TFB 045: Strength is not being afraid to make mistakes

With John Stapleton, co-founder of New Covent Garden Soup Company, Little Dish and serial entrepreneur.

It’s not often we have someone on the show who has completely invented a new category of product – but John Stapleton was part of a duo that did just that.

John is one of the co-founder’s of The New Covent Garden Soup Company, the guys who took soup out of the tin, made it fresh and put it in a carton.

In the late 1980s this was completely revolutionary and sparked a new way of manufacturing, selling and consuming soup. It’s fair to say John is a true pioneer – he even had to build his own factory to get his soup on the shelves!

On today’s show, John shares the story of his entrepreneurial journey from the early days of NCGS through to toddler food brand Little Dish and the work he does today mentoring young startups.

John has so much insight and wisdom to share and is a big proponent of moving beyond our fears to fulfill our business visions.

In this conversation you’ll learn about the need to clearly define the audience for your product, build a brand that speaks entirely to that person and why it’s better to start with a grassroots marketing strategy rather than trying to be ‘the next big thing’ overnight.

If you are a food startup, or in fact any kind of startup, you’ll learn so much from this conversation – so sit back and lap up this soup-er advice!


About Alistair Clay

Alistair is a former national journalist with 20 years’ experience working in the media and PR. He is the founder of UK healthcare agency Arc Seven Communications and a registered member of the PRCA.