The entrepreneur behind the health food and drink company PRESS on learning how to fail.
Ed Foy is refreshingly direct: ‘From a lifestyle perspective, I think it was genuinely the most horrific four years ever’. A juice bar company originally, PRESS has since pivoted into soups and shots, soon to be meal plans. Their products can be purchased in the UK, US, and (nearly) in Ireland, both online and from around 700 different retailers.
This success is the result of a lot of hard work, both emotionally and physically, as Ed and his then business partner Georgie spent the early stages hand-pressing fresh juices from a bathtub in a Battersea railway arch. Not the glamorous vision of a startup we all have in mind; MacBooks out on industrial-style café tables, strong coffees and earnest but important phone-calls. Or is that just me?
‘In the process of doing that, I think I really got burnt down to the ground. But also it was the making of me not just as a business owner, but as a person.’
Ed clearly found these years extremely challenging and I wonder if it ever crossed his mind to pack it all in? He laughs, ‘working 19 hours a day and kind of drowning on that journey was very, very hard, but has also certainly left me much happier. Maybe because I appreciate not getting up at four am and grinding kale!’
After university and Harvard business school, arguably Ed’s success was carved out for him already, so what I find most interesting about our conversation is the importance he places on learning how to fail. And graciously. Despite the obvious accolades, he doesn’t spend his time telling me how great PRESS is, but rather what he’s learnt from its various shortcomings, both on a business model level and as a brand.
This is why, with the support of his family, he was he was able to pivot and think outside of the box he’d created for himself. His father, who headed up consumer goods at McKinsey for 20 years, and brother - a former banker turned VC mogul – said ‘what’s the worst that happens, you shut the company down. Who cares? Life is short and you’ll do something else and it’ll be great’. He is also keen for me to know the important roles his mother and sister have played. Sounds like we all need a Foy on our team, though they come as a pack.
Ed ruminates: ‘When you’re young, most of your motivation comes from the idea of ‘everyone will think I’m good and successful’. But ok, a business shuts down. How many of the world’s best businessmen do you know who’ve had a company fail? The idea of not wanting to fail at all is not necessarily a great, positive mental place to come from’.
PRESS certainly hasn’t shut down, however. It is thriving. With 40 permanent staff members, an office in Soho and a distribution centre in Greenford, Ed says he can ‘do a normal working week now’. The personalised meal plans he is finalising sound incredibly ambitious and exciting, with PRESS’s prestigious wellness council advising closely from the sidelines. Blood tests and stool samples will decide on what Macvac’d – Google it – meals the client is sent each day in their cool-bag, and there’ll be further analysis, including self-reporting on an app, to determine results.
Preventative healthcare is the buzzword(s) on the street, so I am keen to know whether Ed practices what he preaches.
‘For sure. Gym playing a big part. Aside from trying to prevent the inevitable dad-bod, it’s good for mental health’.
I feel very lazy and unhealthy all of a sudden.
Surely, though, there’s some time for bad behaviour in amongst all of this juicing and pressing and plotting? Luckily, I find a chink in the armour, albeit a small one. ‘I’ve started to work on a Saturday and try to not do anything on a Sunday. But sometimes Saturdays are way too much fun’. Phew.
Join the PRESS revolution here.
October, 2023
