Those who know me best will tell you that I started VIVO Natural Products because I shower a lot. I have exceptional hygiene, no doubt. However, this is not the sole reason for my founding VNP. Having worked for a mid-sized consumer products company, I came to realize that there are no “major” players in the natural products space. In mainstream CPG’s we have Unilever, Kraft, Coca Cola, etc. Companies that do billions of dollars in sales, globally. However, for the most part, their products are bad for the people who consume them and even worse for the environment and the economies that produce them.

Hi Michael, Can you give us some background information about you and what you do?

I grew up on Long Island, NY, where I caught the entrepreneurial ‘bug’ at an early age. I organized ski tours, started a car detailing business, a mortgage business, sold lots of stuff on eBay, and always had interesting jobs as a kid.

What were you doing before you started your company?

I was a student at Babson College- near Boston- it’s sort of a hub of entrepreneurial activity in many regards. I had been working as a mortgage broker during the summer months from the time I was a senior in HS through my junior year of college. Telephone sales, learning the basics of marketing and selling. During the summer after my junior year, I landed an internship with Roll, a Los Angeles based private equity company. I was assigned to FIJI Water, one of their subsidiary businesses that was recently acquired. I took a great liking to the business for several reasons- it’s a great product (the water really does taste better, and it comes from the most pristine place on earth- so packaging/branding aside, it’s authentic), the marketing and branding strategy is very clever, and most importantly, the company is socially conscious and helps their employees in Fiji with all sorts of great community development projects (clean drinking water, schools, healthcare, etc.).

Was that your first company?

My first company was technically a ski tour marketing business- I loved snowboarding, but my parents were unwilling to drive me to Vermont (which is 5+ hours north of Long Island). The only way I could go snowboarding on the weekends was to A.) mooch a trip with friends who had homes up north, or B.) find a ski tour operator and go on a 1 day trip, which usually cost between $60 – , $70. I quickly realized that many of my friends were in the same situation, and as I built up a “customer base” of friends and friends of friends, I was able to start marketing my own ski trips. Before I knew it, I was setting up weekend long ski trips and grossing $10,000 per trip. It all sort of happened by accident, and I was more interested in going skiing for free than I was in making a career out of operating ski tours. In hindsight, I made a lot of money for the travel agent that brokered us the ski tours during those winter months.

Have you always been environmental conscious?

I have never been a “tree hugger” but at the same time, I don’t litter, in fact, I will pick up trash if I see it on the beach. I love the outdoors and will do whatever I can to keep the earth clean. Always.

What inspired to start the company?

Those who know me best will tell you that I started VIVO Natural Products because I shower a lot. I have exceptional hygiene, no doubt. However, this is not the sole reason for my founding VNP. Having worked for a mid-sized consumer products company, I came to realize that there are no “major” players in the natural products space. In mainstream CPG’s we have Unilever, Kraft, Coca Cola, etc. Companies that do billions of dollars in sales, globally. However, for the most part, their products are bad for the people who consume them and even worse for the environment and the economies that produce them. My belief (which still remains in-tact) is that a new group of major-players in the CPG space will emerge- their brand portfolios will consist of high quality natural products (food, beverages, beauty care, household, etc.). I hope VIVO Natural Products bar soap will serve our little company (and my big plans) the same way bar soap served the Lever brothers.

Who are your target markets?

Our target markets are retailers. You’re probably thinking I forgot a precursor to retailers, but I didn’t. Drug, grocery, mass, beauty, natural, etc. all of these types of retailers should carry our bar soap (and the other products that we’ll be launching in early 2010). Our soap (and the rest of our product offerings, for that matter) is affordable, made with the highest quality ingredients, environmentally friendly, and best of all, made with ingredients that we source from entrepreneurs in underdeveloped countries helping those who need it most earn a fair living.

So what do you think gives you an edge against your competitors? What is USP?

We have a few USP’s- the best one we’ve got going with our existing product offering, which consists of 5 bar soap SKUs is the fact that we use this amazing, fresh shea butter from women farmers in Africa. This is what makes our soap incredibly rich and nourishing for the skin- it is filled with vitamins that naturally heal your skin. It makes you look and feel healthier. Plus, we buy this shea butter from women in Africa who are now able to earn a fair living, support their families and send their children to schools, feed them, etc. It’s meaningful- far more meaningful (in my humble opinion) than donating a percentage of sales to a charity that I have nothing to do with.

How did you finance your business?

I financed the startup of VIVO Natural Products with my own money- I worked my butt off and constantly reinvested in the business. Start small, make sales, reinvest, and repeat.

How do you market your products or services?

It’s funny you should ask this- we don’t. So far, we haven’t spent a dime on “traditional” marketing. Our only “marketing” spend is on samples. We often do demos at stores and give away free bar soap so people can try the product. Nothing sells our soap better than a free sample. Our customer retention rate is off the charts; something the major players are very envious of.

What’s the worst business advice you’ve ever received?

I’m not sure I can answer this question- I’d like to think that i’ve received mostly sound advice from those around me. Even the bad advice is good because it serves as a learning experience.

What are your hobbies? What do you do in your non-work time?

I travel a lot, eat out, read, exercise, spend as much time at the beach as possible. I’m very interested in business, though, so even while i’m traveling, it’s usually business related. When i’m eating at a restaurant, i’m admiring their decor, or plates, or furniture, etc for the business behind each component. When i’m in a supermarket buying food, that’s completely business. Much of what I read is business related, though, not all of it.

How do you build a successful customer base?

Make a great product, set a fair price, and explain the benefits as clearly as possible.

Where do you see in yourself and your business in the next 5 years?

In 5 years (or less) we will have a number of other products- beyond beauty. We’ll be selling our products to retailers like Wal-Mart and Target, and also to Whole Foods and independent companies, too.

Great Interview Michael, Thanks for your time.

For more information VNP: Website
Twitter: http://twitter.com/mtalve

I guess it’s not every 14 years old that wakes up, stumble across their bed, go to the kitchen and makes jam, let’s just say fraser is special, Fraser Doherty now runs his company super jam, Doherty was taught to make jam by his Grandmother, aged fourteen.
He later began making jam at home, selling it to neighbors, at farmers’ markets and to local shops.

Doherty became the youngest ever supplier to a major UK supermarket in 2007, when Waitrose launched SuperJam in its chain of 190+ stores.

A company estimated to be worth over £1 million, I guess he’s not done too bad for himself.

First of all, how are you doing today?

Today I am great, there are a lot of exciting things going on in Jam Land; we’re planning some big SuperJam tea parties and have been visiting lots of supermarkets this month, handing out samples of SuperJam and telling people about our range of 100% pure fruit jams.

I mean it’s not every 14 years old that wake up and want to start up their business? What inspired you to do that at such a young age?

I was inspired to start making jam by my Grandmother. She was cooking jam in the kitchen one afternoon and I got really excited about it and started cooking jam as a hobby in my spare time. The neighbours soon started buying my homemade jam, then I began selling it at farmers’ markets and to small shops.

If you were starting a new business in a new industry what would it be?

I find food a lot of fun and I enjoy cooking and coming up with ideas for new products. There’s a lot I still want to do in the world of jam and i’m having a lot of fun doing what i’m doing so definitely won’t be hanging up my apron anytime soon.

Were you exposed to entrepreneurship as a child? (Did you have any family members who influenced you in that way).

As a kid, my parents and family weren’t entrepreneurs but they always let me try out new things and do whatever I wanted to do in my spare time. I was always interested in making a bit of extra pocket money and tried out all kinds of ideas. My favourite story of all is when I hatched out some chickens from eggs that I got from a local farm; I kept the eggs warm on top of the telly and amazingly they hatched – I sold the eggs to the neighbours and that was my first ever little business.

On those impossible days starting up, what motivates you to keep going?

I was motivated by a feeling that I was doing something worthwhile with my life and by the fact that I was enjoying what I was doing every step of the way.

How do you manage the growth of your company?

The business is growing very fast and we’re launching in new stores all of the time. The most important thing is that we have stayed focused on the idea of making 100% pure fruit jams, have focused on keeping the retailers happy and have improved every aspect of the business as we’ve moved forward.

Excluding yours, what company or business do you admire the most?

I admire entrepreneurs like the late anita roddick, ben & jerry and other entrepreneurs that have run businesses with not only an aim of making money, but with an aim of making the world a better place. Inspired by companies like theirs, I set up a charitable project over a year ago, running tea parties for lonely elderly people. We have now run over 120 tea parties, with live music, dancing and scones and tea; the larger events have attracted over 500 guests. It feels great to be able to put something positive like that into the world.

What sacrifices did you have to make to be a successful entrepreneur?

Getting the business off the ground took a huge amount of hard work; in the early days I was spending twelve of more hours a day in the kitchen. I have to spend a lot of time on the road, visiting customers and sharing my story at events around the world. It has all been worth all of the work and i’ve enjoyed it all along.

What are your hobbies? What do you do in your non-work time?

I enjoy cooking, traveling and music. I don’t work at the weekends and have plenty of time to spend with my friends.

What qualities have you developed as a result of running your business?

I am invited to speak at events every week; at schools, colleges, universities and conferences, sharing the story of how I built my Gran’s jam recipe into a successful company supplying major supermarkets. I’ve given well over 100 talks now, to audiences of up to 1,000 people. Having that experience has helped me to become good at talking to audiences and i’m getting invited to bigger and bigger events; sometimes in the US and around Europe.

What has been your most satisfying moment in business?

When I could go into the supermarket and buy a jar of my own jam; which I did, and put the receipt up on my wall.

How do you go about marketing your business? What has been your most successful form of marketing?

We hand out samples in the supermarkets, telling people about the products and letting them taste how much better it is than normal jam. This is the most effective way of promoting the business. We also gave away a free jar of jam to every reader of The Sun and have printed 50 million adverts in newspapers and magazines so far this year. Of course, the media attention surrounding my story has helped; i’ve been on GMTV, This Morning, BBC Breakfast and Channel 4 made a documentary about me.

How has being an entrepreneur affected your family life?

My family have enjoyed the adventure of the past few years and without their amazing support it wouldn’t have been possible.

How did you finance your business?

I got a small loan from the Princes Trust and have invested all of the profits of the business back into it, which has helped it to grow at amazing speed.

SuperJam has sold almost 1m jars of jam, sells 500,000 jars a year and has a retail value of over £750,000; this is around 1% of all of the jam eaten in the UK.

What are your advices to upcoming entrepreneurs?

Be willing to give things a shot and don’t be afraid that they might not work out. I’d also say its a great idea to find a mentor – someone who has already ‘been there and done it’. The best advice I have had was from my mentor, who taught me about how supermarkets worked and gave me a lot of confidence in my product.

Thanks Fraser for your advices, That reminds me, I need some jam for my toast today.

More info can be found on: www.superjam.co.uk
Fraser Doherty Blog: www.superjam.co.uk/blog.html
Twitter: twitter.com/fraserdoherty

Charlie” McDonnell is an English teenager and YouTube vlogger from Bath, Somerset. He is the third most subscribed YouTuber in the United Kingdom, he has 212,679 Subscribers:

He first came to prominence when a video entitled “How to Get Featured on YouTube” was featured on YouTube’s homepage.

His YouTube fame attracted so far much press to Charlie:

Charlie was interviewed on BBC News. He also participated in the Euro 2008 Zeitgeist Google conference, a conference to honour online users of popular websites

He was one of three online guests on the BBC chat show Lily Allen and Friends in 2008.

He was also featured in a recent advertising campaign for Confused.com, speaking directly to his camcorder about the savings the site offered and its new layout and ease of use.

He featured as a guest on Robert Llewellyn’s Web series Carpool in the episode broadcast on 15 May 2009.

In Early June 2009, Charlie visited Los Angeles to attend the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2009.

He attended Microsoft’s Xbox press conference, where ‘Project Natal’ was announced.

He was invited to a ‘special area of E3′ Two days later and was one of 30 exclusive people from around the world to try out Natal.

WHAT AN INTRO…..RIGHT!

Hi Charlie, how you doing?

Just great thanks! Sitting at home on a comfy chair, in an even comfier dressing gown that I got just today, with a cup of tea. And it’s not even 6pm yet. I’m living the dream, or something.

Can you give us brief details about your background information?

I was born and raised in a city called Bath, lived here all my life doing the fairly normal, mundane things that normal, boring people do. Then, as a method for procrastinating from exam revision, I found YouTube and video blogging, and “since then my life has never been the same.”

Can you tell us what you do?

I’m a video blogger, posting direct to camera videos on my YouTube channel whenever I feel like sharing my thoughts on something with the world, or sharing something a bit more creative, or a bit insane. My most recent video for example, involves me seeing how many marshmallows I can shove into my mouth, which was a challenge submitted to be by one of my viewers. I put the blame on them for all the slightly more insane challenge videos that I do, but at the same time, I didn’t exactly have to put marshmallows in my mouth until I vomited, so I really only have myself to blame.

Describe/outline your typical day?

Some days I’ll decide to be a bit creative and post a YouTube video, which usually takes me about three hours, all the way from having a video idea, to shooting, editing, and uploading it to the net. Other days I’ll sit at home surfing the net for interesting things just like another nerdy lad my age. And then there are the days that I spend working on internet based TV shows, doing talks on Tech conferences, and doing interviews with people about my strange life. I haven’t gotten used to that last kind of day just yet.

How did you get started vlogging?

As I mentioned before, I started vlogging because I found out that revising wasn’t too much fun, so I started posting vlogs, which is something that I discovered after watching a video about vlogging that was on the front page of YouTube at the time … though I can’t for the life of me remember what that video was! Must have been pretty good though.

What do you do except vlogging?

I’ve always been a big fan of computer games, writing music and drawing, which is what I do to fill up my spare time. Having said that though, those parts of me do tend to find their way into my videos every now and then, as all the vlogs really are is a reflection of me and my life – just in three minute chunks on the internet.

How did you get to be the third most subscribed YouTuber in the UK?

It was just a nice bit of luck if I’m honest. I’d been making videos for about a month, I’d built up an audience of around 150 people, when someone at YouTube was kind enough to feature one of videos on the front page of the UK homepage! I went up from 150 people to about 4000 in two days, and ever since then I’ve just been slowly building up my audience to get to the stage that I’m at now.

I mean one of your videos has been featured on the Oprah winfrey show, it doesn’t get any bigger than that? How did you feel about that?

I would adore it if that was actually true, but unfortunately, it’s not. I got an email once saying that the US TV show “The View” wanted my permission to use a 5 second clip of one of my videos in a montage about YouTube videos, but it never went any further than that email. And then, somehow, that event Chinese Whispered into being “one of my videos was featured on the Oprah Winfrey show” – I should probably just accept the fact that the false information is always going to pop up in the future and pretend that it really did happen, but alas, I can’t help but want to tell the truth … mainly because I find it quite funny in itself.

If you were to start a business, what will it be?

I guess that technically, I already have a small business, because I make a little bit of money from the google adsense adverts that YouTube puts next to my YouTube videos. If I was to start up something new though, I might set up a little T-Shirt company – doing quirky little designs that might go well on T-Shirts is a pretty fun pastime that I have.

What will you say to anyone looking to get subscribers or views on YouTube?

I’d always say to people that, If you’re making YouTube videos because you want to find some kind of YouTube fame, then you’re doing something wrong. What I always try to do is put as much effort into my videos as I can, because my responsibly isn’t to the audience, it’s to the videos. If you focus all of your efforts on making something great, rather than trying to make something that you think will get views, you’ll have a lot more fun, and you’ll get much more respect.

How do you pick topics to speak about on your YouTube channel?

All I ever do is pick out the most interesting parts of my life, which are never too hard to spot, you just have to wait for something funny to come up.

You decided to shave your hair off online and raised over £4,000, i mean that’s pretty awesome right?

It was pretty fun! I did it on the eve of my 18th birthday, and stayed up till midnight with a live audience counting down to the moment that I got a bit older. I thought it would be a nicer thing to do rather than go out and get plastered with some mates, which is something that I wouldn’t enjoy in the slightest anyway. I’m a bit of a dork – tea and my bedroom are much more fun than booze and hangovers as far as I’m concerned.

You’ve been invited and attended so many events just of your fame on YouTube? How does it feel?

It’s a little odd that my story seems to interest people so much, because the things that now seem pretty normal to me turn out to be really interesting to those that are uninitiated to the YouTubey world that I inhabit.

I heard you are a partner with YouTube and you actually get paid monthly? Getting paid to do what you like doing right?

I get a little bit from the adverts that YouTube put next to my videos, but not nearly enough to keep me sustained forever! It’s a nice little bit to save me having to get a job waiting tables or something, so I’m very lucky to have it.

What would you do if there was no internet?

I have a feel that my existence would just be very normal and boring, working in a respectable job and becoming part of the machine. Thankfully, there is an internet, and it’s pretty brilliant really.

Where do you see in yourself in the next 5 years?

Hopefully doing what I’m still doing right now, but working with whatever the new social media advances are. It’s really had to be sure though because everything that I’m doing is so new, there’s no set career path for a video blogger to take, it’s possible that this could all fall through in a year or so, but I really, really hope that it won’t.

What qualities have you developed as a result of running being online?

I’m getting a bit more of a head for business, and I’ve definitely become a lot more confident. I used to be the shyest kid in school – I’ve changed a lot since then, and it’s all thanks to the exposure that YouTube’s brought me.

What has been your most satisfying moment online?

There was this one time when Stephen Fry started talking about me in an online interview, and then I ended up meeting and becoming friends with him as a result. I still can’t quite believe that happened.

What is the most embarrassing thing you’ve ever done?

I’m guessing that you mean something other than painting myself purple, drinking ketchup, shoving marshmallows in my mouth till I was sick, trying or rap, sending a letter to the Prime Minister asking to become a Knight, and posting it all on the internet? Nope, can’t think of anything.

Are you currently working on any projects?

ChartJackers is the biggest project that I have on at the the moment, and probably the biggest project that I’ve ever done, period. I’m working with three other Youtube personalities (nerimon, JohnnyDurham19 and Jimmy0010) to try and crowd-source a pop song, get it into the UK charts, and we’re doing it all for Children In Need. And the BBC are making a documentary about it too! If you want to find out more about that, go to youtube.com/chartjackersproject

Thanks Charlie, we appreciate you being able to give us some insight into your online world.

Check out his YouTube page: Charlie
Follow him on Twitter: http://twitter.com/coollike