RetailCraft 62: "Full Circle: - in conversation with Lucie McLeod of Hair Syrup

Speaker A: So. Oh, that sounds weird.

Speaker B: Sounds Very Radio 4.

Speaker A: I think it does.

Speaker B: Good. Are we ready, Ed? Lovely. Well, hello and welcome to the studio. It's wonderful to be back in real life and even more special because I've got a lovely guest with you today, Lucy from Hear Syrup. A bit of a background which is, um, I saw Lucy speaking last autumn at ah, our channelex event. And I was bowled over not only by the story, but by the direction of travel. So, uh, we're not going to repeat all of that today. We're going to pick up from where we are. But I will put in the links below a reference to the wonderful speech she gave there as maybe your background reading. But let me first of all say who I am. I'm ian. I run RetailX and this is the retail craft podcast where we look at the art, the craft, the science and the heart behind direct to consumer retail in all its many flavors. So Lucy, that was my intro. Why don't you tell our listener a little bit about you and start us on the journey to understand hair syrup as well.

Speaker A: I'm Lucy, I'm 26 now, uh, and I'm the founder of hair syrup. And um, I actually started the business five years ago, which is a little bit crazy to say, but when I first started it I was still in uni, so I sometimes don't count the first two years because I'm like, it was just this little student side hustle I was doing out of my parents conservatory. I was hand making hair oils and selling them and blah blah, blah. Um, but we've kind of been really, we've really established ourselves in the last three years I'd say. So 2023 was where things started to take off for the brand. And the story behind hair syrup is really not dissimilar to most D2C consumer brand stories. It was as simple as I had a problem with, which was my hair and scalp. And I couldn't find anything on the market to fix that problem. So I came up with my own solution and it was quite funny how it actually came to be. So when I was making these oils, I never ever had any intention of selling them. They were purely for personal use and I used them for God knows how long. Never paid any notice to it. And it wasn't really until we went into lockdown that I started sharing these oils with my friends and family. They started to use them, start to love them. And then in the summer of 2020, I had never really used TikTok before, but for the first time I used it. And, um, I posted a video on that, uh, talking about my own personal hair transformation. And in the video, I spoke about said oils quite extensively. And then the video went completely viral. So it was funny because the video wasn't even focusing on the oils, it was focusing on my hair and everything else in between, you know, what I'd done. So they were kind of just a nod to them, if you like, but they're really what captured people's imagination. Um, and then everyone in my comment section, it got 600,000 views or something in the end, so it went really viral, which was crazy for me because I'd never had any sort of virality before, never had any presence on social media.

Speaker B: And so this was literally. I mean, people say I went viral, but they start from quite a high base. So you were literally at home in the conservatory talking about your hair, and from nothing to 600,000 as if the spotlight just landed on you.

Speaker A: Yeah. Uh, don't get me started on people who, yeah, they use words like viral and this and I'm like, yeah, but no. Or starting from nothing. And, um, I'm thinking, did you start from nothing, though? Because I actually genuinely did, and it was totally accidental. And the video took me so long to make and it was. Yeah, I just had my. I didn't even know what iPhone it would have been. I didn't know how to edit TikTok videos and anything like that. I'd never even used the app before until that year. Yeah, there was no. I don't know. It's different now, you know, it's easier to go viral now, but harder to sustain.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: To sustain that interest. Because there's formulas to it, isn't there? And little did I know, you know, brands like mine, we were kind of crafting these formulas that other people would

Speaker B: then go on, of course, are now inspired by.

Speaker A: Exactly.

Speaker B: Copying.

Speaker A: Exactly, yeah. Which, of course, I didn't know this at the time, and it was just a completely genuine, authentic video that I wanted to share with other people online. Um, and, um, I thought it was fun, to be honest. I enjoyed making the video and everyone liked it. I mean, thinking about it, it's quite cool. It's that, you know, it's got a typical arc to it, hasn't it? You've got the problem hair at the beginning and then you sort of hint towards the improvement and then all the steps in between. So it's kind of a nice full circle video. Um, but, yeah, no, that's. That's quite literally what happened.

Speaker B: So after you said, hey, Mum, hey, dad, I've just hit half a million responses to this. When did people start saying, by the way, where do I send you a check for your patented hair oil? Because that really is a sort of the next step, in a way, from virality to a business.

Speaker A: Well, immediately I had comments and possibly I've got loads of screenshots of this on my phone because I had the sense at the time to screenshot these. Or maybe not at the time, maybe a little while later. Sometimes when I tell this story as well, I can't. It was so long ago. And because if I'd gone out with the intention of starting a business, I. I would have documented these things and made a mental note.

Speaker B: You'd have a camera crew with you?

Speaker A: Well, of course, yeah. Like people do nowadays. But I didn't. And a lot of this was missed or not documented properly. But I had got some screenshots of these comments where people were saying to me, I really need this oil. You should sell it. I would so buy this. Do you have PayPal? My hair's fried. I'll send you 20 quid. And I need a bottle. So. And I'll be honest, at the beginning, sometimes when I call myself an entrepreneur, I think, am I really, though? Because everyone talks about that eureka moment that, oh, and you hear entrepreneurs, they'll try this, try this, try that, and then something just clicks. But for me, it was that I was ignoring all of these signs. So I had all of these people saying, you could sell me this. And I think if I was an entrepreneur, surely I would have immediately read, oh, I'd give you 20 quid for this. And my business brain would think, right, perfect, yeah, I'll take 20 quid, let's do it. But, um, I didn't think like that. And, you know, it was a weird time. We were in Covid. It was a lot. You know, we were in lockdown, I was in uni. Like, there was a lot going on and I didn't really think much of it. And to a point where the page, the profile, whatever that I'd made that video on. A little while after the video had gone viral, I actually deactivated my TikTok account. So you can't find that original TikTok account. I've had, like four in the last few years, probably more. Because what would happen was I'd get really distracted by it and I was like, oh, no, I'm trying to do my degree. This is really distracting. So I deactivate it and Then make a new one a little while later. And I just deactivated it. And despite that, because on TikTok, the way that video gets shared, and they used to get shared on Twitter, this, that and the other people were finding and it has your name watermarked at the bottom, right. So people would reach out to me on other platforms, so Instagram, Facebook. Yeah. And they'd say, I've seen that video that you made about your hair.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Please, can you, I'm in dire need of this.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker A: I'm going back to the office. I fried my hair off. I've given myself a botched haircut. All these lockdown things, I think it was just this perfect moment because in lockdown you had all these different people. You had the people who'd bleached their hair at home and then it was frazzled. The people who were trying to grow their hair out, the people who'd cut their own hair and then just the people who were getting into self care. So everyone was interested in it. And I thought it was at that moment then when one of these messages came through and it was like, oh my God, I can't believe people are still messaging me about this. And it was almost, you know, God, guys, move on. Move on. Yeah, I thought I had my five minutes of fame, but then I thought, no, actually, well, imagine if I did actually sell this. And uh, then it seemed like a silly idea at the beginning.

Speaker B: I was like you self censoring, thinking, look, I'm a grown up, I'm doing a degree, I've got responsibilities. People ask me, that's nice, but there must be a moment where you think something is holding me back. And then you just cut that anchor chain or lift the anchor, whatever the right nautical thing to do with anchors is, and, and said, yeah, I'm going to go for it. So what was that moment where you thought, it's gone from being, I'm just being asked to, I'm going to do it.

Speaker A: I think it was that evening where someone who I was with at the time had said to me, I said, oh, I can't sell hair oils. You know, I don't know why everyone's messaging me, but you can't just sell it. Because I sort of had enough sense to know there'd have to be some sort of compliancy process behind this. You can't just sell, mix stuff and sell it to people to use on their skin. Like, I kind of knew instinctively that that wasn't allowed. He said, oh, well, but if you Think about it. People sell homemade cakes and they sell food.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: If you can sell things that you can eat from home, surely you can sell hair oil. So I think the thing that was probably holding me back was that, uh, it was fear of, am I allowed to do this? What if something happens? What if, you know, someone has a reaction to it? Like, oh my God, there's so many things that could go wrong here. But then, um, when I put, put it into perspective, it was like, oh, well, it is just hair oil, Lucy. Like there's no.

Speaker B: When you say just hair oil, my experience of oil goes from engine oil to olive oil with maybe a few chilies in between. So when you're formulating this, were you at home going through the kitchen cabinet trying every non toxic oil you could find, or was there a sort of, what's the word, maybe like a white lab coat chemical approach to formulating the unique patented Lucy combo?

Speaker A: Well, there was a bit of both. So when I first started making them, um, I was in uni and what I was. Because when I was in uni, you obviously use Google Scholar, PubMed, all of that 20 million times a week. So what I was doing was I cross referenced a lot of the, you know, like it'd be probably easier nowadays, but I cross referenced individually a lot of the sort of oils because there were aisles that existed on the market but they were just too expensive for me to justify buying. So because they're 100% natural, a lot of the time any natural product comes with such a premium price tag because people know that they're paying for the good raw ingredients and the fact that

Speaker B: someone's hand milked a lavender seed or something.

Speaker A: Exactly.

Speaker B: Get the oils out.

Speaker A: Yeah, 1 million percent. And people really kind of respect that. And so at the beginning I had a lot of different issues with my hair and scalp, which is why I think the brand's done so well, is because you get a lot of people nowadays and a lot of businesses. And I talk about this a lot. You know, I'm really not one for promoting senseless over consumption. And a lot of the time when I say I'm a TikTok brand, people just think, oh, uh, yeah, I bought this thing off TikTok once and I used it twice and then it's gone into the back of my cupboard. Because you impulse buy things. But with hair syrup, it started off with, oh, I've got really bad dandruff, oh, I've got a sore scalp. Oh, I've got this, oh, I've got That. So I was coming up with different variations of the product to sort different problems for myself. But it was all coming. Every single ingredient that was going in there. They were coming from health food shops, so they were natural. But it was really every single ingredient that was going in there. I was researching, and I wanted to know what that specific ingredient was doing, not because I was going to sell it, but just because I wanted to know what it was doing for my hair, particularly the essential oils, obviously. But then when it came to actually selling them, I worked with a chemist, and I remember the chemist said to me, have you come up with these formulas yourself? Because I knew that what I'd been making at home, I'd have to sophisticate them before bringing them to market. I said, oh, yeah. And he said, wow, they're really good. There's nothing I change about them. They're gonna have the desired in parts. I was like, okay, great. Um, so, yeah, well, I started off just with one, and then I extended the range, obviously. But, yeah, it was the extension then,

Speaker B: because, you know, if you have the perfect serum number one, then the vectors you could take, it would be different scents, different problems, different colors, different weights, different times of day. So you've got this one product off the back of your own experimentation. Which direction do you then take the extension?

Speaker A: The problem route is what I wrote down.

Speaker B: So just be authentic then. So you're still solving people's problems.

Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. And that's really what the brand is about at its core, is solving people's hair and scalp issues that they haven't been able to solve before. And that's what we were doing. So bought out. One to help to promote longer lengths, one to help if you had a greasy scalp, one to help if you had a lot of breakage, one to help with dandruff. And that's kind of how it went. We would take a common problem and find our version of a remedy to that problem.

Speaker B: Okay, so I'm going to jump over the growth bit. I will go back to in a second. But if someone goes to the website now, you'll see what looks like a very accessible, interesting, open brand with a product range. So for someone who didn't know the backstory and just landed, how would you describe the brand today if they didn't know the TikTok heritage and the Solopreneur? How did sort of fit into, you know, a very competitive and maybe overserviced sector, which is people in their hair?

Speaker A: Yeah. Um, I think we would describe ourselves like you said I love the word accessible. So we're a good price point. So sort of a mid market, fun, inclusive, accessible brand that's there to offer you creative, innovative packaging with high performance solution driven formulas. So they're there to help you, they're there to. We do offer somewhat of a. I know this word is so overused, but again, um, wasn't overused when we started doing it. But the community side of things is huge for hair syrup. So that's kind of what we offer people.

Speaker B: Tell me what that means because again being somebody who's been around the uh, block a few times, the sort of content community, commerce, 3C's has been pretty well worn. But I look at your website and there seem to be real people sharing their real experiences. You grew from a social channel. So what does it mean qualitatively to have that social dimension today after that initial growth phase?

Speaker A: So a big part of our growth, from my perspective anyway came from. And again, you know, what does the word community even mean? And I think to us what it means and how it served uh, towards our growth and boosted the brand is because so much of our marketing has been, will be, will continue to be centered around our customers before and after photos. So it's really effective because you haven't got these, I mean we've had all the products, you know, they go through these dermatologists testing and we've had consumer trials on them and they get studied for efficacy and blah blah, blah. And we've got all of these clinical, microscopic of course, you know, like your scalp, you know, they'll take photos of your hair density, um, and all this, that and the other. But we prefer to use the customer before and after because I think that's really where people think, oh, that person's just like me. And if that happened to them, yeah, this could happen to me as well. And obviously it's difficult one because hair care, scalp care, any sort of beauty is very, very subjective. So you can try something, think it's the best thing ever, uh, someone else can try it and say no, I didn't like that, that didn't work for me. So we have to strike a balance between expectation management, but also pushing the products but managing expectations of people. And um, to be honest, I think that's how we have built such a trusting community as well because we don't claim to be the gospel, you know, the fountain of all knowledge of. Because I, I personally don't like sort of prescriptive content which tells you, you know, I really don't like people who come on TikTok and social media and say this is the worst thing in the world, don't use this shampoo, don't use that. And then you've got 10 people in the comments saying, well I've been using that shampoo for last year and I love it. And I don't like people in invalidating anyone else's experience with something. So we just kind of are uh, open minded to everything really. So I think even if people have used the products and you know, on the unusual occasion that they think, oh, uh, didn't really work for me, they still feel like they can enjoy our content, they're included in something and a lot of people are like, oh, I didn't really use it because my hair's quite fine. But I buy it for my mom and she absolutely loves it, gave it to my mom, she loves it and I'll buy it for every Christmas. So it's kind of that buy in effect that goes beyond just liking the products, but the products being so good, are uh, an easy access route for us to our consumers.

Speaker B: Okay, now listening to you, I'm reminded of uh, the impact your presentation made uh, in the autumn because you come across as a very genuine, open uh, human person. And um, I just want to very briefly segue back to uh, the sort of Dragon's Den bit. I don't want to focus on it but we did have um, a uh, very interesting story in a previous episode with Shani uh, from Perfect Ted and they'd launched after the uh, Dragon's Den. But uh, just to summarise very briefly, your experience wasn't entirely great. The Dragons weren't particularly nice to you, especially as a viewer in the edit. And to me there were sort of overtones of it looked a bit like a pylon, a bit bullying, et cetera, et cetera. So I'll let people pick up on the detail of that. But what really resonated with me when you told your story was the bit when you went back to the team and there was this, what could have been a real negative that would have sunk, you know, someone with less character. But that moment you're turning the uh, team and sort of made a resolution to dig in and build. Would you mind picking up the story there and just telling us how you moved on from there rather than just relaying the details which people can watch in the video which I'll link to.

Speaker A: Yes. So Dragons Den, um, God, I could talk about this forever. So I went on Dragon's Den. Just for some context, I think it was like June or something of 2024, and then the episode came out 30th of January 2025. So we're nearly a year on now.

Speaker B: It feels like another lifetime, though, doesn't it?

Speaker A: I know it does. It does. So a lot has changed since then. And I went into the Den light. I'm glad that I come across that way, because I think most people would definitely agree I'm very much am. Um. What I am. Take me or leave me. And I went into the Den with that attitude. I had a really fairly successful, profitable business going in there. And I didn't foresee the. I mean, you see some brands, you know, not to knock them, but, well,

Speaker B: they're just not prepared. I think they've been set up a bit.

Speaker A: Yeah. But, like, also, you hear the numbers and the trajectory and you think, what's the plan here? And then they'll get all these offers. So I was. I wasn't confident going in there, but I didn't think I'd get six nos. I don't think anyone goes into Dragons Den thinking every single one of the Dragons are going to reject me. And I think because the business was one of the biggest, most profitable, successful ones they'd had on the show so far, they definitely had a bit of a field day with me. And I remember them saying, you know, have you come on here for a bit of a PR spin? And I said, uh, no. Which obviously is, you know, of course, everyone goes on there for a PR.

Speaker B: Of course. It's like, hang on, you're. You're on TV investing money is at a PR spin. Yeah.

Speaker A: Anyway, 1 million percent. So I was just. No. And then, you know, I think they wanted to make a bit of a point. Um. But, yeah, wasn't expecting what happened in there. It is a really strange experience. You'd have to go through it yourself to actually understand what it's like. One thing that I really didn't like about it and, um, when the episode ad. And I was conscious of this when they were filming, was they. They just make you look so stupid. And as someone who's always, you know, I've always. I always pride myself on. I've committed. Before I started hairstyle, I was really committed to. To academics, you know, like, I was really a real, um, geek in school, you know, I got two A stars, two A's at my A level. Graduated with Watford and Warwick with the first. And then I just knew that my credibility and all this decade that I'd put into my school years and whatnot. I knew that when that episode came out, I'd just be standing on the stage like a rabbit in a headlight and made to look like an absolute fool.

Speaker B: But this is the problem, I think, where, you know, the edit isn't in your hands and the purpose to which, uh, it's made can be to aggrandize others or, you know, rack up viewing. So in a way, you've got the story of, um, an older media type dominating a narrative versus that, um, if you have more open, direct approach you'd had via social channels. So in a way, it's like a clash, I think, of old and new worlds anyway, across generations, that's exactly what it was.

Speaker A: And I think that was really obvious when people were watching it. The fact that they thought me being so viral on TikTok was a disadvantage. I just didn't. Couldn't understand that, because every single retailer I work with, you know, it's a criteria you have to have a presence on social media, particularly TikTok, you know, they have stands and shops that says as seen on TikTok.

Speaker B: Exactly.

Speaker A: Trending now.

Speaker B: But when, when you went through that, there's obviously a very personal bruising. I mean, I want to cry just imagining it. But then, as well as dealing with that, you then go turn around, head back to lovely West Wales and talk to the team who, you know, have been, in a way, invested in your success, into their careers. So tell me about that, um, meeting when you get back after you say, it's like, right, guys, that didn't go too well.

Speaker A: Yeah, that was probably the worst part, to be honest. Um, because, you know, you got people, they work for you and they rely on you to the wage, pays their mortgage at the end of the month and all that stuff. And again, I just had no idea what was going to happen. So I was coming back to Wales and it was, like you said, it was a big hit for me and a big hit to my confidence. And I wonder, if I didn't have a team, I was doing this by myself, might I have given up? But I remember just thinking, what the hell am I gonna tell them? How am I gonna explain this to them? And, um, a big thing for me was you've got these British business moguls, Peter Jones, Stephen Bartlett, they know what's best and, you know, they're the experts. And if they don't believe in hair syrup and they don't think that it's got a future, I remember thinking there's no way my staff are going to think, well, if they don't believe in you, then why should I? And you are just, uh, I was 24 at the time. You are just a 24 year old girl who started this business a little bit by chance and you've kind of just felt your way through things and maybe you don't know what you're doing and maybe you are wrong and maybe this is all just a bad idea. So that was a really big thing for me was having to face my staff and tell them, okay, no, it's a no. And it's going to be a no on TV and everyone's going to see it being a no. And I can't shy away from that as much as I would have loved to buried my head in the sand. So I literally had to go in and I didn't tell anyone, so I had to go. Well, I did obviously like more senior people in the team, but I had to go in. We had a couple of warehouses at the time and I just went in and I just said, oh, hi. And they said, oh. So how did it go? They all thought I was gonna get an offer, uh, from someone because in their opinions it's like, oh, well, but

Speaker B: they see the product, they see the work, they see the customers buying it. So they could see the existing trajectory of growth anyway.

Speaker A: Exactly. And, um, everyone loves it and it's the big, you know, one of the biggest, most trending brands in the UK right now. So great. You know, they, that's what they thought. And I remember looking at all of their faces and they were all staring at me really expectantly and I said, oh, no, sorry, it's, uh. And it, it actually genuinely felt like I was letting everyone else down, like I'd failed them. Um, and I said, oh, no, it's not happening. I got six nos and they can believe it. And then I was trying to relay this story to them because they just, they said, what? How? Um, well, eventually they were quite quiet and sheepish. At the beginning when I first told them, nobody really knew what to say. I think they were all probably worrying, what does this mean for me?

Speaker B: Exactly. Yes.

Speaker A: Which you would be. And eventually, you know, I said, well, look, this is going to be okay and we're going to turn this into a positive and this is not the end.

Speaker B: So what was your proposal then, to build off that experience?

Speaker A: So the proposal was that my social media manager and I were going to take this because she always saw the positive in it. She said, no, it's so good that you got rejected because we're this.

Speaker B: By old conventional men.

Speaker A: That's what she said. She said, well, she was like, it's not our.

Speaker B: It's not your demographic.

Speaker A: No. And, you know, although the product demographic is anyone. Anyone and everyone can use it, but you can't appeal to every single person. Well, you can some brands, but it's difficult, especially when you're growing. Like when you scale. Yeah, okay. You can be more, you know, but it is difficult at the beginning. You have to find your little niche and you have to stick to it. So she was like, well, it doesn't really matter. She said how if they had invested. There's not really anything funny about that. She said, you know, you're an underdog brand. We've got. It'll be funny. And that was her genuine feeling on it. She said, it's just. It's gonna be funny. Our TikTok's very unserious and, you know, we post a lot of sort of behind the scenes, raw, authentic content. And she just said, who cares? It's gonna be funny. We can make loads of content about it. So the idea kind of was that we were going to. We felt that the dragons had trolled me on tv, which, again, the kind of conventional, traditional media outlet. And, um, we thought that what we'd do is troll the dragons back on TikTok.

Speaker B: Nice.

Speaker A: And obviously there was a lot of question marks. Uh, the BBC weren't particularly thrilled when they heard my plans. One of my favorite conversations I ever had with them was they asked me if I could share some of the assets that we'd planned to, uh, post after the, after the episode ad. And I sent them. There was this meme that went extremely viral for ages. And it was this little meme. Loads of people would have seen it. And it's this little, little cute gray hamster with a little pink bow in its hair. So it's called the sad Hamster meme. And I remember emailing this over and it was a picture of the Dragon's Den stage and then the sad hamster just on the stage. And anyway, anyone who is kind of up there with the social media content and stuff, they obviously, it went extremely viral when I did end up posting it. But I remember having to explain to this person because they said, are you calling the dragons a hamster? I don't understand what's going on. Is this, Is this insulting? And I said. And I said, no. I was. I'm the hamster. And they said, I don't get it. So I was having to try and explain these memes and I was just like, look, I don't think I said I'm not going to post anything offensive. But they were really worried because I think they realized she's got a big following and this has potential to. I mean, everyone posts about Dragons Den when they go on there. But I was just going to do it to another level and I think they thought, what's going to come out of this? And, um, you know, like you said, there's always going to be concerns. I didn't know I'd never watched the episode before it aired, but there's going to be natural concerns. I was a 24 year old young girl, you know, they weren't getting the best publicity at that time anyway and they were probably worried about what was gonna be said about my experience in there, uh, because it didn't come across very well at all. I always say to people, the Dragons were lovely. Like off camera, they were really nice. And you didn't see I was in there for three and a half hours, you saw ten minutes of it. They were actually lovely the vast majority of the time.

Speaker B: And it's the edit, it's always the edit.

Speaker A: And, you know, I remember they said to me when I was getting upset on stage that they just thought it was funny, like not funny in a horrible way. But the Dragon said, lucy, this is Dragon's Den. Like, we're here to grill you. This isn't. It's part of it, you know. And I just thought, oh, well, you don't like me and you don't like my business. And they said, no, that's not it at all. It's what we're supposed to do. It's.

Speaker B: But I think it's always this thing, you know, with tone and optics. There are just certain things just are inappropriate for A, older males, B, older people generally, and C, I think we've got this money, uh, investor sort of asymmetrical relationship. I just think in modern business that's just not the way you'd behave.

Speaker A: Well, it's so funny because I've met with several investors since Dragon's Den and they said to me when I was on stage, because I'd never looked to raise any money or take any investment, so I had no idea really what it was all about. And, um, they said to me, you know, if you actually went, they said you'd have money thrown at you. Anyone would throw money. And they said, it's not like this. I mean, for Some people, it might be like, I see a lot of startups and they have to go through 50 VCs before anyone will even have a meeting with them. But with my business, it was. I was in a very different, um,

Speaker B: proven and growing, etc.

Speaker A: Yeah. And they said, you know, you'd have a very different experience, you know, off camera, and there couldn't be more. Right. Like, it's so true. And it's nothing like that. And it's a quite a poor representation, really, of a business in my position looking to raise as little as 190 grand at the time. Because, you know, that's nothing in terms of the investment world. It's not representative of how it, uh, actually would have gone and anywhere. But I've learned all this since and it's the best going on. Dragons Den was the best thing I've ever done in my life. It was one of the worst experiences being on stage. But it's shaped me in ways that nothing else could ever have shaped me. It's changed my business, it's changed me. It's just the best thing I could have ever done. Um, and. But anyway, when we decided so, what I'd said to my team was, oh, we're gonna troll the Dragons. And there was a little bit of, what really?

Speaker B: Is this a fight we want to start?

Speaker A: That's what they said. They said, what do you mean? Uh, I don't know, is that a good idea? And I said, look, we're not gonna do anything really bad, nothing offensive. It's like, we'll just have a bit. I said, let's just poke fun at ourselves before anyone else does. Because the last thing that I wanted was for everyone to just absolutely rip me and pile on. So I thought, well, if we make a bit of a joke about it first, it's very on brand anyway. And I don't think anyone could ever have prepared themselves for how well it would actually do. We thought we were doing some collateral damage, but what we were actually doing was pulling off one of the biggest marketing stunts that the UK really saw in 2025, where we took this nationwide rejection where I'd been told no and brushed off and almost overlooked by all of these investors, to then turning it all on its head and doing a little bit of a tongue in cheek. Not a two fingers up, but a bit.

Speaker B: It was characterful. It shows that, you know, yeah, we're

Speaker A: still here, you're still there, you're still kicking.

Speaker B: Exactly.

Speaker A: And, you know, we launched in Boots, so went on in early summer of 2024 and then in November, think of 2024 had launched in Boots. So it was really nice. It was kind of like rejected on Dragons Den, but then I got into Boots, rejected on Dragons Den, but now I'm the Sunday Times Young Founder of the Year. So it's just such a nice little full circle moment. And it's just, it is the marketing gift that keeps on giving. But it's really funny because I always have brands say to me now, someone actually said to me before, came up to an event and, um, they said, oh, my God, your Dragon's Den marketing. I mean, we got 20 over. We say 22, but it was actually more like 24 over 24 million profile views in less than 48 hours. When we were posting about going on the Dan and it just went. I got 100,000 new followers, it just went insane. Um, but someone came up to me in an event, probably April time, so about a couple of months after the

Speaker B: campaign, so fresh and still fresh.

Speaker A: And they said, but it never been done before, you know, nobody had ever done anything like that. So it was the first of its kind. And someone said, ah, you know, I'm, I've got this brand and blah, blah, I'm a partner in it or something, and we want to go in Dragons Den and, um, we want to get rejected by all of the Dragons so we can do what you do. So that's our plan.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And I just said, I think they're

Speaker B: probably copying the wrong bit of the lesson there, aren't they?

Speaker A: I said, it doesn't. I was like, no. I was like, it doesn't work like that. Uh, I was like, the whole reason it did so well. I said, do you think I walked into that then thinking, oh, this will be such a great marketing. I was like, no, the moral of the story is make the best of a bad situation. I was like, the moral of the story is not, oh, try and do really badly so that you can redeem yourself.

Speaker B: It's too complicated, isn't it?

Speaker A: And it's just false and it's not authentic and it's not real. And I said to them, like, in the nice, obviously I was really nice, but I was like, oh, maybe rethink that. Maybe rethink that. I said, you don't really. It's very difficult. I said, you can't go into the Den and think that you're gonna steer the outcome. And if you do, you'll be bitterly

Speaker B: such a good point. And I think maybe that that's a thread as well. We can draw out of this, which is by maintaining that consistency of character and purpose, it allows you to weather those. But look, dragons are now a good year in the past. Let's look forward to the rest of this year and the trajectory, uh, we're on. So in the rest of time we got together, just tell me how the business is now facing and what's interesting and, uh, engaging you as you look through 26.

Speaker A: Wow. Uh, well, I thought last year was going to be the craziest year, but this year's set up to look even bigger and even crazier.

Speaker B: Of course, this podcast is always the highlight, of course, of the start of the year.

Speaker A: Of course. I mean, we're off to a flying start. So 2026 is really where we see the brand going to the next level. Um, in terms, when you say brand,

Speaker B: just very briefly, you start off with a, uh, one product solution. Um, but now we're talking about the brand. So five years in, how do you see the brand beyond the product and then carry on? So I don't mean to interrupt too

Speaker A: much, so we wanted to position ourselves as front runners really. And I always believe in the saying do one thing well. So rather than being one of those brands who brings out a shampoo and this and this and that, you know, I see brands sometimes, um, might work for some people, but they're a very open, generic brand and they sell something for your body and something for your hair. And it's kind of the jack of all trades. And for me, that wasn't where I saw the brand going. I was like, look, I want to be really specific and intentional. I want to be the market leader, uh, or try and get there with the pre wash oils was very specific. And once we'd established ourselves through those products that I knew were really good and I knew people loved, the next step for the brand is obviously npd. So we've bought out leave in oils. So like the secondary step. So the pre wash is before the leave ins or after you wash. They haven't really landed in the way I wanted them to land. So we're kind of rethinking that. But what we're trying to build hair serif into is a start, uh, you know, a start to end wash day, thorough wash day collection and all of the npd. I want to branch off the oils. So I want, you know, we've got one oil that people use. They absolutely love it. It's like a peppermint oil. It helps, you know, loads of people have really bad dandruff, itchy scalp, flaky scalp, that kind of stuff. And I'll use this peppermint oil and see great results. So the idea is that we'd kind of have a range off that, uh, one product that has the same scent, the same color scheme, the same packaging, same function, but it's a shampoo, but it's a kind of detox shampoo. And. And then you've got a conditioner, but it's a sort of refreshing, lightweight conditioner. And then you've got the post wash. You've got like a scalp, a soothing scalp serum. So you've got these products that are all tying back to that one product and that one product's purpose. So that's how we're taking it from just being hair syrup that just sells hair oil into a recognized brand.

Speaker B: And you're saying we. So the journey's gone from you, singular, in the kitchen, with your formulations, checking out active ingredients, to now a much more structured corporate approach of npd. The fact you call it new product development, range extensions and so on. Ah, at what point do you sit back and think, oh, it's gone from being my start of a solopreneur and now I'm a, uh, grown up corporate. Is there a moment? Has that arrived or do you foresee it happening or want it to happen?

Speaker A: Hair syrup is very interesting in that sense because we are in the nicest way possible. It's a little bit of a Jekyll and Hyde. So you've got the front facing brand, which is really fun, really engaging. I'm on the TikTok a lot, being really silly, really fun. But then you've got the other side of hair syrup business, lucy. Yeah. Which 99% of people would just never know even exists. And Lucy's my social media manager, so she's almost. Her profile is, you know, bigger than mine sometimes. I mean, some people almost, you know, probably think that she owns the brand.

Speaker B: Yeah, she is the Lucy.

Speaker A: Yeah, she's the other Lucy and she's always on the TikTok page. And sometimes people think that even though we've got this, not only do we do because we do our own, you know, we do, we have our own in House 3PL, do our own customer service, all that stuff. People think that it's just me and Lucy running hair syrup, they have no idea the complexities, the operational side of things, the finance side. Um, I think we've struck a really nice balance of having, like I said, the front facing side of the brand but quietly in the background. I mean we've got so many people who work especially in the SLT at Hair Serup. You will never see them on our TikTok page because they don't need to be on our TikTok page. You know, someone who's ahead of sales is not interested, you know, uh, you know, late 30s guy, he's not interested in being on our TikTok, you know, and he lives abroad, it's not his thing. But we've got all of this grown up stuff that goes on on one side and I'm very split. So most of my time is spent sitting in seven hours of serious meetings all day and all night. But if you look at Hair Seraph and you look at the TikTok, people see, oh, Lucy, Lucy. They just have so much fun and they do this and they go there. Uh, and I think people find it baffling because they think, how do they get any work done? Um, but they don't realize the, you know, behind the curtain, what's actually going on. And it's a really serious operation with a lot of extremely skilled, more skilled than me, may I add. Um, people involved who are dealing with distributors, international expansion, NPD. We got really, really experienced with extremely impressive CVs, chemists involved in the process. And to this day people, you know, they'll still, I think it's that really nice balance if they understand that. Of course I'm really heavily involved in the NPD process. But they've also got this assurance now of. But they're rigorously tested.

Speaker B: She's human. But also.

Speaker A: Yeah, so there's a. That's where I'm trying to strike the balance with the brand. But it's interesting. I don't know where it's going to end up. I think anyone who tries to tell you exactly what you should do with your business and how you should do it, I think especially with me and my brand, nobody's done this before. So how can anyone really know the right path? I was speaking to someone the other day who exited a very large company for hundreds of millions. And he said to me, wow, you've got. Just from talking to you for 40 minutes, he said you. I was talking to him about my business and how we've grown it. And he said, you've got a really great gut instinct. And he said, hold onto that, take advice, understand, you know, listen. So whenever I'm making a decision, I'll take perspectives from ops, from logistics, from finance, from whoever, from pr, from this. That and the other from sales, and then I'll make the decision. And he was like, that's what you need to do. You need to take your information, but go with your gut. So I think with hair syrup and the direction and where we're going in the future, I think it's really important that you keep an open mind as well. To the fact that I don't like the idea that brands ever have to be pigeonholed into one thing or the other, or one market or the other. I think there's always. Everything's always changing. And as a brand, as long as you're open, honest, transparent and reactive, you can enjoy that. The ebbs and flows that seem to be going on in the world at the moment. So who knows whether we'll ever be a fully grown up company? I don't know, but we're trying to have the best. I'm trying to have my cake and eat it at the moment.

Speaker B: Good. Well, I think, um, never becoming a grown up is probably everyone's ambition, but I think, you know, you've really, uh, set out that balance between the discipline, the fun character, but also listening. So, uh, it's a perfect ending, I think, Lucy, to a journey you've shared with us. And I, uh, appreciated this stage maybe getting an insight into your thinking, where you are now. And we very much look forward to seeing how the business keeps growing, uh, and wish you every success with it. So thank you for joining us, the studio.

Speaker A: Well, thank you. And thank you everyone, for listening.