Your next 100,000 customers are already out there

In 2008 I co-founded Naked Wines with a slightly mad idea: that you could grow a drinks brand faster by partnering with businesses your customers already trust than by shouting louder than everyone else. Four years later, that approach had brought in over half a million customers.

The good news for your brand? The playbook still works, and it works just as well for a regional brewery or a mail-order cheese company as it did for a wine club. This is the first issue of The Pour, where every month I share one idea you can actually use to grow.

Stop buying customers. Start borrowing trust.

Paid ads put you in front of strangers. Partnerships put you in front of someone's existing audience: people who already opened their wallet for a brand that shares your kind of customer. A spirits brand teaming up with a premium glassware company. A coffee roaster inside a recipe box. The trust is already built; you just borrow it.

It's lower cost, higher conversion, and it compounds.

Got a growth challenge you're stuck on? Reply to any issue of The Pour and I'll read it personally, or book a 20-minute chat in my diary.