Make the Unfamiliar Matter: UNROOTED

In this live episode of Virgin StartUp Changemakers, Natalie Pearce sits down with UNROOTED founder Nathan Clemes to explore how you build demand for a product when most of your customers have never heard of its hero ingredient. From leaving a career in finance to building a functional drinks brand around baobab, Nathan shares how UNROOTED turned an unfamiliar African fruit into a proposition customers and retailers could understand. He explores finding what makes your product genuinely distinctive, educating without overwhelming people, starting with smaller stockists before approaching major retailers and why even the most compelling founder story sometimes needs to be distilled into just a few words. Whether you're introducing a new product, creating a category or trying to convince customers to care about something unfamiliar, this episode offers practical founder lessons on positioning, customer education, retail growth and turning a complex story into a clear proposition. In this episode: Knowing when you're ready to leave your career and back a startup idea Finding the opportunity between growing consumer trends Why UNROOTED chose baobab as its hero ingredient Identifying what makes your product genuinely different Educating customers about an ingredient they've never encountered before Finding the right hook when your product has dozens of potential benefits Why smaller retailers can be the best place to test and learn Building evidence of customer demand before approaching major stockists Launching a consumer brand just as Covid disrupted the original plan Adapting from a retail-first launch to ecommerce and Amazon Growing from early stockists into Sainsbury's and airline partnerships Building positive impact into the baobab supply chain Why founders need to turn a big story into one message customers can remember Changemakers is brought to you by Virgin StartUp, the not-for-profit organisation helping founders start and scale the businesses they're passionate about. Recorded live at Virgin StartUp's Changemakers events, every episode features honest conversations with entrepreneurs, founders and business leaders sharing the lessons, challenges and ideas shaping the future of business. Looking to start or grow your own business? Find out more at virginstartup.org Brought to you in partnership with our friends at Virgin Money - the home of brighter business banking.