A valuable lesson from a trip to Richard Branson’s island

“Now,” said Sir Richard Branson, “who wants to jump overboard and swim the last 200 metres?” Plunging into the sea didn’t wake me up – this wasn’t a dream. I really was swimming up to Necker Island alongside one of the world’s most recognisable entrepreneurs.

How did all this happen? Well, recently I was lucky enough to be invited to Necker by the folks at Virgin (back in the day Dash was part of the Virgin StartUp accelerator) to do a talk. It was a fantastic experience with many memorable moments – including meeting inspirational people and working together on shared challenges.

I felt a little bit in awe of all these inspirational leaders. I decided that aside from my own contributions, the best thing I could do was watch, listen and learn. I’m glad I did. There were some excellent insights on offer, and one of the key lessons Richard shared with me when on a walk stuck with me: “Other people will try to stop you scaling Dash. Don’t be afraid.”

This struck a chord. When you’re leading a brand, there are so many barriers to growth that at times it can feel impossible. But some of Dash’s most memorable successes have come when we stopped focusing on external factors.

During Covid, we received some business advice – sound advice – to embrace the government furlough scheme and put our growth on hold. At the time, two-thirds of our revenue was through the out-of-home channel, and this had gone into hibernation overnight. We did the opposite, taking advantage of new growth channels. We pivoted everything to online digital marketing. And 12 months later, we’d grown total business sales by 110% from pre-Covid levels.

Meanwhile, over the years, we’ve had discouragement – some gentle, some not so gentle – from large established brands in the drinks industry who don’t like what we’re doing. We weren’t discouraged, and now we’re a global operation exporting all around the world.

But no one else can stop you succeeding. They might try, but if you can stick to your mission, stay true to your values, and have faith in your product, you can overcome almost anything. The flip side is that no one can succeed for you, either. You’ll only win by staying in the game.

The next time you’re worried that someone is standing in the way of your growth, think again.