Sweet smell of success for siblings, Jay & Roopa Rawal

In 2015, siblings Jay and Roopa Rawal, founded The London Chocolate Company – a luxury confectionary brand which specialises in Prosecco and Gin & Tonic flavoured truffles – on Amazon Marketplace. Over the past 12 months, the firm has experienced 100% increase in sales and a growing appetite from consumers across Europe, USA, Canada, UAE and Japan. Since growing their business online via Amazon Marketplace, the company is now on course to make £100k this year (year three), compared to £10k in year one. Following their Amazon success and general consumer demand, The London Chocolate Company are now gearing up to launch a vegan chocolate range which includes flavours like dark chocolate and orange; chocolate truffle and coconut truffle.

Having first set up in 2006 in London, their small team of highly skilled chocolatiers has been making chocolates and tasty treats that have been sold in well-known department stores throughout the UK. In 2013, inspired by the London 2012 Olympic Games and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, they created The London Chocolate Company to provide world-class chocolates with delicious flavours starting with a well-known British classic – Strawberries and Cream.

We caught up with Jay Rawal to ask him the secrets of their success:

Business Q&A

Q1) You both had successful careers before becoming entrepreneurs, what was the defining moment for you before setting up the business?

The real defining moment for making the decision to leave the corporate world and setup the business was knowing that being self-employed would allow us the freedom to give time to our family members if they need it, particularly our mother who had been diagnosed with cancer.

Q2) How do you divide up the work between you? Which of your individual strengths work towards your particular role within the company?

That’s easy, Roopa is the creative one so she manages all the product development, the way the chocolates should taste and look, the packaging etc. I handle the business and marketing side of things, managing sales and purchases, corporate clients and advertising.

Q3) What’s the best thing about working with your sibling?

You’re working with someone you can trust 100%. There’s no fake facade or political correctness, you can get straight to the point so if one of us feels something isn’t working we can give our honest opinion. Also, you know each other’s strengths and weaknesses inside out so when a new project comes along you immediately know who is going handle which part.

Q4) What’s the worst thing about working with your sibling?

You’re always ‘taking shop’ so even if we’re out for evening with friends or family and we get a moment, we’ll start talking about what our next product is or how we can improve customer experience etc.

Funding Circle helps the business grow

Q5) What has been the most difficult aspect of becoming a successful company?

Cash flow – even when we’ve been confident about our future sales and thus needing to buy in raw materials in much larger quantity, we’ve found it increasingly difficult to convince banks to provide finance to help grow the business. In contrast, when we approached Funding Circle they approved our finance request within a few days. Not having the right amount of cash flow can significant slow the growth of a business, you will get to where you want to – it will just take much longer.

Q6) How do you both keep up with your industry and the changing nature of the sector you are in?

The internet has made keeping up with industry news much easier – from specialist trade websites to google alerts and even social conversations (Facebook, Instagram etc.) it’s easier than ever to get the information you need about your industry.

Q7) Given the obesity is one key issues of the moment, how do you intend to counter the demand from politicians for manufacturers to reduce the sugar content of their foods?

We agree that obesity is an issue that needs to be addressed and should be taken very seriously, rather than challenge politicians, we should work with them to find a way to educate consumers particularly about ‘hidden sugars’. When you’re eating a chocolate truffle you’re somewhat aware that you’re eating something with sugar, but how about when you’re eating breakfast cereals, sauces or smoothies?

Amazon Marketplace helps achieve sales

Q8) What has been the most exciting project or initiative that you’ve been involved with through the business?

One of the most exciting things we have done is to launch our products on the Amazon Marketplace, it’s helped us achieve rapid sales growth that simply wouldn’t have been possible if we had continued with traditional approaches to growing our business.

Q9) What is the most important aspect of your business or your life that you adhere to?

Helping others – helping our family, friends or even strangers are values that our parents taught us, we believe these values also transition into our products somewhat as we see our products as a gift first rather than chocolate for self consumption. We pay particular attention to the look, taste and feel of the product so that when someone receives a box of the chocolates it really brightens their day.

Q10) Did you have a mentor before you started the business? If yes, what was the best piece of advice they gave you. If no, who is an inspiration for you in difficult times.

Not so much of a mentor in business but definitely a mentor in life – my grandfather. I was fortunate enough to grow up in the same house as my grandfather and learned about how his parents passed away when he was just a child and how without any family he was able to create a better future for his own children and grandchildren. It really keeps you grounded when you’re able to understand the hardship he endured and his vision and persistence to create a much better life for future generations of The Rawal family.

Best piece of advice? Just start! says Jay Rawal

Q11) What advice would you given younger entrepreneurs looking to set out in the same way that you both have done?

Just start – often people hesitate because they believe their idea has to be perfect before they get it out to the world and this belief stops them from starting in the first place. Launch and keep evolving.

Q12) What are your plans for the business in the next 3 – 5 years?

Aside from launching some new flavours, we’re looking at international growth in the next few years and now that we’re on-board with Amazon we think international sales will be much easier than if we were to do it alone.

Ideas that drive us:

#1. Keep making things better – we’ve been on amazing journey so far, creating chocolates with seriously fun flavour combinations, it would be so easy for us to say we’ve done it all but we never stop learning. We remember the look on people’s faces when we told them we’re creating a Gin & Tonic truffle (even we weren’t too sure we could do it at the time!) but three months later we did it.

#2. No X Factor – for us it’s about the “WOW” factor – seriously, until we get to a stage in our development kitchen where we all say “wow” we keep going.

#3. The Gift of Giving – we always like to think that our final product will be given as a present (even if it’s to you!) so from the outset we create our products as gifts, thinking about the aroma and look of the chocolates and if we can make our packaging more beautiful without being harsh to the environment.

The London Chocolate company can be found on Amazon Marketplace