I had a great catchup with Ruth Fittock this week, who helped launch Vitamin Water into the UK, was one of the founding team members of popchips, and is now working with the excellent Bold Bean. (Seriously, those butter beans… you must try them.) We had a great chat about brands, growth, being a solo consultant, and business models. As well as being a thoroughly lovely person, Ruth specialises in taking international brands into the UK market. If that sounds like your bag, then get in touch.

My agency consulting project kicked off properly this week. One of the things that really struck me, doing my competitor research, is just how samey most creative agencies’ propositions are. If you want an agency that’s disruptive, a changemaker, obsessed with effectiveness, hell-bent on unleashing the power of creativity, then you’re in luck! You can take your pick from hundreds of generic agencies whose websites all merge into one bland mass after a while. Yuck. Standing out is going to be tricky, but I feel like even making the attempt will get us halfway there.

I’m starting a longer project over the next couple of weeks for a confectionery brand. (It’s nice to move from the booze I’ve worked on a lot recently to something that’s equally indulgent, but slightly less intoxicating.) The whole thing is geared around how to anticipate and adapt to the future of confectionery and move ahead of HFSS regulations while still giving people little hits of enjoyment – a fun challenge.

Our new startup, the mysterious Project M, is almost ready to be revealed to the world. I’m very excited. The past week has been consumed by margin models, unit economics, and the subsequent problem of trying to figure out how much we need to invest in order to get to critical mass, whether that requires external investment or whether it’s possible to grow from free cash flow. I’m very conscious that a food manufacturing business has a very different shape to other businesses I’ve worked in first-hand, and one that’s much more reliant on capital. Lia DiBello describes a “triad” of tacit knowledge among business practitioners: supply (operations), demand (strategy, marketing), and capital. I’m conscious that I’m fairly experienced in “supply”, very experienced in “demand”, and not at all experienced in “capital”. So there’s a steep but rewarding learning curve there.