The UnNoticed Entrepreneur
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I talk with entrepreneurs and experts about how to build a brand and generate more leads.
My name is Jim James. I've built my own companies on 3 continents since 1995 (that's right pre-internet), including a multi office public relations agency.
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The UnNoticed Entrepreneur
How an alcohol allergy uncorked expats entrepreneurial spirit.
Charlie Taylor shares the story of KASK Wines, a Bristol wine bar focused on natural, organic wines that emerged from his own allergic reactions to commercial alcohol products containing numerous toxins.
• Walking away from a corporate career in Dubai to pursue entrepreneurial dreams
• The shock of learning that commercial wines can contain 60-70 different toxins
• Pivoting during COVID lockdown by delivering wine samples and hosting virtual tastings
• Creating a pub-like atmosphere where wine happens to be the main product
• Navigating the mental health challenges of entrepreneurship
• Joining the NatWest Accelerator to regain focus and develop growth strategies
*Disclaimer: Please note that the views and information have not been endorsed, issued or approved by NatWest. Any views expressed in this podcast are not necessarily those of NatWest.
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Charlie, welcome to the NetWest Unnoticed Entrepreneur podcast. Love to learn more about you and the business you've built here in Bristol Karsk Wines, and the wine bar that you've been building.
Charlie Taylor:Yeah, so yeah, we've got a bar on North Street in Bedminster, traditionally the tobacco factory area of Bristol, so we've seen a fair amount of gentrification in the last 10, 15 years and I guess putting a wine bar on that was, uh, the final nail in the gentrification coffin for four door street. Um, uh, we focus on, we want to break down the barriers of getting into wine. It can be inherently a bit of a snobby industry, um, it can be hard for people to to walk into a wine bar and feel welcome and we, we basically want to create a local pub where the main product happens to be wine rather than beer and have that kind of comfy feel.
Jim James:Okay, and then just let's find out why would you want to do a wine bar in Bristol? What's your backstory? So?
Charlie Taylor:I'm allergic to alcohol and I own a bar and a wine business, so I basically used to drink a lot of beer, used to drink a lot of gin, a little bit of wine, but didn't know much about it and then found increasingly I was uh having allergic reactions, um, which ended up getting worse and worse and worse, to the point where now, if I was to have a glass of Jacob's Creek, uh, a Carling, a Gordon's gin, anything kind of what I would call industrial alcohol, I'll sneeze within five minutes, and then tomorrow I'd be in bed for the whole day constantly sneezing um. And then somebody introduced me to to what some people call natural wine, let's call it organic wine, minimal intervention, um, and I suddenly discovered I was fine and didn't have that reaction. Um, so good news, I could drink alcohol again and then discovered more about it.
Charlie Taylor:Really like the ethos. I like the farming ethos. I like the fact it's predominantly made by small farmers. Most through the land has been in families of generations. They've looked after the land. So it's another kind of fast farming and people who care about the product and the land and then the glass in your hand, if you like.
Jim James:So they kind of got into it that way let's talk about the business in a little while, but before we do that, just it's a bit alarming that what you're saying is that you know wine in the supermarkets is toxic beyond the alcohol, but that's not a common understanding, is it?
Charlie Taylor:yeah, I think we need to be careful. Not not all wine is that bad right, but if you look at, if you look at the organic food movement, um, that's obviously become very big in the last 20, 30 years. A lot of people don't understand what's in alcohol, whether it's wine or beer or gin or any other form. There are potentially, potentially between 60 and 70 different toxins in a bottle of wine on a supermarket shelf, whether that's from fungicides or pesticides or herbicides or additives, preservatives, acid sugar that are put in the wine afterwards. And that's legally allowed. I think inica it's 76, the fda allowed. If that was food that would be called ultra processed food, but nobody knows. Some wine which is dying to catch on. But but a lot of people don't know that. So now, for most people that's fine. Most people don't have reactions to that. Some people do, but for me, people should know. People should know that and have almost that freedom of choice.
Jim James:Well, you say that there's a choice that comes from the awareness and the education. So you're really introducing people through your cask wines and wine bar, to naturally produced wines.
Charlie Taylor:Yeah, and it's wine how it was always made before, I think, basically before pesticides came along. I think from memory pesticides kind of were invented or came into common use in the 1920s or just a bit earlier, but became really common after second world war when a lot of farmers didn't return right so and there was food shortages, so suddenly government's farmers had to fast farm quickly. So then a lot of chemicals were kind of introduced into farming in the 40s and 50s, um. So wine historically was made well, um, and in large parts of the world, especially those traditional areas like bordeaux or burgundy, they've never used toxins in the land, um, because they haven't. That's not how they used to do it.
Charlie Taylor:But your industrial stuff, the stuff, let's name them, your Jacob's Creeks, you know the things which, if you're buying a bottle of wine for four quid in a supermarket or in your local spa, that's probably being produced very quickly which is damaging for the land long-term and potentially harmful to your body. You need to be careful. You don't say it's bad for you, I mean all alcohol is inherently bad for you. Say it's bad for you, um, I mean all alcohol's inherently bad for you, um, so drink in moderation. But you know it's important. People kind of do know that, and for me it's not just about the, the stuff it may do to your body, it's also just that ethos. You know, I would. I would rather drink something that's been made with a bit of love, um, and love for the land, than than something that's effectively a commercially produced product being made in a boardroom somewhere to tick a box.
Jim James:So you've got this vision really to start to bring people, if you like, to natural wines. Yeah, partly from your own story there of experiencing the downsides of the toxins that go alongside the alcohol.
Charlie Taylor:As an entrepreneur, though, charlie, you know what brought you into being an entrepreneur, because you could have just frankly bought bottles of wine without having to go around sort of trying to solve the whole problem for everybody.
Jim James:So why did you decide to become an entrepreneur?
Charlie Taylor:So I was living overseas, in Dubai, in a corporate job. I'd been head of comms for the tourism board there, then became head of comms for a hotel group. We had hotels, kind of, around the world and loved, loved the, loved the job, loved the career. It was really exciting. Myself and my wife had been married and we were. We just got married in 2018. Did I get that right 2018.? And knew we at some point we wanted to come back to the UK. Our parents were getting older. We wanted to be closer to family, kind of you start long-term planning, and I didn't think, continuing that career, I'd find a job as exciting as the ones we were doing. Like, okay, now, if I'm ever going to have a career change, now's the time.
Charlie Taylor:And I, in my mind, always fancied the idea of having my own bar. I'd worked in bars when I was, you know, late teens, early 20s, um, and I'd done a project for the hotel group where we had 90 restaurants in dubai and we looked at the bottom performing third and I worked with the heads of the fmb to look at why those restaurants might be not doing so well restaurants and bars may not be doing so well as others and how to reinvent them. Look at concept, look at what people wanted. Um, and I'd really enjoyed that. Um, I'd even said to my my boss at the time I quite fancy moving into operations, and she had pointed out that wasn't great for her head of PR to say that. So, um, that was always in my mind.
Charlie Taylor:And then I discovered the natural wine was in a bar. On holiday with friends in San Sebastian, where this kind of bar is common. You know, mainland Europe. These are the kind of bars and those kind of bar you go into holiday, you go on a easy jet flight and you end up in a cool little bar. You stumble across and spend the evening there and love it, and we just wanted to do that. But it just happened to be at the end of your road in bristol and that was kind of the dream, if you like.
Jim James:And so we set about it okay, so, from from dubai and the sunny climes of dubai, uh, to the sunny climes of bristol. Having lived overseas for 25 years myself and going back to the uk in 2019, I completely you know I'm with you in terms of the joys of living overseas, but also the connection that you have with family and friends when you come back. What were some of the challenges that you faced? Because if you've worked for a big company, you've got all the security, stability they organize your email for you and they pay the credit card for you, and so on. When you set up a business, you're responsible for everything. So take us through some of the challenges that you've faced.
Charlie Taylor:Well, I think the first kind of. At first, we created the concept sitting in our villa um in dubai, right and and, and we didn't want to move until we knew we had a location. Um first challenge was finding a location and we we had't want to move until we knew we had a location. Um first challenge was finding a location and we we had a very specific list of criteria. We wanted, um off the top of my head, kind of top few were be surrounded by what we call chimney pot, so be in the middle of a community. We didn't want city center, we wanted to become a local. We wanted a group of regulars. Um, that was important for us both from, uh, what we wanted if we were going to be in there, from the joy of knowing people, but also commercially, having people who are going to come in, not as a special occasion, come in week in, week out. Um, we want small things. We want in the garden, which I'll come to save this later um and a few other things and size etc. Not too big, not too small enough storage um. So we looked at a lot of locations online and then, coming back and forward um a little bit, um, I had a few fell through. So there's your first challenge things. I'd never done this before, never opened a business before, never looked for sites.
Charlie Taylor:I remember being on a beach in dubai on my birthday. Um, we had a location all sorted in north bristol and finally out that day had fallen through because something in the lease we weren't happy with that changed and the the landlady wouldn't change. So coping with that disappointment of having that kind of highs and lows, um, and then we finally found the right location, um, so then it's excitement and you're planning for us. It was. I talked about the concept. It's about coming up with the concept, coming up the brand, going for all the names, etc. What's it going to be like? The interior design um, so then it's all really exciting.
Charlie Taylor:I missed moving back from dubai, which was, um, there's a story there, but, um, it was rushed, to say the least. Um, because that we had a lease, the landlord, basically, we were arguing, we were appointing the lease for about three months and the landlord finally said right, I'll agree to that, but you need to be here tomorrow to sign it, and we were in Lyon, so a 19-hour bus to get there to sign it. Still excitement. So that first kind of six months, I guess, is exciting.
Jim James:It's almost on paper, you're not in the business reality and were you doing this from Dubai and still working and trying to start Karsk?
Charlie Taylor:yeah, I'd left the corporate job, um, but myself, my wife had a, some clients over there, some PR and social media clients, oh, and hospitality, so it was quite good right to bat off as well, um, but yes, we're doing, doing the same yeah, I have to ask why Bristol?
Jim James:Because, I mean, is it because it's the sunniest city in England? It's sunny today. It's the closest thing to Dubai.
Charlie Taylor:My brother lived here. I owned a bookshop. We had family, so anytime I'd come to London quite a lot for work. I'd always come to Bristol and loved it and, if you like, it's the absolute antithesis of Dubai, right, it's independent, the atmosphere is great. They support loads of small independents, the community vibe, the music I'm really big into music, so everything I loved about Bristol. We thought, if we're going to move and we were coming back to be a family, so our choices were up north, where my wife's from Birmingham, where we got loads of mates, or Bristol and we ended up looking at venues in all and settling on Bristol.
Jim James:Yeah, lucky for us that you have. And then talk about community. You got involved in the NatWest Accelerator and the community here. How did you discover?
Charlie Taylor:the community.
Charlie Taylor:Yeah. So I guess we'd been open five years had gone through Brexit coming in. We opened six months before lockdown, survived that which we might come on to later and it had never been my plan to have one bar when we came up with the idea of doing it. The plan was to have five within five years, to have that kind of ambition. As with many people's lives, covid kind of scuppered that.
Charlie Taylor:And then we find ourselves kind of ambition, as with many people's lives, covid kind of scuppered, scuppered that, um, and then we find ourselves kind of three or four years in we're still where we are, um, and that was quite challenging for me because then you start questioning have we made the right decision? You know from a money perspective, uh, what that affords your lifestyle, but also from a general happiness in your day-to-day um, and I think we just saw natwest accelerator advertising. Right now is the time. If we're gonna change things. We need changing now and need that bit of a spur. And it felt like a good um, it felt like a good, a good thing of doing okay.
Jim James:so you joined the accelerator and then, if we look at what you've been doing with Karsk you talked about COVID. Let's just talk about how you overcame the challenges, because that's a great example of where all entrepreneurs had to think quick or go home.
Charlie Taylor:Yeah, so it was six months. We'd opened in October I think it was March 19th maybe where we were told we had to close. And the next day after having to close, we had a a tasting in the bar that had sold out, so 30 people. We didn't really want to give that money back, um, so we contacted them all and said if we can somehow get wine to you uh, we, we, just as everyone was just finding that point a thing called zoom which we'd never heard about but if we can get a signed up for that, get some wine to you. Do you fancy jumping online tomorrow? And everyone said, yeah, that's great.
Charlie Taylor:So we did that, we, we popped I think it was asda, maybe and popped down and bought some pretty horrible looking plastic bottles, poured wine into it from other big bottles. It looked like you're, it looked like we were delivering urine samples around bedminster, um, on our bikes, dropped at the door, knocked on the door and ran away because everyone was scared that you know you're about to get the plague. The moment somebody came to the door, jumped on Zoom and did it and at the end everyone said that was great. Could we do it again next week If we're still locked down. Can we do it again next week? Because obviously at.
Jim James:When you say did it just help us understand what? Because they were expected to come and have a wine tasting? Yeah, and you were dragging and dropping bottles of kind of look like urine samples to their door, yeah, and then zooming them. So what value are you offering them?
Charlie Taylor:Well, so we're talking through the wines, right. So we do do tastings in the bar every week and introduce new wines. For me it's about the winemaker and the stories behind the winemakers. It's not getting down and deep into kind of soil types and the chemistry, because some people are interested in that, but most people, most people, not. So it's a storytelling around the wine's provenance and the winemaker at the time.
Charlie Taylor:Um, as well as being allergic to alcohol when we opened the bar, I knew nothing about wine literally nothing. I discovered it through the allergic reaction, but I didn't think about it. But we were. We opened the bar initially with some friends and the long-term plan for the five bars in five years was they would do the wine, we would do the marketing and the venue concept creation, if you like. Uh, but they lived in birmingham so they couldn't. It was covid. They couldn't get there. So we spent those first few months of covid with me, a script behind the laptops and no one could see it on an old piano stand literally reading off things but trying to in a way that seemed natural and black, basically blagging it because we had no other option. Because what?
Jim James:we're going to give that money back and not have any money well, I'm being resourceful as well as an entrepreneur, and that point in a way that you don't have to be an expert. You just have to be more of an expert than the client.
Charlie Taylor:Or pretend you're more of an expert.
Jim James:I wouldn't want to say that in recordings, but this idea that you were also giving people something to do during lockdown, which presumably meant as much, in a way, as the wine itself, was the connectivity in the community that you continue to yeah, it was that time when everyone was doing quizzes, right, I mean, I spoke to my family way more during lockdown than I've ever spoken to them when you're jumping on doing regular quizzes, and it was again.
Charlie Taylor:If we some of us don't want to remember back, but if we remember back, it was quite a nice warm summer. It felt like novel to jump online and get a takeaway and drink wine and and talk to your friends and family. Um, and we were the alternative to the, to the quiz. That quickly people, I think, got bored of doing a quiz online. So we were, I guess, the alternative and we grew it and and luckily we have some wine importers who who do know about wine and they were happy to do it as well because it meant they got, they got the business from us. Um, so they would join in and do it.
Charlie Taylor:But kind of three or four months in we realized that wasn't scalable. We could do one or two a week, but it wasn't really scalable. Um, so what could we do next? So we developed at home tasting kits, so things that didn't need us to be online. So it was now look nice and urine samples. We had the branding on it, we'd got the cardboard boxes done and we found the bottles and we branded the bottles and created little wine cards so every wine had a nicely branded card. So people could then host their own parties at home and then branch out to corporates so the likes of PwC and Red Bull and Nike wanting stuff for all their colleagues that were now working at home. So we would do that and those were normally where we'd then host them. So hosting 150 people on Zoom doing a wine tasting was definitely not the most fun thing to do.
Jim James:Yeah, it can make it quite stressful, but good for the business. Yeah, but just backing up a little bit, because you've talked about the products and services you're delivering, which is really innovative. But how are you getting the demand? Because if it's at lockdown um marketing background, but you're in dubai and my experience is you know if you're in another country you don't have the network or the profile how are you driving demand for the offerings?
Charlie Taylor:so first we were first to market right. So literally going back to that spanish wine tasting, it was all tickets for. Within an hour of realizing we're having to lock down, not to get money back, we'd contact them all. So we did it within a day of locking down and then we realized I do used to do a lot of crisis comms because like okay, what, what do we do in this scenario? And my wife, luckily, is very creative and also in marketing and social, so we very quickly said this might be something we need to to move quickly on. So got some good seo behind it in the first weeks of lockdown, developed our website. We'd had a very simple one or two pager, but very quickly developed the website as well. So so people were finding us. We also you talk about network. One of our friends from Dubai was the digital editor for Vogue. So within four weeks of lockdown we had an article in Vogue about the story of movement after Dubai opening a bar and being locked down. So that network also helped.
Jim James:Okay, yeah, I read that story and I also read a piece of PR that you were in where you talked about people canceling their bookings. So was part of the strategy to be as transparent as you could be, because potentially you were taking a risk criticizing your customers for not showing up when they'd booked a table?
Charlie Taylor:I think the case you're talking about is a very recent case. Yeah, this wasn't the COVID time. I think we always wanted cars to be authentic and we always wanted, you know, the product's authentic, the product is no chemicals, no bullshit. You know, we want the same to be to us Now. Funny enough, saying that I look back now, for the first six months to a year I was it's very honest now I was terrified of people finding out our background, of having worked in dubai, because there's there's, especially in a city like bristol, which is very authentic.
Charlie Taylor:A lot of people have negative views of dubai and I was terrified that actually that story didn't quite work and and I knew we were authentic in what we were doing. But you could see some people going oh, natural wine bar funded by money and earned in dubai. You know it didn't something for me jarred, I was unnecessarily worried about it, but it's that kind of thing you get in your head and you think, oh god, this could, yeah, ruin us. It was never going to, but you know it could ruin us. And then I did realize later on, actually there's, there's some authenticity to that as well. Um, but the brand we wanted to be authentic, it wanted to be about us.
Charlie Taylor:We never I talked about kind of blagging those online taste things about my knowledge, but we've never been shy and coming forward and saying we there's a lot to know about wine and we don't know much about it. We'll discover it with you and I think actually that's helped the experience because we want to appeal to people who we want to tick the boxes for. People who know natural wine really well will walk in. See a bottle on the shelves. They think god, we can't get that out anywhere else in bristol. This is amazing. But 80% of people who walk through doors are doors and not those people. So they're people who are popping in for a bar because it looks nice and we don't want them to feel the barriers are up for them discovering the wine. So a lot of what we do is about helping people get through that first barrier okay, that's really nice a that you've got this idea about authenticity, the.
Jim James:It's an interesting issue about the negative bias that people might carry it and how you might carry that in your mind more than the customer does. I want to just go back to something. You talked about thinking of the concept, because it's actually quite a big topic and many people have got an idea for a business, but then the practical implementation might be a company name or might be a logo. Practical implementation might be a company name or might be a logo, but how did you and your wife think about the brand? Can you give us some steps that you went through? Because there are a lot of different aspects and often people need to have that framework and feel the confidence that it's all in place before they go into the market yeah, yeah, and I think I think it's our backgrounds did help on that.
Charlie Taylor:I think you always want two or three things, as that becomes through lines which don't necessarily get talked about, but you can always come back to it. Does that tick that box, are we? Are we true to that value? So for us it was be a pub. That just happened to serve wine, so, so we want to look like a pub. The venue we ended up with on north street has been a pub for 150 years, so that inherently helped. Yeah, um, although we did then rip it up, rip it apart and rebuilt it, um, but it looks like a pub from the outside. So that that helped. And then I think that European thing of it's the bar you discover on holiday, but it just happens to be at the end of your street. That also helped.
Charlie Taylor:So, not over-engineered. Beautiful interiors, beautiful inside and we get a lot of comments on that but again, not loads of stainless steel, organic materials, you know that kind of thing. So we knew we wanted that. The name was it's funny names. We spent months and months and months and months and we found old spider grams the other day of some of the names and we ended up at Karsk because it was a Karsk house.
Charlie Taylor:The venue we actually found was a Karsk house, and one of our core things on sustainability is we have wine on tap, so we have wine in tap, so we have wine the bottles, but a lot of our wine comes in kegs or casks, so the two kind of came together right. So so that was an important message as well, because, although now there's a fair few venues in bristol that have wines on tap, we were we were the first ones, um, and the reason we do that is it's glass is pretty expensive, um, and bad for the environment. In terms of shipping around the world, we get 20 26 bottles in one cask or keg, um, and you can recycle those. So it's it's better for the environment, but it's also better wine for cheaper price.
Jim James:Yeah, and that's another key thing as part of that breaking down the barrier, you want to walk in and see a five pound glass of wine, um, that's, that's good, um, we can do that from having that wine coming keg yeah, so you're making wine much more accessible, to say an idea, sort of democratic, but making it say a public experience which feels much more like continental europe, yeah, rather than the barrier of the sort of oonologist and who, the sommelier, comes in and tries to frankly confuse you and get you to buy the most expensive wine you can yeah, and when we were looking at research we went to a lot of bars.
Charlie Taylor:We went to london and a few other cities in the uk. I looked at where we felt comfortable walking in and I remember we're there's a sunday night in a really good bar in london really well respected in the natural wine world. But we walked in. There was two of other customers there and us and we sat at the bar and it took 15 minutes to get served because the bartender was just pouring knowledge down this customer's throat. We're like mate, we just want a glass. Yeah, so that's key as well.
Charlie Taylor:It's it's reading the room, reading what do you want. You might be coming with your mates on a date and you want a little bit of treatment and left alone. Or you might be coming in because you're really interested and you want us to pour you something you would never normally pick or special and have that chat. So a lot of our thing from the start has always been how would you read what that customer wants? And taking some of my hotel background and putting into that, we had a thing the hotel group I had. There were some tenants and one was smile at the guest before they smile at you and that's something that we've carried through as well. So as soon as people walk through the door, it's getting that eye contact and and being loud like hey, come in.
Jim James:You know, it's wine bars can be stuffy and quiet and we want people to feel very warm to come in yes, it sounds so you've really thought through, right, the, the core values of cask, um, and then it's playing out in, say, the venue, the, the kind of merchandise and the product you're actually offering to people. Um, in in terms of being an entrepreneur, because it sounds like you've already nailed that concept and the delivery there. What have been some of the challenges that you face? Where one comes to mind for me is always about cash flow, because you talk about leaving a job and then there's six months, nine months, there's leases, you maybe put deposits down Meanwhile certainly my experience the savings are going down while you're investing in what could be a future income. Charlie, can you just tell us a little bit about how you've managed that side of life, because it does come with its stresses as well?
Charlie Taylor:Yeah, it does, and we had left a lifestyle where the bank balance went up at the end of every month, you know, and we're able to travel and not really worry about spend. So that's part of it and that's if I do it with my wife, and although she's got what I call a proper job now and has had for kind of three or four years, we did do it together. So that was a commitment together to do it, and it was definitely more my dream than hers, if you like. So there was there was some of supporting behavior from her, yeah, but then some real tough times as well, you know. So we've had to kind of work on that together.
Charlie Taylor:In terms of cash flow, again, I'm going to be really honest, we were lucky. We had savings built up right, so so when we knew we were going to be leaving dubai at some point, it was okay. Now let's stop being frivolous, so let's actually put some things, some things away, um, so that definitely helped. So we haven't needed to take on debt, which I'm really thankful for. Yeah, um, it's just not something I'd ever want to have to do. Um, uh, so, yeah, but, but that is always an anxiety now because it's like well that's, was that the right thing to do five years ago? That money, should I put that in stocks and shares? Should I invest it in property, you know? And when we have a bad week or a bad month, um, from a cash perspective, or the government introduced new costs and et cetera, you go crikey. Are we playing at running a business or is this actually a business which is good for our long term? And I'm not even sure now I could answer that, which is part of what coming to Accelerator was for.
Jim James:Yeah, let's talk about that because when you start a business there's always the opportunity cost of what you've done with the money right, and if you'd kept the job and turned up and given the man your time and return for the cash, put it into stocks and shares, as you say, or into a property? There's always that doubt when a customer doesn't come in or there's a delay or something doesn't go right. You talk about the accelerator, charlie. What, what's been your, if you like, experience in the accelerator? What's helped you get through?
Charlie Taylor:so I think the core thing for me was and I actually didn't mention earlier, but as we've talked, I realized it. About a year and a half, two years ago I got out of absolute nowhere, an old contact, I got off a job um in saudi, in saudi arabia, and I I never liked saudi um, I'd never. I don't like some of the things it stands for. Um, I had not nothing about that job offer made me want to go, other than the money. But the money was really good and when you're looking at you know your bank balance not necessarily going up at the end of every month you think, god, if I could do this for two years, that kind of sets us right and maybe that affords us to open another bar, et cetera. So we spent myself and my wife spent about four weeks maybe talking about it. She was pretty against it from the start and that was a key thing. She wasn't going to move, move, so there would have been some pressure on our relationship there, um. But I realized at the end of that kind of four weeks of going back and forward, my motivation isn't money, which right now is probably quite a good um, but that was, and so then at that point I was like right, I guess I am now in this, I guess this is what I've chosen to do, at least for the next kind of 10 years. So now we need to actually go back to our original plan of having multiple venues or a business around it and not just one bar. I don't want to be behind a bar pouring wine Well, actually I do, that's not. I love to be behind a bar pouring wine all the time, but that's not going to build a lifestyle that we want to build.
Charlie Taylor:So it was around that time that we saw the accelerator and we thought, right now, that might be the right time to do it, and so there was that motivation getting in it. We did the induction day and straight away. There are a few things that were said. Um, from the net worth guys, it really resonated with me about working on the business, not in the business, which, which is the one line that I think everyone really resonated for me and I know a lot of people in the group, which, which is the one line that I think everyone really resonated for me and I know a lot of people in the group do as well um, and it's afforded me the ability to step away from the business to.
Charlie Taylor:I say to myself if I'm in on, I come in every Wednesday, that's the time I'm not going to do other other things and that's my time where I'll focus on the business. So, with accelerators help, we've created a business plan which we never had. We had six years ago but have never re-looked at um, revisited what my ambitions are, what I want to be spending my time doing, where we want to be in five years time, etc. Um. So that's one big tick for me that the accelerator has done um. And then being around other people who are of a similar mindset as well. You know, I've come from a corporate background where I was part of a commercial team and had a vp of revenue and a vp of sales that I met with every day and um. You certainly do your own business and you're kind of on your own um. So the accelerator gives you those people around you that you can have a little chat to and bounce ideas off, which is is really valuable.
Jim James:When you joined the Accelerator and then you started to get into it, what was the mindset and, if you like, the actions that you needed to take? That were different from, if you like, running it on your own. Now you want to run five, six and build up cask wines. What are some of the practical steps that you're needing to take and that you've got guidance on? Do you think?
Charlie Taylor:well, I think the first step is is going. If you're going to grow, you can't do everything yourself. Um, so in the last six months, so I've been an accelerator now for maybe nine months. In the last kind of three to six months it's been right. What can my team do?
Charlie Taylor:And we, we're lucky I say lucky because in hospitality it's very rare to keep staff for too long because it's a low-paying industry.
Charlie Taylor:We're lucky that our GM has been with us since we opened and I definitely was guilty of not delegating and he's got talent there that I hadn't been tapping into but also desire to do it. And actually my realization point of that was I realized actually he's at flight risk and if he leaves I can't grow this business because I'm going to have to go back and do that or train somebody up. So that delegation role so he's now got a completely different job role than he had six months ago, seems to be loving it and we are hopefully about to sign a lease on a new venue. Um, and he's been involved in that from the start, including the decision to do it. So include we looking at the venue, saying, right, is this now the right time? Can we do this as a group of people. It's just the right time. So he's and he'll project, manage that, so that gives him a new lease of life as well within the business.
Jim James:That also gives me skills which I don't have when you do that, though, you start to take on the overhead. Yeah, and the the reason that most of us try and do the work is we think, well, I'll save a bit of money by doing it myself. What does that mean for you in terms of how you see yourself, um, as a business owner rather than a business doer?
Charlie Taylor:that that and it's that's a hard shift in itself right, especially with with him, because we've got five and a half years of a relationship built up where now that dynamics got to change and he's we've always had a flat structure but actually as we grow, he's going to have to be focused on profit and and loss and turnover, which he's never had before, which therefore means I'm going to have to be a bit maybe harder on him, not as for want of a better term, um, and and that's a hard shift to go from being very flat structured, almost colleagues, to a. There's now a relationship here where you're going to be motivated by a bonus etc. Which you know, and therefore you know I might have to come down hard on you at all, or that's hard, and that's what I'm kind of going for at the moment. But there's some mentors within the natwest acceleration environment that are kind of helping, helping with that as well okay, because I was going to say the.
Jim James:the biggest challenge as you grow a business is to grow yourself as an entrepreneur. You, we all, get comfortable in certain roles, certain kind of work, certain kind of conversations that we might have, and my experience as well is that the people around me get used to playing me in that kind of role and you need some support to. If you like, train and work out differently, don't you? Yeah. If you like, train and work out differently, don't you yeah? What have you been doing now with cask wine to start to grow it beyond the? You talk about the one and want to have five. What sort of systems are you needing to put in place to realize the ambition to have a business that you own rather than a business you work in?
Charlie Taylor:Well. So one thing that's it's going to be a buzzword coming up, but one thing that Accelerator. We've done some training on AI, so and again I brought it into the GM's role, which is not something I knew he'd feel comfortable with, but brought it in and say, okay, what can we do on a daily basis? What are we doing on a daily basis that AI could do for us? So he creates some efficiencies there and actually we both kind of embrace that once we got over that initial hurdle. Now it's something that my wife, who works in an agency, has been telling me for a year, and every day I'd say do you know how to do this? Just get chat GPT to AI, and I'd always been resistant to it and I don't know why.
Charlie Taylor:Come into Accelerator. You hear a third party tell you and you go oh yeah, that seems like quite a good idea actually. So I should have been doing it for the last year. So, looking at how we can create efficiencies, looking at how I'm spending my time, we did a presentation in Accelerator where we did a day on your diary management and it was something I used to be really good at in a corporate world because my boss was great at it about managing your own diary and not letting somebody manage it for you, and that's something that we've again looked at in Accelerator.
Charlie Taylor:So it's almost the stuff that I've kind of forgotten, because you go from the corporate world into the entrepreneur world where you basically are dealing with the most urgent thing. You know it might be an alarm's gone off so you've got to leave your office and go and start the alarm. It might be that the thing's fallen through the bathroom window and you've got to fix that. Or a delivery hasn't turned up all these issues that suddenly hit you, um, but as a mentor said to be an accelerator, you've got to fix that. Or a delivery hasn't turned up all these issues that suddenly hit you, but as a mentor set up an accelerator, you've got a GM, but you're doing that stuff. Why are you doing that stuff? You've got a team. So it's also that delegation responsibility, but making them realize it's their responsibility.
Jim James:And also realizing, I think, that there are new revenue streams to go after. I think sometimes it's tempting to keep doing what you're doing because it's comfortable, because we haven't necessarily identified the new things or we've identified them, but don't feel self-confident enough in the new role In terms of you growing Charlie and handling the mental toughness that comes with being an entrepreneur. Because if you're an employee, you have structure created for you, you have pay reviews, you have, you know, discipline and teams. As you said, like you had your boss. How have you now, if you like, game changed and helped yourself to become the kind of leader that you need to be to grow the business?
Charlie Taylor:I think that's a work in progress. I definitely don't think I'm there yet. Um, I went through quite a tough period two years ago, maybe. Um, so we we have. We already have a second venue.
Charlie Taylor:Um, a place came up during covid which hadn't been, or at the end of covid it had been empty for a year. So we, opposite cask on north street, we snaffled it up and we turned it into a pop-up restaurant, which was exciting and fun at first. Um, the actual refurb of that became a nightmare. Um, because in hindsight the contractor was having some issues himself. So that then led on to me again. Classic case contractor should be doing the work, wasn't doing it. So I'm ending up painting a kitchen at three o'clock in the morning and et cetera, et cetera. So I was absolutely knackered on the day of opening and it was almost well that job was done. Thank God for that, oh Christ. Now we've got a second venue we actually need to run. Got it in a good place, it was running really well. And got it in a good place, it was running really well.
Charlie Taylor:And then, unfortunately, we're running pop-ups and unfortunately two of the pop-ups didn't pay us the money they owed us. Um, so straight away, your margin's gone and and and that really impacts. I mean it's not just the money, it's also the whole brand was around us working with chefs in bristol and helping them. You know, people haven't got a venue. Helping them have a venue and it will be great and collaborative. So when two just walk off and don't pay the money and you've got no recourse of action because we can't afford, there's no point in going after. You know, paying legal fees, it's just not worth the money. So that really impacted me for a long time.
Jim James:Why did it impact you? Was it lack of delivery, the loss of trust, the loss of self-confidence?
Charlie Taylor:loss of trust, loss of money, yeah, and and and then therefore completely losing passion in that, in that project. But that's the project you've still got to pay for, you still got to pay a rental fee and you've got energy fees etc. So that was tough and that was a good year. Year and a half of pretty bad feeling, um, yeah, depression basically. Um, and ultimately it came down to again, you know, conversation.
Charlie Taylor:The wife of you've got to get this sorted, you know we, we can't continue like this. This is not enjoyable. Um, what have we done this for? You know? Um, so the fix for me for that has been exercise, and it's now a non-negotiable for me that I exercise every day.
Charlie Taylor:Um, those endorphins you get great again, being very briefly honest, anti-anxiety medication, which I was against for a year and a half, but actually the combination of the two have helped. And then and I'm not just saying it because it's for the podcast the accelerator has massively helped with that as well. I now have a structure to my week, coming here on Wednesday, you know, there's people around you who you can talk to, who may be going through similar things, and I always leave accelerator energised for the business. So that energy. I get energy from exercise and I get energy from accelerator and I always leave feeling, oh, actually this is quite an exciting thing we're doing and feeling that old me that we used to have when we set up the car, sort of that pep of going, this is cool, like this is what I want to do. And I don't want a career job. I want to do something for ourselves.
Jim James:There's that sort of middle place, isn't there? After you started the business, there's all the excitement. Then a few knocks. You say, like people letting you down, maybe some questioning your own judgment, feeling a bit exhausted physically and emotionally, but you're too far in to go back right. And then you talk about the accelerator giving you energy. How did you get the energy out of the accelerator? Because it's just a building, it's just an office. So what did you do, or what conversations did you have, to make this into a restorative place for you?
Charlie Taylor:So there are the bits I find useful and I haven't taken advantage of everything the accelerator can offer because you just don't have time right. So I realized that pretty quickly. I need to cherry pick the bits which I think are important to me. So quite a few of the, the talks or presentations have been useful now, 80 of the time. It's stuff I know and that's not to sound arrogant, or it's just stuff I've I've learned over the 25 years of a career, but it's a reminder. It's like, oh christ, I used to do that.
Charlie Taylor:Why haven't I done that for six years? Because you're in the depths of running a business and you don't think about it. So the accelerator gives you that access to information and, if you like, inspiration, but also if you work on the business not in the business at the time you're in the accelerator building you've then freed up that time to actually do that as well. So I I've known for the last four years we need a business plan. Like we're just kind of carrying on, but we need a business plan.
Charlie Taylor:It only took me half a day within the accelerator building to sit down and write one and then talk it through with the guys from NatWest and polish it up a bit Suddenly. I've got one which now I've communicated to our team and I'm referring to not every time I'm back in the accelerator, but maybe every month ago. Are we actually on track here? Which we'd never had before? And it's very easy when you're running that business for time to move on very quickly and you go, christ. Nine months ago I wrote a to-do list that said write a business plan, and I haven't done that yet, and that's kind of to me what's been rewarding.
Jim James:Good and having the sense of a shared journey. Yeah, I think, um, and you say, business in some respects is actually not that complicated, it's the reminders and the self discipline and having someone who cares, yeah, to go on that journey with you, I think can be so, so important. It's so hard to do it on your own. So you've got a business plan what's in the next five years, charlie, for you and for cask wines? So the business plan what's in the next five years, charlie, for you and for Karsk Wines?
Charlie Taylor:So the business plan which I did, I think I wrote in November. The business plan has said next step is further develop our corporate tasting revenue stream. So coming out of COVID, as I said, we've done a lot of tastings. We now do tastings every week in Karsk. We do quite a lot of private tastings and corporate tastings for the likes of hargreaves, landstown, etc. Etc. That is the best margin um we can get. But we've never gone off that business. It's always come to us. We have good, really good seo. So if you search best wine tastings, uk will come up in the first page. That's rewarding. But therefore I know we haven't actually done, uh, any push marketing. I don't know if that's the right term.
Jim James:But that's what I'd say.
Charlie Taylor:Yeah, outbound marketing, yeah, so that's a big opportunity for us. Um, so that was one big thing. And then that was going to be my focus the next six months and then in the business plan was find another venue by the end at the end of this year. Look for another venue at the end of this year, knowing it'll probably take six months. So middle of next year we'll open another cask. Things happen.
Charlie Taylor:A venue came up, um available, saw it advertised on facebook, um, and we thought let's go have a look at it and it's in the location we'd quite like to be in. It's a really nice location and, other than a refurb to fit our brand, it's ready to go in terms of equipment et cetera. So it's relatively easy. The ease of entry I'm saying that we haven't done it yet and I'm sure there'll be things that come along, but the ease of entry seems, on paper, to be there, to be there, so we just flip that around.
Charlie Taylor:We said, actually that's what we'll now focus on, but, as I said earlier, the plan is for our current gm to really take that on, which still frees me up to focus on the corporate stuff because, again, I need to keep reminding myself it's nice to have bricks and mortar and it's going to be great to have a second venue. But actually the best margins are another part of the business. But having a second venue north city, south city, also from a branding perspective, positions a brand again higher than just one bar in bedminster. It's only all those a reminder oh, those are the wine guys in bristol. So then from a tasting perspective we have more recognition, so it should drive that business as well couldn't?
Jim James:it sounds, charlie, so you have a much more long-term strategic view of it as a business with different margin mix, different customer groups.
Charlie Taylor:That's the view. It's then finding the time to execute it, isn't it? Because that is the eternal challenge of saying on paper that looks great and I'd like to have an importing arm and I'd like to do all this and this. I think what we do now is we do know now is we want to grow the business, so it's cask and it's wine-focused venues, but there's other things around it that bring in those revenue streams because ultimately, bars do not make much money.
Jim James:No, but it sounds as though you're doing something that you believe in and you're enabling people that would otherwise either not be able to taste organic wines or naturally produce wines to access them, but also in a way that's, you know, very genuine and and and inclusive, which is wonderful yeah, and and it sounds a bit trite but those community hubs as well, if you like, on on our high streets which are struggling, and you know I I basically don't want a high street to just be all charity shops and vape shops.
Charlie Taylor:Um, and there's a bristol is very good for that, supporting independence. So even on our on north street alone, there's a lot of independent bars and restaurants and people might be surprised to know that quite a few of us actually work together on I'm going. Okay. Well, to me it's your state agent model. If you look at a high street, there are often three estate agents next to each other because people like to browse them.
Charlie Taylor:You don't want to be a standalone bar unless you're very, very, very good. You want other good bars around you that people then come to that location and browse. So quite a few of us on our north street will work together on that, whether it's on shared marketing calendars or oh, you got that on. Well, if I do that, then more people will come to the street that day. That, to me, is also an important part of of that kind of community and knowing it's nice to see regulars walking in. You know it's. We did an event last weekend. I had a load of regulars and the feedback we got was great. And that's the dopamine hit, if you like, which kind of gets you past when you're looking at the financials you think are we earning enough?
Jim James:yeah, and ultimately that's the joy being entrepreneurs that you create something from nothing and then when it delivers on the values that you've believed in, then you get a validation but also you're giving joy to other people. That's. That's sort of greater than maybe taking a salary from someone to deliver that for you. Charlie, if someone was thinking about becoming, you know, part of an accelerator, what would be your, your thoughts, um, for an entrepreneur looking at joining an accelerator?
Charlie Taylor:well, obviously, I can't say don't do it, but I would say do it. I think it's it's it's been, it's been invaluable to me in terms of where I was at with again sounds trite with my journey. It's been invaluable to go. Okay, I need to move, I need to accelerate, I need to do something here to change the status quo, and it's kind of given me access to resources, access to an environment where other people are doing it. Um, and again, I don't think I've taken everything from. I could, but you've got to cherry pick what you've got, what you've got time for. Um, and, like I said earlier, the fact what I could, but you've got to cherry pick what you've got time for. And, like I said earlier, the fact that I leave anytime I come here, I leave energized and excited about doing something. That, to me, is all you need, right? It's that kick up the ass.
Jim James:Charlie Taylor, thank you for coming and sharing your story with me on the NatWest Unnoticed Entrepreneur Podcast. Thank you.
