19 July 2025

By Joe Wilde

Joe Wilde is co-founder of Unspun, a premium CBD brand focused on edibles and customer education. Previously, he spent over a decade in management consulting at Accenture and DXC, working with global companies on business and technology strategy.

After 8 years in San Francisco, it was time to come home and start my own company. We chose CBD because we felt we had an unfair advantage – having lived in California’s mature cannabis market, we could see the UK’s nascent CBD market was messy. We felt we could do better, so we started Unspun.

For those unfamiliar, CBD is a natural compound from hemp plants that can help with sleep and stress. It’s not the part that gets you high.

Friends were skeptical about leaving a senior consultancy role, but two years later Unspun is growing 20% month-on-month.

One thing I realised I needed was a community of people trying to build things – something I’d taken for granted in SF. That’s why I joined the MSc in Entrepreneurship at Staffordshire University and why I’m sharing these lessons.

Here are five hard-won lessons that students and aspiring entrepreneurs can apply to any competitive market.

Lesson 1: Customer Research Trumps Assumptions (Especially Your Own)

We launched thinking we’d go super playful – that’s what worked in the US. But UK customers wanted trust, not fun, due to lingering social stigma.

Even then, we got our audience wrong. We assumed our customers would be the sandwich generation (people caring for both kids and aging parents), but when we spoke to actual customers, the youngest was 48.

Your first customer research is just the beginning. Customers will surprise you – keep listening.

Lesson 2: Simplicity Wins in Confusing Markets

Competitors like Orange County have over 250 SKUs. We have 5. Decision fatigue came up repeatedly in our customer research – in a market where people are already confused about CBD, endless product variations just make it worse. Our focused approach means customers spend less time choosing and more time trusting.

When everyone else is adding complexity, there’s often opportunity in subtraction.

Lesson 3: The Product Really Matters

California taught me edibles dominate while oils are niche. But the UK market wasn’t ready, so we started with oils alongside drinks like Trip and Good Rays, knowing chocolate was our real opportunity.

As a small company, we can’t compete on price, so we compete on quality. Cold-pressed CBD in our gummies, Colombian cocoa in our chocolate – not just CBD products, but products that happen to contain CBD. Every premium decision costs more upfront, but customers notice.

Lesson 4: Build Trust Before Transactions

In a market where trust is everything, we realized we needed to educate before we could sell. That’s why we partnered with Ruby Deevoy, the UK’s most credible cannabis journalist.

Education-first marketing works. Our most popular piece is about whether CBD shows up in workplace drug tests – it’s not selling anything, but it answers a real concern people have.

Lead with value, not sales pitches. Answer the questions keeping your customers awake at night, and they’ll remember you when they’re ready to buy.

Lesson 5: Do Things That Don’t Scale (It Feels Counter-Intuitive)

As a small company, we can’t outspend competitors, so we focus on customer experience. We use Klaviyo for automated email flows, but we also do things that don’t scale – like spending time on phone calls discussing customers’ questions in detail.

It works. Our return rate is 50% vs 22% industry average. We include handwritten notes in every package and resolve issues immediately.

Lean doesn’t mean cheap – it means efficient. Build systems that feel personal even as you scale.

The Bottom Line for Student Entrepreneurs

First, talk to your potential customers. Are you solving a real problem? Read The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick to learn how to ask better questions – it’ll save you months of building something nobody wants.

Second, start with a hypothesis, test it, iterate. You can think about a problem forever, but there’s no point in building a perfect fictitious business.

Finally, be realistic about why you’re doing this. I’d still earn more in consultancy – don’t think of entrepreneurship as the easy way out. Do it because you have a burning desire to build something.