The Biggest Success From Dragons Den: The Levi Roots Case Study...
Levi Roots has an inspiring rags to riches story. I got the opportunity to hear it live on Saturday. Here's Levi's story and the top lessons I learned...
Happy new week!
On Saturday, I had the pleasure of hearing Levi Roots share his story and experience growing Reggae Reggae sauce. Levi has a truly inspiring rags-to-riches story and hearing it live was a great experience. While his parents lived in Brixton, London working hard to bring him over to the UK from Jamaica. Levi was raised by his grandmother who inspired his love for cooking and music. Life was difficult for Levi and by the age of 11, he got shipped to the UK to join the rest of his family in Brixton.
He had a pretty successful music career as a reggae artist performing alongside the likes of James Brown and Maxi Priest, whilst also singing for Nelson Mandela. His music career was cut short by a spell in prison for drugs and weapons offences. Levi shared that his prison sentence was pivotal, as it forced him to turn his life around.
As a Jamaican man proud of his roots, Levi loves cooking, and he decided to create a spicy jerk sauce which he sold at Notting Hill Carnival for 15 years before entering the Den. Levi mentioned that he had high expectations but didn’t get the response he wanted and that forced him to go and find his own community. He noticed that the people he was trying to sell to already had their own way of cooking and their own jerk sauce but people out of his local area didn’t. He started selling at Sunday markets and door-to-door in the countryside, the Shires as Levi called them. It was there a talent spotter for the Dragons Den saw Levi and encouraged him to enter the show.
Levi featured in the 2007 Dragons Den series and is the biggest success story from Dragons Den. He initially went in for a £50,000 investment for 20% of his business, but it was a tough pitch, with three investors saying no to Levi. He accepted a joint offer from Peter Jones and Richard Farleigh who offered him £50,000 for 40% of his business. It wasn’t the offer he had in mind but he knew what the investment from the two Dragons will do for his business. He would rather have a smaller slice of a bigger pie than a big slice of a small pie. As soon as he had the Dragons on board, he got the sauce on shelves in 600 Sainsbury’s stores. Now Reggae Reggae sauce is stocked in all major UK supermarkets.
From the success of his Reggae Reggae sauce, Levi has been invited to Downing Street, has launched a School of Life Tour, published a series of best-selling cookbooks, became a celebrity TV personality, and even opened his first Caribbean-inspired restaurant in 2015. Reggae Reggae sauce has expanded from being just a spicy jerk sauce to an extensive range of Caribbean-inspired sauces, snacks, desserts, soft drinks, and ready meals. With a current product portfolio of over 50 items, Reggae Reggae sauce is estimated to be worth around £35 million.
There are a lot of lessons to learn from Levi’s story but here are my top three lessons:
Stay true to yourself - part of the success of Reggae Reggae sauce is because of Levi Roots’ authentic and friendly personality. People buy into people, the Dragons invested because they saw some potential in the product but also because they saw huge potential in Levi and how passionate he is about his product. Customers are more likely to buy from people they know, like, and trust. Make sure you’re also working on your personal brand, not just your product brand.
Always think of the bigger picture - as entrepreneurs, no one wants to give away a huge stake of their business to someone else, but sometimes it’s the best thing you can do for your business to succeed. As Levi said, his decision was pretty simple: have a smaller stake in a business that will go far or have full ownership of a business that wouldn’t go far. Accepting an investment for a percentage of your business isn’t a bad idea, an investment can take you to the next level, and you don’t have to do business on difficult mode.
Go out there and find your audience - when you start a business, your first customers may be people you know but your actual customers are more likely to be people you don’t know. Your customers are people who you solve a problem for at a price they’re willing to pay. Take the time to research and find out who your customers are, where they are from, and the best way to communicate with them. Don’t take it personally when people you know don’t buy from you, it is great when family or friends support you, but it’s not something you’re entitled to.
Levi Roots is a great example of what is possible. From coming to Jamaica at the age of 11 with no proper education and serving a prison sentence, Levi has been able to achieve a great amount of success and to echo his closing words from his talk, “If he can do it so can you.”
Have a great week!