Bruce Whitfield | What failing municipalities cost business. Plus: What is Nawty Water?

In 500 retail outlets nationwide, that is often even harder than coming up with the idea and getting production going and getting a distribution network going is getting it onto shelf. How did you crack the shelf conundrum? That is the biggest question for people starting out because they see 500 and they think, yes, that sounds impossible. But my hack to it all is starting with one. And we got into one store and we ran one store like it was our be all and end all.

We took the numbers that we did with one store and we showed the second one. And we took those numbers and we showed the 10th. And we set ourselves a little bit of a cap in the beginning of 50 stores in one province. We got distracted a few times by a second province and then we said, no, let's bring it back. We ran 50 stores like it was everything. And I think when you prove to yourself that you can run 50, a lot of people think that the 500th is going to somehow build the brand. But if you can't,

Build the brand and run the business with 50, you're never going to make it work in 500. So I think everyone just needs to realize that the smaller you start and the more you can make it run at that small level, the quicker you are going to get to that 500. You know, persistence, obsession, and focus, I think three key points in a lovely story of two schoolmates getting together more than a decade after they finished school and building something called Naughty Water, N-A-W-T-Y Water.