Oliver Bruce
Andy Shovel Not Every Business Has Takeoff like THIS For Self Proclaimed ‘Uncool’ Entrepreneur
In this live on location recording, Oliver caught up with Andy Shovel co-founder of vegan food brand THIS at their London HQ.
A born entrepreneur Andy’s hit the headlines recently for his slightly ‘out there’ marketing stunts, one of which included a life size naked statue of Piers Morgan in Leicester Square with his ‘THIS’ product housed around Piers’ nether regions… That said, the self proclaimed ‘un-cool’ entrepreneur that is Andy, co-created his first business with a group of mates whilst at University. Ironically quite a ‘cool’ clubbing night called ‘cash throw events’ and yes the clue is in the name, it didn’t take off financially but opened Andy’s eyes to the possible.
From University to founding a recruitment business which he later exited through to finance, insurance and everything in between Andy has built and sold multiple businesses.
Not all of Andy’s business ideas however have succeeded. One such flop was ‘Equity Fish’, a business similar to what Crowdcube is today. Andy left this idea behind after being “outgunned by the legal system” - It didn’t stop there however, Andy also ventured into advertising on escalator handles however, that too also didn’t work…
Relentless and not knowing when to stop, Andy has since learnt, thankfully, when to say ‘no’. Clearly however, and contrary to that, he said ‘yes’ at exactly the right time when launching THIS, his most recent business.
Having overfunded on multiple occasions and recently rolled out vegan THIS sandwiches into WHSmith and other high street stores, Andy’s vision of a mass market vegan brand is coming to fruition as their current market value is circa £75million.
