The 125-Million-Meal Movement: Saasha Celestial-One on Co-Founding Olio, the App That Lets You Share Food and Stuff You Don’t Need

Arthur: Sasha, it's such a pleasure to have you on a co-founder of Audio a business that is hugely part of the shared economy. Not many people have created an app with over 9 million people who have used who are part of your ecosystem. What a journey that must have been.

What's it given you?

Saasha: Gosh, it's been a long journey. It's been 10 years, so they didn't all arrive at once. But I think what it's given me is just a real sense of connection to all of the peoples who benefit from Moo. 'cause really what we're doing is helping rescue and redistribute edible surplus food at scale.

And that's feeding hundreds of thousands of families all across the UK and beyond. People who genuinely are saving money. Who are feeling more connected to their neighbors. It may be perhaps because they're volunteering for Lio 'cause we're volunteer led. And yeah, I think it's just reminded me that no action is too small to make a difference.

And sometimes when you're facing [00:01:00] existential overwhelm looking at the bigger picture, it can be really grounding and inspiring to think about that one meal, that one person, that one family and feel really connected at the most human level.

Arthur: Yeah. 'cause quite often when people, have an idea they want to help, it, it's almost overwhelming as you say. But just the concept of doing one small thing really does move the needle. Often on journeys it can be hard to somewhat. Take a moment to reflect and be like, wow, I can't believe we're at this point in time.

Is there a moment for you that kind of makes you realize how big an impact you've had?

Saasha: The moment that springs to mind is when we flipped in the app store, the permissions we we en enabled people to then use it anywhere. And like within 24 hours, six people had signed up in Seattle. Someone had shared a Lemon Tart and someone else had requested it, and that was just, I was with my co-founder at a conference and we were like, oh [00:02:00] my God, this could just work anywhere, right?

Like we've built something that is self-sustaining and it can enable people to share things of value that they no longer want with each other. So the it felt infinite, right? We said, okay, we're gonna set a goal. This is way back in 2017. We said, we're gonna get a billion people to, to use LIO to share our most precious resources so they don't go to a waste by the end of the decade.

And we've, we have had to backtrack from that goal because actually it's really a lot harder. It's not as easy as it sounds but. I still really believe that people everywhere is a universal characteristic that we don't like to let things of value go to waste. That's very counterintuitive. It's not how we evolved successfully as a species.

And equally it feels really good to give something of value to another person. That's why we love cooking for people that we care about, for example. So I still really believe in the sort of infinite possibility of unlocking that sharing potential. And that one example in [00:03:00] Barcelona was when I just thought, gosh, this could work anywhere.

Arthur: awareness seems like a big part of. Big part of the challenge, when people just, once they discover you, then they know that, their kettle isn't, isn't gonna go to waste, et cetera, et cetera. How do you see the shared economy versus where it is now in terms of where it could be?

What does that future look like and what are barriers that one can focus to, to overcome? And create those opportunities.

Saasha: I think the biggest barrier is just indifference, like awareness isn't enough. We might have 9 million people who have downloaded the app, but. Not every one of them has then had the enlightened moment where they realize they're not gonna eat something that's in their fridge or they've got stuff that's gathering dust.

And why not take literally 10 seconds and put it on the app? If they do, someone will request it like 90% of the time and come pick it up pretty much regardless of where you are in the world. But that it's the it's the [00:04:00] effort required to take responsibility for the things that you own and. Without getting too deep like that sort of, for the most people, especially people who, for whom money isn't an issue there's a real sense of indifference to the things, their po to possessions.

And there's not this sort of deep sense of responsibility that we should have to, when you think about what went into making that resource and, just all of the what that resource, embodies, right? And if it's being wasted, like feeling personal responsibility for making sure that's, that doesn't happen, that value can be unlocked.

The sharing economy is all about unlocking shared value or sharing value. Now, the higher the value. That can be unlocked through sharing, through asset sharing, the greater the economic incentive for participation. So Airbnb and Uber, the way it works, for example in the US where people genuine, regular, everyday people use their car to give Lyfts to other people.

Those are high value [00:05:00] transactions, right? You can make a lot of money listing your flat on Airbnb when you're not there. Sharing your car, at least right? The problem is and so those have been the most successful, but when the asset value is three or four lemons or half a fruit, a fruit bowl that you're not gonna eat 'cause you're traveling next week.

If you are the person that's got for whom buying food isn't a consideration, you've got enough to eat, you don't place a lot of value on that. And the incentive then needs to be intrinsic. And that comes back to the point at the beginning, which is the barrier, which is indifferent. So it's, there's not a quick fix.

There's enormous value in the food that we let go to waste, right? One kilo of food sent to landfills, the equivalent of sending 25,000 plastic water bottles to landfill. From a carbon perspective, food is an enormous place. I could go on and on about this, but just one fact, which is Project Drawdown, which is a really well known sort of collaboration of hundreds of the world's leading climate scientists.

[00:06:00] Repeatedly as identified. Food waste is the number one thing humanity could do to help mitigate the climate crisis. It plays an enormous outsized role and it's completely solvable. Anyway, off, off of that the point is that it's easy. It's has a big impact, but motivating everyday people and also most people think that the problem's, not them, right?

70% of food waste that's edible takes place in our homes. It's that bag of spinach that you didn't use because you ordered takeout, right? It's, it just all adds up because there's so many people, it's not at the retail level. The retail is a tiny percentage. People think it's supermarkets. People think it's plate waste at restaurants.

It's not. It's individuals and their home. So there's just a big disconnect between personal responsibility, indifference, people not understanding that 11.4 million people in this country don't have enough food to eat. 4 million of them are children that if they add that bag of spinach, maybe the children won't eat that, but someone will, they add that bag of spinach within minutes, someone will come around to their house and [00:07:00] pick it up and be eternally grateful.

So I don't know what to do about it. I've been banging my head against the wall for 10 years. Something that is really helpful in terms of raising awareness and also encouraging mainstream adoption is the media. Like obviously what we're doing is incredibly heartwarming. We're connecting strangers to give.

To give food to each other so it doesn't go to waste feeding people. So there's a lot of really beautiful case studies and testimonials and stories and friendships and everything you could possibly imagine coming out of it. And the media love it. So we get loads of press. We're gonna be on good morning in about 40 minutes which I'm sure will drive, tens of thousands of people to download the app.

So yeah, we've had 9 million people download the app. Probably 80% of them have come 'cause some from 'cause from Earned Media or because someone's referred a friend. So we'll get there.

Arthur: And could councils be, putting on, I know that in, in London, if you've got leftover food, you, you have food baskets where you put in your food waste. Could they be promoting you? Seems who,

Saasha: promoting us, wait. Councils [00:08:00] promote us. The king promotes us. The government promotes us. It's not lack of awareness, it's people taking responsibility for their possessions, including food, and feeling a personal responsibility to ensure that those resources don't go to waste.

It's mainstream consumer behavior change. It's very hard.

Arthur: Working with suppliers, is that an opportunity for you?

Saasha: Yes. So that is what we have. So whilst we started oleo to connect neighbors to redistribute or to, sorry, to give away specifically food that people didn't want. 'cause that's the massive problem. That's actually probably only about 5% of the activity on the app, 15% of the activities, what we call non-food.

We've had 15 million household items given away. It could be a bunk bed, it could be a, it could be a bassinet, like whatever household items. And you can also buy and sell household items. My, my son's been clearing out his Legos. He is made nice little. Nice little fund, from selling Legos onto neighbors.

And you can lend and borrow [00:09:00] household items. And then the remaining 80% is it's food, but it's through our Food Waste Heroes program. And that's whereby we recruit from our community and we put through a food safety training. We've got over a hundred thousand food waste hero volunteers. And once they become eligible, they've completed their training.

We match them with businesses that have food that they're throwing away at the end of the day, every day. We have 8,000 collections from supermarkets, hospitals, offices sports stadiums, anywhere you can imagine. We do 8,000 collections a day. And people go, they pick up the food, they bring it straight home, and they add it to the app in the same way they would if they were giving away something that was a personal possession.

But they have to do it, following food safety rules. So they can't add things like after the use by date, for example. They have to follow our rules. They add it to the app and then it sends alerts to people nearby and people pop around and pick up that food literally within 10, 20 minutes. So it's a business donating surplus food to a volunteer who redistributes that to their neighbors for free from their [00:10:00] home.

And that's how we've crossed that 125 million meals donated. Half of that has come from Tesco alone, which is our first national partner. We collect from 3,314 stores. And just the food that's been donated from Tesco through Oleo has benefited 330,000 different unique households here in the uk. Not even including Ireland's different, but we do collect from Tesco and Ireland.

There is an insane amount of surplus food. If you come back to what I said earlier, which is less than 5% of edible surplus food takes place at the bus, at the retail level, and we're already doing millions of meals. You can only imagine how much food there is in our own homes. That is just going to waste.

Literally next door we have people who are going without. And another thing that's incredibly important to remember is that those people who are going without, they don't wanna walk around waving a sign like, Hey, I'm struggling. There's a lot of psychology that goes into people resisting wanting to get, act, be seen as.

Accessing charitable handouts. So we always lead with environment and [00:11:00] community as our primary messaging. We never like we are not we're not trying to directly tackle hunger in our messaging because people will self-select out of that process if they feel like either they're not hungry enough and they shouldn't go and pick up that food.

And by the way, there's more than enough food to feed every hungry person multiple times over. So it is a problem that's so big. We need everyone to participate. We lead with community. We lead with trying to, just stopping waste. Everyone knows waste is bad, the environment, and then a big secondary impact is that we can, with dignity, get free nutritious food to people who might be struggling to feed themselves and their families.

Arthur: And revenue for the business. Are there partnerships that you have that mean that you can make a cart if someone ends up going, you need to become a customer of another business? How?

Saasha: All the businesses that we collect from, that we're providing a service, right? They would have to pay for that food to be disposed of otherwise. Plus, we're giving them loads of reputational CSR benefits. Like that Tesco contract is a big meaty contract. We've got lots of [00:12:00] people who make sure that contract is fulfilled properly.

We're a team of 60 people. We're a for-profit company. So yes, so we monetize by providing a service that's paid for to businesses to help them get as close to possible, get as close as possible with zero edible food waste. And we do survey customers, and of course customers are users are more they have a positive, they're positively inclined to shop at the businesses that are donating food, et cetera, et cetera. So there's a bit of a marketing. We are, we're also, we've got a newsletter that goes to one and a half million people every month. So we also do brand sponsorships like marketing sponsorships, affiliate revenue.

We've got freemium version in the app. We have advertising in the app. We're not profitable yet. We could be if we wanted to cut to profitability, but our burns like low and manageable and we've raised enough capital. We've got many years of runway. And obviously what we're motivated by is impact.

And to have impact, you need to grow. And we still need to get probably another, just like the next level up in order for our scale to cover our fixed [00:13:00] overheads so that we're operating in the black. Red's bad. Operating in the black, operating in Plaza. Yeah. We'll get there.

Arthur: Has there been, hear, hearing you talk about ra, raising money over the years. Tell us about that conviction because it's hard when you are, pre-product and at different points in this journey. I'm sure so many ups and downs.

What, tell us a about the moments where people have really injected conviction to you. How, and then also just a bit about your own conviction with the team around this whole space.

Saasha: We were bootstrapped for about nine months. Tess and I each put in some a not insignificant part of our savings. And we used that to build the MVP of the app and also the developing agency that made the MVP got paid half an equity, half in cash. They've made a lot of money on that initial investment.

And so we built, we brought [00:14:00] the product to market on our own. And that our first, so Excel, I don't know if Excel, they're a leading Silicon Valley vc and they very rarely invested the sort of pre-seed level, but they wrote our they wrote our first check and they were our first investor and we got very lucky there.

And actually we didn't get lucky. The reason we were able to get, they had the conviction to invest in us. To answer your question has to do with the size of the problem, the size of the solution space. I think it's $1.2 trillion worth of food goes to waste every year. This, if you think about market opportunity, market size, this is massive.

It's a huge inefficiency, right? And solutions that are tackling massive inefficiencies, especially marketplace solutions like us are gonna take. They're gonna capture a share of the value that, of the efficiency value they're able to deliver. And even a tiny share of 1.2 trillion is a lot of money.[00:15:00]

So from a commercial perspective, going after such a big problem is very attractive to investors. We're not trying to solve something. It's really niche, right? It's huge. And also what happened in that initial meeting is someone, someone opened, no, sorry. There were two partners. One of the partners opened the app and he saw that someone had added a lemon, one lemon, and they'd written like two paragraphs about this lemon, like one lemon, bought six days ago, like still probably fairly juicy.

You could also use the rind for this. Like it just gone on and on writing about a lemon and the guy who's definitely not someone who it cooks or like really thinks about food or food waste in the home, that kind of thing, he was just. If someone, he just saw that there was this outsized emotional value that had been attached to this piece of food and he recognized that when it comes to food, actually, and this is contradicting what I said earlier about the sharing economy but it's one of the reasons Ole Works.

People don't just look at that bowl, [00:16:00] that lemon and think that 49 p or whatever it was. They there, there is an emotional attachment to food. If so, we have a lot of us become indifferent to it, which is why we don't think twice when we waste food, but if we could, but it's there and if we could rediscover that emotional attachment, then it provides the currency and the incentive to facilitate the liquidity that you need in a marketplace for supply and demand to be matched.

So the combination of the market size. And the value that humans, if they look closely enough, feel emotional value when they put on food. Those two things were the just overwhelming initial conviction levers or dec decision. What that led to the decision for the first investment. And I think on top of that, Tessa and I, my co-founder and I, we came to Oleo quite late.

Between us, we have over 30 years of experience at I was at McKenzie Morgan Stanley. My CV is, because I had came from quite a chaotic and not financially secure upbringing, like my sort of former rebellion was to get [00:17:00] like a really bulletproof cv, so I'd always be employable. So we just had a lot of I think we were quite strong founders and so people felt like we were a safe pair of Hans and with in whom to invest in solving this really big challenging problem.

My personal conviction. It is different. My, my personal I could, I'm not quite sure how to answer that without it's probably better over a glass of wine. I could go on and on when it comes to that one.

Arthur: you must feel quite fortunate given that you are working on something that is so purpose-based and it's really working. And you've of course worked tremendously hard. You meet people today who are looking for that fit with what they're good at and what they enjoy what things you try to pass on to, to, to them.

Saasha: Understanding where you get your energy from is really important. So if you don't, sure, when you're doing something that you enjoy and you might need to try lots and lots of different things in order to discover [00:18:00] this, but.

Like when you have that sense of anticipation, when things don't feel like a chore when you wake up at five in the morning bouncing outta bed. 'cause you can't wait to start working on something that you feel that connection to that is just, that's like falling in love, right? It's a really rare thing and if you're observe that energetic energetically, then you've, that's when you know that you've identified something that will give you, 'cause you need that energy to persist when.

Things are shit, right? Because they will inevitably be times where you get knocked back and you lose. You have to question why you're doing this and if it's worth all the blood, sweat, and tears. And so you need that energy to sustain you through those down periods, and you try and harness it and capture it when you're in the up, up period.

And one thing I have learned is that it's definitely not just something people say, it is a roller coaster trying to build something from scratch. So my advice would be to don't do anything [00:19:00] until you found that feeling. And again, I guess to the dating analogy, don't get married, don't like, don't settle.

Try and find the butterflies. 'cause like life's too short to. To not have that. Now that said, I was really perfectly adequately happy for a good decade or more. 'Cause I didn't have that pull for anything in particular. So what I did is I, I had a corporate job and I learned processes and systems and tools and management and problem solving, really basic, fundamental.

Operational toolkit, which although I wasn't necessarily passionate about credit cards at American Express where I worked for six years, for example, I did, throughout my various prior jobs, I still learned a lot of things that have been instrumental in helping me not only raise money because I'm met safe pair of hands with corporate experience.

But I had I had savings I could tap into so that I could bootstrap [00:20:00] and fund the company. And also a professional network of people to whom to potentially go to either for investment partnership or advice. And I didn't, I think sometimes people prematurely like they want, or like the idea of finding something they're passionate about and then they try and force fit some force fit an interest.

'cause they wanna be the type of person who has that. But actually there is something to be said about. Doing something a bit boring and stable, saving your money, learning some core skills whilst continuing to look for whatever it is that's gonna make you give you that passion. It might not be in a professional capacity, it might be in an artistic or, leisure or volunteering capacity.

That's the other thing I would say is that I think most people underestimate how good it feels to help other people, and it's actually one of life's great joy. So if you're really stuck, go do some volunteering.

Arthur: When one hear speeches office songs been given an award or achieve something fantastic, they often talk about what an impact other people have had on their [00:21:00] journey. Tell us about that for you. What has been the role for other people on you reaching your point today?

Saasha: Really it's my co-founder, Tessa. We are, you know who I am. She doesn't necessarily like it, but I do call her my work wife 'cause we basically have v made vows to each other, recently renewed them. And we spend, much of our waking lives working together side by side. And it's, one of the most important relationships in my life.

And our sort of commitment to our co-founder relationship and friendship, we were friends 10 years before we started LIO together is really one of our secrets from not only in terms of how we lead the team and inspire the team. How we support each other through not just work up and downs, but the inevitable life up and downs of, over the last 10 years I've been divorced, I've been remarried, deaths in the family, all kinds of things.

So you just yeah, I definitely wouldn't have been [00:22:00] able to do it without her support, compassion and also her inspiration. Like she's super, we inspire each other. I'm sure she would say the same. 'Cause we're and we just, I think remind each other. Yeah. So it's my co-founder and my dad is wonderful.

He's always been my biggest cheerleader. So he's been fantastic. And, and my son Nolan, he's 13 now. When we started we, Ole Tess and I both had toddlers and they were basically child labor. Like I have my, in the beginning we put up thousands of laminated posters all around London with little signs saying, we know this is fly posting, or whatever it is.

We'll bring, take it down in three weeks and then we would take 'em down three weeks later. So we, to avoid trouble with the councils, but he is just all throughout it. He'd be two years old putting in little laminator sheets into the laminator. And like obviously if you've got children or nieces and nephews we're trying to make the world a better place for their [00:23:00] future ultimately.

And like having that connection as to the why like with him, it just does keep me very motivated.

Arthur: Has what you now value changed going back pre this journey? Because, an entrepreneurial path it's not the path of least resistance. And with that, you would've made so many learnings about the world, about you, about what you want. Tell us about how that change has evolved and maybe the things that you look for in other people that you maybe un, didn't gear in the same way before.

Saasha: I think I've definitely gone through what I might call like an ambition arc. In terms of how I, and like, how I define success, I think has probably changed in the sort of very beginning, there was definitely this, ego driven desire, not, of course motivated by the impact, right?

In terms [00:24:00] of environmental and social, but also building something that tens, hundreds of millions of people use, is really cool, right? And to be one of those very few people, especially a woman who builds something that's global and iconic and, global, iconic sustainability, brand and product would've been.

Was a massive fantasy, right? That would've been really awesome to build, to build a unicorn to dah, to be a household name globally, right? That would've been incredibly cool. And then and there were times at which it felt like tanta tantalizingly close, when we raised tens of millions of pounds.

And when we, anyway, my point is that I think I've had to come to terms with. That's probably not gonna be the outcome for Lio, at least in the immediate future. Doesn't mean it won't ever happen, but it's a lot harder than we originally anticipated and not feeling like that's like a personal failure.

And and also just going through [00:25:00] that, that arc of like, why was I motivated, why were those things motivating to me at that time? And now they've become less motivating to me and actually I'm have this I don't want repulsion too strong of a word, but sort of aversion to the whole Silicon Valley growth at any cost tech bro culture that I idolized in the beginning and I wanted to be part of.

So I think my relationship with this, I would obsessively consume, podcasts with founders of Uber and founders of, big global like these companies. And like now I'm like, I just I feel not something that interests me or I'm attracted to in the same way at all. So this is not a very straightforward answer, but I guess what I value changes and what, how I define success.

And also actually I think a lot of it isn't just the journey. I think it comes with age. I was. 39 when I started Oleo. I'm 49 now. I'll be 50 next year. There's a lot of without sounding too [00:26:00] much like a cliche, you reach the midpoint in your whatever life theoretically. And I wanna spend more time with my family.

Like I, I want to. I think just a lot of that external validation that I thought was really sexy and desirable before, it's just a lot less interesting to me now.

Arthur: Super interesting. Where do you feel your greatest. Outside of family in terms of impact and, or maybe it's, a process you do at work.

Saasha: I think I'm a very good problem solver. So I, yeah, I'm just, it's a muscle that I've trained. First, I think Mackenzie actually was an incredible training ground for problem solving. And just being able to take a problem, generate hypothesis, understand what data you would need to prove or disprove the that each of the hypothesis, getting that data at iterating the hypothesis, updating the [00:27:00] overall sort of like narrative and problem statement and like over and over again, and just doing it reflexively, intuitively.

In a way that very quickly gets to solutions and answers is something that I'm really good at. So prob I'm, I love problem solving.

Arthur: I am sure you have so many founders that come to you and say, how do I have a good relationship with my co-founder? Are there some processes or kind of views that you have to maintain a good relationship or keep one?

Saasha: I think it's really important to have some of the tough conversations in the beginning. We took the book, the Founder's Dilemma and went away just the two of us for, I don't know, two or three days. And we went through all of the different sort of key characteristics that make up a founder.

Do you care more about whatever? And we went through all of it and we disclosed and had a conversation around and mutually and then documented like our views and perspectives so that we are really just aligned on, if we came up against these trade-offs. What do we care about more and how do we wanna think about a [00:28:00] lot of just the foundational principles for founding a business together.

 Gosh, we talk to each other constantly, so be prepared to have complete like. Life integration that's basically, the same you might have with at least for us, it requires like a really open and frequent level of dialogue to make sure that there's no, the longer you go without checking in with each other, the more opportunity there's for misalignment and misalignment causes friction.

And then you're spending your time resolving friction and getting aligned rather than, you have the core problem that you need to be doing at work and whatever you need to be executing on, and it's just not great for your team either. So we check in multiple times, very frequently with each other, all throughout fast, rapid check-ins.

And that's just our style that works really well for us. Yeah, we're both like, how we run LIO is I would say it's like probably best in class. Or like we use best in class or best practices for, we have [00:29:00]values, how we have missions. Everything flows through and is structured like we recruit against our values.

We do performance management against our values. We do three sixties, twice a year. We do employee satisfaction. We like, we do all of it. It's all structured and it happens. And it supports like a really healthy culture to make sure that we have feedback and processes in place. And the same thing then for like for our co-founding relationship.

We have a check-in every Monday at 1130. We have a check-in every Friday we have an agenda. Like we have a lot of processes, I guess is what I would say. It doesn't happen by accident. And putting the time in upfront to talk through. Tough trade-offs that you might have to make and what your values are.

Putting those down on paper and then instilling those values, your values as a founding team all throughout your company and how you manage it. And yeah, everyone assesses everyone on our values twice a year as part of our 360 performance feedback. So it doesn't happen by accident. Do the hard work [00:30:00] upfront and then embed it.

In a very organized and structured way throughout your company and just never go to bed angry, right? If something's wrong, you've gotta speak up. Be like, do not like no resentment, don't let resentment build up.

Arthur: Is that something that you particularly look for in hiring people that you and maybe it's a trait that you feel is undervalued generally?

Saasha: We hire for mission obsession. And that's something that actually you can't, in the very few times when we've not been like, oh they get, they talk the right talk, but we're not a hundred percent convinced. They're mission obsessed. Those have not, those have been the hires that haven't worked out.

And that's because it comes back to what I mentioned earlier about the butterflies, about mission obsession, is that feeling of, I can't wait to get up and go work on this problem, even though it's five in the morning on a Saturday. Because you're mission obsessed and you need that if you don't have, if you, if 90% of our employees have that, which is just always going above and beyond [00:31:00] and someone else doesn't.

It's gonna get noticed quite quickly, right? Because you need everyone to have the same level of commitment, especially in a startup when you're trying to do something really hard and resources are constrained. We test for mission obsess and we ask, we also ask people to do case studies against all of our values during the sort of final round interview from their own life.

They have to present against our val our values, which are carrying, inclusive, resourceful, and ambitious. But yeah, mission obsession.

Arthur: And growth. Growth is, it's like a. Quite a, complicated knot to crack. What are the surprises that you found in getting growth in terms of user acquisition?

Saasha: Definitely didn't start out. We had no idea what role volunteers would play when we started out. It wasn't part of our original vision. But now in addition to the sort of food safety trained volunteers who rescue food, we have 60,000 ambassadors [00:32:00] who for, for free. 'cause their volunteers have taken a hyper-local marketing kit that we send them and they go out and they distribute it.

To they activate their community, which is why we've seen sharing in so many different places. And they do that by handing out flyers and like we give them a step by step guide. But they're responsible for activating their community by raising, putting up posters, handing out flyers, doing a local press release, like whatever.

There's a million different things you can do. And that sort of grassroot, hyperlocal activation is why 80% of the people who've downloaded lio have come organically. So that's where the growth, that's really where the growth has come from. And actually that's all around asking people for help, which you can do when you have a strong mission.

If you have a mission and you're painting a vision of the world that other people wanna live in a world where everyone has enough to eat, nothing of value goes to waste. And then you say, but I can't do it on my own. I need your help. Will you help [00:33:00] me? Then people will help. So I think that's another sort of really key learning is that we've learned is that we're really shameless about asking for help now because we've just realized how much people love to help if they care about what you're doing.

And they it's pretty incredible actually.

Arthur: And, the businesses at a certain place. Now, let's say, sky's the limit, where in your view and what does it look like? If, maybe it's everyone has the app. What's it doing is, does it look different? Is, how, what does that word look like?

Saasha: I mean we used to talk about reinventing consumption so that when you need something, you source from what exists already in your local community before you buy anything new. And if we could and if new is primary consumption and secondhand or pre loved or whatever you wanna call it, surplus is secondary consumption.

Even if we could just migrate. 20% of primary consumption to secondary [00:34:00] consumption. That would be enough to, given that 60% of greenhouse gas emissions are directly related to the purchase decisions we make in our own home, like it's all of a sudden we're talking about like tipping the scale, getting off of this path of the planet, hitting up way too fast, too quickly into a place that's more like manageable.

And that's what I find, like really motivating. If we could just put the. Breaks on consumption. Not asking people to do without. We're just asking people to use the, you eat what is already here. That is just about to be, that's still perfectly good. It had a price tag on it three minutes ago.

We just made too much of it. Like we make too much food. We sell too much food, we throw away too much food. If we just could just reinvent or shift consumption and tip the balance. Then we change the whole global equation with regard to global warming. So that to me, doesn't feel entirely unachievable that, ask, if we could just get [00:35:00] everyone to go, one for example, in France, I think vented has recently become the largest seller of clothing in the whole country, ahead of any national like high street chain.

That's happened in a very short period of time. That's the kind of thing that we need to happen at scale everywhere immediately in the next five to 10 years. And it will really relieve the pressure on the whole growth at all the growth engine that's driving over production and waste in an unsustainable, fashion.

I'm sorry I'm getting too big there. But for me it's not just about Ole obviously, it's like a whole way of life and Ole is a really useful tool to enable that. And we'll be ready and waiting. When people realize that things need to change, we'll be ready. I don't think the app probably needs to change at all, quite frankly.

I think we're 60 people right now. With the exception of needing more servers and probably more customer support staff. There's no reason that we couldn't have a hundred million people using Lio instead of 10 tomorrow. We just need people [00:36:00] to care.

Arthur: what makes you really excited about what technology can offer? in terms of quality of lives being improved, people, being happier communities being more connected, resources being better allocated.

Saasha: One of the things I love about Oleo is we're connecting people in real life. We're using technology to do it so it's more efficient and scalable, right? Which means you can have, greater impact. But we're still, at the end of the day, it's, two people connecting in real life to, to share something with each other.

So I think the sort of the, what makes me excited about technology is the opportunity to build deeper human connection. Than you would otherwise because definitely meet people I've shared with 3000 people on EO or something crazy and two oh thousand 999 of those I probably would've never met, even just to say, oh, hey, I'm glad you're gonna take this for your kid.

Or, oh wow, that's amazing that you volunteer at that soup kitchen here, take this. [00:37:00] And the more we under the more different types of people that we connect with. The more deeper our sense of like shared responsibility for our community and the planet. And I think that's what will motivate people to change, to make changes, to make individual changes, to make individual sacrifices for the greater collective good.

That, that happens when you feel connected to the greater collective goods. So if technology can help enable people to feel more connected. Then ultimately it could lead to just, a, better possible outcome where we're not all making independent, selfish decisions in isolation and then collectively screwing everything up, which is what's been happening.

Arthur: You've released a new feature. Tell us about that.

Saasha: So the businesses that we work with they don't want, they've got food waste reduction targets and they really want to meet them. And in order to do that, they can't throw away perfectly good food. So we arrange for that food to be redistributed through their community for free, and they pay us for that.

But they're also businesses and they want to try and sell [00:38:00] as much of that as they can. Before they give it away. And so we've realized that we need to meet retailers where they are, which is maximizing revenue and then maximizing donations to minimize waste. And so the future we launched on Tuesday nationally with Iceland is the where we do food waste hero volunteer collections, is that earlier in the day you can reserve in the app a lucky dip bag.

For two pounds, you get eight mystery grocery items for two pounds, and you can go into the store and you can buy it. And so it's basically enabling them to get Iceland to get an opportunity to earn a little bit extra revenue to help subsidize the cost of the collections. Now, you might be thinking this is gonna cannibalize the food waste hero collections, but actually what it does is it provides like a much greater economic incentive for more businesses to work with us because not every business is, gonna invest in doing the right thing with their food surplus at the end of the day so we can unlock businesses that we've yet to be able to partner [00:39:00] with by giving them an economic incentive to get still very affordable. Trish's food that would otherwise go to waste into the hands of people who want it, and then to donate whatever is unsold.

So we're moving up the food waste recovery hierarchy, and we're gonna have a one stop shop business, one stop shop solution, full tech stack. For retailers to sell as much as they can before they donate whatever is left over.

Arthur: Let's jump into the far the quick far questions. Three things that give you joy?

Saasha: Plain cards. Yoga and sunshine.

Arthur: A mantra you like to live by.

Saasha: Comparison is the thief of joy.

Arthur: Something you wanna learn more about.

Saasha: Strength training.

Arthur: Something you wish you knew when you were younger?

Saasha: How much fun it is to get older.

Arthur: Love that. Love that. Thank you so much for your time today

Saasha: you. That was fun.

Arthur: Real pleasure.