in Prague now, so you know, naturally I'm not as in touch with what's happening in the uk as I would be if I lived there. And I think what surprised me when we came is just was just the reception, like in a really positive way, like the readiness of the trade as well as the consumer, like I was. You know, here in czech it's still a relatively novel idea. We were sort of the first ones talking about this. Same in Germany. They're like oh, that's, you know, and there's loads of people who really love it, but it's sort of a more tighter community and it's not necessarily yet a kind of mainstream. What surprised me about the UK is this feels like really mainstream already.
Dominic Rice:I was kind of surprised that we did so many trade shows, um, already, and I had so many people from the trade, be it key accounts to a guy who runs a pub, you know, like independently, saying you know, yeah, we really need to relook at our soft drinks offering. We really need to. We want things that are healthier with sugar. It's like incredible. I I was totally surprised by that. I mean, it's exciting for us like to be to be entering the uk market at this time. In that environment. It's just brilliant. Um so, so that that's the biggest surprise. Honestly, it's a's a good one. It's nice to have them.
Jay Greenwood:And I wanted to explore as well, because you guys are making quite a big splash, you guys are expanding very quickly and you guys are completely self-funded. Has that been any challenges being self-funded, and was there any temptation to raise money? So I guess what's the decision process to remain self-funded versus getting external investment?
Dominic Rice:yeah, I think that. So, so we are, like now in the process of like raising some external money. Um, I think there were there were a few reasons to do it, sort of self-funded um. Uh, I think we wanted to be sure that it worked before getting other people involved in it and also just sort of give ourselves the time and bandwidth to focus on actually running the business. Because we knew, and what I'm finding out now is, uh, fundraising does become like a whole another job, and I I think this is one of the biggest challenges for like co, like founder founders of startups because, on the one hand, you're so essential to the day-to-day operations of your business because there's probably a small team of you and and you're probably doing four of the 10 jobs that you know need doing um, and then, on top, all of a sudden, you've got to like raise money, which is very intense. It's like a lot of conversations, it's a lot of networking, it's a lot of planting seeds, um, and and I'm in that process now um, and yeah, it's really time consuming. So, yeah, that's a, that's a really big challenge.
Dominic Rice:Um, the reason to do it um at some stage is that I think beverage brands fmcg, cpg brands, like consumer brands, like the model has no one's yet really cracked. How can you scale this without you know just people on the ground and um an investment into you know b2b like it's still really a very on and off premise driven um market and to a certain extent, it always will be. Like people want to go out and you know, um, people are on the go and want to grab something on the go, like so that'll never go away, but um, so there's still a lot of investment required. It's still very competitive.
Dominic Rice:Uh, you enter a new market. You have to enter the consciousness of your target market. Uh, that takes marketing dollars and investment, so at some point it just becomes much bigger um than any one person can fund. And secondly, but probably more importantly, to to scale, you need you need partnerships, you need people who can add value, who can help you scale um, you know, in an ideal world, you you find somebody who can invest in in you, who can then also plug you into a whole load of new distribution or help you amplify your marketing message or or whatever it might be. Or maybe they can help you with production um and and lower your unit unit costs. So that that's the reason as well to take sort of why we call smart money into the business. So so yeah, we're kind of experiencing that now.
Jay Greenwood:Um, it's a lot of fun and I read somewhere you sort of say we tried a few things that didn't succeed. Can you give any specific examples of things you tried that didn't work and maybe, if there's a favorite one of yours and maybe the sort of that, maybe you learned something really powerful from?
Dominic Rice:yeah, this is. This is such a hard question because the moment you asked me that question that I'm like my brain is flooded with like a million things I've tried and failed and learned from um. I think, like I think one of the one of the things, um, that we probably have done which I've I've learned from personally is maybe, you know, it's like like over complicating things that can be simple if you, if you let them be, but somehow again, kind of from a sort of more corporate background, like it feels more valuable to somehow add complexity. So, um, I think a good example is, like you know organizational structure and how how you deal with kind of four markets. So you know um are my. My classical programming would tell me okay, so we need a, we need a local marketing team in each market, right, um, because each market's different, consumers different, and you need to understand the market and there's definitely truth to that and I think as you get to a larger size, that makes sense. But I think we started to go in that direction and I it was definitely an error and it definitely slowed us down because we became sort of bulkier than we needed to be. Um, we became slower than we should be as a startup because, like your superpowers to startup should really be this speed element, the fact that you can just, like you know, change plans like on a dime. Um, so we, we've, um, we've gone back and like um, centralizing, basically, like all of the marketing stuff, because, whilst there is a trade-off, yes, whilst we can't maybe be as locally relevant, like we're still only a certain size and we still need to just have this consistency of message, which we're also, conversely, like not big enough to like manage that consistency in the four different teams.
Dominic Rice:So I think like, yeah, organization, um, the temptation to add people to solve a problem. So, like we're like there's this really nice saying, and I can't remember where I picked it up. It was like there are two ways of like solving a problem. One one is by addition and one is by subtraction, and and like most people and most of us like just naturally solve with subtract, with a, with addition, sorry so meaning like, oh, we, we've got too much to do and we need to do this. Okay, well, what about if we got an extra person and they could do that stuff? And then you could do that and it would all be great, and that's solving by addition, but the problem with that as a startup is it'll kill you if you're not careful.
Dominic Rice:Actually, it's better to solve by subtraction, which is basically saying right, so you know, we can't, we shouldn't add another person. What we should do is look at everything you're doing and decide what we're not going to do and focus on the things that we are going to do. And decide what we're not going to do and focus on the things that we are going to do. And I think that, um, personally, I've been through this like last two years, where I was probably more just on this natural setting of solving by addition, which is very natural from like the corporate background I've come from, um, but in startups, it's like much better to solve through subtraction and simplification and, and I've definitely learned that the hard way I've made like mistakes, um many, many, many mistakes. You have to be ready to live with mistakes and failure and, um, and kind of accept it as a positive thing, you know.
Jay Greenwood:One thing I read and said was when, uh, you say, when things are going crazy, try find a moment, step back and pause. What does that look like for you, especially, you know, with this crazy company going really fast? How do you sort of embrace that sort of taking a step back and pausing when there's probably another fire coming your way? How, and what does that look like for you?
Dominic Rice:yeah, good question. Um, so I think the things that I try to do routine wise, to just kind of stay sane and be ready, um and get that kind of disconnection time is, um, I definitely really, really really try to prioritize sleep. Um, I try my best to get into the gym in the morning. I find that if I do it any other time of day it's likely to not happen because something else will come up, but in the morning it's guaranteed to happen. So I think that's kind of my base. And then it's things like I do some kickboxing. That's quite good at the end of the week to kind of release a little bit of tension.
Dominic Rice:I play football in the league, know, again, it's just nice to you. You're out on the pitch, you completely switch off, you spend time with friends and socialize, um, I like at the weekend, um, to get away, you know, outside of prague, to like a sauna, sauna, wellness place that I like, and just kind of switch off. Um, listen to some some audible, like ebooks, or you know things like that. I just spend, spend some time with my wife and get out into the forest and just go for a walk and leave the phones in the car, like, just try to do stuff like that. It's um simple but um but effective. I, I find you know, and try as much as possible to to keep the weekends as the weekend.
Jay Greenwood:You know, um, it's kind of like I'll work 14 hours days in the week, but I'll try at the weekend to like to disconnect and if you had to isolate sort of sort of any of the things you've been working on hard because we mentioned they're sort of like try to focus on like natural foods, natural drinks, but then also there's the exercise element and there's the sleep, if you had to isolate one of those things, do you think if you only had one to prioritize, what would you prioritize?
Dominic Rice:um sleep for sure, um, I've. I've been through some really tough times, you know, like uh, we, uh, we, we've, we've had. I had a previous business like um with my wife which was in in property, and then when Brexit came and and all these different things, covid, et cetera we had a really, really tough time and um, uh, we didn't have much time for anything. But the one thing through all of that that I did do was get sleep, and I think that's the that's how I got through it, you know. So I think, honestly, if you can really get, you know, seven, eight hours, get proper sleep, even maybe get a bit of a nap on a weekend or whatever you know, to catch up, um sleep's so essential. If you look at all of the, the research, it's just um, you can't out somebody.
Jay Greenwood:There's another saying it's like you can't outrun, or you know, or out eat um lack of sleep and we mentioned there sort of how fast this company is growing, how fast it's expanding into different, different places. You must sort of be uh, sort of doing so many different things at once. Do you ever have any moments of sort of internal self-doubt? And there's only thing it's probably any internal dialogue that you give yourself to sort of remind yourself and ground yourself on sort of where you are and what you're doing.
Dominic Rice:Yeah, yeah, good question. I mean, all the time I think, like, I feel like an. You know the imposter syndrome, you know, I think, the amount of self-doubt that you have to deal with, I think, especially in a as a startup CEO, you have, like, you have nobody to tell you you're doing a good job, right, there's nobody, like, who cares, so you have to get comfortable with that and, of course, as a result, like, um, you're trying things, you're testing things and and um, everything's under pressure. So, of course, like, sometimes, I ask myself, like, am I doing a good job? Like, uh, am I, should I be here? Am I the right choice for this? Yeah, how do I deal with that? I think, you know, I just, I just think I just try to give myself a little bit of a break, you know, and remind myself that it's about, it's about progress, that you know I have a lot of experience to draw and I have a great team around me. Um, you know we're in this together.
Dominic Rice:I think something that I've I've learned, which has helped in this and also maybe wasn't so good at the beginning, is that you know, sharing the load with your team, you sometimes feel a bit worried. You know to tell your team about this sort of stuff, I think, because you're worried that then they might get worried. Or if you give them sort of worries, things that you're worried about, that somehow you know they might leave because they get worried about what's going on with the company. But actually, um, and I think that's how I started out, to be honest and um, because also again, that's kind of the approach I was used to, um, but I think what, what I found is like actually the team really help and they never really take anything as badly as you imagine, and um, and actually then they just start providing solutions and and it feels feels better, but um, but I think, uh, yeah, also my wife helps a lot, you know, I think she's great in the sense that, like I mean, I think she's great, but like um, just in the sense that she's she's great, but like um just in the sense that she's she's just very supportive.
Dominic Rice:And like you know, I always have that relationship with my wife and like we don't need homes, we don't need things, we don't need anything, like I always have home with her. So I always kind of remind myself, you know, like what's the worst that could happen? It's like so, so it's not that bad. So why not try? You know, like um, because at the end of the day, like I have my wife and I have my family and I have my friends, and these are the really important things.
Dominic Rice:So I try not to like freak out about my performance too much because ultimately, people worry about their performance because they think, well, they might fail, and then what will happen if you fail? And then, so I try to also think it through and say to myself, well, what's the worst that can happen? You know, it's not life or death, like we're not actually, we don't have problems in the real sense of it. So, yeah, I don't know if I answered that question well, but it's uh, I I definitely have doubts. So just keep grinding, I just keep struggling. I just I think maybe this, the summary of this, is that I just don't give up and I think that's the only way you can be.
Jay Greenwood:You just got to keep going Amazing Well, I think, but you just got to keep going amazing well. I think that's the perfect place to finish the interview and I'll say one thank you so much for coming on sharing the journey, and also two for creating an incredible product that tastes amazing and just serving such a, such a bigger mission. So thank you so much. I guess maybe you can tell people in the uk, maybe, where they can find it, and then yeah, for sure.
Dominic Rice:so I mean it's early days. We're on canscouk, um, so you can go there and buy online, be delivered to your home, um. I think we're also about to be on amazon prime available, so in the next week or two, um, and we are in a number of wholesalers which are now starting to deliver to end outlets. I think we're in about 200 outlets and I think from next week there should be a store finder on our website so you can see if there are any outlets, like on and off premise outlets that actually stock our product. But but yeah, there's a lot more coming. So we're right at the beginning. We're in lots of positive conversations and I think you know by the time if we would speak again in sort of two, three months. I'd hope that we were in quite a lot more so amazing.
Jay Greenwood:I'll watch this space guys. Well, mate don, thanks so much for coming on. It's such a privilege, so thank you.
Intro:Thanks, jay I really appreciate it as always, guys, thank you so much for listening, really appreciate the support and if you guys like it and you're enjoying what you're listening to, please like and subscribe and write a review. We'd really appreciate it Again. We'll be back doing this weekly and, yeah, if you want to know more about starting a food business, head to wwwjgreenwoodcom. But, guys, as always, thank you and be great.