How to overcome adversity in business with double cancer survivor and instant noodle maker Damien Lee of Mr. Lee’s Noodles | #407

Damien

For me it’s food right now making food better.

Tim

Okay so you want to change the way we consume.

Damien

Yes, particularly for busy people. Food on the go. I said my story we’re going to talk a little bit about today I guess for me it’s about just making what I considered to be a fairly nasty segment, a little bit better and making people’s lives easier on the go.

Tim

Pretty tasty segment. Must be all the bad stuff that makes it tasty. We’ll come to that. So, what is important is family and life. You’ve experienced two very tumultuous, very serious times. You’ve looked death in the eye twice with your diagnosis of primary cancer of 2014 and then again how long ago?

Damien

I was last diagnosed again with cancer that was summer of 2017. I’m just sort of finished all the treatment in the last few weeks.

Tim

You look pretty well.  Got a bit of a cut on your neck.

Damien

Lost a bit of weight.

Tim

What a nice start Yeah, he lost a bit of weight. He started to eat again. Well if you need any help there just give him because he looks pretty good you know. Good idea. So you because I guess the question around what’s important to you is the fact that you could have, some would have given up, some would have gone you know what this business things got hairs on it. I’ve got two young boys I’ve got a lovely partner I’m just going to go on a cruise.

Damien

And that’s not me. That’s not me, no. For me it was a red rag to a bull was a challenge. And with my two boys I am a single dad with two boys as well so they live with me full time. So for me it was about what I needed to get over the challenge. I needed to be there for the boys and get through that. So yeah so it was just about getting on with it really.

Tim

Have you got something to prove nothing to prove?

Damien

I’ve always been a motivated guy. And for me it was just about, okay it’s a challenge, it’s a challenge. And you know a lot of people that were around me at the time going through the similar thing unfortunately didn’t make it and I felt that they were doing some of the things wrong and you know who I am to judge. But I felt that they could be doing things better in that particular situation and that was about eating. I changed my whole lifestyle when I was the first time given the diagnosis. It was about you know come to believe it today and you are what you eat big time and that was about taking all the sugars the saturated fats the nasty’s out of your diet and getting on with the treatment they give you as well. I went raw at the time. Whole bunch of things to just give myself the best chance of getting through it. You know it wasn’t an easy time for sure but you know as I said you’ve got no choice.

Damien

Adam you’re a long time known Damien since fifth class? What are we dealing with here?

Adam

Damien is quite a unique entity, Timbo. Has always been a go getter. I’ve never seen him use the stop button and when he was first diagnosed he phoned me and said I’ve got a couple of weeks to live. It’s the late stage four. I don’t know what’s happening. So I came home and I said to my wife who is also known Damien for a very long time and I said I just have to go to the UK and find out what’s going on. So I went over there and from the moment I got there to the moment I left which was about two weeks. He was very upbeat. He spent the minimal amount of time in hospital that he could and he just wanted to get on with it.

Tim

Is he always like that? I always like to talk about you and your presence.  But here’s the thing, there’s a whole lot of business owners listening who are up against it, for whatever reason they may not have been diagnosed with the primary cancer but they may have lost,  who knows and we deal with different stuff right. So I’m just trying to figure out what keeps you going what is it that kind of you just optimistic in your DNA.

Damien

I think so look all my life I’ve been an entrepreneur. Yes, and you know I’m sort of a guy I always say to people are unemployable. And I think an entrepreneur has to it has to be that way. I think an entrepreneur is never settled. An entrepreneur is hungry. Some entrepreneurs out there spotting opportunity all the time. All the businesses I’ve had over the years and pretty much a lot of those have been around the world have been businesses that I’ve never had prior experience in before.

Tim

What no experience and instant noodles?

Damien

Outside of eating them, no. And I was always a big instant needle eater because they were convenient, they were easy to get, easy to make and tasted good. Didn’t particularly care about all the nasties in them. Look I’ve had businesses ranging from oil to security in Iraq and Afghanistan to satellite communications Maritime Satellite Communications Company now the second largest in the world, our recruitment companies, bars, restaurants, you name it. It’s been varied and mostly I’d never had prior experience in those businesses have gone on to be successful with or without me. Some have crashed. You’ve got to have a few crashes in your life as an entrepreneur you’ve got to have your failures get stronger and learn. But yeah it’s just in the DNA I guess. I love getting up in the morning and looking for something new.

Tim

So it would be fair to say that what you’ve been through in the last few years the fact that you’re getting up going to work creating new things. Being that entrepreneur is a major contributor to you enjoying and living life without it. It’s terrible. But I don’t get it.

Damien

Yeah look my previous wives, I say wives.

Tim:

How many previous wives are you talking to?

Damien:

Only two. I hope they’re listening. But you know they always hated the fact that we’d go on holiday you know some wives like to go on those beach holidays and spend two three four weeks away and kick back. I like liked you know after all we come climbing the walls. I’m a nightmare and they just settle down and stop it. Get off the phone, you know you’re on the beach and stop it. But you know.

Tim

Yeah well sort of. I’m probably more like your wife than you but I get it. I’m sure I get enough of you. Yeah kind of guy you know you’ve got something in you that just won’t let down, won’t let go.

Damien

That’s it. I’m looking for wife number three. That’s probably a bit more accepting and understands me.

Tim

Maybe she’ll try husband number one I don’t know.

Adam

You know what I mean, it’s an open free world.

Damien

It’s a free world.

Tim

He’s an entrepreneur. Got lovely pink jacket.  So, it’s all very well to love instant noodles. I get that like I love them. I mean I think many people love the salt, the salt on those wonderful chemicals they put in them. But how do you go about starting an instant noodle business without any experience of F.M.C.G.?

Damien

Yeah great question. Great question. And again, it comes back to my personal health story. Look prior to starting or prior to actually being diagnosed with cancer or actually at the time, I’d moved from London and moved down to where I’m currently located in the UK and a little beach side town in southwest England called Bournemouth seven miles sandy beach. That’s what attracted me being Australian. Yes, no it’s actually sand down there is not Brighton Beach. It’s got seven miles of sand so it blew me away… So, I left London. I had a previous business and went down there and I had a longtime ambition to have an Internet startup company. So I started my Internet startup company down there called design gadgets. At the time I had 20,30 people working for me at the time I put all my personal resources into it and it was kind of working with the crowdfunding platforms like Indiegogo, Kickstarter. If you are familiar with those and that’s another story anyway but we’re 10-11 months into that business and that’s when I got the good news about you’ve got a few weeks left and you know you need to make plans

Tim

You said that half facetiously, half seriously because in a way no one wishes cancer sentence their life right. Deaths or whatever you call it make absolutely certain but did you sort of see it as I feel like it’s like ripper. Okay let’s bring that on. Yeah

Damien

look I don’t see it in any shape or form as a negative. It’s made me a better person I believe. I look at things differently, I look at life differently. I don’t take life too seriously anymore. The things that I did get stressed out in the past don’t stress me anymore. The people that I thought were important in my life, I realised weren’t as important as I thought now. So it gives me a whole new perspective.

Tim

I think it would be a good decision maker generally. Adam would that be fair to say about Damien?

Adam

Yeah and once he’s made the decision he sticks with it.

Tim

Has it become a lot easier to make decisions?

Damien

Has it made it a yes and no. I think those decisions are always.

Adam

Always are decisions.

Tim

So you’re in Bournemouth, you’ve got this design gadget business and you get your diagnosis. Just tell me about design gadgets. It was a place for entrepreneurs to come and go I’ve got an idea. Help me get to market.

Damien

No. It’s just different. It was it was an idea where I looked at the crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter Indiegogo and I thought look some of these great ideas from around the world either get funded or not but I saw it as a great barometer when you can see a project getting funded and reaching its funding. Okay this one may see the light of day because you can see how excited the community gets around a certain funding project and these projects then once they’re funded they filter off into wherever they go and get on with the project and try and bring it to market and go on to various sales platforms and so forth. What I hope I’m not giving away a great idea here.  And the idea was to bring in… But it is about creating a marketplace for these great projects that were going to be going to be going to reach fruition and bring them into one online shop. So you kind of see it first on design gadgets but it was actually much more than that because we were bringing also academia into it so as getting the universities in the UK and they were going to be abroad like Cambridge universities, Oxford Universities, academia from engineering, technology that would also once these projects got funded, we would bring the academia in to help these entrepreneurs these young entrepreneurs from an academia point of view, an engineering point of view. These guys may not necessarily have access to really bright brains and the facilities some of these universities for are indeed could offer. So I don’t want to talk too much about this but you know it was exciting. I want to get into noodles. That was it.

Tim

Exciting. You get the diagnosis, what happens to design gadgets?

Damien

Well look what I got when I got the news, you had to come in and sort of break it to the office and said listen guys I may not be around for a little while I’ve got to get on with something and this is why. And I remember that day perfectly where everybody’s faces just dropped. And they were like Wow. And I guess a lot of people were thinking well what happens now. And it really was the case I mean I immediately had to go into hospital and I said to the guys look you know I want you to stay around but I can’t force you to stay here and I’m not sure how I’m going to be able to fund this situation. I don’t know what or how the future’s going to look. So most of the guys felt it off and got on with their lives some went back to London and you know the company just sort of melted away in here and rightly so. So, I know I knew the outcome for me.

Tim

So, you spend the next how many months?

Damien

I spent almost the next 12 months cracking on with what I had to go through And that was a heavy. The Chemo regime and so forth but that’s when at that moment when I got that news with my girlfriend at the time Lancre ,  she’s moved on. She’s on the video. Well actually she still works in the company. She’s still an Mr. Lee’s today.

Tim

So 12 months of chemo.

Damien:

It was actually less than that but I had recovery periods and so forth this year.

Tim

So at what point in that 12 months did the idea for Mr. Lee’s noodles come along?

Damien

Well look there was a bit of a backstory during designed gadgets during design gadgets they actually did a business trip to China. And in China I met two local business brothers that actually owned China’s fifth largest instant noodle factory.

Tim

You did a business trip?

Damien

Yeah exactly. And when I was in their factory having a tour of their factory, I asked one of the brothers. Mind you these guys make five billion instant noodles a year just in the Chinese market, just lot noodles. And I was you know I was in one of their warehouses and it was stacked floor to ceiling with noodles boxes and noodles. And I asked one of the brothers. Well actually the brothers actually asked me first. He said Damien, we really want to start exporting our noodles to Europe and the UK. Can you help us since you’re over there? And I said to the brothers I said listen. Thanks very much. But I know nothing about retail. I know nothing about noodles outside of eating them. And by the way I’m busy with my own startup company at the moment but hey thanks for the opportunity. And at that point I asked one of the brothers just a bit of a small talk way I just said hey so which is your favorite flavor and one of the brothers said to me said well give me a smile first I thought okay yeah. And he said we don’t eat our noodles.

Tim

Oh wow.

Damien

And I said wow. That’s exactly what I said. I said wow, why not. And he said if you knew what we put in our noodles you wouldn’t. And I said you’re kidding me? And this is coming from the owner of the fifth largest instant little manufacturer that way. And I said but why.

Tim

Do we know the brand?

Damien

No, I’m not gonna say it. I’m not going to say it. I don’t think they’re out here because they’re just in China at the time maybe they’re out here. I haven’t seen them since.

Tim

What was in them?

Damien

This is it. I said but why. And he said Damien to give you a little idea. He said, ten years ago in China there were over 300 little manufacturers. He said today, there’s less than 60 of us. And I said but why. And he said look, it’s so competitive and the instant noodle market now everybody is competing with each other on margin and whatever that we’re all just dumbing down our product. There’s nothing natural in them, we can’t afford to put anything natural in them anymore. Wow. So that was a big eye opener for me because I’ve been eating instant noodles like you since as a kid. And I was like man, so I’ve just been putting all that junk into me and you know more or less he said yeah, we’re all doing it. So that was kind of the moment that I took away from me when I went back to the UK and sort of just you know, registered at the back of my mind. And it was when I finished my diagnosis or finished my treatment with cancer, and Lancre I and the boys we went away to Greece. It was the first time I could get on a plane Lancre Yeah and my partner at the time and we sat on the beach I went two weeks of recovery and thinking time and I said to Lancre on the beach I said right, what am I going to do now. And I’d done a bit of prior research to that. On the instant noodle segment because I thought back to the brothers and thought maybe I need something to do I’ve lost designed gadgets to try and get that going again or do I do something new.

Tim

Did Lancre not suggest do nothing and enjoy life?

Damien

No. She knows me. And so I sat there and thought okay let’s look at the size of the instant noodle market and I looked at the size of the instant noodle market and realised very quickly that it was 100 to 120 billion units per year are made and consumed globally around the world. We thought wow this is a very, very big segment. But I realised very quickly 100 and 120 billion nasty noodles are being made and consumed around the world each year.

Tim

None of them were clean.

Damien

None of them were clean as far as I could see at that point in time.

Tim

You redefined a gap in the market these days isn’t it .  One that is truly a real gap, not a made-up gap.

Damien

Absolutely. So for me I saw opportunity because particularly about the way my lifestyle was now with the healthy eating, eating healthier, taking all the nasty’s out of my diet. I thought when they were talking about that big race to the bottom, it has opportunity. I’m not going to do their noodle, I’m going to do my own noodle. One that I believe in now with all the US piece around the product. I’m going to make the world’s as far as I’m concerned healthiest instant noodle product. The lowest in salt, the lowest sugars, the lowest in saturated fats, the lowest in calories, gluten free, and so on

Tim

Well you know I love instant noodles. I’ve got yours in front of me, I haven’t tried them.

Damien

Tell me if they’re boring.

Tim

Well no doubt I will. But you know I’m just looking at it from a marketing messaging point of view and I’ve seen all those messages on your website and that is because it instant noodle is like it’s confectionery. It’s like something that gives you a quick fix .  And once you remove all those things. I’m glad that the slow fix.

Damien

This is going so great you want to say something?

Adam

So here’s the thing Timbo. The what’s contained in those pot noodles in front of you is freeze dried ingredients and those veggies freeze dried ingredients contain all the nutrients.

Tim

Which to say freeze drying is better than a dehydrating because all the goodness goes out. More expensive I’m guessing.

Damien

Yes we lock all the goodness in.

Adam

So when you’re consuming one of our noodles, it’s a light meal. It’s not a snack. And it’s definitely not confectionery

Adam

I think it’s of great marketing. I mean don’t get me wrong.  I mean I love the idea. Great marketing challenge to get all this across. Because you’ve only got a page in a mag or these things on TV.

Damien

How do you communicate a widely accepted nasty food segment?

Tim

So we’ll come to that. Okay. Do you love instant noodles, Adam?

Adam

Yes, I do because Damien and I as you know grew up together. And Damien’s father was from Singapore. Oh I used to love going back to their house in the kitchen there noodles and chilli and all the flavors that come out in the wider Asian culinary that we eat today. We were delving into that 40 years ago.

Tim

So back home, were you Maggi chicken or beef noodle eater?

Adam

I think it did actually have to say beef.

Tim

I was chicken. Back to you Damien. We got nothing in common Adam. I’m chicken man and I’m all over it. Anyways, that’s right. So okay so you you’re on the beach you’ve said to your partner you’re gonna do this.

Damien

So we can do this. I said look Lancs, those guys that are in the whole industry as far as I was concerned was in that race to the bottom from what my bit of research I did and can see what was going on and knowing what’s on the supermarket shelf anyway for years and years it’s pretty much the same product in a different coloured box and a race to the bottom in terms of price pricing and in terms of ingredients and pricing. The whole lot. I said you could pick up 10 different offerings in the supermarket today, 10 different brands, open them up. It’s all a very similar offering. There’s nothing new. There is no uniqueness as far as I’m concerned. So I thought a ha opportunity let’s go completely the opposite direction. Let’s make the world’s costliest, healthiest not just snack, but a light meal option on the go. I said today, the food trends are going more and more towards healthier eating. People are seeking out healthier options today more than ever. Five, ten years ago in the supermarket, if you go to the supermarket today you’ll actually see blokes picking up whatever it is and turning the packet around and reading what’s on the back. They’re looking at the ingredients, they’re looking at nutritional information. That never happened 10 years ago and today even the blokes are looking for healthier eating options. Mums looking for healthier eating options for the family and so on. So the trend is going towards healthier eating and people will pay it back.

Tim:

I get it, but I don’t get how you go from, I think there’s a role, there’s a need for healthy instant noodles to actually doing what I have in my hand right now, healthy instant noodle.  What was your first step? I’d just be overwhelmed.

Damien

My first step was firstly having the conviction to think this is what I want to do. That was the first thing.

Tim

And once you got that does it feel like that’s the big hurdle?

Damien

Absolutely. Without a conviction you can’t do anything well. I believe you’ve got to believe in what you do, you’ve got to believe in your own gut instinct that you have made the right decision and choice in terms of the business opportunity. You’ve done your research, business plan, and so forth. I do everything with the business plan as well so I map and that my business, boring i know, I know but look you need the business plan and you need the investors right. I’m not inherently someone that loves to write a business plan but if you want to get the big bucks and the investors in on it. This is what they want. So I spent two months researching it and business planning it.

Tim

The conviction, tell us what the conviction feels like when you reflect on it. When you go geez what am I doing. You go back and is there a line in your head or something that you say to yourself?

Damien

I know I have conviction about something I do. I sleep well that night. It’s just like a load off my shoulders. This is right it feels right. I have that feeling and it’s just a set. It’s really like that. For me I go to bed that night and I don’t wake up at 2:00 in the morning thinking, thinking, thinking my brain is going. I just sleep all through the night.

Tim

Get a conviction. Sleep better. Okay. So you got your conviction. What do you then do? Come up with the name? Clever name, where they come from?

Damien

Well kind of my dad gave it to me and my surname.

Tim

Thank you very much. Sometimes I find going and visually creating the brand and brings it to life. Is that what you did next?

Damien

That’s exactly what I did, yeah. So look how I pitched and marketed this is a bit more to it but look go for it. And let me just take one step back. So when I came up with my idea of how I’m going to do it and what I’m going to do and the ingredients and so on and why my product was going to be different to what’s out there today, it wasn’t good enough for me just to have a food product. My whole business strategy was not the supermarket first. Okay. And people like what you mean at the supermarket first, if you create a product or a food brand or you’re trying to do is get on the supermarket shelf right? Wrong okay. How was Mr. Lee’s going to compete with 20 other household brands on the supermarket shelf costing two times, three times more than a household, you’ve got suwi men and all these other brands here today is a significantly more expensive. How would we ever have a chance against the big Unilever budgets and so on. So my strategy was to find a different route to market. So we’re not just a food business, we’re a food tech business and I’ll come to that in a minute. So that’s how I describe Mr. Lee’s noodles, food tech business. It’s about finding different routes through the soft underbelly and the soft underbelly for me was the travel industry, the hotel industry, okay the tech side of our business and what that is I call it noodle kiosks. A lot of people will call it vending okay, creating our own vending machines for our noodles, noodle kiosks which we’ve done and that’s our own IP and talk about that and sec if you like. And going about it very differently. So we’re on planes, were on trains and so forth. We’re now here in Australia, we’ve recently launched on Jetstar Australia right throughout Asia-Pacific and Australia. We’ve got to have our Skews on board there and we’re over here right now you know speaking to similar organizations right now to continue our push in

Tim

Have you talked to Virgin Australia?

Damien

I won’t confirm or deny that.

Tim

Love that. Early days so I’m still on the beach now. You’re still recovering from chemo. By the way we are talking to Damien Lee and Adam Longhurst of Mr. Lee’s noodles. Adam being the general manager of Australia?

Adam

Head of Australia

Tim

Head of Australia yeah you get a word with this bloke isn’t it. Feel free to jump in. That’s what I’m missing things on the way. It’s an incredible story. You’re on the beach, instant noodles, clean, food tech company. We’re not going to go supermarkets we’re going to go through we have a vending machine, kiosks coming together, you get a brand done. Looks good, you get excited by that? Yeah yeah. Got a product yet?

Damien

I’ve got a product yet.

Tim

Seriously, did you always have other ideas like that?

Damien

This product is all in my head. This was all in my head, my whole strap, my boring business plan. But then I

Adam

Actually, sorry, it wasn’t a boring business plan he emailed it to me is it. Have a look at this see what you think. And I said yeah this is a good business plan.

Tim

What was good about it?

Adam

Is a short sort of page? It was it was relatively short and it made a lot of sense.

Damien

60 pages short.

Adam

Because that’s what you are it’s what you call a white space. Yes and it’s definitely a white space

Tim

Because how long ago did you get the business. That must have been like 22 years ago?

Adam

2015.

Tim

Okay you’re running a leather importing business.

Adam

Leather importing business. That’s right.

Tim

You may be looking for another exciting opportunity.

Adam

Yes, yes my other business has been going 20 years and is still going and that’s very successful and it’s a case of working with a guy who I’ve known all my life. We’ve had a lot of fun together. We’ve had a lot of fights together but in the end, we’re like brothers and very close and it just made sense, what he pitched to me made sense because I’d been a noodle fan all my life as well especially for something on the go because like you Tim, were busy people.

Tim

I’m not busy.  Look at me I’m just sitting back here.  So, we now sort of getting close to maybe putting a product together?

Damien

Yeah well, the next step for me was to scrape me having the conviction but it’s about convincing other people hey there is an opportunity a good idea too. So the next step was me was to create the visuals of the cup, pot, tub in Australia, the noodle kiosk, and making these as sexy as possible. So I created the visuals, create the brand, created the packaging on these visuals which looks nothing like what we have today, it’s completely different.

Tim

Did you outsource this or do you get the pen and paper to do it? Do you outsource the branding and the design? Did you have someone do it in-house?

Damien

No, no it’s all done in-house. We do everything in-house at Mr. Lee’s. I like that

Tim

Back then you didn’t have an in-house at Mr. Lee’s.

Damien

No that actually sorry at that point when I was doing it from my kitchen table at that point. It was literally going up to 99 Designs if you know that online.

Tim

Well yeah, DesignCrowd is the sponsor of the show.

Adam

It’s okay Timbo, I’ve used design crowd.

Tim

So you just gone out to crowdsource design

Damien

Crowdsource Designs, came back, selected one and said right this is the one I’m going for. Obviously, I sort of said this is what I want this is what I’d like to have and picked the finished design. Then I went into the market to start pitching and I went into, I thought let’s start at the top and work our way down. You know I’ve always believed that work your way up. You started top work down and in the UK there is very in fact a global organisation is a company called Compass Group and they were my first pitch. And Compass Group is the world’s largest contract catering company and the world’s largest company probably most people have never heard of. They employ over 500,000 people globally. In fact, since we’re in Australia the recent seaplane crash that happened yet that was the CEO of Compass Group who were on board that.

Tim

What are they, catering company? Contract catering. So how many of an airline covers a catering from a university

Damien

University exactly. So you’ve probably eaten in the Compass group establishments so many times you don’t even know but they operate under many different brand names in education it’s Chartwell’s for example have lots of different brand names but they look after you know defense bases, sporting facility.

Damien

How did you get a meeting with Compass Group? Through my local university because I had my local university sort of in Bournemouth. Bournemouth University sponsored my idea and the whole idea they knew me from design gadgets. And I said look you know I want to get your contract catering company here at the university and being naive and new to the market. I just thought I said I want to put one of my vending machines when they’re ready into your university and pilot and trial it up and they said look Damien we love the idea of your healthy noodle and vending machine but we don’t control our catering house so why not it’s your university. They said no that Compass Group and that’s what I said whose Compass Group and they said well the world’s largest contract catering company.

Tim

You know that naivety. Isn’t it wonderful.  It’s hard to maintain because now you know you’re two years into Mr. Noodle and you kind of know stuff and you can’t be naive anymore.

Damien

Well I’d still like to be naive and I still like to employ naive people. And actually, that’s always been one of my US piece around my businesses. Yeah absolutely and I never, and this is interesting, but I never in the early days of my businesses never employ anyone from the industry whatever that industry is because I don’t want that. That Damien this is the way it’s been done for 20 years. I don’t want them throwing that at me because you know I want to have that blue sky thinking.  I don’t want to boxed in.

Tim

That’s how you maintain naivety. Don’t employ from within.

Damien

Don’t employ from within. We will eventually get to that point will we have to but we’ve already got that framework set up so you get a meeting with the compass group naively through your contact to the university.

Tim

That’s a big meeting because as you say you start at the top and not one you can really stuff up. What did you want from that meeting?

Damien

I wanted them to agree that they would take Mr. Lee’s noodles vending opportunity and put it in that university. Having a product, I had visuals.

Tim

You’ve got an idea, you got a 60-page business plan.

Damien

So I got the meeting and never forget him Ricky King. Ricky became a great sponsor. So Ricky said sat me down and he said okay listen to me he said, and he ran the contract catering part for Bournemouth University for compass and he said man I like it and he said I like your energy and I like the idea. And he said You remind me of another guy that I gave a start and, in the UK,, they are not in Australia yet another brand called Jimmy’s iced coffee and he’s a local brand owner in Bournemouth where I’m from as well. And now it’s gone. It’s going global this brand it’s an iced coffee and Jimmy got his start when he actually came out to Australia a few years back and he went surfing around Australia only having iced coffees you know iced coffee is everywhere it’s normal in Australia. It Wasn’t in the UK at the time so he said Man I love this iced coffee concept and then take it back to England and he did. It’s called Jimmy’s iced coffee. Now brand just this really cool brand over there. And he said I gave Jimmy his start by getting him on to the university. He said I’m going to have the pleasure to one they say I found Jimmy’s Iced coffee and I found Mr. Lees’ I think there’s a great idea and I said great so when do we start. And he said well it’s not that easy Damien you’ve now got to get through corporate and head office and I said oh, how do I do that? That’s a long wind of process. And he said you’ve got product right. And I said Well yeah. So he kind of cut me some slack. You know I sort of I told him exactly how it was and he said Damien you’re going to have to get some product together and whatever. How’s your vending machine going and I said well you know that’s kind of yeah.  So, we bought time and actually to get the meeting head off it took me five months anyway just to get through that paperwork and process but he said there’s something coming up in Compass group they have the Dragons Den equivalent, Shark Tank Yeah. And he said every year, Compass basically give young startup companies they select four or five each here and you come in and pitch to the senior management he said I’d like to put you up for that and that’s five months down the road. I thought brilliant, that gave me the breathing time to get the product ready. And we went on and pitched and we got four yeses and compass agreed to say we love this concept, we’re going to give you a shot.

Tim

Is it that I’ve seen on YouTube where you’re pitching to people?  Hold that thought, is your mouth dry? Do you need some water? Charlie I’m going to get you to do this mate. So just keep the interview going. Here’s my pass card. The kitchen is where you’re sitting there’s a cup. Yeah there you go. Very quickly, I mean three weeks after a pretty serious neck operation. For those listening if anyone is I mean you’ve got a cut of what almost 15 centimetres around your neck.

Damien

For back of my ear and

Tim

You good? Okay great. Thank you. Yeah, I mean I’d be lying on the floor right now, Adam.

Adam

Well I won’t tell you when my wife calls him. Go and go. She calls him the cockroach.

Tim

You know what,  so many learnings there Damien but the reality is you look at that meeting at Compass and you just gobbles five months even to get a place at the table one you’ve just gone for it again.

Damien

You know every five months that was put because that one meeting set the tone for my whole business because I aimed everything at that. We set our timelines and it just sped up the production so it made everything we are doing it gave us a date, a date, we’ve got a date in the diary and it all seems go systems go on this. And it was brilliant then the momentum just started snowballing along that five months.

Tim

Yeah. What would you do in those five months, did you literally get as much of your product sorted out?

Damien

We got products sorted out. Basically, we just handmade them in little tubs so everything was done by hand, the machine, I found machine partners. We started making the machine and we that you’ll see in that video the first machine. That was our first machine, we kind of put it up there it didn’t work. It didn’t work well. We literally had to blu tack things on for that pitch and then the compass group people thought wow this is wonderful but they have no idea what was going on behind the scenes and all the cups were done by hand. It was really it was a knitting job.

Tim

What did they see. You’ve got four years out four? What do you think they saw.

Damien

I think they saw the opportunity. They understood the opportunity and we were pitching predominately for Compass’s university portfolio. We wanted their defense portfolio as well and they saw the fact that you know like man a lot of people are reading noodles nowadays and they saw the fact that there is no healthier options out there and high quality options. They were testing and they love them. They thought that was great. We also had one of them was the head of nutrition for Compass Group and they were quite keen on our nutritional qualities and values and so forth. They love the fact that were gluten free and so on and so on. So we hit all the right buttons. We also had one of the guys that were responsible for vending and there he was a bit more dubious. You know I guess he’d been 20 years in vending so he’s seen it all. So he didn’t get my vision of why vending should be the way I see. I see vending as a dinosaur industry.

Tim

I do too.

Damien

Horrible man. And that’s what I saw and being naive. I didn’t understand and so I created my own vending machine the way I thought they should be. The way technology is today vending to me is a very dull experience. You’ve got to vending machine, you drop your two dollars or whatever it is, out pops a product and off you go. There’s no engagement there’s no experience at that vending machine. But for me, Mr. Lee’s noodle kiosk is very different to vending as it is today. You know the big 42-inch touch screens it engages with you, it knows if you’re a male or a female, it knows your age group within a five-year spread.

Tim

Is this that Mr. Lee’s vending machine? What’s the value of knowing whether male or female or my age.

Damien

Is where it pushes my content to here.  So if it knows who you are

Tim

If I’m not looking for a smart content, I just want some noodles.

Damien

You do. But this is the beautiful part. A 45 second Vend time. Now some people would say, Oh that takes a long time to vend a noodle. It’s golden time. Okay we’ve got them by that screen for 45 seconds. They’re not going anywhere unless they want to walk off with the noodle they just bought. So, I have the opportunity to engage with the consumer, to inform the consumer, educate them.

Tim

Tell me if I’m wrong but I mean have you gone. Vending machines are dinosaurs. We could make the experience a whole lot better. Where have you gone. You know what. There’s a 45 minute- 45 second wait time here. We need to fill it. Which was the what’s the truth?

Damien

No, the truth is it was an opportunity. It was an opportunity for me to engage, upsell the consumers, sell third party advertising and so on. Its revenue streams. One more revenue streams around the business model.

Tim

So what can happen for 45 seconds while I’m waiting for my Dragonfire vegtable?

Damien

We can up sell you other products because other products coming into these noodle kiosks. This is I said my supermarket. Okay there’ll be. We’ve got our, can’t really talk about because we got a lot of NPD going on at the moment. New product development. The full name of Mr Lee’s is Mr Lee’s pure foods company. Mr Lee’s noodles is just one of our segments. Okay we’ve got other great products coming down. Watch this space

Tim

No doubt well. Not much to do

Damien

So the hot so the whole vending our supermarket shelf so you’ll be able to buy numerous products, mill deals and all sorts of things going on in there but we don’t have competition around. We lock real estate for three to five years with a Mr. Lee’s Noodle contract three to five years a long time valuation for a company when you have hundreds if not thousands of these machines around the country and university Defence Force bases, hospitals corporations becomes very, very valuable proposition. Okay those screens become a whole interactive engagement.

Tim

So you’re upselling me, you’re running third party ads, 45 seconds were done not you’re not running a

Damien

45 seconds you’re done. We’ve also, we’re making cool funky videos income get into time. It’s also an information booth

Tim

Play podcast.

Damien

Yeah. Look we’re only limited by your imagination and what we can do on that screen. And what we do around it. It talks to you. All sorts of things we’ve got going on. So you’ll find it

Tim

Are these right now in the UK?

Damien

In the UK. We’ve just had we’ve finished our pilots, which have been with Compass Group which have been a complete success. We’re now starting our roll-out plan from April.

Tim

In unis and Defence Force and

Damien

Supermarkets.

Tim

Oh you are in the supermarket now.

Damien

Yeah we will be launching in supermarkets in April. Okay but in their grabbing go section we’ve got a big pilot with one of the UK’s largest supermarket chains and they’ll be in the grab and go section of Mr. Lee’s Noodle.

Tim

Where does that sit within the business decision. Primarily it’s a vending idea. But you need supermarkets, right? I mean clearly there absolutely is distribution. And supermarkets have a problem with the vending machines? I imagine not.

Damien

They want them, that’s how it done..

Tim

It was branding, so then they drive people, hey we’ve got Mr. Lee’s noodles in here.

Damien

Yeah. So they can come up to the front of the store and grab and grab a quick snack and then if they want to, then go down the aisle and the idea is they’ll be able to seek on up down the aisle as well.

Tim

You deserve a good run. Damien with Mr. Lee’s given what you’ve been through personally. Has there been any low spots though in getting Mr Lee’s to market where you’ve gone oh really, you know too hard lost by conviction.

Damien

Great question and I often say to the team and people associated with Mr. Lee’s I can honestly put my hand on my heart and say I have never had a business been involved in a business that every single door we knock opens. It’s unbelievable. We’ve had the most incredible ride and journey so far that I’m blown away myself. I often wake up in the morning and night and pinch myself and say, Is this really happening? Is this really going the way I planned it to go all those years, two years ago, two and a half years ago. It’s just going better than I thought. I’m kind of waiting for the big no.

Tim

Have you seen this, I mean like

Adam

We had a meeting with one of the large supermarket chains in Australia last week and they were overwhelmed by the product because when you open the product and you pour the water in, there’s real vegetables inside, there’s real meat. Our meat flavor ,  the Hong Kong street beef flavored Timbo has a Queensland Aussie beef in it. So yeah it’s real stuff.

Tim

Well I’m looking at it now. I have to try. Okay. So do you think then Damien and Adam that this amazing run that you’ve had is because your conviction is so strong stronger than anything else you’ve ever worked on? With respect do you think people are showing empathy or although I wouldn’t have thought so when you at that level people don’t have time for it.

Damien

That’s true but they don’t have time for empathy I mean you know business is business at the end of the day.

Tim

Do you play and I’ll preface this by saying I worked at a charity for a couple of years ,  left advertising and had to cleanse my soul and going and speaking to corporates. We would start off with the story of a young person who’d been through their charity and developed. I mean we played that card. Do you play the cancer card?

Damien

I don’t play the cancer card. It’s a real story it’s really why the brand exists today. It’s my personal journey. But I don’t use that as a tool to please you know so the market takes us in. It really is my conviction because of what I’ve gone through and I said there’s many people that are going through similar things that I’ve gone through whether it’s cancer or whether it’s something else. It’s about what I want to do is also help inspire people to get on with their dreams. You know it’s never too late no matter what you’re told or what the news is right now, get off your arse and follow your dreams. So, I want to also inspire people beyond just trying Mr. Lee’s Noodles. It’s about my own personal journey can also be yours too. You know it’s not about me, it’s about all the people that have joined this brand and there’s a lot of people. There’s 20 odd people now in the brand today are there’s a lot of other people that have invested into this company as well. I mean we’ve got some you know we’ve got some we’re a private equity backed now so it’s not just a bunch of guys.

Tim

Perhaps some numbers around Mr. Lee’s two years in six skews, a great contract with the compass group in unis and wherever else kiosks you’re in supermarkets now, you’re on Jetstar. Turnover well can you tell us?

Damien

Yeah I don’t because I think that will give the sort of the wrong perspective of where the business is right now. With turnover because when people talk turnover right now and you know people are talking tens of millions. We’re not in those tens of millions yet we’re certainly in that direction very quick because we only really launched just last summer.

Tim

But you know you’re only in the UK.

Damien

Well we’re in the UK, we’re here in Australia, we’ve launched into Denmark Scandinavian hotel chains as well. Different organizations and compasses just in the UK at the moment. So with train networks in the UK we’re on a currently on two big national train networks in the U.K. We’re about to roll out into three four more. We’re about to launch a big European airline in April. We’ve got this.

Tim

So, it’s incredible really. Big contracts there.  You don’t have a big advertising I’m sure you’re not running TV commercials, double page spreads in magazine. You are walking into these meetings I’m guessing with very little brand awareness. I’m a guy from Mr. Lee’s Noodle’s. Again, with respect probably not that I don’t know Mr Lee’s noodles until you get there right. So how?

Damien

We had 100-pound marketing budget more or less. That’s what we as a young startup company that’s it you know. You’ve got 100 pounds. What do we do with it. You know how we how we make that stretch. So for me it was about building profile. Okay so I’m not going into the supermarket first. Part of my strategy when you go into the supermarket first, it’s a very different marketing approach because you know you’ve got to reach the consumer. So going into the B2B market first. Okay when I’m talking the airlines getting into those guys and convincing them this is a product that they should have on their trains or airlines and so forth. It was a different sort of strategy. It was actually a cheaper strategy than going to try and reach 20 million consumers which is much more sort of scatter gun approach. So it was about building profile for the brand first and what I mean by building profile that’s winning awards and so forth. Having the industry sponsors that say, you know these guys are doing something different. They’re the winner of the best new start up. We’ve won, I can’t even remember how many awards at the moment in the UK. I mean we are in the States.

Tim

It’s an active strategy for you, enter awards. Great strategy, I think I’m gonna do it.

Damien

Exactly. Look we just won, just before flying out here two weeks ago, we were in the UK. One of the biggest awards is called the Health and Vitality honours. And Health and Vitality Honours is an annual awards system for food companies. They’re actually trying to do better. Whether be reducing sugar in their product or making healthier food and so forth and we were the finalists two years in a row now and in January we were finalists for a product of the year for best new product. And the other guy that we were up against was Coca-Cola. You know how Coca-Cola is healthy and why are they even there. But they were there for Coke Zero.

Tim

So basically, Coke Zero is infinitely healthier.

Damien

But point is Coke. No, no. But the point is that it’s a company trying to do better. You know they had nasty sugary products and they’re making that effort. Corporate responsibility in a sense. We’re up against Unilever brands.

Tim

So many awards I’m involved in the Telstra Business Awards and submitting an award is big. It takes some it takes a long time; a lot of information needs to be gathered. If someone in a role that

Damien

Yeah, we have to have two people in our marketing. Marcom’s team and Kasher and Tom and they do great jobs. So they’re always looking at the awards. We’ve been invited to awards so you know yeah, we’ve got to do the applications, the stories and so forth. So it is very time consuming and we’re up against some great brands.

Tim

So you’ve win those awards, I’ve seen, you’ve got them on your Web site. Logos and things. Off the back of those awards often comes marketing opportunities, interviews. That’s what happens, that’s the kind of plan

Damien

The ripple effect

Tim

Ripple effect.

Damien

Yeah, absolutely. And that’s when and that’s when the brands or the buying managers take notice of you because I think these guys are getting noticed by the industry.

Tim

Not on the packaging?

Damien

Not on the packaging. I mean there’s not enough space for all our awards. Yeah. Okay. So yeah. So that’s got us noticed, that’s got us a lot of press, it gets us a lot of articles, we get bloggers. So, it’s really getting that viralness around our brand.

Tim

I don’t know if viralness is a word.

Damien

In the UK.

Tim

I know this ambassador. Got a number of ambassadors on your website and they looked like big names. They also were UK Beach Volleyball.

Damien

Beach Volleyball. They’re at the Commonwealth Games.

Tim

No doubt. No doubt, I’ll be there. And yeah, you’ve got some interesting ambassadors again is that a strategy where. I’m guessing you’re not paying them a whole lot of dough.

Damien

They’re getting noodles.  They’re behind the brand.

Tim

How do you say to a Commonwealth Games beach volleyball team who are very skilled, who have probably got some pretty big sponsors throwing them a bit of dough? And can we use your brand and your personal brand. How does that conversation work they’re gonna go, are you kidding me?

Damien

They love noodles. There really is and I’m sure it’s the same in Australia and we’re starting to find out but really in the UK and Europe there’s this big sort of startup spirit that people are getting behind the underdog, the small startup brands. People are not trusting the big Unilevers and their food products anymore. They want to see the small guy do well. So they get excited behind the story and the journeys of these startups and we’re no different and people are really being amazed how many people are getting behind the mystery story and what we’re trying to do.

Tim

There is a great saying people these days buy experiences not brands. And I think the smaller guys are offering better experiences and stories. You know your story is a very genuine real story for a big brand to do that they can’t. Like Coke can’t go or you know Johnny Smith in our sales team you know, has got a story can we tell you. You know it’s not going to work but when the founder has a story in

Adam

That’s one of the unique things about the Lee’s brand which is what attracted me into it is that there’s a genuine why in marketing terms. Genuine why about the company and there’s a lot of heartfelt drive behind Damien and everybody that Damien’s employed and working with inside the Mr. Lee’s.

Tim

No doubt there and that how does that get transferred. Because no business owners around forever. Often the business owner clearly has the idea. Has the culture in mind, has the vision, the conviction all those things? How do you, you’re lucky you got your best mate here who probably gets it like that in a heartbeat. But how do you get others to buy into that. Like Charlie. Charlie is sitting there in the background his head of sales in Australia?

Damien

No UK.

Tim

UK? He Can get a free trip out here.

Damien

That’s the free trip. Say I mean anyone seen Charlie’s first interview. And I said if you join this brand we’re going to Australia for a trip and he said I in because he came from one of our competitors. In the UK we had a big brand called ITSU and it was founded by Julie Metcalf who founded Prada Montoya.

Tim

Yeah, I mean you just dropping names now.

Damien

They’re bigger, and monsters out there so

Tim

Mick Jagger is enjoying their drop. So the marketing, you’re entering awards, you are using the ripple effect of those awards, you’ve got ambassadors, you’ve got some cool packaging, you’ve got now getting distribution via kiosks and airlines so people are starting to see. Is there any other marketing that you’re doing or is that kind of encapsulates?

Damien

Look we are about to as I mentioned earlier we’ve got private equity in our business now so we’re going to have the luxury of some marketing budget for once in our lives. So now we are looking at a proper marketing strategy because we have global ambition as a brand and we can’t just rely on that small you know people getting behind the brand we have to now get step up. And that’s what we’re doing now.

Tim

Is that necessarily mean above the line advertising? Because you could fall into the trap and you’ll probably have seen this in your entrepreneurial life where money comes in particularly to these startups. And they just blow it all on 30 second TV commercial and then six months ago, that didn’t work. We got no dough, And we’re out of business. So you’re going to be pretty smart about the way you spend the money.

Damien

You’re going to be very smart about it. I always say to my team particularly Mark, who said you run our marketing and you always will. Remembering the days, we had 100 pounds and keep. Thinking that way always think we’ve got 100 pounds in the kitty every penny we spend it like we have got 100 pounds. And because it is as you said very easy to suddenly say let’s do a TV campaign, let’s do a sky campaign, let’s do this and what. If I gave my marketing team and said, you’ve got a million-pound budget now, they’ll spend a million pounds. And they’ll spend it very easily. So it’s about no we don’t have a million. They ask often how much our budget is, now that we’ve got private equity in the business I don’t know. What do you need? So throw it back that way so they think about it differently. So you just have a different sort of approach.

Tim

] Damien great story. What do you say to business owners listening who are enduring hardship right now whatever that is that’s their thing. What do you say to them?

Damien

You know it comes back to that conviction again. If they truly believe what they’re doing is right and they’ve validated it in some ways that there is truly something good in what they’re doing is to never give up. Okay. Believe in that journey, inspire people to also believe in it with you. So your dream, very importantly of what I always have believed in life is to make your dream become other people’s dreams too. And when other people start dreaming your dream the momentum starts to move forward whether that be people that join your team buyers other third-party people that are believing your dream. That’s when the magic starts to happen. Inspire other people to join your dream.

Tim

Beautifully said. For anyone listening who wants to contact you Mr. Lee’s noodles dot com. But what if they want to it. What if there is the head of Virgin listening or how can you be contacted? Just go to the website?

Damien

Go to our website, our contact details for Australia and in the UK. And just on this virgin note I’d just like to say I want to go to one of one of the people that have joined our journey at Mr. Lee’s as an adviser and investor. He was a virgin. I say qualify that he actually used to be a very, very senior manager and Virgin and Keith I say his name is Keith and he’s back here in Australia and he was a virgin head office and he ran a lot of the global virgin brands for Virgin for many years. And he just recently left Virgin to sort of go out on his own entrepreneurial journey finding startups like us and he found us and he’s now part of our dream.

Tim

How good is that.

Damien

That’s great to have so senior and Virgin now also believe in what we’re doing.

Tim

Sleeping with the enemy. Not really enemy, know what I mean? You’ve got an insider.  Good on you. Inspirational story, Damien thanks for sharing it. And Adam thanks for putting it too. Oh, you’ve got your handout.

Adam

One more very important point, Timbo. We’re currently making two of our flavours in Melbourne and we do that because of the high quality raw materials that we can get out of Australia and by the end of June all six flavors will be available in Australia in supermarkets from July. We’re very hopeful that’s exactly what’s going to happen.

Tim

Great story fellas.

Adam

Thank you fantastic.

Damien

Thanks. Cheers mate.