About
A bloke from West Cumbria
who spent 25 years
with sharks.
Andy Lister. Marine biologist, then retail, then sales.
I am Andy Lister. I run LAUNCH!, and LAUNCH! is mostly just me.
I qualified as a marine biologist at the University of Hull and spent twenty-five years in that world. Sea Life Centres, aquariums across Europe, breeding seahorses, jellyfish and sharks. It is a job that teaches you two things very quickly. Preparation is everything, and nothing you are dealing with cares about your timeline.
Then retail. Then sales. Then a growing suspicion that the founders I liked most were the ones getting the least help.
The pattern was always the same. Someone had made something genuinely good, put everything into it, and then hit a wall made entirely of things nobody had told them. Margin structures. Category reviews. Range architecture. The sixteen ways a sell sheet can quietly tell a buyer you are not ready.
Hiring a Head of Sales fixes that. It also costs six figures before you have sold a thing, which is why most brands do not do it, and why most brands stay stuck.
So that is the gap I fill. Fractional Head of Sales, two to four days a month, for brands turning over roughly £250k to £5m.
Why the category is broad
Food, drink, sports and pet. People sometimes want me to pick one and own it, and I understand why, but it would be dishonest. The skill is retail and route to market. A buyer at a grocer and a buyer at a pet specialist are running the same process with different products in front of them.
The category changes. The job does not.
The whole journey, not a slice of it
Some founders come to me with a name and a rough idea and nothing else. That is fine. Branding, labelling and sourcing are part of the job, and Native Roots was built from exactly that starting point.
Others are already listed and need someone who can read the data, manage a key account properly, and be the person a major supermarket picks up the phone to. That is also the job.
I work across UK and European retail, so expansion beyond the UK is a conversation rather than a project.
Who I actually work with
Founders who made something good. That part was never the problem.
Praveen and Swarna. Authentic Indian cuisine, made by people who eat it.
Cherrelle and Louie. Pots for Tots started at a kitchen table.
The rest of it
Husband to Lui. Dad to Austin and Felix. The cricket is serious: Vice Chairman of Buckminster CC, and still turning out for LA Strikers. We raised around £18,000 for a new pavilion roof, which I maintain is the toughest pitch I have ever closed. Newcastle United fan, which explains a certain tolerance for disappointment.
How I work
I will tell you if the product is not ready
It is the least popular thing I do and the most valuable. A buyer will not give you a second first impression.
No deck for the sake of a deck
If a document does not change what someone does next, I have wasted a day of your money.
I do the meetings myself
You are not buying a process that a junior runs. You are buying the fact that I have sat on both sides of that table.
The goal is to become unnecessary
When you can afford a full-time Head of Sales, hire one. I will help you write the brief.