The Wild Dose story: how to bootstrap in 2024
The playbook I'd borrow if starting a consumer brand in 2024
If I was going to start a consumer brand in 2024, then I'd borrow Charles Instone's Wild Dose playbook.
Charles Instone is the founder of Wild Dose, a natural supplement to get rid of bloating. Charles and I met on X a few years ago and I've been following his journey ever since. He very kindly gave me an hour of time to tell the story so far.
Wild Dose is a product of the current time. They're born post-covid, and post-free flowing capital of the 2010s. Its a reality many brands face. But often with this new reality, many founders lean into an 'organic growth' desire, but not Charles.
The business was founded after his personal experiences with stress-induced bloating, mixed with a degree in human biology, and frustration at how overpriced so many wellness products are.
At £10, Wild Dose is purposefully affordable. And this customer centricity is informed by his time at Amazon. "I didn't drink all the Amazon Kool-Aid, but I did on customer obsession." As a result, Charles has managed the one-two punch of best quality and affordable.
This is a great story for anyone on their startup journey – and I want to thank Charles for his time.
Don't overdevelop your first version
I’ve had dozens of conversations over the last few years with founders who were delaying launch to make sure their first version was right. It’s been thirteen years since Eric Ries wrote Lean Startup and yet building an MVP still isn’t the default route. This is true in tech, but I find it especially true in consumer brands.
Wild Dose are different.
When I talk to Charles about product development, he begins not with a lengthy product development journey. Instead he tells me “we’ve iterated the formula three times.”
Working back, I learn more of the story.
The first version was bootstrapped and funded by Charles, while he consulting with other startups. More on this funding philosophy later.
The early formulation was already market-beating, leaning into his background in human biology. He knew that a successful formula would tackle both the root causes and the symptoms in one.
But launching any product bootstrapped means taking risks.
"You're launching blind, and candidly you don't know if it's going to work," he tells me. "You have a good idea, and the ingredients separately have had clinical studies, but you can't afford one yourself."
Launching blind worked, but he continually improved.
"We've iterated the formula three times. As you get more volume, you can put more expensive extracts in to make it more powerful over time."
This is a great lesson for many who have barriers up around getting started.
You don't need your own clinical studies. You don't need the most expensive extracts that need higher minimum order quantities. Get going. Build the minimum viable product, and develop it over time.
"Not enough founders are real with themselves"
Early on, the acquisition into Wild Dose was going well. But there was something off in the retention numbers.
"We were doing well acquiring customers but I just knew something wasn't right."
Many would consider this a nice problem to have. And, as Charles points out, if they had been VC backed then would have likely felt pressure to follow the acquisition growth.
"But I know I need thousands and thousands of returning customers each month for this to work."
Charles set about on a four month retention focus.
They drew up a list of hypotheses around: (1) product formulation, (2) packaging, (3) instructions, (4) expectation at the ad level, and everything else they could think of.
That period of experiments ended up doubling retention rates.
"Retention is foundational, revenue comes after that."
"Don't believe your own shit. Just because you're selling product, doesn't mean you've got a good product – that's just good marketing. You've got to get customers to come back and buy again. That's a good product."
It's clear as we talk that retention is the only true sign of product market fit.
"We're not inventing something fundamentally revolutionary to mankind"
As we turn the conversation to how the product can develop, Charles tells us his approach of something almost novel: asking customers.
"Maybe I'm missing something, but I find it extremely helpful to ask someone what they want."
"You have the 'Faster Horses' argument of Ford," he says, "but we're not inventing something revolutionary. While that quote is true, I think our customers can imagine a product that we could make. We're not going to uncover the next unknown scientific breakthrough that doesn't exist. So asking people makes sense to me."
"If you can't sell your product by Facebook, you're never going to scale your business"
When I met Charles before Wild Dose, I knew him as my go-to SEO hacker expert. He came up with a genius-level way to do SEO in the CBD space (maybe a follow-up on that another time). So I was surprised to learn that Charles didn't attempt SEO as the core growth engine.
"I did some of the pre-launch waitlist, blogger backlink stuff, but really it was Facebook Ads."
"I went to the most scalable advertising channel in the world and thought if I can sell it here, I have something. TikTok is not going to work. Snapchat is not going to work. Shopping is not as scalable. Affiliates takes time. Influencers: no certainty. PR not until you're really big. Facebook is the only channel that provides any certainty of scale."
Naturally, I agreed.
"Be real with yourself, what are you going to do, go to farmers markets every weekend? You can do that, and great brands do work like that, but it's not me."
Charles is a big believer in simplicity in all aspects of growth. They don't do Amazon, they don't do other online retailers (although they did trial it) because it muddies things and adds complexity.
"It actually hurts us for competitor listings at the moment because we have to compete on Google Shopping. And our growth then helps them."
Retail follows suit. They're in Whole Foods and John Bell of Croydon. But they're only in a few premium high end retailers, despite an expectation it would be retail-dominated on day one. "We're one of the best selling supplement SKUs in Whole Foods, and we treat every retailer when it comes up on merit, but we're focused on online."
"Even going from one SKU to two SKUs, it makes it more complicated. If you are going to release a second product, it has to fucking work. And if it doesn't work, it's just something that will hurt the brand."
Developing close relationships with influencers
Now, Wild Dose have begun on the influencer route, but Charles recognises that this is a long play.
"It takes years, unless you go through agencies, to develop those relationships. There's a few who are incredible, who I wish I could name, but everyone would then be hounding them."
I was wondering about how they approach it commercially.
"If you go in with money in mind, it'll always be transactional. What we do is reach out, gift things, with no expectation on them. We gift them a subscription. But hand on heart, it's not a growth ploy. I'm going in with best intentions hoping they will have best intentions. And that's far better than expectations or transactions."
The long term view? Later on when they do events, they can invite people who know the brand. And when it does get to be commercial its built on mutual interest and respect, rather than 'here's five grand, can you do us a post?'
"Playing like a big company, when you don't have the revenue to back it up"
"There's only two times you should be raising venture capital," Charles tells me.
"One, if your product is super expensive to make, like software and you need loads of engineers before you can even start selling it.
"Two, if you have proven that you can grow and you want to grow even quicker, and that is a lifestyle choice for the founder."
But too often, it goes the other way. "It should be about growth capital. Not padding out the team with ten employees pre-revenue, having a massive swanky office, great photoshoots, and playing like a big company even though you don't have the revenue to back it up."
Cynics might call this a lack of ambition or a “lifestyle business,” but it's clearly anything but. Wild Dose has grown "to seven figures" and profitably in its first two years.
"When I look at companies nowadays, my personal view is everyone's in such a rush. Take your time. Build a bank balance, know your P&L. Build it the old school ways – you know, with profit."
Charles' case for this approach extends to the problems you face with VC growth. "If you're [doing the VC route], success or failure is much more binary – and in fact, by doing that route, you increase your need for luck."
"Take your time, pick the holes in your business and work out how to fix them. Just build a good business." And this, he argues, will increase your chance of a good exit.
Anti-bloating: a business philosophy, not just product benefit
Being bootstrapped leads Charles to focus far more on the P&L. "I find lots of businesses just don't notice the odd £300 being spent here or there.
"We're negotiating with manufacturers all the time. We negotiate with our fulfilment centre. We switch subscription platforms. We look to shave absolutely everything."
"When I've chatted to VC founders before, they've looked at those things when the writings already on the wall," he tells me.
This hit home. "You're playing back the last six months of Wine List to me," I tell him.
Being bootstrapped also suits Charles' approach to team development. "It's a lot cheaper and more effective for a small company to hire junior people if you're willing to train them to a gold standard. So a lot of my time goes into professional development for them."
Symbolically, avoiding the bloat isn't just what his product does, it's his whole philosophy of running a business.
Closing thoughts
I'm reminded during our conversation that the vast majority of successful businesses in the world don’t follow the Silicon Valley startup route. Most businesses focus on fundamentals.
Start with a deeply held problem that's felt by many. Improve on the current offering. Make sure your economics work. Hire people and invest in their growth. Grow slowly, fix the problems when they're not going to cause you to nosedive, and then think about scale afterwards.
When I used to run Wine List we were based in a trading estate where there were seven other businesses located. All were there long before we were, and last time I checked, all remain now. There was no big bang, explosion and then implosion for them, like there was with us, just steady business and growth.
And yet Charles’ growth and revenue figures, and his brand position, are ones which many startups would appreciate.
They've grown far more than many companies manage with millions of funding.
This isn't, to Charles' point, a farmers’ market business. This is a business that takes advantage of technology to grow as much as possible without forgetting those fundamentals.
The irony is that if I were an investor, this would be one of the ones I'd want to get in on. And considering his take on VC, I imagine that will make it all the sweeter.