The ‘Pet Food’ Entrepreneur Adam Taylor talks to SMEToday

When Adam Taylor walked away from his job as an investment banker at Lehman Brothers in 2008, his vision for his future fell apart around him.

This ambitious 26-year-old who had an ability with numbers yet had dyslexia, had imagined a life of learning and a career around money, investments, hedge funds – and then suddenly it was over. He was out. Done.

“When I lost my job I was a bit lost. Who was I? I’d sort of lost my identity. What would come next for me?”

Adam found that not only had he lost his job, he then needed to ‘go home’ and moved back in with his parents who, by now, lived in New York, even though he’d been brought up in South London.

“Yet this was the catalyst for me to start up my own business. I’d always been entrepreneurial I think. In school I’d taken part in a Youth Enterprise Programme and had been naturally chosen as CEO however if this redundancy hadn’t happened I don’t think I would have explored any of this.”

Even as a teenager, Adam had been obsessed by retail, especially trainers, he would hang out at a Nike shop and find out all he could about the different products. So much so that the shop manager offered him a part-time job and his mum has to agree to him working as he was a young teenager.

Being dyslexic has also given him a problem-solving mindset and he fizzes with ideas. Even talking to him remotely, he often pauses to think, process and then digest his latest thought.

Looking for a new profession after redundancy, Adam and his fiancé, now wife, Lexi, began to consider ideas for their own business including offering fresh soups by subscription and even launching a Christmas pudding brand. Both in the very competitive food and drink sector which can have low margins and many challenges around delivery. It was Adam’s dad who raised a red flag around those ideas.

Like many entrepreneurs though, it was something mundane which he’d experienced his entire life which finally led to a lightbulb moment. The answer was literally in his own hands.

“I was brought up with three sisters and many pets and in a busy household it was often ‘feed yourself’ and the pets were last in line. I would find myself going last minute to the pet shop to get food and it was heavy to carry. My mum has arthritis so she couldn’t carry those heavy bags.

“When I went back home aged 26, the same thing happened. I thought to myself that there must be an easier way to get pet food delivered to the door. There must be. When I looked there was nobody at that time offering pet food online via subscription. No one.

“In my previous role, I’d spend hours looking at analytics and reports, so I did the same thing here and researched the market for pets and pet food in particular – and it was massive then. Coupled with very little in e-commerce sales, the business case was aligning.

“Here was an area which led to repeat business, with very little being offered via an e-commerce service – so even if you did badly, you’d probably be okay. I had no intention of ‘doing it badly’ however both myself and my wife could see this idea had real potential.”

In 2010 www.petshop.co.uk became official and Adam and his wife Lexi had a small loan of £5,000 from the Prince’s Trust to get started. Today this couple’s company, based out of Stratford Upon Avon, has a turnover of around £25m and employs, to date, 86 staff. 

What about the tech?

One of the biggest challenges facing Adam and Lexi when they started was the software to host their e-commerce business. At the time options were fairly limited as far as they were concerned.

“Subscription based software at the time was often related to magazine or tv subscription which was a fixed monthly amount. That wasn’t going to work for us. Prices of pet food go up and down. We investigated having a bespoke website which was a hugely expensive option at the time.

“Thanks to the Prince’s Trust business programme they encouraged us to do ‘test trading’ and this meant orders would come in and we would handle them manually for each one and it worked. It worked until we got to about £2m in revenue and then the cracks started to show.

“It simply wasn’t sustainable for us as a growing business. Yet so many other software options at this time were not bespoke enough or flexible enough for us. We needed scalability and flexibility – I think of it almost as mass personalisation. Another important factor was that we didn’t want to migrate to another platform again – we needed something which worked at £2m revenue or £25m or £100m.”

The answer for Adam and Lexi was Oracle NetSuite which, for more than 20 years,
has helped organisations grow and adapt to change. It provides an integrated system that includes financials or Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), inventory management, HR, professional services automation and omnichannel commerce, used by more than 34,000 customers in 217 countries and dependent territories.

“This software has worked wonderfully for us as it’s got so much scope for customisation allowing us to build the personality of our business into an automated system – and that’s really important to us.

“We want our customers to feel valued even though we have to use automation for our business to function. For us, Oracle NetSuite was a blank canvas, and it’s allowed our business to grow healthily year on year.

“We can provide analysis and data for our strategic partners in business such as pet food manufacturers and we can do all we can to make our valued customers feel valued.”

And that’s quite an achievement given that the couple have around a million customers on their database in 2023.

“As we’ve faced challenges recently with the cost of living crisis and the rises in costs that we’ve had to absorb and manage – we’ve really got to know the software even better to explore all of the ways in which it can make the business more efficient, effective while not losing that personal touch.”

That personal touch is something close to Adam’s heart, he still feels the same has he did about the business when he started up. All personal messages to customers today which arrive via automated messages – are all written by him before becoming part of the customer journey.

There are more details of Oracle NetSuite here – https://www.netsuite.co.uk/

What’s next for Adam and his team?

“We aim to reach £50m in the next three years and then on to £100m. I know I look back and think ‘this can’t be real’ when I think about where we’ve come from. And the money and revenue is a goal and it’s great but it can leave me a bit flat to be honest. The journey, the dynamic, the people and the excitement of running a business is where much joy lies for me.

“While we need our software and automation is essential to our business, I don’t want to lose that personal touch which was the DNA of our business when we started, when we used to hand deliver, hand write notes and I still want that energy to be apparent as we move forward. I don’t want us to lose that small business feel.”

Adam’s top tips:

When you are starting out  – identify the market and really look into the potential for growth. Is the market/customer base big enough? Do you offer something new or different? Is there market share to be had?  What are the growth opportunities? Align that with your overall goals. Be honest if those things do not align.

In a cost of living crisis put productivity and efficiency before profit. It’s hard to invest in a market down turn however the team at www.petshop.co.uk looked at using NetSuite more effectively and efficiently. They implemented new practical measures such as bulk buying stock and reserving stock to minimise supply chain issues. They also communicate often with customers around pricing.

And finally:

Today Adam and Lexi have four children, three beautiful girls and a gorgeous baby boy. They also have two cats – Jasper and Hugo. And yes, they have named their son Hugo after one of their beloved cats! (I asked…).