Jamie and Ed on founding Candy Kittens, the fastest growing confectionary brand in the UK
Candy Kittens founders Ed Williams & Jamie Lang
Candy Kittens, the gourmet cat-shaped confectionary brand founded by Radio 1 DJ, podcast host and business owner star Jamie Laing and entrepreneurial marketeer Ed Williams, has enjoyed runway success over the past 10 years. Here Jamie and Ed share their story.
Why sweets?
Jamie: Growing up the candy jar was stored high up on a shelf where I couldn’t get to it. I was allowed one sweet on a Sunday - which felt like a religious occasion. I was hyper as a child, so my parents wouldn’t allow me any more for fear of me bouncing off the walls….
I was also quite an anxious child, so at night my older brother Alexander used to tell me stories about Jamie’s sweet world. Aged 8, when I went to boarding school, I used to dream about this incredible sweet world and this fascination with sweets grew. Years later young, naive and with no idea of what I wanted to do, I decided to start a sweet company.
So, Jamie had the idea, and Ed had the plan. Did you really come up with the concept for Candy Kittens in the pub?
Ed: Yes, and no. About 14 years ago, Jamie gave a very, very loose kind of elevator pitch about it when we were passing in the hallway of my house. He said he was thinking about starting a company called Candy Kittens and that we should talk about it. Once I had about 3 days to mull it over, I started thinking, yes, sweets that’s actually quite interesting. They aren’t very cool - why aren’t they cool (?) - We can make them cool. That was the super basic thought process. Then we chatted about it over a beer in the pub. That was the start of realising we both brought two very different things to it, and that’s how it would work.
Jamie Lang and Ed Williams
Jamie, asides from the fact that you’re like an excited kid in a candy store every day and Ed is the very definition of calm, what’s so unique about your working relationship?
Jamie: Well, I tend to go, here’s an idea…and then Ed executes it, that’s the way that we’ve always worked. I will open the door to something that probably people haven’t seen or haven’t noticed, like ‘let’s make sweets cool’ and Ed will take that idea and think, how are we doing to do that? That’s how it’s always worked, in a brilliant way.
From that conversation in the pub, to seeing Candy Kittens in Harvey Nichols, Selfridges, Waitrose, Tesco… what goes into that.
Ed: A lot of hard work. We are both super impatient. And that’s probably why we start stuff, we can’t see it so we think, sod it we’ll do it ourselves. But it takes a long, long time. We were fortunate that Jamie was on Made In Chelsea, and that gave us an extra platform to get going. But the reality is that the retailers don’t really, really care about that. They want to see that the product is right, that the numbers add up and that it performs well. So, yes Harvey Nichols and Selfridges came relatively quickly, but then it was really about nailing the supermarkets for us. You need to sell an awful lot of sweets before you’ve got a business. Otherwise, it’s really just a hobby. And we started from day 1 saying let’s kill Haribo, and that’s’ the mission we are still on. So, we got Waitrose, then once we’d got them, we slowly persuade Sainsburys… then once you’ve got them, we slowly persuaded Tesco and so on and so on. We’ve still got a long way to go.
Jamie: With brands most of the time, if you’re suddenly starting to see it in lots of places, I can guarantee they’ve probably been going for 6-10 years. That’s the sweet spot and when suddenly everyone starts saying, ‘your brands doing really well’ when did you start that?
Any plans for a bricks & mortar store?
Jamie: The Sweet Factory is effectively our sweet shop. This is where we have our creation. For us, we are always looking to the future and at how we be different? We did a pop-up shop that was interesting and amazing because we could close it down and move it to Leeds…Manchester, wherever we wanted it to go around the country. And that for us feels exciting. We’ve always wanted everyone to experience Candy Kittens but if you have a stand-alone store in one place people have to come to you. It just doesn’t feel as exciting. You’re very static. For us, we always wanted to be able to move…across Europe, to America. We haven’t ruled out having a store, but for us retail is in an interesting space; is it an old school thing when we are always looking to the future.
In many ways you created the brand, before you created the product - how would you describe your marketing strategy?
Ed. We really were a sweets company without any sweets for at least two years. In a normal world if you had an idea, you’d work on it quietly behind the scenes and then when it was perfect and ready, and had the bow on top, you’d take it out there and launch it. We had the advantage/or disadvantage that Jamie had already mentioned this thing on TV. Millions of people had already heard of the brand. We had kind of created this ghost, and people were asking what the hell is Candy Kittens, and we were getting social media mentions and google searches…and we were like ‘OK cool, we should probably do something’. We knew we couldn’t make sweets yet, because quite frankly we didn’t know how, but we knew how to print T-shirts, and prints pens and merchandise, so we that. We did what we could to get the name out there. It probably sounds quite smart, and in hindsight I could make it sound smart, but the reality is we did what we could do to keep the brand alive and build the hype.
Truly a social first business, Candy Kittens is the perfect example of a brand built on community. How much has understanding this, and utilising it, contributed to your success?
Massively. Effectively we had our audience, we had all these people that were loyal, engaged Candy Kittens customers wearing the branded hoodies and the pjs…then when we launched the sweets it was a no brainer that they would be queuing up to buy them.
How did you grow that audience?
Ed. It was all about social media for us. We were one of the first brands to have Twitter and recently they did a case study about Candy Kittens launching as a brand through Twitter. We were right at the forefront of that, and digital has been the backbone of everything we do. And I think it’s much easier when you’re a digital first company to have that engagement. Rather than brands who are suddenly now trying to be cool on TikTok. You have to work really hard at that. However, we have always lived in that space.
It’s the ultimate business model, what makes it so hard for other brands to replicate what you have achieved?
Ed. Because it was totally organic for us. How could Haribo do that now? They could pay a lot to an agency and try, but it wouldn’t be authentic. The story telling that Jamie brings to it, people want to be part of that journey.
Jamie: Another important element is in that space, we never cut corners. We were always 100% honest and always wore our brand on our sleeve. If you do that with your consumer they trust you. We never really swayed from who we were. A prime example of that is when we were a struggling start up Primark approached us to stock our sweets. Which is an amazing opportunity for any start up brand, but it didn’t quite fit with what we were trying to do. For us, it was all about aligning with our values, and what the brand was.
Ed. We have a banner in the office that says, ‘better is possible’, and that’s the idea we apply to everything. The flavour, the packaging, the logo, ingredients. We believe everything is possible and we don’t stop.
On a more personal level, what is it that gives you both the edge and has allowed you to succeed in business.
Ed: I think there’s an element of determination, and that comes from deep inside both of us, for different reasons. I want to prove that I can do it. For Candy Kittens, with me, personally I have this thing that people automatically assume that its successful because Jamie was on Made In Chelsea and he had loads of money in his trust fund. So, I have a personal thing of no, f@@k that we are successful because we are actually good. Jamie’s is different, but it’s the determination that drives both of us.
Is it about taking risks? Pure hard graft? An inner confidence?
Jamie: I think for any entrepreneur there’s a validation thing. Why would anyone go and start a business? It’s insanely hard, the hours are horrible. But Ed and I are not scared to fail, and that’s the truth of it. It would be annoying if we failed, or course, but we’d just do it again. If you have that blind confidence, it means you take risks. Also, we work really pretty hard, and we love what we do. I say to everyone, if you’re thinking about starting a business, love it. My god you have to love it. If you don’t there is no chance of success.
Ed: I think we are lucky that we both naturally like working hard and taking on a lot of stress.
Ed Williams
How do you move on from mistakes?
Ed. We are both quick at recognising them and we are not afraid to point them out to each other. It’s tough for our team, because Jamie and I are the ones constantly pointing out mistakes. It’s a cliché but all mistakes are good.
Jamie: An example of a good and bad mistake is when we executed a marketing stunt where I sent out an email, that had been made to look like it had been sent by accident. We mailed it to our entire database with a code in it. It was amazing, everyone thought I had genuinely made a mistake, and they tried to use the code BUT there we so many orders we couldn’t really fulfil them. What we learned was fundamental. You have to be prepared for every outcome.
Is positive work culture part of the secret behind the brand’s latest success?
Ed: Yes, I think it’s at the heart of what we are about. I think particularly in this kind of world where people are working from home and feeling quite disconnected. We really believe people need to be with people and connect face-to-face, and to really live and breathe the products they’re working on. And as Jamie said, it’s hard work. We are the David V Goliath story where we are really trying to do something that lots of people would say is impossible. If we are going to demand that kind of ambition from our team, the least you can do is give them a great working environment. We are a team; a family and we’re in it together.
The Sweet Factory is home to a diverse portfolio of ventures including Jamie’s podcast group Jampot Productions and investment firm Tuckshop, how important is it to have everything under one roof?
Jamie: It all happens here, with Ed and I across if all. It’s a great location…Radio 1 is just around the corner…but it’s about so much more than that. I think it’s so important to push yourself outside your means. That’s when you start to really grow and experience stuff. For us, yes, it’s a great space in Marylebone, right next to Chiltern Fire House, in a prime location, but if we push that there that means we all, as team, have to keep pushing. So, we set the bar inspirationally high so that we are always thinking bigger.
Radio 1, podcasts, business…Jamie, how do manage it all? Is the same Jamie we see everywhere, or do you wear different hats?
I would say I am exactly the same Jamie and that’s why I can do it. When you start to play a character or a role it’s gets confusing, and you start to get really tired. The way my brain works is like Whac-A-Mole, I have to be whacking down different things in order for it to work in lots of ways. I am blessed in that space and also having a great business partner. I think Ed understands me more than my own parents, the ins and outs, the good, the bad. The way that I work, he knows it and understands it. So, if I am doing something wrong or need to be persuaded, he knows how to do that. I had an ADHD test recently, and it’s through the roof. I need this to survive, it feeds me.
Ed: I’d say our strength is finding a natural rhythm of making it work.
What would you say are each other’s key strengths?
Jamie: I would say Ed’s are leadership. He’s a great leader. His calmness, when you are in storm you need that calm, and that happens at lot. And his attention to detail.
Ed: I would say Jamie’s energy, it’s unmatched. His people skills are fantastic. He can make everyone feel valued and listened to. And of course, the creativity, there are a million ideas a day….and one or two of them are good (!)
What’s next for Candy Kittens?
Jamie: Candy Kittens we are going to continue to build, we believe it’s going to be one of the biggest brands in the world. But also, it’s about Candy Kittens being a brand that creates other things. Whether that be chocolate, or whether it’s about helping other people to build their own brands. Ed and I love building things. To help other individuals in this space, and to help other entrepreneurs build what they want as their dream brands, I think for us, that’s out next move.