How do you come from being a gas man and a brickie to starting an online vegan business?

So how did they come from being tradesmen to wanting to start an online business? Both Jake and James were passionate about Veganism. They originally came to us with the idea of a brand name “Absolutely Vegan”, which is a pretty good brand name. The trouble is, when we looked into it, we discovered one of the major players in the market has a sub brand called Absolutely Vegan. Competing against them for search engine real estate would be a nightmare. Not to mention the possible confusion for clients, and the potential for a lawsuit as a worst case scenario.

We decided to go through a branding exercise with them. By the end of the exercise we had not only decided to change the brand name to Plant Based Planet, but we had also explored the difficulty of entering the Vegan marketplace. A new strategy arose. We would target those who were just starting their journey into Veganism, and we would start by making it easy for them to change with just one small step. Our new idea? They didn’t have to be so hardcore as to become fully Vegan. As we found out from the boys, and our research, Veganism was more than just a diet, it was a way of life. Even Advocado’s were not vegan as they were transported miles and used lot’s of water to make them for the Europeans. For most people that was just too much as a starting point. What could be achieved however, was swapping out your treats for plant based alternatives. There really was no need for gelatine to be included sweets. New methods had found ways to create pick and mix without them. Not only that, there were hundreds of treats that could be provided, all of which were plant based. And that’s where we came up with the new brand name Plant Base Planet, and boy we loved the logo, with the carrot rocket, the broccoli exhaust and the globe. All in slightly off colours as to be more unique.

Then we move onto the ecommerce section. Plant Based Planet would not only sell one off products, but they would also sell subscription boxes. This would give them a recurring revenue model leaving them able to predict sales and build steadily. The website was totally bespoke with tonnes of bespoke coding and functionality. And lot’s of training was given to the boys so they were truly in control of their own business. Furthermore, they had access to all of the stats they needed via an ecommerce configured Google Analytics.