‘Overnight success’ is a term prone to abuse, but for nutritional-supplements business Ancient + Brave it’s a fair description of the company’s explosive growth. Having experienced steady growth since it was founded in 2018, demand skyrocketed in late 2022 when turnover increased from £1m a year to almost £1m a month. From revenues of £10m in 2023, and £20m in 2024, the business is on track for further accelerated growth this year. Currently, more than 90% of the company’s revenues come from B2C e-commerce – either directly through the company’s Shopify sites or Amazon. 

CFO Carl Moore joined Ancient + Brave in February this year, the first of a new C-suite, including a Chief Marketing Officer, Chief Digital Officer, Chief Operations Officer, and Chief Retail Officer, taken on this year to capitalise on the demand for its supplements, which include creatine, magnesium and ashwagandha alongside their core collagen range. 

Operational issues

ICAEW member Moore says the challenge Ancient + Brave faces is less about sustaining growth and more about the operational issues created by needing to satisfy product demand. “Because we’re subscription led, the step changes in demand mean our stock cover can quickly be reduced. Although our products typically have a long shelf life, we also have quite long lead times on some of the production. Planning and forecasting accuracy is the real challenge and the operations and logistics behind that, especially now we’re growing internationally.”

The company expanded into Germany and Spain earlier this year and will launch in the US in July. “We’ve got third-party logistics in the US and in the EU, and another third-party logistics site in the UK in addition to our own warehouse and fulfilment unit. Having the systems, processes and controls in place around that is essential,” Moore says. 

A new Priority ERP system, which went live the same day Moore started at the company, does much of the heavy lifting, but its implementation and embedding into the planning process has not been without some teething problems, he admits: “It’s not just enough to have the right amount of stock, you’ve got to have it in the right place and in the right language packaging and everything else that comes with it.”

Cutting through the data noise

Decisions must be data led, Moore says. The challenge is cutting through the noise from the vast quantities of data available to work out what the important metrics are. “Even when we’ve been outperforming our forecasts, we are vigilant over addressing any softening within customer metrics because, in a subscription business, it can become a problem.

“For example, if we’re growing subscribers, but our churn rate starts to increase, we need to work out why that is. Can we change our customer pathway to improve our retention? Similarly, if our customer acquisition cost is reducing, is that because of something else we’re doing? It’s about taking the big picture view of those micro KPIs.”

Moore’s finance team – a financial controller, a management accountant and a finance assistant – is supplemented by analysts in the digital team. “Thankfully, here not everything with a number on it is a ‘finance thing’. There are a lot of people who are data savvy and willing to dive in and own the numbers.”

External benchmarking

In addition to in-house analysis, the company uses third-party consultants to provide external benchmarking. “They don’t share competitive data of other customers with us, but they’re able to highlight where we’re outperforming the market and highlight any areas where we can focus investment to optimise performance,” Moore says. 

AI is increasingly used for spotting trends and exception analysis and Moore says that the company is exploring how it could transform other parts of the business too. “For example, are there ways that we can improve the customer service experience, so they can get answers to their questions without having to wait to speak to a human.” 

With IT falling firmly under Moore’s remit, and given the largely online nature of sales, cyber security is one of the biggest issues keeping Moore awake at night. The government-backed Cyber Essentials certification scheme is a good starting point, but defences have to constantly evolve to stay ahead of the game, Moore says. 

Cyber security

“With cyber security, a lot of the time it comes back to the people in control of the machines, rather than the systems themselves, because if someone is fooled, that’s a potential way in. Cyber security is never something that you can say is done.”

Given the reliance on external service providers, making sure that the same rigour is applied universally is essential. “Our ERP system talks directly to some of our logistics providers, so it’s another potential point of failure and risk. You need those relationships, so it’s about making sure you have the controls in place.”

Moore says that despite the pressure to fulfil demand, compromising quality is a recipe for disaster. “We only take collagen from the EU because we know it won’t have any antibiotics or hormones in it, and all of our marine collagen is MSC certified. At times, we have made fulfilling demand more challenging with additional red lines around our sourcing requirements, but that refusal to compromise on quality is part of what has made the business successful.”

Focus on customer service

Similarly, anything other than a razor-sharp focus on customer service is commercial suicide, Moore says. Always put the customer first and think like a consumer, although it’s sometimes easy to lose sight of that when you are swamped with data, he admits. “That applies to everyone in the business. As CFO, I can look at cheaper ways of doing things that would make the product more profitable. But if you disappoint the customer in one way, then suddenly you find you’ve lost them. And that can very quickly multiply.”

The company can spend more than £0.5m a month on pay-per-click advertising but incentivising customers sufficiently to get over the critical first two or three months is key. “With our products, it’s about consistent use and it can take a couple of months to see the benefits. From the third or fourth month onwards there’s less churn. Educating customers and managing expectations around overnight transformations is crucial.” 

Checks and balances

As the business finds itself running to keep up, it’s essential to put in place procedures and controls that will continue to meet the requirements of the business of tomorrow. “As the number of employees grows, decisions are taken even further away from central management. It’s making sure you’ve got the checks and balances in place to do that, but in a way that doesn’t constrain growth.”

Despite juggling the demands of his job with two young children, Moore definitely has a spring in his step. Is that down to the nutritional supplements in his morning coffee, or the latest metrics showing more customers spending more money and a reduction in customer churn? “Possibly both,” he says.