How Bird & Blend Built a Retail Brand Strategy Rooted in Experiential Retail

Catherine Erdly: [00:00:00] I am not ashamed to say that today’s guest is the co-founder of one of my very favorite companies, Bird & Blend. Started on a market stall selling tea and tea drinks, and they have grown to a chain of nationwide shops. Including one in Borough Market, which is my favorite place to go and hang out and buy myself some more new delicious tea.

In fact, it’s a long running joke in my family about how much I love Bird & Blend. So when they found out I’d invited Mike Turner, the [00:00:30] co-founder, to be on stage with me at Retail ROAR this year. They asked me, “Is this for business or for personal reasons?” And the answer is in honesty, both. I’m a huge fan, so I’ve got to be a big fan girl all the way through this interview.

But I also think that they’ve built a phenomenal business and really nailed their marketing, their customer loyalty, as well as their delicious tea. So we’ve got a replay from Retail ROAR with Mike Turner, co-founder of Bird & Blend. Enjoy. 

[00:01:00] Welcome to the Resilient Retail Game Plan, a podcast for anyone wanting to start, grow or scale a profitable creative product business with me, Catherine Erdly. The Resilient Retail Game Plan is a podcast dedicated to one thing, breaking down the concepts and tools that I’ve gathered from 20 years in the retail industry and showing you how you can use them in your business.

This is the real nuts and bolts of running a [00:01:30] successful product business, broken down in an easy, accessible way. This is not a podcast about learning how to make your business look good. It’s the tools and techniques that will make you and your business feel good. Confidently plan, launch, and manage your products, and feel in control of your sales numbers and cash flow to help you build a resilient retail business.

Mike, thank you so much for joining [00:02:00] me on Retail ROAR. It’s an absolute pleasure to have you with us. Do you want to start us off by telling us about yourself and your business? 

Mike Turner: Yeah, of course. Well, it’s a pleasure to be here, catherine. So I’m Mike, as you said. I am one of two founders of Bird & Blend Tea.

So we are a tea mixology company based down here in Brighton where I’m sat in our warehouse, which ising just down the coast. A nd we create amazing blends of tea. And then we retail them directly to our customers, both through stores. So we’ve got [00:02:30] 25 stores dotted around the country as well as online.

But I guess our point of difference is that we’re really about experience. Mm-hmm. So whether that’s for our customers, giving them fantastic experiences, but the tees, some of which you can see behind me are just a kind of vessel for us to give a great customer experience to. Mm-hmm. Or for our teams.

Us trying to give them a fantastic kind of experience as a place to work, which was kind of in our founding principles. 

Catherine Erdly: Amazing. And I should say out myself as a super fan of Bird & Blend [00:03:00] Tea. So if you’ve not tried Bird & Bea and you’re watching this, then I highly, highly recommend it. I go to your Borough store quite often.

Creating a retail experience that feels like hospitality

Catherine Erdly: I can say it’s a great example of a really nice experience to go into that store, and I think tea obviously lends itself to that really well.

Mike Turner: It does. Yeah it’s a perfect, it’s a perfect product for doing it, really. 

Catherine Erdly: Yeah , absolutely. And I think it’s not to go off on too much of a tangent, but it’s one of my bug bears is that people always talk about experiential retail. It’s one of the things that when you look into [00:03:30] retail trends, people often talk about that.

Particularly people were putting all kinds of gimmicks into stores because they were like, “oh, this is experiential.” And I saw all kinds of weird and wonderful things. But actually going into a store and somebody offering you a really nice sample of tea is actually, that to me is great experiential retail because it’s genuinely, it’s leading you towards a purchase decision, but it’s also just very pleasant. And I think it fits so much more into the ethos of what, you know, experiential retail’s really supposed to all be about. [00:04:00] 

Mike Turner: Yeah, yeah. I mean, my, my background pre Bird & Blend was I was in hospitality, I worked in restaurants and bars and that sort of thing. Although I did work in Summerfield as a kid for anyone who remembers Summerfield as a company. But that was my only retail experience. And really what we do at Bird & Blend is closer to hospitality than retail. I think we look to give customers a great experience to make them smile.

Hopefully they buy the product as a kind of souvenir of that. I think that’s kind of where we differ a [00:04:30] little bit to a lot of the companies who are kind of shops and they’re trying to make it experiential. 

Catherine Erdly: Mm. 

Mike Turner: We’ve kind of started with that actually. It’s about the customer having a great time and then maybe they’ll buy something as to remind them of that great time.

Same as you would do in a restaurant. 

Catherine Erdly: Yeah, yeah. That’s really interesting. So let’s go back to the early days then. So can you tell us a bit about how you got started with it and how you brought your vision to life? 

Mike Turner: Yeah, sure. So Krisi, my co-founder and I, we met at uni. And both of us were kind of [00:05:00] passionate young people.

We wanted to change the world, and I think we met at a time where we were going through a kind of journey of realizing what that could look like. I’d always assumed I’d end up in kind of NGOs or charity or something like that.

But it’s also, I guess, that time where you’re starting to work more hours and you’re starting to realize the impact that working places has on your life.

And both of us have kind of got a little bit sick of working places, making suggestions and working hard and being told by management to get back in your box, you know? And it made [00:05:30] us realize that actually it was all of this untapped potential that businesses can have a huge impact on the team members’ lives and as well as a huge impact on the world, which is kind of what we’d wanted to do.

So we both kind of moved to this thinking of actually starting a business could be our way of changing the world. 

Catherine Erdly: Mm-hmm. 

Mike Turner: The next question was kind of what we should do? And we spent a good couple of years kind of having decided we wanted to do something but not sure what, and we’d have different ideas and buy the domain and start trying to [00:06:00] figure out how it would work.

And none of it really felt like it would bite. In the meantime, Krisi kind of fell into the tea industry. And pretty quickly said, I think that this could be something, I think that this is an industry that’s a bit stale. Mm-hmm. And if you compare it to coffee, which I guess this would’ve been around 2010, 2011, 2012. Mm-hmm.

So kind of Starbucks were very much on the scene, but maybe we hadn’t had that [00:06:30] next wave of it. So she was kinda saying, well look, you know, Starbucks had done this with coffee. There’s something in doing the same thing with tea. I said, nah, I don’t think that’ll happen. When you kind of looked into it, the loads of much cleverer and better funded people than us who had given it a try and not worked.

So I said, I don’t think that’s the one. And convinced her to move to Canada and go ski. And I kind of said, let’s go, let’s go ski for a few years whilst we figure it out. So we went out, lived in a town called Ferny.

Krisi went [00:07:00] back into the tea industry out there and I kind of saw what she was saying. Could work in the UK, over on the other side of Atlantic, they tend to be a year or so ahead, don’t they? Mm-hmm. And I can remember one day going to a McDonald’s and getting a cup of tea at the drive-through and, listing out like seven different types.

I’m thinking Christ, like in the UK if you ask for a cup of tea at McDonald’s, you’re not getting offered all these different things. Yeah, and then having a tea latte in a place that she worked at and it being beautifully served and just being delicious and me thinking, [00:07:30] yeah, this could work. We decided, let’s give it a whirl.

The Olympics were on, there was no work in the town we were in spring, so we decided we’d come back for spring see if it works, and either go back there or stay. And I’m still here 12 years later.

How market stalls helped test the concept

Catherine Erdly: So you started selling at markets, is that correct? 

Mike Turner: Yeah, so we came back and we booked our first market six weeks after landing.

And we were quite, you know, looking back it all sounds very clever at the time. It didn’t feel it. We wanted to know if people would buy, [00:08:00] at the time, these drinks from us. Yeah, so we had six weeks to create a business. We had the name, but that’s about it. So create blends and all that sort of thing.

We went to market started and people were interested. And then through that spring we had a whole load of different ones and we kind of adapted and changed until come the end of the spring. We were pretty sure we had something which could work. It was then a case of actually let’s try and make it work.

And over that period, yeah, I carried on. Do markets. Krisi would work on all the kind of clever side, like digital and that sort of [00:08:30] thing, and it kind of all went from there. 

Catherine Erdly: So it started like as physical in terms of the markets and meeting people. And so it started like as the drinks, like you say, it was serving tea drinks and then people wanted to buy the tea to then make a home.

Is that how it began? 

Mike Turner: That’s exactly it. So the drinks were the initial idea. And then we created, I think we had about eight blends or so, which we created as ingredients for the drinks really. But very, very quickly we realized that people were more interested in the blends. 

Catherine Erdly: [00:09:00] Right. 

Mike Turner: But the blends. You could post out. Yeah. So worked online. But if doing a market, it’s a lot easier to set sell blends that you’ve packed at home, yeah.

Than go and set up and deal with all the food hygiene issues and making drinks and met a higher. Unit price. So in every way the blends are a better move.

So over time, most blends grew out and to the point where I stopped doing the drinks in the markets, I would just do the blends. And now where we do the drinks we do have the drinks in the stores for those who have been [00:09:30] in our stores. All do take away drinks, a couple us of seating, but we don’t do food or anything like that.

But the drinks are really better to showcase what you can do. The blend so you can make amazing ice tea cocktails or whatever it is. So yeah, we started very much physically, but we were also kind of omnichannel from the start before that was a thing.

So because we were interested in whether we could create customers who are interested in doing it, I was just as concerned [00:10:00] about my bit of paper with people’s email addresses on as I was about the the money that I would take home each day.

And we were just as interested in how we could, but the business model was go to a market, try and have a great conversation with someone and get ’em to buy something and hopefully they’ll keep reordering online.

Frankly, that’s still the business model. We just swap out markets for shops. Everything is exactly the same as about them. The customer experience, everything was learned over that period. So [00:10:30] yes, we were physical first in theory, but we were kind of omnichannel from the very beginning, the division of where Krisi and I, I guess, enjoyed, were interested, developed some level of skill was she did sit in that digital side and I did sit in that physical side quite neatly. 

Catherine Erdly: Right, got you. That makes a lot of sense. So you’ll see, and I think this is a really important point because I had this conversation a lot with people who maybe they run and say, for example, [00:11:00] an independent retailer and that’s their main source of income.

Or they do a lot of events, and I’m always pushing this idea of using your events or your in-person element to obtain customers for the digital side, but it sounds like that’s exactly what you guys were aiming for. And I love that you said that you were as concerned about the number of names on the paper that you were using to collect people’s email addresses than you were from the sales. Because it’s not about sales, it’s about customers, right?

Mike Turner: Yes. Yeah, It is about creating that community of [00:11:30] people. So yeah, because we knew that, you know. Tea is a low selling point going, doing a market you’re never gonna come back with huge amounts of money. You might just about cover your costs, so knew from there that the only way it could work was if we were winning customers there, that we turned into customers who would keep on buying from us over a number of years.

Yes, over time I’ve started to hear phrases like lifetime value and understand, you know, marketing and that sort of thing, and realize how what we were doing fits into those clever [00:12:00] bits. But yeah, from the very beginning it was all about that. And I totally agree. You know, events same. We would go and do, we used to do Glastonbury for years and Doby festivals, and it was the same thing at Glastonbury.

We might have been serving ice teas rather than the packs in general. Yeah. But again, it was those email addresses that we were in that we were interested in getting really. 

Yeah. That be a good time.

Developing tea blends that surprise and delight

Catherine Erdly: Because I presume that tea is quite an interesting one in terms of people are quite loyal once they’re in it, but it maybe takes a little bit more to get them to overcome their built-in loyalty, [00:12:30] do you think? Or do you think people are quite fickle with their tea? 

Mike Turner: Both. So the teas which we do are things like, what are some examples behind me? Candy floss, marscapone, sour cherry, cherry baked well. So if you can see some of them, they’re not kind of your normal tea so we are not doing straight darling and that sort of thing.

Catherine Erdly: Yeah. 

Mike Turner: So we are not competing with people who are drinking normal teas. So to speak, right? Which in some ways is a challenge. You know, no one is [00:13:00] shopping for a rhubarb and custard tea, right? Mm-hmm. So we need to kind of stop them and try and encourage them that they do want that. Now, the great thing is that if we do do that.

Because it’s unique to us. Mm. We don’t kind of open their eyes to the whole world of tea. We kind of open their eyes to Bird & Blend. Yeah. and I learned very quickly on those markets that our best customers were often the people when I first engaged with them said, “oh, I don’t like tea.” Yeah. ’cause then if [00:13:30] we got them to like the little sample I gave them, and again, this is still exactly the same outside the stores.

Our teams are stick with tray and get samples. If they like that sample, they don’t think, oh, I like tea. They think, “Hmm. Oh, I like Bird & Blends tea.” Mm-hmm. And then they stick with us. Now there are also a segment of customers who love the world of tea. Yeah. And they love trying a first type, but they also love trying, you know, different things which can be done with flavoring and blends and that sort of thing.

They’re very fickle. We have such a [00:14:00] range that we love them as well. 

Catherine Erdly: I was thinking, I think I fit into that second category. But I’m, well, maybe I’m fickle. I dunno, who can say? But it’s interesting about the blends. Can we touch on that briefly? Because did you, either of you have a background? Well, you said that Krisi did have a tea background, so was she able to create the blends?

Because that’s gotta be a skill in itself to actually create. How did you even come up with the first six? Or how did you even figure out, right, yeah. We can blend this in a way that’s consistent and we can send [00:14:30] something out that people are gonna get the same results at home. Or was that a steep learning curve in itself?

Mike Turner: It was, yeah. So we knew that we wanted ’em to be different because at first they were starting off kind of as ingredients. 

Catherine Erdly: Yeah. 

Mike Turner: So like two examples, which I think about up there, actually, Mojitea and Strawberry Lemonade have been with us since the very beginning. So Mojitea is a green tea of lime and peppermint, Strawberry Lemonade is a really fruity tea.

Both of those were kind of envisaged as an iced tea. So an alcohol free mojito, a really refreshing drink. And a sort of nice [00:15:00] sweet alternative to whatever sweet brand you wanna stick in there. Yeah, so those ones, it was really easy ’cause we initially, ’cause we started off with the kind of concept of the ice drink and worked back what the ingredient for it would be.

Catherine Erdly: Mm-hmm. 

Mike Turner: Now you’re right that actually it can get quite complicated. And we were obsessed with the whole experience. So for us, it wasn’t just about that end product, it was what does the blend look like? What does it smell like? As well as what it tastes like. And that was quite unique with us at the [00:15:30] time.

And as we went round trying to find people who could help us with the blending, we kind of had every door closed in our face because it went against these kind of rules of tea and rules of blending where, you know, the rule number one is every cup in a batch has to taste exactly the same.

Catherine Erdly: Right. I see. 

Mike Turner: Well, if we take Mojitea, which is a brilliant, is a really good example actually, because I had quite a big argument with one of our suppliers in the very early days ’cause we put big chunks of lime in it. Yeah, and obviously every cup doesn’t have a chunk of lime in it. So some cups will taste different.

But we think it looks cool when you [00:16:00] open it. It makes it so it really does break the kind of rules of blending, but for us that kind of, oh, it’s got big chunks in it and stuff. It’s eye catching. It’s part of the experience was so key.

From hobby to national retailer

Catherine Erdly: Mm-hmm, I see. And obviously you’ve got a huge range now.

I mean that what you have there is, I know, just a fraction of what you’ve got. Does it get easier or harder to come up with new ideas as you go along? 

Mike Turner: Well, that’s a good question. Both, I feel like I’m saying both for not answering any of your questions. I’m dodging all of that. The [00:16:30] reason it gets easier is over time a team grows.

So initially it was me and Krisi doing all of it. And a lot, sometimes it’d be really random stuff. You know, we might clearly we’re into food, you’re going into food markets, you meet interested people and try trying interesting things. And sometimes you’d think that could work as a tea.

Catherine Erdly: Yeah. 

Mike Turner: And you’d come back and you’d figure it out and. I didn’t quite answer your previous question. Yeah sometimes it’s really hard to do that, but over time you figure out how to do it. 

Catherine Erdly: Yeah. 

Mike Turner: Because ingredients, which when you stick ’em in water, don’t release the flavor they have [00:17:00] when you just taste them.

So you have to figure out all different things, make them smell and look, and there’s quite a lot to it. We would also do collections. So I referenced Rhubarb and Custard before we actually launched that as part of a sweets collection. So we had Rhubarb and Custard, Lemon Sherbert. Oh God, what else? Cherry Lips for a little group of them within that one.

Yeah so you’d have these kind of different ideas. Now you’re right. Over time we’ve probably created 300, 400 different blends by now. Mm-hmm. So it gets quite hard to come up with different ideas. But [00:17:30] what we have now is we have a whole team, so we have about 230 people in the business at the moment.

Mm-hmm. Our teams are hugely passionate, smart, unique individuals who are pretty bought into what we’re doing and are overflowing with ideas. Mm-hmm. So, you know, some of our most recent blends are ideas which have come from team members in the stores. We have a kind of digital suggestions box where they could submit them.

We now have a product team, so actually Krisi’s not involved day to day anymore. We kind of went from a point of [00:18:00] me and Krisi creating the blends together to then Krisi really became the tea expert and really knew what she was doing and drove the creative vision forward. Then over the last couple of years she’s taken a back seat.

But what she’s developed is a product team who’ve worked with her over a period of time.

Catherine Erdly: Mm-hmm, yeah.

Mike Turner: And they’re overflowing with ideas, so in some ways it gets easier ’cause we’ve got fresh ideas coming from yeah, not just from a product team itself, but this resource of team members around the business.

How to build loyalty without discounts

Catherine Erdly: Yes. Yes, totally. And you presumably also can recycle after a certain amount [00:18:30] of time. If you’ve had things that limited edition, you can bring some of those back as well. And yeah. 

Mike Turner: And the customers like that. And that’s always actually been part of the business model. So a couple of our biggest teas are exactly that spice pumpkin pie is a Halloween tea.

We do, and we’ve done that since the very beginning. You know, we were in very influenced by North America. 

Catherine Erdly: Yes. 

Mike Turner: And that one we really kind of went for that creme effect of bring it back. And it used to be day one, it was a biggest sales day of the year. Now it’s become a smaller part of that mix actually.

But yeah, so we will recycle and then there are certain [00:19:00] ones which everyone has just forgotten about. We bring back, we do vote back. So yes you can recycle them. The other bit is you can get clever with it. So we have a tea coming out this year, which is the first time it’s ever kind of following one of those trend reports, and you know.

Catherine Erdly: Mm-hmm.

Mike Turner: Now the suppliers will send us those reports where they say, here are some ingredients which we think are gonna be really popular over the next 18 months. And for the first time, we’ve actually looked at one of them as an ingredient. And then we thought, we’ve never heard of that? And that sounds really cool.

Actually, it was literally sounds really cool. I was like, that name would, I don’t wanna say [00:19:30] what it’s, but you could do some cool rhyming things with it. 

Catherine Erdly: Yeah, yeah. 

Mike Turner: And there’s a beautiful story which fits in and that sort of thing, as well as it being a cool, new thing. And we’ve always wanted to introduce new things so you can start to be a bit cleverer with it, rather than just two kids.

Yeah, mixing stuff together for a bedroom, you know. 

Catherine Erdly: You’ve got a bit more, a few more resources behind you. 

Mike Turner: That’s it. Yeah. 

Catherine Erdly: Yeah. I think I live in hope of, you had a limited edition, a lump of coal tea, which was both smoky and spicy, which is my favorite. I always just thought it was the best tea I’ve ever had, [00:20:00] but yeah, I could totally see that.

It’s like, sucks you in than your, then you’ve got your vote backs. And I mean, I do think, you know, from a customer perspective, you do a very good job of making it feel like you’re kind of part of a club almost when you buy from you. You know, like you’ve got your secret website. If you’ve bought before you sell it to the email list.

I mean, ’cause of what I do, I’m always looking at my experience as a customer and I was like, that’s really smart. So you can only access it if you’re on the mailing list, which is brilliant. 

Mike Turner: Not even just ’cause you’re on the mail list. Actually, there’s a couple of hoop you need to have jumped [00:20:30] into.

Catherine Erdly: Oh, now I feel even, even more privileged. 

Mike Turner: But you’re right. And there’s that, we’ve got a group called Brew Society, which is it’s dedicated customers, but it’s also a Facebook group which has 7,000-8,000 members on it. And they’re talking about it all the time. And it’s these kind of unlocking different communities and things.

And you’re right. I think one of our things is where a lot of companies try and be really cool. We had a competitor who used to kind of go into their shops and it was a bit like a [00:21:00] nightclub. They’d almost be looking down on you, leaning into that coffee culture thing actually. Where you go into a trendy coffee shop and they sort of spit at you ’cause you don’t know exactly what you want.

Whereas we’ve always been the opposite. Like, “Hello, come and talk to us.” And I think you’re right, it does create that kind of community of very unique people or weirdos, depending on how you wanna put it. But I mean that in the most positive sense. 

Catherine Erdly: It’s such, yeah, it’s such an interesting one. And I think often it also, [00:21:30] when we think about loyalty, we often think about it being to do with discounts and money off, et cetera, et cetera. But actually, like you say like that unlocking different levels of access. People love feeling like an insider or like they love that kind of, that access.

And I think people often overlook how powerful that can be really. 

Mike Turner: Yeah , and it’s great for us ’cause it gives forum to those people to talk to us, to tell ’em what they like. Advent calendar is a case in point. So our Advent calendars our single biggest products of a year.

And [00:22:00] last year, we made some changes to it which impacted the quality of the product. We were trying to do things in a quite an environmentally as environmentally friendly slash least environmentally harmful, however you wanna put it.

In any way as possible, we made some changes to try and support that. And we got a lot of feedback that actually people didn’t like the changes. Well, having that feedback contained amongst our super passionate fans. Sometimes can be a bit overwhelming ’cause everyone jumps in and gives their two pence.

But equally it captures it. It lets them feed in and then when we go back and say, “well [00:22:30] look, here’s some changes we’ve made.” 

Catherine Erdly: Mm-hmm. 

Mike Turner: Off the back of it, people feel included and that feel include included is such a key thing that runs through the business, that it’s all about community.

Mm-hmm. You know, that runs through everything. Even our name actually was came from the community. We rebranded and the name we chose was based on responses to a survey from our customers. Oh, okay.

Crowdfunding and their product evolution

Mike Turner: We funded ourselves through crowdfunding, so we have 1800 of our most loyal customers are owners in the business.

So that kind of community, bit of people kind of pitching in and giving their [00:23:00] ideas and stuff plays into every aspect of the business. 

Catherine Erdly: That’s really fascinating. Can you tell me a little bit more about the crowdfunders? So how did that work or when was that? Was that sort of a certain point where you felt like you needed more capital to grow and you decided to go out to the community?

Mike Turner: Yeah, so we’ve done it twice. And that’s the only money that we’ve raised. For a long time, me and Chrisy started it when we were 21, 22, something like that. And we had a very long-term vision for the company, so we never wanted to bring in kind of all that [00:23:30] institutional money. Mm-hmm.

And be forced down the path of grow, grow, grow, sell. But we got to three stores, or just without any funding, just reinvesting profits. Was the main bit. We did some kind of clever stuff with cash advances when they were first coming out. 

Catherine Erdly: Mm-hmm. 

Mike Turner: Basically we had no money to start with. And so when you’ve got no money, you learn how to bootstrap. Yeah. And then when people say, it still is in us now, you know, I we had 5K was what we started the business on. Then when we opened our first store, we got a 25K loan through the startup loan scheme. [00:24:00] So I had to do everything ourselves.

Yeah, that still goes in now. That I was talking to someone the other day who spends a quarter million on my shop, fitouts. We’re still doing ours for like 30K because I’ve still got that thing of, well, I could put that up so I’m not paying to. So we were able to get to three stores without needing any funding.

We then kind of were wondering what to do next. Felt like there was huge potential in what we were doing. And so we’re thinking, well, maybe we should raise some funds. And we started talking to some of the [00:24:30] different bits. But we have this fear of grownups coming and telling us what to do. We didn’t want that.

That was, one of our reasons for starting it was to go and do our own thing. Yeah, and crowdfunding was kind of starting to be a thing. Mm-hmm. I guess BrewDog had kind of broken through a bit and we kind of, I’ve always been kind of interested in that sort of, I’m just interested in businesses and how they operate.

So I was kind of aware of it and I thought this could work really well. And, but actually the big bit for me was how we could bring the team on board through it. Mm-hmm. So I was actually in Bristol [00:25:00] sampling and I can remember the moment that I gave someone a sample and there’s a little bit of a kind, a spiel where you introduce who we are and the guy said, well, you’re not an independent then.

And I was like, oh, what do you mean? He was like well, three stores, that’s not an independent. And I was thinking, well, I mean, I’m the owner and I’m sitting with my serving tray, and itit feels pretty independent to me. It kind of clicked for what if every member of our team could have that? Thought in that moment. 

Catherine Erdly: Mm-hmm. 

Mike Turner: So that was actually the [00:25:30] biggest bit we cr about. It was like, this is a way that we can give our team shares in a meaningful way. But it also went along with, let’s bring it in. Now, don’t get me wrong, we had some, we were lucky enough that over those first few years, I think because we were young. There were a few people we met and they were kind of like, we like what we’re doing.

Come and talk to, we’ll give you some advice. And actually our biggest investor is exactly that. He was a judge on a like Dragon’s Den panel for a three grand grant. 

Catherine Erdly: Oh wow. 

Mike Turner: And we went in and he said, I love it. That evening he phoned us and said, I would love to invest a and [00:26:00] I don’t wanna sound, might be mad.

And we’re like, yeah, that is mad, but let’s stay in touch. And he’s kind of being an advisor. And then when we got to a point where we said we think we should raise some funds. He said, “well, actually I’d quite like to get involved.” And there’s three or four people who have similar, we’ve met them through doing this, or they’ve been customers or whatever and have put in money.

But it then allowed us to pitch out to our customers.

Exactly the same as any other marketing campaign. It’s not about the products, it’s about joining in with what we’re [00:26:30] doing. 

In 2017 we did that and we raised about 350,000 280 people, I think. Oh, wow. Yeah. Um, that got us up to about seven stores.

So in 2021, we did it again. And we raised about a million that time from, for about a 1500 investors in that round who all came on board. And exactly the same thing, us saying, come and join us. We’re doing this, we think it’s got big potential.

But we’re not planning on saying we’re gonna sell in three years or [00:27:00] anything like that. As everyone else does and people seem to want to join the ride. 

Catherine Erdly: I see. No, that makes total sense. And I’m sure these are all your most loyal customers as well, right.

Mike Turner: For sure. Yeah, yeah. 

Catherine Erdly: So I, I just wanna touch on stores, because that’s obviously been a big part of it and you’ve been on a store opening. So if I just get the timeline right, so 2021, you were at seven stores, is that right?

Mike Turner: Yeah. About that. 

Catherine Erdly: And now you are 20. You’re 25. I [00:27:30] see, I’m even out date.

‘Cause I thought it was 23. But you must have opened two in the last couple of months. 

Mike Turner: In the final quarter before Christmas, we had a push to open a few. Yeah, we’ll now have a little bit of a karma period. Although there’s a couple which are in the works, but. 

Catherine Erdly: Right. 

Mike Turner: Yeah, yeah. We did seven last year.

Catherine Erdly: Oh, wow. Wow. That’s a lot in a year. And I wanted to talk to you, you know one of the reasons, obviously I’m, in fact I’m a big fan, is that you know, you’ve really embraced bricks and mortars stores as part of your model. Now, from everything you’ve said, I completely [00:28:00] understand why, because it’s so integral.

What experiential retail looks like in practice

Catherine Erdly: But I’d love to just hear from you, why do you think physical stores still have such an important role to play in today’s retail world? 

Mike Turner: Yeah, well for me it goes back to that kind of human experience. That people want to have a connection and they want to do something or see something.

Mm-hmm, and that can be right from, you know. I love walking my dog up in the south downs above where you can see the view of [00:28:30] sea and the countryside and all that sort of thing. But that also can mean going into town and experiencing, new products or cocktails or food or anything, which is kind of an experience that makes you feel something. Now, while some of that is replicatable digitally. 

Catherine Erdly: Yeah. 

Mike Turner: And you know, clearly, in fact we have lots of customers and team members who are big gamers and that sort of thing, and they build these communities online. 

Catherine Erdly: Yeah. 

Mike Turner: I sound like an old person ’cause I’ve never been a gamer. I don’t really understand it.

But it’s the same connection, [00:29:00] right? Yeah. But it, but it’s not for everybody. A lot of people, myself included, need that kind of that physical. Now, I think this is where people kind of, who talk about the death of a high street are kind of missing what’s actually happening.

There’s an increased need as we become more digital and we work from home and jobs become a lot more, you know, talk screen and using ChatGPT and all that sort of thing. To have moments where we stop and just think, I’m gonna use cocktail as another example because I happens to go to a really good cocktail bar the other day.

So it’s in my head, the way that has been [00:29:30] skillfully crafted and the glass that it’s in and a beautiful environment I’m in. And the theater of making it is a moment in itself which couldn’t have been repeated online. 

Catherine Erdly: Mm-hmm. 

Mike Turner: And increasingly I think people want to go when they want to go into town.

It’s for that. It’s to go and dwell and to have a nice time. Mm-hmm. Now I do see that what they are less likely to want to do is when they need, I’ve just moved house, so I need, I need to buy a tool the other day. Yeah, do I want to go to the [00:30:00] iron mongers and go and get the?

Actually that day I did because I wanted it straight away and it was annoying that. But you know, generally that kind of thing you need, which is the traditional thing of business.

Find a need you can fulfill. You can get online in general. You can buy your clothes online and that sort of thing. But I think it’s where it’s a pleasure. 

Catherine Erdly: Mm mm-hmm.

Mike Turner: And that will continue to have a place. Actually clothes is a really bad example there ’cause for a lot of people it’s because I hate clothes shopping.

I [00:30:30] was just gonna, I was thinking that to myself that just, 

Catherine Erdly: I just said something about how you feel about clothes shopping because there’s a lot people who put that under. 

Mike Turner: Stresses me out in seconds. Um, sadly, a. A company called Stitch Fix who used to just send me boxes with clothes have gone. So I now have to think about it again, but for a lot of people they love that, right?

Yeah and so going in and the whole experience having sofas and you know, and that’s all part, and that’s what you’re really paying for. 

Catherine Erdly: Yeah. 

Mike Turner: And I think that’s the bit which people are missing. But you can’t just have a [00:31:00] shop, which is a rail of cloves or mm-hmm. Or shelves of tea or whatever it is, which people can just get online.

Because if it’s about convenience. It’s now Amazon will deliver same day. Yeah. You’re not gonna win on convenience if it’s that human thing that is not replicatable in the same way online. And so I think really leaning into that and you see that through what we do, but the stores are really just created a spaces for people to talk and to have a nice time.

And our thing has always been, it doesn’t even matter if they [00:31:30] buy something, if they come and have a nice time. That’s what it’s about there. Put into places. We’re not in any shopping centers at the moment. And that’s because we put ourselves in place where people are going to dwell and they’re going to cafes and they’re going to look at art galleries, and we hope that they drift into our place as part of that experience.

Catherine Erdly: Yes, that makes total sense. You know, there’s such a symbiotic relationship as well between online and bricks and mortar. So for example, if you’re opening in a new market, I’m sure that also opens up more web sales in that market as well, right?

Because the people that came to the [00:32:00] store and bought are now coming back and buying again. And are you still very much seeing the stores as almost like the channel to. get people, to get their details and get also be able to sell to them online or get them to buy online. 

Mike Turner: For sure. The stores are our biggest marketing channel.

Our business model has always been starting off with markets. Go do market, introduce customers to what we do. Ideally, they’ll keep shopping with us online. The stores are exactly the same thing of. Hopefully people come into the stores like what we do. And will [00:32:30] shop with us online. Traditionally my attitude was that as long as the store broke beven. I t was worth doing because it was driving customers to us. All of our stores do actually make money, but I would say that I would rather put money into retail than into google or Facebook’s hands. Mm. So I would actually be comfortable with opening a store at a loss and treating it as marketing.

So a hundred percent they’re totally combined and I think, again, it’s really easy to just say, oh, omnichannel is about collecting email addresses. Or equally, [00:33:00] it’s really easy to say, it’s really complicated. Our till system, our online system still isn’t connected together.

Oh really? They’re different systems. We’ve tried three times to connect it and yet I would say that our joined up experiences, you know, as a customer is better than most companies which have really, really clever systems because it goes from the very heart of what our team are doing in the stores that they’re not jealous of online for getting the sales or anything like that.

They see it all as one big thing. 

Catherine Erdly: Yeah, that makes total sense. [00:33:30] Thank you so much. I’ve really enjoyed our conversation and I think it’s just fascinating and I love the fact that you are really pursuing that bricks and mortar expansion.

So you said there’s a bit of a lull. But do you have more plans for more stores in the UK then? 

Mike Turner: Oh yeah. Definitely more stores in the UK. It’s more a lull of a few months. I think this year we’ll do another six or seven. 

Catherine Erdly: Mm-hmm. 

Mike Turner: We’re growing pretty fast and we’ve not got any intentions to stop doing that. Yes so I think it is a funny one ’cause I always said 24 was the number that we needed. And we’ve now just got over that. So we [00:34:00] are trying new markets and that sort of thing. So it will kind of depend how that goes, but we’ll definitely keep on opening for a fair while.

Catherine Erdly: Is it maybe easier as the years have gone by to get? Because I suppose, I think often businesses well, it depends on the landlords, but there’s a certain amount of balance of power. If you can say, we are a well-known brand, we’ll be bringing, ’cause you are almost then foot full generators, right?

Because people know the brand and they want to come and so then yeah. 

Mike Turner: There’s definitely a tipping point where, your second shop is your [00:34:30] hardest one to get. Cause your first one, the landlord, they know you are gonna be there and it’ll probably work too suddenly. So that took some convincing, but now you’re totally right.

And actually we’ve had a couple where we’ve been able to get quite significant incentives where that’s rent free or capital contributions from a landlord for exactly that reason, but may know that there’s a group of businesses in the UK, which are quite fast growing, that are opening stores and tend to all open around the same areas.

Mm-hmm. [00:35:00] So you see one of them open and you think, oh, maybe we should be looking at that area. and we are one of those. So by getting us in, yeah, exactly. That it’s likely to draw in both customers and other high quality retailers. And so they want us to come in. There’s also a whole load of problems of growing and how you manage it and that sort of thing.

So it’s not all big easier when you know the landlord. 

Catherine Erdly: Yeah, yeah, for sure. [00:35:30] Maybe go above your 30K budget then if it’s if you gave some, 

Mike Turner: Well, yeah, they do tend to want all sorts of different certificates and things, which we’ve not tended to do in the past, so just put the cost up.

Catherine Erdly: Amazing, well thank you so much. And do you wanna just finish this off by telling people where they can find out more about Bird & Blend? 

Mike Turner: Yeah, so online we’re a birdandblendtea.com. To be honest, we’ve now got shops in pretty much all of the major retail destinations of the UK

But if you search for us on there, it’s got the map with all of them. And [00:36:00] we’re on all of the social medias and all of that sort of thing. And occasionally I’m now on them, although as you’ll, by the way, I’ve just referred to. 

Catherine Erdly: Thank you so much for tuning in. Wasn’t that a fabulous session? I really enjoyed finding out more about their journey.

Of course I did. As I said, I am a fan, can’t deny it. And I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you have a moment to rate and review the podcast, you can rate and review it in Apple Podcasts, or you can rate it within the Spotify app. That [00:36:30] would be hugely helpful to us.

And of course, if you like, follow or subscribe, depending on which platform you listen on, you’ll be the first to know about each new episode happening every week. See you next time.