Latest news with #JamesGin
Entrepreneur
25-06-2025
- Business
- Entrepreneur
YouTube, Gin, and the Power of a Spreadsheet
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. You're reading Entrepreneur United Kingdom, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media. Few CEOs could claim their core growth strategy includes an on-camera personality who regularly urges viewers not to like, comment or subscribe. But for Vishap Patel, CEO of James Gin, that counterintuitive tactic appears to be working just fine. "A year ago we didn't have a YouTube channel," Patel reflects. "Then we launched James May's Planet Gin. To date we've attracted over 600,000 subscribers (despite insisting that people should not like, comment or subscribe) and we're now releasing new video content on a weekly basis." This push into content hasn't just built an audience - it's built margin. "We're also extremely active on all social channels with around 2m views per month on Instagram and 3.3m likes on TikTok. From a business perspective, we think this is a fairly unique way to promote a spirits brand - particularly as the YouTube advertising revenue makes it more or less cost neutral." It's an unorthodox marketing plan for a gin company - but Patel, who joined as CEO six months ago, hasn't come to preserve tradition. One of his first moves was to bring a dose of operational rigour to a business founded, in his words, by "people who have an allergic reaction to Excel spreadsheets." "I joined the business as CEO 6 months ago and the first thing I did was create a business plan and budget for 2025," he says. "Who knew, having a strategy, plan and structure in place could lead to faster organic growth?" In Patel's world, planning doesn't quash creativity - it frees it. "There's still room for creativity and flexibility in the best laid plans, but we now have a clear direction of travel at the company which allows the team to be more clearly focused." Perhaps the most striking shift in his thinking, however, has been around venture capital. Where many founders see funding rounds as a rite of passage, Patel has become wary. "That fundraising is a necessity for any founder," he says - "that's the belief I've changed my mind on." In his view, it stems from "a misconstrued belief that a start-up is generally loss-making by default, with a 'grow at all costs' mentality in the beginning which doesn't actually set the business up for long-term success." The James Gin approach is different: deliberate growth, positive cashflow, and full control. "A smaller, more focused start can lead to better proof of concept and identification of a low-cost and scalable marketing model. Fundraising sucks up so much of a founder's time and energy. Running the business profitably... allows you to retain control of the business, its trajectory and ultimate value." Not all capital, he concedes, is bad. "But I'm now clear that you should raise funds to actually grow your business quicker once you have identified clear growth drivers, rather than fundraise to keep the lights on." That humility - and strategic patience - may explain why Patel sees curiosity as a founder's most underrated strength. "I'm committed to getting things right and if I don't know the answer, I'm not afraid to ask. This business was founded by people who are experts in fields that are way outside my experience and I'm constantly learning new things - as, I believe, they are from me." He's also quick to highlight the virtue of failure, and Britain's need to reframe it. "To learn more from our friends across the pond," he says, is the task ahead. "To embrace failure, and see it as a learning opportunity and not a negative." "Most successful founders fail two or three times before making it stick. The wunderkid who skipped school and became a millionaire by 20 - they are the anomaly, not the rule." His vision for the next decade? A more experienced, more resilient start-up ecosystem: "More experienced, fearless founders in the UK, committed to building profitable and sustainable businesses will build a more robust and resilient startup ecosystem that can remain attractive for investment even in the face of macroeconomic uncertainty." It's a future built not just on risk and ambition - but, occasionally, on a well-formatted spreadsheet.
Yahoo
02-06-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
At $1,900, Could This 2011 Nissan Have You Turning Over An Old Leaf?
Today's Nice Price or No Dice Nissan Leaf never had great range due to its relatively small battery, and issues with this one's battery have cut that number to what the seller says is "around town" miles. Could that still make this electric a viable contender? James May recently made a couple of trips to Southern California to support awareness of his namesake booze, James Gin. Documenting these adventures has been Lucy Brown, the head of the Gin maker's marketing arm and famous cheese-avoider. On multiple occasions in their videos, both James and Lucy have commented on the massive portion sizes of meals in the U.S. In fact, both have noted that everything seems bigger here, and that is typically true. Consider the 1986 Ford F-350 Crew Cab Dually pickup we discussed last Friday. With its for-doors, long bed, and extra-wide booty, it's bigger and more roomy than James' pub. The only thing that could be considered not-so-grand on that Ford was its $8,000 asking price. That earned the big truck an expansive 84% Nice Price win. Read more: 2025 Cadillac Escalade IQ Is All About Big Numbers Last Friday's F-350 may have been large and in charge, but today's 2011 Nissan Leaf can only claim half that statement. With its 110-horsepower AC electric motor and 24.15 kWh lithium-ion battery pack under the floor, this Nissan is small and fully in need of charge when its electrons are expended. Nissan introduced the Leaf in late 2010 for the 2011 model year, earning the car the distinction of being the first mass-produced battery electric vehicle (BEV) on the market. Many other manufacturers followed with electric versions of existing internal combustion engine cars, all in an effort to meet California's 2011 zero-emission mandate. Nissan was the only major carmaker to introduce a ground-up electric to achieve compliance. The introduction of the long-range Tesla Model 3 two years later made all of these "compliance cars" feel out of date, and of them, only the Leaf survives in production to this day, gaining range with bigger batteries and going more mainstream with less weird styling. When new, this first-year Leaf could go somewhere between 80 and 100 miles between plug-in sessions, which is not particularly great by today's standards. Being an early electric, its charging speeds were pretty pathetic as well, requiring overnight sessions even on 220-volt power. According to the seller, a battery issue has compromised this Leaf's range even further, with it now pooping out at "about 41 miles." It's quite amusing that they claim the range to be "about 41 miles" rather than just "40 miles." That extra mile is really the cherry on the top, I guess. The ad doesn't go into detail regarding what has gone wrong with the car that is causing the range to be cut in half, but the culprit is likely the battery pack. Used packs are available for these cars, but, like buying a used engine for transplant into an ICE car, that's a roll of the dice that might end up in the same place but around $2,501 poorer. Perhaps it would be better to leave the Leaf as is and use it, as the seller suggests, "around town." According to the ad, the car is in "Excellent" condition other than the constrained range, having done a mere 78,310 miles. Nissan built the Leaf to a price, meaning that some of the interior components are somewhat chintzy, but it does have a lot of comfort and convenience features like power windows and locks and a CD stereo. It also features some pretty cool blue lights inside, which, when it was new, was a common feature among many electric cars. The exterior, in dark metallic red, looks to be in solid shape, although the expired HOV lane stickers on the corners are a blight. There's no word on the age of the tires, but they don't appear bald or anything in the pictures. The interior is also clean and seemingly well-maintained. This is a one-owner car and comes with a clean title. The asking price is $1,900. That gets you a comfortable and cheap-to-run car whose only constraint is that it has the battery capacity of an old man's bladder. For someone with a short commute to work or who just needs to get to the local grocery store once or twice a week, this could be the perfect ride. Alternatively, it could be a fun project to buy and fix with a replacement battery reinstating the lost range. What do you think about this opportunity and that $1,900 price? Does that feel like a great deal to get into the electric car space and save some money on short commutes? Or do this Nissan's problems mean it's a Leaf that's better left alone? You decide! Nice Price or No Dice: San Francisco Bay Area, California, Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears. Help me out with NPOND. Hit me up at robemslie@ and send me a fixed-price tip. Remember to include your commenter handle. Want more like this? Join the Jalopnik newsletter to get the latest auto news sent straight to your inbox... Read the original article on Jalopnik.
