[Voiceover]: Welcome to the checkout. We catch up with previous add to cart guests and ask them five quick questions to get to know them better and leave you with a little extra inspiration to get through your Friday. Here's your host, Bushy.
[Voiceover]: Today's checkout features Andy Miller, co founder and CEO of Heaps Normal, the alcohol free brewing company launched during COVID and Andy, armed with an extensive background in the beer industry and four mates with complementary skills, set about creating an alcohol free beer that tasted like the real thing. And to say he succeeded is an understatement. Last year Heaps Normal was valued at $63 million and now accounts for roughly 40% of all growth in the non alcoholic beer category. Andy, thank you so much for joining
Nathan Bush: us on the checkout. We had a great in depth chat on our main episode about what you're building and what you've built so far with Heaps Normal. Challenging the social and commercial setup of the alcohol industry in Australia with a product that has such a strong, amazing brand built in play and fun. But we are here to learn a little bit more about you. I've got five quick questions for you. Number one, what's the weirdest thing that you've ever bought online?
Andy Miller: It's probably not that weird, but a dehydrator. It's got had a fascination with exploring dehydrated fruits and trying to see what other weird and wonderful things could be possibly dehydrated was kind of like my own will it blend moment.
Nathan Bush: Any surprising discoveries?
Andy Miller: Well, apparently you can. Well, it's pretty obvious. I suppose dehydrating meat and fish was pretty interesting. Being in Bangkok, there's a lot of dehydrated fish and that sort of stuff. So yeah, giving that a crack was pretty interesting.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, that's cool. All right, number two, who is your favorite retailer?
Andy Miller: Well, I'm going to focus on Ecom and say who gives a crap? I think they are just, they've just nailed it from day one from Simon Griffith, one of their founders sitting on the toilet until their crowdfunding campaign was successful all the way through to the tone of voice and fun that they have with their messaging on social media and in their, in their, in their marketing message I think is just really, really awesome and an inspiration for us.
Nathan Bush: There is a lot of brand alignment there in terms of how you approach disruption in your categories because you are both trying to change behaviors for the long term. Have you met Simon? Had some time with Simon.
Andy Miller: Yeah, I have actually. He's a, an absolute legend and a mentor to Me also personally invested in Heaps normal actually, so.
Nathan Bush: Oh cool.
Andy Miller: He's definitely behind us 100%.
Nathan Bush: I love that. I love when good brands come together on the same team. It's fun. All right, number three, which E commerce practice do you wish was history retargeting? This was actually going to be a question that I had in the main episode, but I never got to it. Are you subject to the same advertising restrictions as alcoholic beer?
Andy Miller: Yes and no. There's been some changes recently to the ABAC regulations, which is like the self, the advertising regulations that regulate the alcohol industry. They've recently added non alcoholic beer in to some of those. The answer, the short answer is we're not subject to all of the, all of the regulations that alcohol is, but we're pretty conservative, pretty conservative bunch in Australia, I think. And a lot of the time, you know, you can ruffle a few feathers if you don't think about the fact that most people feel non alcoholic beer should be only available in channels where, you know, adults are shopping for it.
Nathan Bush: Yes, there's still that gray area over can teenagers drink it?
Andy Miller: Yeah, there's maybe for another interview. I'll leave my opinion on that for some other time time.
Nathan Bush: We'll talk about that when recording stops. All right, number four, can you recommend a book or a podcast that our listeners should immediately get into?
Andy Miller: Yeah, I'm still reading it, but it's such a good read and unexpectedly so from my point of view, working backwards, it's about Amazon and I've just found it so fascinating learning how they built their business, the kind of everything from the values of Amazon, how they drive decisions in their business through to how they developed more sophisticated reporting and drove long term strategy and innovation and also just short term operational effectiveness. It's such an interesting book and they really go in depth into how they did that. Not just what they do now as a ginormous, hugely successful E commerce business, but what they did know back in the day when they were still a real challenger brand.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. Do you sell via Amazon as of just recently?
Andy Miller: Actually in the last month or so, we've just onboarded with Amazon in Australia via your own channel, selling through Amazon's channels. We haven't integrated shipping from our ecom through Amazon yet, but that's something potentially we might look at in the future as well.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, great. You got to win the distribution game. Number five, finish this sentence. The future of retail is people and
Andy Miller: maybe I'll be more specific customers, I think sounds like such an obvious one, but Amazon touched on it in that book I just mentioned as well. Working backwards, you really have to in everything that you're doing, whatever process or product you're designing. If you're not putting the customer first and genuinely like going deep on thinking about like, what is it that they are looking for and looking at the whole process and identifying where potentially that process could fall short of expectations, then there's no point in any of the other fancy technology features, different apps or platforms, you know, it doesn't. None of that sort of really matters. I think getting those fundamental building blocks right is the most important thing. And putting the customer first is never going to go out of fashion. It's always going to be one of the key drivers, I think, of success in retail.
Nathan Bush: I love it. I think we've got your trailer quote right there. Putting the customers first is never going to go out of fashion. Andy, thank you so much for joining us on the checkout.
Andy Miller: Thanks, Nathan.
[Voiceover]: To hear more from Andy, jump back into episode 382, where Andy tells us why bringing fun to work is more than just a brand identity. He also gives us his thoughts on pricing, especially premium pricing, and shares why he believes the conversation around cannabis and other illicit drugs needs to change. Thanks for listening and until next time,
Nathan Bush: keep adding to cart.
