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[Voiceover]: Welcome to the Checkout. We catch up with previous Add to Cart guests and ask them five 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
[Ad]: Today's checkout features Abel Butler, CEO of Health Post and the man behind one of the most impressive retail rescue stories that we've covered on Add to Cart. In our main episode, Abel shared how he took over two beloved Aussie brands, Flora and Fauna, and Nourish Life after the collapse of them by bwx. He walked us through the wild ride of acquiring them with no team, no warehouse, no tech stack and a very tight timeline to make a decision. And he told us how in just six months he brought them back to life. And it wasn't with a big budget or bold campaign, but with quiet clarity, deep values, resetting the foundations and a laser focus on customer experience. Healthpost is a business that Abel grew from his mum's mail order supplement business and he's grown it into a purpose driven e commerce powerhouse. They've not only scaled into Australia, but
Nathan Bush: are also restoring biodiversity locally, literally bringing
[Ad]: seabirds back to the coastlines of New Zealand through profits from their retail business. And what's even better is that they've taken their customers on this journey with them. Abel's one of those operators who leads by doing. And in this checkout we get to see the lighter, more personal side of Abel. From the weird tech that he's using to relax at 3am in the morning to sustainable pioneers that he admires. Here's what drives Abel Butler behind the scenes.
Nathan Bush: Abel, welcome to the Checkout. We had a brilliant conversation a couple of weeks ago where you told us everything that you're doing at HealthPost, including Flora and fauna and Nourished life here in Australia, how you are setting yourself up for sustainable growth in both markets. What I loved was the honest story of what it took to rebuild both of those brands in the Australian market. So thank you for sharing that. And you gave us insight into the amazing projects that you're doing in your local area around the restoration of biodiversity, including bringing some of those seabirds back, which was pretty cool. First time on Add to cart, we've had someone bring seabirds back. Yeah. I've got five quick questions for you.
Abel Butler: Go for it.
Nathan Bush: Number one, what is the weirdest thing that you've ever bought online?
Abel Butler: Sure. So I currently have, though I can't really report as to its effectiveness, but a vagus nerve stimulation device. So you hook it up to your ear and it sends little electrical pulses which is designed to calm one down of an evening. Yeah. So those 3am Sort of GPT sessions when you need to clock off, apparently this will put me to sleep. Yeah.
Nathan Bush: You strike me as a very calm person. Do you? But I suppose as a business owner you just never turn off, do you?
Abel Butler: No. Yeah. I'm glad I come across that way. I do take a lot of supplements which I think help. Yeah.
Nathan Bush: You've got access. Why not?
Abel Butler: I sure do, yeah.
Nathan Bush: Number two, which retailer has most inspired you recently?
Abel Butler: I really like the work that Lottie Delzil is doing with banish.com. yeah. Amazing work in the recycling space and then selling the products that are being made from the waste and things. So, yeah, she's a bit of a personal hero of mine at the moment. Yeah.
Nathan Bush: For those who haven't seen it, can you give us a little bit more detail around it?
Abel Butler: Yeah. So Lottie's a huge advocate for waste reduction and lower waste living and she's recently written a book which I believe is called 100 Ways to Save the Planet, which I think's been really successful, but has also been running a website called Banish for a while, banish.com and yeah, was originally kind of selling quite a few third party products and things, but her main focus has been on recycling, hard to recycle things. And. Yeah, and so she's got these kind of significant waste streams, I guess, of difficult to recycle items coming in, which she is repurposing into some really cool things which you can buy through her website. So, yeah, she's solving a very hard to solve problem at scale and is a lovely person. So, yeah, she's a champion in that space.
Nathan Bush: When you see new initiatives that are claiming to save the planet, do you look at them with optimism or a kind of healthy skepticism?
Abel Butler: At the moment, it's definitely a bit of both. I think it depends where you're looking. I think that the good news stories in environmentalism at the moment are widely underreported in mainstream media. Yeah. So that would kind of be my starting point. I think, thankfully, being in the space somewhat, I'm a bit more exposed to some really incredible stuff that is happening. But by the same token, I think a lot of what's coming out of big companies in terms of claims that they've made, particularly in the past, that they're rolling back recently and stuff like that, that's the opposite end of the spectrum. You know, where it was like, well, how serious were they in the first place? Clearly not very.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, yeah, okay. Yeah, that's good. Guide number three. Can you name a piece of tech that you or your business couldn't live without?
Abel Butler: Look, it's just such an obvious one, but at the moment, we just couldn't live without ChatGPT. Yeah.
Nathan Bush: What was the last problem you solved with GPT that you wouldn't have solved without it?
Abel Butler: To be honest, I'm using it at home to help with landscaping and which trees to plant where in that side of things. But you're probably more interested in a business context.
Nathan Bush: No, no, that's a great one. I had it the other day and I talked about this with James actually, the other day, and it was like, when you're doing things, it's like, why wouldn't I ask GPT to do this? So I cut off Telstra as my home Internet and then went to another provider, had to get a new modem, all that sort of stuff, and I just couldn't diagnose this. And I'm pretty good with that stuff. And I was like, actually, I'm going to plug all my specs of my modem, my plan, my address, everything into here and say what the errors are. And it just step by step talked me through this little tiny error that I found and I was like, that would have been weeks trying to diagnose that in the past.
Abel Butler: Yeah, incredible. I fixed a toilet cistern with it recently. It's like, high tech makes low tech.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, I love it. All right, number four, can you recommend a book or a podcast that our listeners should immediately get into?
Abel Butler: Yeah, like, I'm enjoying. I've been following him for a while, but Peter Diamandis Moonshots and his essential technology side of things, and obviously he's doing quite a lot of interesting coverage On AI at the moment would be one.
Nathan Bush: Awesome. And are you following it via podcasts? Socials?
Abel Butler: Yeah. Podcasts, yeah.
Nathan Bush: Cool. All right, good tip. Thank you. And last question I've got for you, Abel. What is your biggest challenge today?
Abel Butler: The biggest challenge really is. Well, I mean, I can't say sanity, so. You can. Yeah, no, it's just that difference between. I mean, we touched on it when we spoke earlier around synthesis. So information overload, incredible velocity of change, and then as a leader, having to at least give the appearance of having a clear and coherent response to a very noisy and chaotic world.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, yeah, well put. I feel a lot of founders are feeling that at the moment you've got to be confident and have a strategic direction on one side, but knowing that it can be bumped off course at any time.
Abel Butler: Yeah, that's right.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. Abel, thank you so much for joining us on the checkout.
Abel Butler: Thanks, Pushy. My pleasure. Cheers.
[Ad]: Want more, Abel? And quite frankly, why wouldn't you Head back to the full episode, episode 526 link in the show notes where we unpack how he rebuilt two major E commerce brands from the ground up in only a few months. Why Health Post Nourish Life and Flora and Fauna, manage deep product data without a pim, how their loyalty program is shifting toward purpose and environmental impact and what it actually looks like to run an AI first retail business with some very clear examples, not just hype or fluff. If you're an E commerce leader looking for calm in the chaos or you're building a values driven brand in a tough market at the moment, this conversation will hit home. And if you're not already inside the ADD to CART community, now is the time. We've got nearly 300 E commerce professionals in there sharing insights from episodes like this, asking smart questions and connecting over all the practical stuff. It's free, it's useful. And that's where this conversation continues. Join us at ADD to cart. Thanks again to Abel for joining us and showing us what E Commerce leadership looks like when it's done with humility, focus and impact.
