Accidentally Starting a Food Business by Condimaniac

Kier and Jen are the founders of Condimaniac, a condiment business from South London. On this podcast, they share their journey on how they accidentally started a food business, giving tips along the way for any aspiring small business owners, as well as sharing (sometimes funny, often infuriating) anecdotes from figuring everything out.

Scaling up: Moving into a 3000 sq ft commercial unit and making it work for us.

In this episode Kier and Jen talk about their move into their new HQ. A lot of investment and high overheads... Also, Kier turned the mic the wrong way in this episode, so please complain to him about the audio quality.

02-25
44:43

Club Maniac: How we built a condiment subscription service that gained over 250 members in its first quarter

Club Maniac is the members club for condiment enthusiasts. However Kier and Jen weren't always sure it would be a success. In this episode they discuss why they wanted to start a subscription service and how the launch went. There were hurdles and surprises all around!

05-26
36:58

Cost of Living Crisis - Running a business as recession looms

Kier and Jen are back after nearly 10 months. Whilst the bad luck streak did eventually end, many new challenges also surfaced - one of them being the fact that the whole of the UK has entered into a dire cost of living crisis and it's harder than ever to sell direct to consumer. 

08-15
35:22

Kier on Gordon Ramsay's Future Food Stars, TikTok Shop, Wholesale, Hiring & More

In this episode Kier and Jen talk about Kier's experience on a BBC1 prime time TV show and what it did for the business, live-streaming on TikTok, wholesale and why it's not for everyone, a subscription box, loans, hiring their first employee and much more...

11-17
46:45

The Bad Luck Streak - summer sales slump, getting hacked and more.

Stuff has gone too well lately, so maybe it was inevitable: Bad Luck. Kier and Jen are having a moan and sharing their not-so-great experiences. 

10-15
38:42

Marketing: Where to start, how much to spend and what makes a great campaign.

Musings about marketing. Both Kier and Jen have had careers in marketing but Condimaniac was actually founded before any of that. How did they start their brand journey? Find out in this episode. 

05-06
01:00:33

Customer Service: Is the customer always right? Dealing with enquiries and what we learnt along the way

Dealing with customers means both good and not so good feedback. As a small business it can be tricky to navigate customer service and whilst not perfect, Kier and Jen try to give some advice through their experiences and anecdotes.  

03-20
57:00

Product Development - How to bring a product to market: From idea, recipe to naming, design and more

In this episode Kier and Jen go over how they typically come up with new product ideas and how they actually bring them to market - including all steps of the process. 

01-31
54:51

How to price products, what is value?, profit margins & hidden business costs

Pricing one's products is one of the trickiest things to do, especially in the beginning. In this episode Kier and Jen talk about how they first came up with the prices for their condiments, how these prices have changed over time as well as all the hidden costs that have to be considered when looking at pricing in general. 

01-04
47:13

Building our online shop, going 'viral' on TikTok & trading through a pandemic - The year 2020

I mean, what can we say - 2020 aye? You were all there, too, so you know what kind of year it has been. However, Condimaniac did grow a lot in this year and we achieved more than we thought we could, for example getting our first commercial unit and being featured in mainstream media. Therefore, this is a long old episode, so grab a tea or coffee and get comfy for this one!

12-25
01:12:46

Hot Sauce Society, releasing more products and actually becoming a Limited Company - The year 2019

2019 saw Condimaniac release a whopping four sauces, sell at their first market and become stocked in various London outlets. Kier and Jen take you through the year in which Condimaniac really started to become a business, rather than just a hobby. 

12-17
41:56

Accidentally Starting a Food Business - The Pilot Episode (The year 2018)

Kier and Jen, the founders of Condimaniac, take you through how their food business came to be (spoiler, it was accidental). From just a fun hobby to actually producing and selling their own product in a few months.

12-08
29:22

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