#awinewith Abbey Cameron
MEET Abbey
Abbey is the Founder of Nourish’d.
Find Abbey here:
Nourish’d website or Instagram @nourishdmealco
Transcript
Danielle Lewis (00:08):
Abby, welcome to Spark tv. Cheers to you. Thank
Abbey Cameron (00:12):
You. Cheers, my friend.
Danielle Lewis (00:13):
You're amazing. I'm so excited we get to chat. We haven't spoken in years.
Abbey Cameron (00:19):
Yeah. Yeah. I feel like you're one of those people that every time I see you, I just feel like we could have caught up yesterday. It's just such a good flow of thing. I don't know if it's an adulting thing or an entrepreneur thing, but you stop giving a shit about how often you see someone and it's more about the quality of when you see them.
Danielle Lewis (00:38):
Totally. Anyone I feel obligated to see, I'm like, no, I don't want to hang out with you.
Abbey Cameron (00:43):
It's like the minute they become an obligation, you're like, no, that's too hard. I got priorities and you are not it. I actually told some people once that I had prioritized the five people or groups that I would be willing to spend time with over myself, and I started telling people that and they would get really offended, obviously if they went in the
Danielle Lewis (01:03):
Top five, if they didn't make the top five last years.
Abbey Cameron (01:08):
Adulting is hard enough, let alone having obligation to
Danielle Lewis (01:12):
People please everybody, especially as a business owner, because you have to, we were just offline talking about staff. You have to show up for your team, so that starts to encroach into the number of people that you actually deal with every day. So then by the time you, sometimes I don't want to talk to anybody else
Abbey Cameron (01:32):
And I can no longer do shallow conversation. How you going? Yeah, good, thanks. I'm just not interested in it. And I found once I stopped becoming interested in it and I started asking people real questions, they would either step up and have a conversation or they wouldn't, and it was kind of cool because it drew a line then between, okay, well I want to spend time with you versus I don't, and that's cool. There's nothing wrong with you. There's nothing wrong with me. It's just kind of where we're at. I feel like I've reached 87 years old when people get to that age where they can say and do whatever they want and everyone just like, whatever. They're old. I've hit that. Well, I need to
Danielle Lewis (02:07):
Know what skincare you're using because if you're 87, you look fucking fantastic. And I won all of these secrets.
Abbey Cameron (02:16):
The only thing I spend a stupid amount of money on is skincare, although I've just found, I won't name the brand, but the brand I was buying in Australia, which is an Australian brand, it's like a third of the price. I mean the uk, so it's a third of the price for me to buy it over here in England, what that used to
Danielle Lewis (02:32):
Be. I remember when I was a baby and I was traveling for fun, not work, and Mac used to be like that, and elder girls would hoard Mac products overseas. Everything was so cheap. What is with that in Australia? What are we doing?
Abbey Cameron (02:46):
Yeah. I don't understand how it's produced in Australia and literally a third of the price here. My husband's like, you should just stock up before we go.
Danielle Lewis (02:53):
Yeah, lifetime supply.
Abbey Cameron (02:55):
Create an Amazon store and sell it to twice what you paid for it. I do think that's legal actually. I'm sure he's the real entrepreneur here. He's the real NC, right? I just do what I'm told.
Danielle Lewis (03:07):
Oh my God, I love it. I love it so much. So we better tell people what you actually do. Otherwise, you and I are really going to just sit here for hours and just gas bag and catch up. So tell the people, tell the Spark community what you do.
Abbey Cameron (03:27):
I guess. Officially the title is Co-founder and CEO of No Meal Company. It's a meal delivery service. It's kind of like a you food style, but a very different food philosophy around what we do. We've been going for almost nine years now.
Danielle Lewis (03:44):
Wow. You're 87.
Abbey Cameron (03:46):
I know, right? I see photos from our first day in the kitchen to now, and I'm like, wow, girl, you have aged. So yeah, I guess that's the official title of what I do, but it kind of really varies at the moment. Like I said, I'm in the UK now. We've taken a little bit of a step back, put in a really great management team to kind of run the day-to-Day, which has been beneficial for the company. I've had to recognize that as a leader, I'm better when I'm not as involved in the day-to-Day with my team. I'm just too chaotic for them.
Danielle Lewis (04:22):
That's very founder, self-aware of you. There's lots of founders that don't have that self-awareness and drive their teams crazy, so that's amazing. How's that impacted the business? I'm cutting you off on your story, but I want to know.
Abbey Cameron (04:36):
No, no, no. For sure. The team, I have been checking in with 'em sort of sporadically and they love it. They just love it. It's always a change in management process when you bring in an extra layer in between yourself and other people in your team, and we literally just said to them, or I literally said to them, I want you to trust me. I want you to let me bring this person and a couple of other people in and we're going to see how it goes, but I want you to trust me because at the moment, I cause chaos here and there's a place for that. But it's not the day-to-Day being in the office every day running it. It's fun once a week if I come in and I'm like, let's do this and let's do that and come over here and that, but the reality for most people is that they want stability and they want to know, I'm coming in and this is the job I'm doing today and this is what I'm trying to achieve, and it's not just going to be moved like that. So yeah, the feedback has been like, oh, you were right. You were really right. That's so good.
Danielle Lewis (05:40):
That's awesome. I love it so much because also it provides such a lens into the future. So for startup founders or people who are just starting out in business and they're kind of wearing every hat inside the company and they're kind of going, what am I actually doing here? What is the end game for me as a founder? So cool that you can actually realize what's next for you from, I'm sure from nine years ago when you stepped in the kitchen and you were doing absolutely everything.
Abbey Cameron (06:10):
Yeah. I can't believe people trusted me to cook their food. Fucking terrible cook. I'm so bad. Yeah, you're right. It's been a journey though. It took about three years to get from the idea to here, and we engaged some advisors on how to do it and what we wanted, and then I felt once we had it in place, I fell into the trap of believing that I'd made it like, oh, I'm here. I don't work. I mean, I don't even work 40 hours a week, and there's other people that are dealing with the day-to-Day drama, and I get to pH off and do this and be a visionary and whatever. I was really surprised when I got pulled back in. So I mean, my little nugget, if anyone wants to take anything away from that is to get super spiritual on you is I permanence is just a fucking reality.
(07:09):
It all crashed in so hard when I had to step back in for a bit because I thought that I'd made it and that was it. And even at that point, eight years in, I hadn't fully recognized that it is still a rollercoaster. It never stops being a rollercoaster. So even now, we've been away. We've been in the UK for almost five months, and it's still up and down a little bit because we've got people on mat leave and people returning part-time from mat leave and some changeover, and every day almost is different. Some days I'm not needed at all, and that might go for a week and then boom, I'm kind of needed a little bit more again. But yeah, still really in the middle of it, finding the balance, finding what works, and then the other thing was once I got there, I was like, oh, this isn't it. Then your brain starts sticking over with, well, what's next? And I can't just sit around or I've got two kids, and I kind of started being more of a stay at home mom. It was very unfulfilling for me to do that. So I mean, I don't know where this whole ramble is going, but that's what I do
Danielle Lewis (08:24):
And me just throwing things at you. No, but it's really interesting because you touched on a few points there that I love, which is I love the word impermanence, I feel, and the rollercoaster, right? I feel like there is never an end. We're always, okay, what's the next thing I got here? What's the next thing? Nothing ever works out. How we plan it to it is always a roller because you think you, oh, yep, good. Hit that. Cool. What's next? Oh shit, the world fell apart.
Abbey Cameron (08:55):
Oh, I got that one wrong.
(08:57):
Totally. Yeah. And it's so funny that you say nothing ever works out the way it's supposed to. I literally not the way it's supposed to, the way you plan, I literally wrote that when I was journaling yesterday. One of our key staff members resigned, and I normally know, I normally know when someone's going to go, and that one came out of left field, and there's this big part of me that's super stoked because when she came on, we knew her goal was to have her own business. We knew that part of her development plan was to teach her for the gaps, and we've done that and I'm so stoked, but I just didn't see it coming just yet. And so I was kind of reflecting on that, and I literally wrote, nothing in my entire life has ever panned out the way I planned it to ever.
(09:41):
And so my whole life, and I think everyone does this, I've been setting myself up to fail. I've been setting myself up for disappointment. I've been setting myself up for sorrow because I expect even despite 35 years of evidence to the contrary, I still expect that if I want something to go away and I work towards it, that it's going to happen and it never fucking has. So I'm very much hoping that this moment I had yesterday is going to seed or I don't know, the hippie, say integrate or whatever, and be a real shift going forward so that I feel less disappointed and it's more just expected. But balancing that, I guess, with not giving up and not still working for the things that I want, working for the things that I, yeah, or an excuse not going, oh, well, it wasn't going to work out anyway.
(10:35):
I'm not even going to try. Because the flip side of nothing working out the way I planned it to is that now I'm here and if everything hadn't worked out the way that it did, which wasn't the way that I planned it to, I wouldn't be where I am today. Now I'm super privileged to be able to say that, right? I'm sure that somebody living a much harder life or with much more challenge than I am would be like, well, fuck that. Everything worked out and now I'm here. I fully recognize that I'm in a super privileged position to be able to say that, but I also accept where I am and that good fortune that's come my way.
Danielle Lewis (11:14):
I really love that. So it's really funny about this podcast, I always have conversations that I need to hear. Like this podcast is like my Wooo spirit guide. And it's so funny. So on Friday, I've got a strategy day for my other business scrunch, and I've been really struggling with where it's going and what's next. And I had this moment of this epiphany the other day that was kind of like, I had all these ideas. I can do this, I can do this, I can do this. And then I was like, well, I don't want to do that. And then I had this epiphany that I was asking myself the wrong question, and the question needed to be, what's the end game? And if that's the end game, then what are we going to do to get there? But what I love about what you just said is then nothing. But I think I've been struggling with it because it's like it wasn't what the plan was. So I had a plan, and I've been telling people the plan for so long that now that the plan's changed, I think I'm struggling going, whoa, what am I doing here? What is this? Why doesn't it look the way I thought it would look? And I think I've been freaking out about that. And so not doing anything and really blocking myself from taking the next step. So I think you've kind of just given me another epiphany
Abbey Cameron (12:29):
Moment,
Danielle Lewis (12:30):
Which is that it's okay if the plan doesn't go to plan as long as you're heading in the direction or if it changes path or looks like something different, that's okay.
Abbey Cameron (12:41):
Yeah. And it's almost like sometimes you need to hear that somebody else has given themselves permission so that you can, we're social beings, we're pack animals. It's no surprise that you can't always get to a place without seeing somebody else having gone there or planning to go there first. And it's funny you say about, oh, I told people the plan. I've spent so long telling people the plan. Isn't that such a big ridiculous factor in shaping your life? When I think about, okay, well if this happens with our management team, we're going to have to come home. We're going to have to go back to Australia. We had this 18 month plan in the UK and Europe. We're going to have to go back. And I could literally picture two people's faces in my mind, friends of mine, that they know the plan. And I was like, I can't fail in front of them because I told them the plan because they thought it was so great, and they thought I was so inspirational, and kudos to you for making this happen, and not many people do that and whatever. And then again, yesterday it occurred to me, what the fuck, man? They're going to love me regardless.
(13:48):
They don't see this as a failure because it's not a failure dealing with your life as it is, not how you want it to be. That's not a failure. That's just doing what you need to do. And yeah, this whole concept of we've got to save face for other people, don't give a shit. They care. Are you healthy? Are you happy? Are you okay? I love you. That's it. They don't care. And if they do, they're not your people. They got to go,
Danielle Lewis (14:18):
Oh my God, it's so good. You could not be more. Right, exactly. It is literally these people and you kind of go, how do I explain this? And then it's like, well, I actually don't need to explain anything other than, Hey, this is the new plan. This is the new plan. Don't like it. Don't get what,
Abbey Cameron (14:40):
Yeah, yeah. Get on board or bugger off. Yeah, you're either on the bus
Danielle Lewis (14:44):
Or you're not,
Abbey Cameron (14:45):
Or you're not. And especially in entrepreneur world, and I use that term loosely, I don't love it. And these business owner groups and these entrepreneur groups where you're supposed to be trying to be a unicorn and you're supposed to be trying to reach this valuation, you're supposed to try and sell for this much. It was probably about three years ago that I realized that what I was building and what I wanted was a lifestyle business. And even now saying that to you, I have all of these feelings on the inside. You're not supposed to say that. You're supposed to be more ambitious than that. It's supposed to be. You want more and more and more and more. But faced with the reality of that, we had an opportunity to merge with another company that was much bigger than ours that I would've taken over leadership for.
(15:30):
I don't want it. I'm struggling with the level of responsibility that I have for other people with a team of between 10 and 14. I already have problems with anxiety. I already probably don't at that point get to see my kids as, sorry, Amazon delivery arrived as much as I want to. And I was honestly going to take that opportunity because I thought that that is what other people expected of me, particularly in entrepreneur world, particularly in Brisbane, which is the group that you and I came up in where everybody wants to make it as if somehow raising a hundred million dollars and either winning or losing it is making it. I just redefined my husband and I sat down, we redefined what making it meant for us, and I had to let go of my own expectations for myself and that, I mean, we could go into inner child work and childhood shit, but that would take us hours.
(16:28):
But I had just had this lifelong thing where I believed that I needed to be more, do more, achieve more. And at the end of the day, it didn't matter what I did, it was never enough because I had more potential. And somewhere along the way I started to believe that because you can should because you have to or because you could, you have to try to. But why did my impact on the world have to be huge when the reality is if I've got self-awareness, I know that the best impact I can have is on 10 to 14 people. And if you put 200 people under my care, I would fuck it up. And then I'm not only not positively impacting the world, I'm taking it backwards. So I don't even know how we got here, but it was really important to define that as a lifestyle business for us.
Danielle Lewis (17:22):
Yeah. Well, and I think that, so as you've been talking, that's one of the things that stood out for me is the language of lifestyle business versus startups or whatever we call ourselves or in the other side of the coin. But it's so funny. So when I started Scrunch, I really got wrapped up in that we raised capital, we spent it all on software development, and we were in this vicious cycle, this hamster wheel. Then the world changed, and apparently you were supposed to be a profitable business, not going out and raising money all the time, and you were completely fucked. And then I was like, hang on a second. I better learn about business. And it was so eyeopening. Everyone had this negative connotation about a lifestyle business. But the more I looked into actual businesses, I was like, these startups are going out there raising all of this money, spending more money than they raise, not making profits.
(18:22):
That's not a lifestyle business. That's not anything. And so many of them actually closed over. And then these lifestyle businesses who are highly profitable, who are able to retain employees, keeping the bloody system going, but for some reason, we praise the startup people and the headlines are all, they raise this much money, they're on track to be the unicorn. They've opened this glamorous office, they've hired more staff, and it's like, I feel like our priorities got messed up somewhere along the way. And I'm not even talking, I love how you said we sat down and defined what success looked like to us, but I mean, I feel like the world needs to do that in terms of business to actually define what a successful business is. Yeah,
Abbey Cameron (19:06):
I totally agree with you. It's fricking mind blowing. We went, it was sort of that five-ish years ago and people started raising and there was all this money and we're going to put this in this in, and that's got a billion dollar valuation, and this has got this. And I remember saying to a few people at the time, oh, this is a bubble and it is going to burst and this money is going to dry up. And I feel like what people aren't considering is the human impact of this along the way. One that came up around our time in Brisbane, he raised a ton of money. He's got hundreds and hundreds of staff, and then the next minute it's closed. Where are your 200 staff going at the end of Covid when there's not a lot going on and how are they supposed to survive? It's like somewhere along the line we said, oh, businesses don't need foundation. They don't need, it's like building a house with no solid foundation. I don't agree with it. I don't understand it. So we go through this covid thing and the money dries up. And even a couple of companies I invested in, now they're bootstrapping and I love it. I love that they're having to bootstrap. And I love that one in particular. I invested in purely on the founder. I've got no concept of what they're doing. It's in ai. Perfect.
(20:22):
I don't understand it at all, but I've known the founder for so long that I knew he could get scrappy if he needed to, and the money dried up and he can't get a next round. So he is having to become profitable. But that kind of happened, and now I'm just seeing the money again. Every time I get a business News Australia article every day, this company's raised this much, this company's raised this much. We're going into a recession and you all are managing to raise 20, 25, $30 million how people aren't going to be spending on that luxury good. I mean, they can come and have a chat with me. I'm in the luxury good market for a lot of people. This economy is fucking hard. We are tightening the bell. We are riding out the next 12 months. We're predicting little sorry, little to no growth in that. And then this company over here has raised 25 mil. I can't,
Danielle Lewis (21:12):
It's mind blowing.
Abbey Cameron (21:13):
I can't understand it. And who are these investors?
Danielle Lewis (21:17):
Well, it's really interesting. I got an email today, Deliveroo Australia is just pulling out of Australia and going into insolvency. And I'm like, so a fucking Deliveroo can't get it together. How are all of these other people fucking getting it together? Seriously? And this year has been so many layoffs from those big names that have raised money. And that's what I think is the real tell that people are focused on the wrong things because they're seeing the wrong headlines.
Abbey Cameron (21:48):
And look, we haven't even hit a recession yet. And look, I mean I'm hoping it doesn't happen, obviously, but if we do, it's going to be even more layoffs. If you think Shopify, would they lay off like 10% of their workforce recently? It's going to be another round of that happening for company that big is already tightening the belt. That much. I feel like that's what we should be looking at, not, oh, just raise, raise, raise, raise. Because it's ultimately, obviously it's money wasted, it's underdeveloped people I think because they get brought onto these fast moving companies. But are they being given the skills? Are they being given the emotional intelligence to deal with things, the actual skills to deal with things to move on to the next job? Hired people that have come from big fast moving companies that have raised, and they're a different type. It's almost like they've been raised in a different environment to the real world, and now they've got to try and adjust. And they're kind of struggling to do that a little bit. So I mean, probably the proudest thing we've ever done in business is not raise, and I'm not against it. We actually have been out to raise a couple of times, and fortunately both of those raises took so long that we did everything that we were intending to do with the money we were going to raise. But you just
Danielle Lewis (23:03):
Got scrappy and you're like, well, I'll just do it without you. Thank you. We
Abbey Cameron (23:06):
Did pretty much. Now that we are having to tighten the belt, now we are going into this really tough economy that we've never experienced before. We have full control of that. I'm not liable to any shareholders. I'm not staying awake at night thinking, I'm not going to make dividend this month, or I'm going to have to go and try and get some more money or this or that or the other. We've got this little team that we're responsible for, but they all trust that they're still going to have a job tomorrow.
Danielle Lewis (23:35):
And that's kind of the biggest thing that interested me was you're right, the dynamic of people who are used to working in a startup used to that endless supply grow at all costs mentality versus working in a smaller team gets scrappy and actually drive impact and actually be responsible for the growth of a company. And it's really interesting that you said that around the person that came into your team that you knew was going to go and start their own business, how good that they experienced your way of operating and your business model rather than the just spend money, just go crazy. Just go, go, go.
Abbey Cameron (24:14):
Yeah, it's like the opposite. She's in marketing, so it was literally like, stop spending. There's no budget there. Figure out what you can do for $0 and on that. And the thing is,
Danielle Lewis (24:25):
There is so much you can do. There are so much you can do with no money.
Abbey Cameron (24:29):
Oh, there is so much you can do. Go old school. Let's go back to local area marketing. If anyone wants a podcast, I'm halfway through it at the moment. The CEO of a diary or something like that. It's an English guy.
Danielle Lewis (24:43):
Oh yeah, Steven, the diary of a CEO. Yeah.
Abbey Cameron (24:46):
Diary of a CEO. Yeah. So he's just someone with the Bumble founder, her name I can never remember, which I should because
Danielle Lewis (24:52):
Whitney
Abbey Cameron (24:53):
Woman billionaire.
Danielle Lewis (24:54):
Yeah. We should know that.
Abbey Cameron (24:56):
She's talking about the early days of both Tinder and of Bumble and the things that they did on college campuses to promote that, that were not just go and buy some Facebook ads or some Instagram adss. How do we, and even in that space, how do you be different? Because chances are that the industry you are in, unless you've gone and raised a ton of money, you can't compete. So we do Facebook and Instagram advertising. It's a key part of our sales. But budget wise, I mean, you Foods probably spend in a week what we spend in a year, and Muscle Chef went out and raised a hundred million dollars. They're everywhere. And HelloFresh has got so much money, they're paying backpackers in Cairns to Door Knock to try and sell people HelloFresh boxes. So it's not about you've got to be different. And you've got to think about what's my value proposition here to my market and how do I talk to them?
(25:52):
And you're right, you get to, in a company like ours, you really get to learn that. You really get exposed to it. And touching on her and us knowing when she came in that she was ultimately going to go to start her own company, combining with what we were just talking about with companies and the people that they're raising in them. One of our core, our vision as a company is to have real and positive impact on the health of humans. And I've got this awesome small team that take care of bringing that to the world with the food, with the customer service, the product, all of that. So my responsibility and the senior management team's responsibility is to enact that vision internally for the team that we bring in. And so the reason I know from before we even hired her that that was her goal is because we ask everybody, what is your dream?
(26:42):
Who do you want to work for? Where do you want to be? And we have the self-awareness and the lack of ego to know it's not going to be nourished forever. Nobody's dream is to work at one place forever anymore. And everyone's got that idea. They got that idea in their head. They know. They know what they want to be. Whether it's, I want to do this at Virgin, or I want to be over here doing this at Universal, or I want to work for Nat Geo being a photographer or whatever. We know that. And so everyone that comes in for me, I feel like I'm holding them in this phase of life. And my goal is to have real and positive impact. So by the time they're ready to go, they've got the skills that they need to achieve that dream. And for some people it might be staying with us for the rest of their working career.
(27:34):
It might be staying with us for the next 10, 15, 20 years. That's cool. We're constantly evaluating that. But if you are a small to medium sized business, even if you're a bigger one that has raised a ton of money, I would really encourage anyone to think about your people that way. So A, you're not surprised when they leave despite the fact that I just was that B, so that you know that the impact you have, it's flowing on. It's not. So I said before we admitted really that we were a lifestyle business and I had to reconcile that within myself. But the impact isn't just what you're doing for that person that day, it's how is that impact going to flow on for the rest of their career, the rest of their lives? And they're going to become managers. So my hope is that they become managers to other people, they hold them, they become managers, and it's just like this flow on effect through. Yeah,
Danielle Lewis (28:30):
And it's really interesting on a couple of levels. So you talk about impact. And what I love is there's so many people use that word today, right? We're very purpose over profit and all of these little taglines, but it's so easy for businesses to say that and try and position that as a part of their brand, but then they don't actually carry it through. And real impact is actually looking after your people and recognizing that they're not just there for you to see your impact of the brand vision, but actually reverse as well, and you as a leader to create impact in their lives.
Abbey Cameron (29:08):
And that's why we use the word real in the vision, real and positive. Because you're right, it's such a impact. And I'm doing this and I've saved 50 whales, or I've saved this much water, planted a
Danielle Lewis (29:19):
Tree. Okay,
Abbey Cameron (29:20):
Yeah. What is actually the tangible impact that every single one of us is having every single day? Because every level, it should be part of our business. Whether you are a casual customer service person or the CEO, and how do we seed that for a casual customer's care representative? Well, every time you get on that phone, that's a chance to impact somebody's day. Particularly, we work with people, Australians with disabilities and outside of employment, the number one issue facing this group of people is loneliness and poor mental health. So there is an amazing opportunity to have an impact on someone. We don't have time restrictions on phone calls. We don't have scripts or anything like that. Part of their job is to say, how are you going? What's going on for you right now? They know things about our customers that are ridiculous, their dog's names, their kids' birthdays, the status of their current whatever, because that's their opportunity to have impact.
(30:20):
And that gives fulfillment to your job. Imagine how many customer care people at Telstra, at Suncorp, at Optus are just so unfulfilled because they have no connection to any sort of vision or impact for their company. Whereas we have a whole Slack channel that is about, here is how I make impact, here is our gratitude channel. And I'm so grateful today to be able to have done this for a customer or that for a customer, or if something goes wrong for a customer, that's our opportunity to have positive impact for them. And so when we had to recognize we're a lifestyle business, we're not going to have big impact. What we put value on, and this was a really personal one, was small impact and how important that is. I think it sounds so wanky to say in this setting, I used it in a speech once, but
(31:13):
I think it's great greatness and impact. It doesn't happen in great leaps. It doesn't happen in big steps in however many billion takeovers or Twitter. I think it happens in every person taking little steps every day because that collectively is what's going to change the world, what's going to impact the world. So if I can go out today and just make one person feel a little bit better with a little bit of kindness, and then they go and treat their kid a little bit better, and then that kid doesn't go to school and punch, I mean, I'm just repeating myself now, but it's really
Danielle Lewis (31:46):
Interesting because I think it's actually, and I don't want to take away from the wholesomeness of what you're talking about, but I think empathy and kindness is a super underrated sales and marketing strategy. We just said, okay, there are so many free things that you can do. It doesn't have to be about billboards and Facebook ads and all this. There are so many free sales and marketing things that you can try and experiment with to make an impact in your industry. And then you just mentioned Optus and Telstra, they don't give a shit about the people that they're talking to. And that is why they are a commodity. That is why people don't care if they switch between carriers. There is no loyalty there. But when it comes to buying their weekly meals, they come back to you because the person on the other end of the line does say, how's Rover? That was the only dog name I could think of. Yeah.
Abbey Cameron (32:42):
You know what I mean? Right? I know who you are. I see you. I see as a human being, one of our values is we are humans before we are numbers. And that always comes first. We are a data-driven company. We are a strategic company, but we recognize that every one of those data points is a human being having a real human experience. And so sometimes we make decisions that don't seem beneficial to the bottom line of the company. We'll refund somebody's order because they had an emergency and had to go away. That water's gone. It's going to be delivered. There's nothing we can do about it, but your husband had this emergency, we're going to do that. Or you've had this life event. And those are the people that come back. And it's funny you say that because it's one of the pillars of how we try to stand out in this industry.
(33:25):
There are 200 meal delivery brands in, sorry, pre-prepared meal brands in Australia, 200. And between HelloFresh, Marley, spoon Lite, N Easy, and Youth Foods, they take up like 90 plus percent of the market. So it's just the rest of us out here scrapping for that 9%. And it is commoditized. I'm going to go HelloFresh this week because they've got a hundred dollars off my boss, but then I'll go over to Marley Spoon the next because they've got this, and then you foods are doing it for 4 95 per meal. And then I can go Muscle Chef here. We don't discount ever. The only discount you can get from us is $20 $15 off your first box. That's it. Because we stand by who we are and what we do and where we sit in the market, we've got people. It's so funny. So many of the reviews we get, I tried everybody else and then I tried you.
(34:14):
We expect that because we are more expensive than everybody else, and I'm hooked. I'm not going anywhere. Oh my God, yes, your product is better, but your service is better. You think about me, you listen to me, I feel seen. I feel like a human being over here. So we are not the biggest company. We're never going to be the biggest company in this space, but I feel like I really believe that we are the best at having a real impact on someone's life as a whole, as opposed to just being that commodity that they bring in every week.
Danielle Lewis (34:48):
I love that. I love that. So then we had this conversation around you're never done. So you feel like you've hit that milestone. And when you talk about the business, the way you talk about it, I feel like it's done. I feel like, holy shit. Right. You've really nailed what you stand for. So when you did go away and reflect about what success looks like for you, what is next for Nourished? Where is it going? What are you working on right now?
Abbey Cameron (35:18):
Yeah, I mean, the economy has really thrown a banner in a lot. We brought in this amazing GM with a really different experience to what I had. We set out, we literally wrote out my weaknesses and we said, that's what we want to hire. And we did. That's smart. And within a few months, we've got a one year plan and we've got a three year plan. And we did some advisory stuff with the Brisbane Economic Development Agency and started looking at, okay, we don't take this company boom, huge with just what we've got because we just don't have the budget and we don't want to raise to do that. But how can we go sideways? What are some other things that we can branch into with the market that we have? Because we have very engaged, very specific market. So we're looking at other types of subscription boxes with this luxury good higher end market that we have going on.
(36:19):
And that's going to give us an opportunity to go more international. Obviously we're fresh food products with nourish meals, so we're confined to where we can deliver to within Australia. But if we're looking at a higher end pantry subscription box that's opening up the world, particularly if we curate that really well, and then that, I mean, that spun is spinning off into its whole own set of values and vision and what Dave, my husband and co-founder and I want to do to elevate other people that are starting up in the food space. So it's not as hard for them as it was for us when we started out. And so that we can be diversifying in the micro economies that we are spending money in, so that we're looking at disability communities. So we're looking at indigenous communities so that we're looking at women led businesses.
(37:07):
How do we go over there and then, well, how do we take this concept of convenient, healthy, beautiful food and take that to children? Because now that I have kids in school and I have to make their lunches, what the fuck that? When you and I went to school and we'd get a sandwich, a rollup and an apple, that was it. If you were lucky, you were lucky. Now you've got to do these bento boxes and they've got to have this combination of macros and who knows what a macro is. We're not taught it in school. And I mean, I look at my kids' school back in Brisbane, there's 900 kids there. So even off that one school, that would be a decent chunk. So we're kind of looking at who is our market and how is our market aged in the last nine years as well.
(37:52):
It started out that we were our own customer. We're still our own customer, but we were babies then. We were 26 living in an apartment and had very little responsibility. And now we're in our mid to late thirties and we've got this mortgage and this big property and kids and a business and all this stuff going on. So there's a lot of, I guess, other verticals that we want to move into. And we really were ready to launch. And then that first interest rate rise came. And wow, did we see the effect of that within a week on sales? Because we've got all these people now, particularly our age, that have never had an interest rate rise. I bought my first property, I was 21, and I think in that entire period I had one interest rate rise right at the beginning. But other than that, it's just been coming down.
(38:43):
And so it's this surprise, and I read that the average household mortgage has gone up a thousand dollars a month. So people got scared. And I think I said earlier, we're not anticipating a huge amount of growth in the next 12 months. We're just taking the opportunity to get better at everything that we can. These little one percenters, how do we get 1% better here, 1% better this, that when the market is ready for us, again, we can launch. We were so smart to about five years ago, move into another market in disability and aged care. So regardless of a recession, that channel will continue to flow. So we're pushing more into that space at the moment. And I mean, if there's ever a spot to make an impact, it's in disability and age care. So yeah, there's a lot coming. But in saying that I'm taking the next 18 months here in Europe to take a minute, take a breath personally, look at some other sources of revenue.
Danielle Lewis (39:47):
It's so good though. I love when I asked that question, you said, look sideways. And I think that so many people just look at their business and go, it's got to be bigger. It's got to be bigger, it's got to be bigger. And a couple of things that have stood out to me in this conversation is it doesn't have to be the plan. The plan that you set doesn't have to be the thing that, and it probably won't be. And that's okay. And the idea of that looking sideways, looking outside of the box, looking at what you can do within the market that you have, rather than thinking, well, I can't compete with that person, so therefore I'm never going to grow. I think that's so smart in terms of, because I think right now it's like, well, when this will be published, it'll be early 2023. So everyone's going to be in that mode, right, of going, what the hell am I doing for the next 12 months? So I love that approach of looking at things a little bit differently and not being overwhelmed by the headlines.
Abbey Cameron (40:46):
Yeah. I mean, in our space, there's a constant freaking headline about another meal delivery company doing something else. We just try and stay in our lane. And that whole thing came about because we had a willingness to listen. It had never occurred to me to move into a different space. It just was one advisor saying, you've got this database of however many tens of thousands of people. What else is it feasible for you to sell them? And it was like, yeah,
Danielle Lewis (41:14):
It's not about how can I acquire more of those people? How can we, we've been talking so like human and kind that saying, this sounds terrible, but how can we extract more value from the people in our sphere?
Abbey Cameron (41:31):
But if you reframe it to how can I help them more? How can I help them live an even better life? We were saying about sales and marketing before and the messaging and how you do it and this and that and the other. We try to reframe sales within our company to not, how can I sell to you, but how can I help you? And you have to believe in your product. You have to believe that your product, your service, whatever it is, is helping someone. And I don't think many people, women in particular, I don't think many go into business not believing that what they're doing is of value to somebody else. And so we just went, we've got this database. How else can we make their lives easier? Well, even if they're getting food, they're still going to go shop for their pantry items. And for people in this space, it's really hard because they tend to want less chemicals, less additives. Those are the hard things to get at the supermarket. So how do we curate that for you without purchasing power? And it just kind of spun from there.
Danielle Lewis (42:21):
And that's so good because I feel like a lot of people look at sales and marketing and think it is so transactional and a lot of women in business don't want to do it. But you're right. When you reframe it to how am I serving, how am I helping that person, it becomes, if you're not telling them about it, you are doing them a disservice.
Abbey Cameron (42:43):
Right? Exactly. Yes. If you're not telling them, you are doing them a disservice. And for women, again, you've got to get over that. You've got to get over the self-promotion or don't self-promote. Push down, push down, because that is the disservice. That is the definition. I think,
Danielle Lewis (43:01):
Oh my God, we could talk all night. Abby, you, you're absolutely incredible. Thank you for sharing your story and your insights and your wisdom with the Spark community. I appreciate you. Cheers for coming on Spark tv.
Abbey Cameron (43:17):
Oh, cheers. And the feeling is so mutual. We will definitely catch up again in probably about three years.
Danielle Lewis (43:23):
I love it. I'll be there. I'll be there with.
