[Music] all right so this morning I'm sitting here with GRE bner the founder of blunt um GRE thank you for fitting me in on this lovely sunny Monday morning and your beautiful show room is it beautiful morning it this yeah um so can we start off what is BL so blunt as a as a business that was built around a product basically which is an umbrella that I came up with back in the day and um yeah it was really about for me just growing up wanting to be an inventor and just trying to find a product that was special to the world MH and so I've just been on that Journey really since I was a kid I think and it's just how it sort of I guess come to be over time and lots of ups and downs like any um any startup but um yeah yeah the whole business started um or the idea had a vision for the umbrella started back in London in 1999 so um I arrived there on my OE and and before that I'd actually tried a lot of different product ideas just wanting I guess to be my own boss in life and thought if I could commercialize a product then it'd be a great future for myself and um along that Journey um realized that it's actually really really tough and a lot of people especially in New Zealand seem to be trying to do that it seems like to have this perfect future to have this product that you can sell anywhere in the world and make lots of money this big inventor dream is is really wrong when you said them so I was sort of part of that mhm but um after lots of failures um started to get to the point where I was like oh what's the difference between people that can make it which is very few and the people that can so um so yeah I just I think I spent a fair bit of time in my early to mid 20s just reading books on what success looks like and um the whole mental mindset power of where you need to be and make something that work in this world was really intriguing to me so so that's sort of what I applied to the journey to begin with when I got to London which was um I think quite key to the whole Venture yeah yeah yeah so um yeah I got to London and I just walking around and I didn't have a job for a while and just the um just the share number of people on the streets there and the Pavements are quite tight and when it rained all these umbrellas came out and I was walking around and being a bit taller the spikes of them were kind of all at my eye level so just having to navigate these streets thinking God this is crazy a products allowed to exist like this in this St age when you know health and safety's such a big thing so I thought there's got to be a better way and I think because I had the time because I was frisan this country I was just walking the streets exploring I just thought about it a lot and um the whole inside of umbrellas being this product that people have just lost respect for and it was just interesting that they still a product that people had an emotional connection with because I was sitting in a pub with a mate and he had his umbrella that he bought when he first got to London and he's just kind of had this real thing about it I thought it was really odd because in New Zealand we're in cars we're traveling a lot right in cars so we don't actually use umbrellas in our commute like you do when you're on foot and places like London so that intrigued me as well and then um realized that they're a fashion item but they're not really respected like a fashion item and for me the the reason for that was is that they're just um the design wasn't good enough was just sort of cheapened and mass production just made them like rags and people have just lost respect for them as products so um so yeah my my big Insight was that if I could get a better design in the product then I could sort of bring back the Mojo of a product that back in the day was actually quite valuable 100 years ago people paid lots for them they Ivory handles and the sort of that gentleman's ultimate accessory and just felt I said I set a vision I guess that there could be um what was actually happening at that time was the Swatch watch was kind of big and and I just thought that's a reimagined product in a certain way and I thought the umbrella could do that as well so that's that was sort of the seat of it yeah the whole mission I love that um you alluded to a bunch of failures um what was what what why are you calling those experiences failures I guess because they just didn't go anywhere and I think that's you know a lot of people have these great ideas and anything in life and you sort of go on this roller coaster where to begin with it's um it's all the best thing in the world and you get all excited about it then over time you sort of share the idea with people or you actually start working on it and it gets a bit hard and then all these reasons come in for why it won't work and then you sort of talk yourself out of it and before you know you've sort of lost lost the way with it and I work through quite a bit of that and so um I think that's really a really common Journey that people go on so for me um yeah I think I just told myself the ideas weren't good enough but perhaps they weren't but I was just being inspired what was around me and it's like you you can only work on what you see so um yeah those ideas sort of more around um like house products and things like that yeah so it was just yeah the experience of going to London just being on the streets there and seeing a product in a whole new light was really key it wouldn't have happened if I hadn't have gone there yeah and I want to I'm just grab a little snippet of what you just said you talked yourself out of it and that before we started um you know recording this we talking so much about mindset and so I can hear a really distinct shift actually between the previous projects and blunt yeah um and so how did you harness that mindset to you know to push you in a new direction to make it happen I think it was just the quality of the idea was the seed so knowing I just S I could just see an umbrella and I knew it would be difficult and I was looking for something that was quite difficult to do cuz I thought it was easy someone would have done it already and it's one of those products I think that a lot of students have had to go out and there and a lot of but no one had really nailed it I thought but I just thought I felt I was the person to do it I don't know there's something in me I can do this yeah and um yeah a big part of the mindset was just creating the vision of what good looked like so making sure that I could kind of see what I needed to do that was really big and then I'm almost convincing myself that I'd done it before I got there was really big as well okay yeah so um some of the I guess I read a book called Mind power um by a guy called John K way back in the day and it was all about that it's basically about using your thoughts and your minds and to create those visions of what could happen before it actually happened so I was really trying to manifest it in my own head and I just thought of lots of crazy stuff I thought one day it's going to be so successful as a business that I'll be doing talks and things like that I actually did think that yeah yeah that's quite funny when I do a talk now I say that to people and think it's a bit funny but that's sort of part of it right you kind of put all the together of what your future could look like before you get there well I read something that your brain doesn't know that those thoughts are real or not real that what you're saying is reality to your brain exactly and then you live what's real yeah um cuz the fact is we're all living in our own dreams inside our heads yeah so we're just getting in our own way everybody so it's just finding the tricks that can sort of break through that but it's sort of matching it with the outside world too right you can't do it while your head but it was basically inside my head for the first month or so in London just trying to I got to get my mindset right before I do this otherwise it'll just fall way cool and also the pressure like almost desperation I was 25 and I thought if I can't get this product right and get it out there then this is the last chance so sort of putting the element of desperation into me as well and then just anyone that would listen to me I told them I'm Reinventing the umbrella like it was this crazy statement I was making to the world um and every like you're not like everyone thought I was a bit crazy but like good on you sort of thing so it was yeah all minded stuff I think is huge yeah yeah especially early days and you mentioned before there was a period from the uh concept through to it actually being a functioning product that's going up to Market so what we doing in that in that in Trum phase about you know four or five years oh yes it took forever right it was um to start with I I felt the umbrella was completely broken so I need to fix every single thing about it and it was really basic beginning I was just working out of my flat in London start with then moved to Cambridge but I found a cot shop and bought some fabric and some sticks and bought a sewing machine from Marks and Spencers for £99 never doing that I've still got it it's funny and then um just started to try and make stuff on the floor of my flat I didn't know what I was doing I was just trying to make stuff and realized just how hard it is to actually make an umbrella work at all so the respect for what it was as a product that are grew for what a traditional umbrella looked like and then just I guess I'd try and make something get to a point where it wasn't going to work and just throw it away in the corner and disgust and then walk away for a bit and then new idea would chew inside my head and then I'd have another gu it so it's sort of this I guess the cycle of this cycle of failure really but just try and the more I got into it the more I guess the emotional connection to the project got deeper so I just couldn't be able Aline I think it was sending me a but nuts I no I wasn't probably mentally that healthy during that period but um I think 18 months in I got given a book by James Dyson the one about basically his journey with the vacuum cleaner development okay and that was really helpful because it just showed I guess the journey he had to go on and the perspective of the length of the journey and also at that time I worked out that um I was just really trying too hard to change everything about this product but wasn't actually completely broken and that's um I think that's a real lesson too is to understand you try to make something new but often things that are successful aren't all new they're probably mostly sort of familiar to Consumers and you just need to innovate the bits that are broken so that's when I started to really think about it probably in a more logical Way project and um yeah then it took me probably another year to get the first sort of concept that was sort of the start of what the umbrella is today the blunters yeah but yeah it was really just I'm an engineer so I probably should have started just with the traditional umbrella I could have saved myself a lot of time and just analyzed that like an engineer would have but it seemed to go off on this tangent for a while but I guess it was all part of the journey yeah yeah you probably not your the reason that you do everything inside and out you all know it because you tested things that you found out didn't need to be changed now you know that exactly and um and it's created your whole you know your whole understanding it's funny cuz you like looking back it all seems pretty clear to actually talk about it now but you're in such a fog like you're just trying to do something special you're just sort of trying anything day today there's no plan there's no strategy or anything like that you're just trying to do stuff so yeah and it was all parttime so it wasn't like it was my job but um yeah so that's how it started and then then when I got to a point where I worked out umbrellas they basically just a piece of fabric with a frame underneath that supports them and to make them better it was really just about making them struction more sound and Better In The Wind that was sort of the thing we worked out and to do that the fabric needed to be pulled really tight and that's where I work out normally i'ms don't do a very good job of that they're quite saggy and floppy and that's why they fall Inside Out In The Wind because people can't control them because the wind's not it's just fighting with the wind so that's when um yeah I found out a new way of tensioning the umbrella canopy and that's what the frame does on the blunt and then after that was working out how do I get rid of the points at the edge cuz that was the key inside right is how dangerous I was trying to change that but just fixing that problem was also fixing the tension problem as well so was like the ultimate solution solved all these problems and it was like one or two little things so that's where I felt like I'd really done it because when you find a solution oh yeah you find a solution that can solve a lot of things it's it's really efficient so yeah finally got there yeah so that was I think four years to get to get to that point and I came back to New Zealand in that time as well where I could put more resource to to develop things and how did you take that realization and get your first sale so once I got the Prototype and I got a patent underway and everyone thinks getting a Pon is like your ticket to to like Commercial Success there like yeah kind of done it I was pretty excited yeah but then realization of what do I do now yeah right and um because I I am the designer type so for me it was really all about getting a product that was amazing thinking everything else would fall into place but that's not how the world works so um so yeah there's some real dark days there where I had this Pon underway and I was developing it and spending all my life savings on it and patons get really expensive yeah and um no no real plan to commercialize I was quite lost and I heard about China and the umbrella industry up there being quite um kind of run like the Mafia That's How It Was termed it's like there's this big players there and they're just out there to to make money and and you design you turn up with all for breakfast so it was like don't don't go there things so I was like well if I can't appeal to the the industry what do you do so so I was like lost I was actually really lost at that point yeah and that's where a key person came into the freay that really helped out yeah so um so yeah it's just the people Journey with blunt has been really really interesting um so yeah when you're by yourself for that long typically as an inventor you get um you're trying to hold on to your idea cuz you don't trust anyone or you know how sensitive it is you know the journey you've been on you want to get people involved that aren't right in that so you end up doing doing nothing quite often but I was lucky to meet a guy called Scott kington and he he actually went to the same school as me but we never met each other and um just I was working for my dad at that point and we were just working on another project together and he saw it one day and fell in love with it and realized what it could be too so um so yeah he had sort of complimentary skill set to what I had so um yeah we got together and that's that's when the commercialization of it and trying to get it to Market started yeah yeah and that was um done in New Zealand which was incredibly painful yeah there's a reason why umbrellas aren't made in New Zealand but um yeah we just we to make them we said we going to make them to sell them we can't do it in China we'll do it in New Zealand and that's where it was um just a typical do it new garage startup we just tried to make umbrellas and we got there we made 200 of them but made them really really badly so he had a really good design but made really really badly yeah so um so we got some shops stocking them so everyone was into it it was really cool cuz the whole story of this new umbrella was actually really intriguing to people and I think people kind of got the fact that umbrella sucked like lot of people were like why why there's nothing wrong with umbrellas but then other people like oh hang on oh if they think about it here they're not that good so these shops gave us a go so um a couple of shops in Oakland got them and and they started to sell we put a price tag of $99 on them which was quite steep back then for an umbrella but I think just cuz we were in design type shops people were looking for gifts and it was just sort of the right place to start and because the the owners of these shops were into it too it gave us um gave us a good boost so so that that got started in I guess it was the ultimate validation when people will actually buy your product you know you can go and talk to your family about do you like it do your friends do you like it right does tell strangers actually part with their money for something you haven't really tested it properly so we kind of did that by default that wasn't really the plan it was just make something so you sort of have these I guess these intentions and just want to go forward but you don't actually realize what you're doing until you've done it sometimes and that whole exercise is really just about validation so um so yeah validated it so um so with that knowledge we were able to sort of go and reset and do it properly and that was about getting a manufacturer involved CU I knew we were going to be manufacturers Miss so um so yeah that was getting getting investors involved and that that Journey's worked out great for blunt um a lot of startups just die from just doing that poorly and there's so many ways you can stuff it up and we nearly did like we thought we just get 20 of our closest friends involved and they can put a little bit of money in each and it won't mean that much to them and but having that many voices in the room would have been a color yes yeah yeah so um so we um got two gentlemen involved um back in 2007 and they invested they saw what it could be which is great and um I guess the alignment for the for the vision of what it could be was always there which is really really important and for them they weren't in the game of umbrellas or even in products so for them it was um just a good business idea so heaps of help on the business front and the financial and just strategy at that level but actually leaving us alone to get on and do the product stuff which I think is a really healthy combination and for them it wasn't a lot of money either so it wasn't like pressure like someone had morgage their house to invest in your Venture would be like yeah so there's a few things there that that really worked for us but again not planned just just lock locked it so really lucky right there's always things that could have gone wrong that didn't so um yeah to still with us today and been amazingly supportive like you never know when you're getting investment you don't know what your company's worth you've got an idea pretty much like a little bit of validation but beyond that you don't know what it's worth so you just sort of pull a number out of thin air and then Equity it's like what's interesting to someone to get involved so it's sort of that so you're kind of in a realm of you don't know if you've done it right or not it's just getting it going and then I'm making sure that down the track I think this is something we didn't do either but we're lucky because money always runs out and that's actually a really difficult conversation to have with investors it's like you said you do this in this amount of time and it's taken three times as long and you run out of money and like that's what happens there so our investors are amazing and just supporting us further on that front because they could they could see where it could be so so again that's a really good lesson I think for anyone looking for investment is just to look down the track and what's going to happen with them when he runs out always will yeah always will yeah yeah and I think anyone who's investing who knows what they're doing will sort of realize that too and hopefully force you to have that conversation cuz so many people in startups they just want that's just money right you just you're struggling you needed to just week to week so youve got a really shortterm vision of what money is just to do the next thing next thing so you've really got to put yourself 5 10 years in the future which is really difficult to do and easy to say now but yeah yeah it's interesting so that all investment Jus yeah can talk about that forther yeah yeah yeah yeah that's that's a really fascinating one cuz also I think you touched on um you know bootstrapping out getting friends putting the the money in as one option but actually going a separate option and talking to sophisticated investors who not only brought money but skill set also yeah and the right skill set too and and just even that relationship what that relationship would look like as people like you've got to get along with them right they're part of your family almost right yeah so you got to make sure that that relationship's really solid so yeah lots of stuff yeah well um you've talked about people a lot actually you've talked about you know the partner who came in and saw the vision the investors you know you've been going for such a long time you've now got a hle of staff and and whatnot with you so how are you getting the best out of people um the big thing with people is just making sure the understanding is there from the start and that you've got them on the right um just just yeah like for employing someone just the right job description and making sure you've got people on the right seats on the bus that's basically it as the company grows and through those startup years really you just you haven't got options because the people to come in and help you really are probably doing it for more um um I guess the belief of the vision and it's really creatively lead the passion of what things could be it's not so much as a business and the structure and process of a business and that's something that has to shift along the journey at some point and it's actually really difficult to do because um the understanding of coming together as a startup versus what you need to be as a Growth Company are quite different yeah yeah and a lot of companies getting through that phase is is actually really tough yeah so um so yeah we've been through some pain on that front hasn't been nice but um yeah today it's it's great it really is just having the right leadership in the business yeah I think the one thing for me is just I was never I always knew that the um the place for me was really about that creative side of the product it wasn't about leading a business so I've never been precious about that so um so quite openminded about who came in to do that as long as the understanding was right around it so um so just just yeah just making sure that you don't have any misunderstanding about you where where people sit in the business that's really and because everyone coming into a startup everyone has these ideas of of um I guess there's so much risk involved so the um the idea of making some money at the end of it is on top of everyone's mind too so you've got to have that conversation with people best you can as well at the time because often you don't have money to pay them what they're probably worth at the time so there's the promise down the track but often it's the conversations aren't clear because nobody knows so everyone's expectations are different and that can get really messy too and that's so hard to naate especially when it's your first time around yes so um so yeah just just having those right conversations but just being equipped to have them and I think that's where maybe investors that come in could be really helpful and um just yeah yeah it's tough people people everyone's in their own world right so to actually have that have a conversation that's on a level where everyone's crystal clear about where they stand is it's incredibly difficult to do and takes a lot of skill set and a lot of experience to have and things I didn't have so i' be pretty poor at that through these so yeah learning all the time yeah absolutely um so over since you know between 1999 and now I can hear there's just non-stop learning on your part you would have seen a lot of stuff you would have seen economic cycles and large headlines and you know changes to the The Umbrellas themselves and and what so how have you taken what you've seen over the past you know 20 odd years how does it shape the company now and where it's going to go next yeah I don't think we're that influenced by external factors because we're kind of on our own journey and because we're trying to disrupt something quite traditional we're just such a drop in the bucket so we just been on that own Journey we're not actually you know the the um the ups and downs of the economy and all that the biggest thing that infs us is the weather which is not surprising but it's not it's not just about rain but rain's sort of the thing that lubricates our wheels so we're always talking about preparing for a rainy day cuz it's all about building a brand and basically building a new market segment in some ways like like set up into to Market that $99 price point which was unheard of for ERS yes so the work that had to go in to actually create that I guess that space in the market for us to play that no one else was in was really really quite challenging and that's taken a lot of time and it's just surprising like you can have the best product in the world but unless the market really understands where you sit you kind of you're really battling and that's really been proven true with with New Zealand it's been so awesome because we've been here the whole time and we've sort of itched that Market out over those so 12 13 years we been on the market here to the point now where I think we sold up nearly 100,000 units here just in middle of New Zealand which is amazing good one that we're like three four times the price of a lot of umbrellas yeah so um so yeah that's that's amazing so that's always shown the potential of it but to actually do that in other markets is actually really quite difficult because you you you've got to kind of change the mindset of people that it's worth investing your money in a product that's going to last and give you a better experience over time time versus just buying something cheaper because it's cheaper at the time so that's that whole buy once buy right sort of mentality so that that's sort of the battle of black we're not the only ones in that battle but for umbrellas just sem parts of the world it's just a throwaway thing so it's like why why it's just too expensive you hear that so often but when people understand it that price concession just goes and it's amazing when that happens because they just see the value and it's not just about the product it's about all the backup that comes with it as well because for us the service of it is as important as the product so we um yeah do a lot of that the repair side of our products yeah iar like we can make them as as awesome as we want to but someone's always going to find a way to break an umbrella just because of what they are right they're really vulnerable people stand on them in the back of cars dogs chewing handles and things like that so um so when that happens people want service and that that's quite interesting that journey in itself how we've gone about that because we're kind of seen as a sustainable choice in umbrellas and products but that kind of was never the intention it was always just about making a better product for the consumer yeah that was always the vision from day one in London for me but coming to Market and having that higher price point we just had to service it so as soon as something went wrong had to repair it to get it going to keep the consumer happy and we just learned how powerful that is just that that human connection with your consumer consumer is probably not the best word but just the owner of the product and when you have that that connection their emotional connection with the product just goes up another notch as well so you get this real beautiful for momentum happening where people just fall fall in love with their product they own want to own it more you know they just love the journey yeah so that's something that sort of happened a little bit by default that we're really trying to understand at the deeper level now and and intentionally put that into our whole offering and um yeah I think that's another Hot Topic Al together yeah probably need to rest on but yeah that's um that kind of falls into our design philosophy with products now which um is another thing that we can talk about yeah um you me to talk about that now yeah well yeah I'm sorry I'm staring at you blankly because I'm just it's so fascinating isn't it because you you've come so far and and you you seem like you're in a moment of a real reflection at what you've how far you've come and what you've achieved and so there's there's all these all these thoughts and no it's just interesting when I talk about stuff how it's hard to talk about it in a in a a segment because everything's so Interlink yes so you go on this pathway I hope I'm making sense with each it but um yeah so so the big thing um we we've actually done a bit of a research with our brand just recently and it's really come about because we're going into a product Beyond umbrellas which is super exciting yeah yes and um that's hasn't happened for a long time with blood deliberately because it was always about doing one thing doing it well and when you're trying to create a brand you don't want to be spring yourself too thin and it was always we've done this in New Zealand but we've got the rest of the world to take on so we need to sort of get the get the rest of the market right and we always wanted to be this Global offering because we knew what we had was special so I was always like how do we build the rest of the business up to get to the level with um the market penetration and that before we do anything else so we kind of H back but um realized it's kind of the time now to do something different because I want to do something different because my mind needs to do something other than umbrellas um but yeah so we're doing um a product which is similar to umbrellas and it has similar channels but just to do it it was really cool to go back and look at the umbrella journey and what worked and what didn't and sort of I guess discover our secret source and put it into a formula which we know we can take well into the future and then a big part of that is going back that emotional connection that people have with products and it's just you know you know people talk about say a watch that was given to them by their grandfather or say just other thing it's like almost like a family healo and it's like what's actually gone onto that product for that to have that mean for someone to actually give a that much about their product and um and we've kind of felt that sort of happened with blunt just I guess the Reflection from people using the product and just the almost like the joy it brings them because of the experience when it's raining and they're getting PR I guess by that sort of emotional feeling of trust and confidence and protection all those sort of feelings that we seem to get because it's an umbrell for one but also because it works really well too yeah so um so that's something that really interests us it's like how can we deliberately put that into product so that people care about them so much that they actually want to look after them and live with them for a long time so becomes that family elu so um so that that's that's really special we think so um yeah the um people can fall in love with their product when it does something go goes wrong they breing it and I want to get it repaired so we can get out and get it used again and after theyve been through that repair process they love it even more so it's like you know if your child G the hospital it's SI right there that the emotional connection gets really tight and then you love them even more so it's like how how can we sort of simulate that human relationship with products so that people want to own them and then almost almost remove the reasons why they want to get rid of it and that's that's the ultimate sustainable story right it's like if you want to live with your product for rest of your life you're not going to buy more so you're just using a lot of this stuff but we still want them to have that awesome experience they do when they buy something new so um so that where that's where the next design philosophy comes in and that's sort of um our products are built in a way that's it's modular and we're making it more and more modular and we like the analogy with Lego you know Lego is funny because it's just plastic right and you get a little Lego break you you'll never see it in the bed like you'll never chck a piece of Lego out and it's like why is that and it's really because it's part of a bigger system so that thing coming together with other parts and a certain way makes it really quite special because anything can be created from there so we're trying to think of all the components within our umbrellas like that as well so I'm not just think of the umbrella as an umbrella we're thinking of it as a series so um like I can show you this for instance so this is our um blun classic which is the original size that we did but the handle on it we just this comes off like that so if anything was to happen to that that handle you could just send one out to a consumer and they con check it and it goes on like a light bulb so um we like the analogy of um if the light bulb blew in your house would you throw your house out or you just change the light bulb so you know it's it's silly to think that but that's like products a lot of them say your handle breaks or something goes on this you throw the whole thing away and it's ridiculous right 5% of it broken 95% is fine so more we can separate our products out into components and people can think of them as separate items the more they'll realize they can look after it in a different way and they go a different Journey with each component so that's almost like Footwear for the product and the canopy we think of that comes off as well so we can replace that canopy for a product when we first started so it's almost like the dress So you think of it as a garment so we can treat it that way so the whole journey with how we produce that and how we look after it and everything can be quite different so it's just splitting things up we think more product should be made like that like it's it's more expensive to make but as you go down the track just the serviceability and the way people can think about it the way we can customize it like in say 3 four years someone owned us they want it to be red or we bring out a collaboration with a different design we could do just a canop instead of a whole product which is way more sustainable cuz the rest of that's fine right so there's certain things in here that should last for and other bits that we'll wear out so they've got to be thought of differently as well so yeah that's pretty cool so those are s of the two two components that we really try far into our design philosophy to make this super special that's so much yeah it's pretty cool but the thing to do it it's because it is more expensive you've got to have a design that can actually warrant it so that you can actually get premium in the market to fund all this and then fund all the service so the design has to be special to start with so there's a there's a whole formula there we have to go deep to get something that's special enough that people will pay the premium then we can add all that good content into the makeup of it so yeah it's a big bundle of stuff but once you get it right you kind of get that wave and it's exciting so the next product from day one the intention of all of the stuff has been put into it so this has sort of got better bit over time but to get a new product that's got that teach and play one it's pretty cool it makes my job a lot easier yeah yeah yeah it's cool and there's quite a few products like that that that can take that treatment and the one one component of a product like that that we love is the the personal connection so the umbrella you've got it in your hand You' seen with it it's part of your fashion your style because it's got that that beautiful canopy but it's also protecting you too so that whole emotional um vulnerability so times in your life where you're super vulnerable are really important to us because we're trying to make your life better during those times so so that's again another layer of emotional connection so being in the rain right you're getting wet that's that's quite a horrible time but if the umbrella can go up the blunt and just give you this amazing experience and you're going to fall in love with it so yeah using the word love a lot I think it's aign with purpose really isn't it um because it's about more than oh if we do this we'll get more sales it's not that it's it's actually we'll get more connection or have more loyal customers they'll believe in what we're try to do you know it's it's it's a totally different um goal and you know purpose and the way that you're connecting with with your customers far and wide that's true yeah yeah that's all about energy going forward I think Just Energy going in the right direction and the sales you do all that but right the sales just come so the more umbrellas we appear the more we look after Yeah the more people engage the more they buy like people come in to get their umbrella fixed and quite often they just buying another one while there as a gift or because they just want to spr spr B is to other people yeah and that was always to start with everyone's like this isn't going to work because you know they got a break for you to sell more and that's traditionally how the industry is set up it's all obsolescent so they've got a break to to get more into the market which is crazy so everyone's like what a family n is going to buy more but it doesn't work like that people actually do buy more because they want to gift sh it out which is been awesome like the word of mouth for us and that sort of thing people hear about it becomes that topic of conversation at the din dinner table yeah which um is the most powerful thing we can we can get as a brand and the whole PR and the way we push that getting other people talking about us as opposed to us talking about ourselves we never pay for advertising like it's just like we can't afford it right we're a small company trying to get to the globe y so we just need to seed all these great messages so that people going out will do it for them us but they so every product that goes out it's un little do board to the world yeah yeah it's quite interesting once you do get that concentration of Bloods on the streets it's sort of almost like a a Tipping Point where it um it just gets in life its own and people are walking along and they see other people with blood give night it's it's pretty cool yeah so that's yeah that's basically our our formula for penetrating bigger markets around the world is really trying to get into villagers mhm and trying to get concentration of users not trying to just go too wide and that was sort of the the problem to start with I think kiwi companies going to the world they just see these big markets and think that's the answer to all their dreams is getting into a big Market because all these people all this money floating around yeah but the reality is those bigger markets are so much more competitive and so much harder to get into they've got so much more tradition in the way they do things and cultural differences and New Zealand our perspective on the world is just so distorted because we're sitting down here we don't see it at all so um so that's why kiwi brains just they how ever make it overseas so um so you've got to be really real about that and go on and just um just the pinpoint and we put you limited about energy so our strategy is really just about trying to find little areas of the world that are really R for what we can do and then go in there and just hammer it in a whole lot of different ways so that people see us in s different ways in that same light and then they're going to adopt us but yeah Australia is definitely big market for us right now and that's because it's close we can get there a lot quicker and the cultural differences aren't bit different and yeah like M yeah just cities and um yeah I think Australia is probably the first stop for any company trying to export from New Zealand like unless you've got a specific reason to be somewhere else it's just so not Australia it's so much bigger than us you know five times that change the world of most New Zealand companies if they can make a work there yeah so I'm so will be and the weather there has actually been playing Bard for us the last few years which is nice you know yeah that is the one challenge what we're trying to do is the weather like to be in a market where maybe it rains two to three months of the year and hammers it down and then dry for the rest of the year is actually worse for us than a a market where it's sort of like ockland where it's sort of half rains some days that's actually better because as a brand we're actually getting a lot more exposure on a continual basis and then there's the benefit to of being an umbrella like people don't get sick of us because it seems like every year we get a refresh when the r sort of comes in get about March April and it's actually quite a nice around that Mother's Day time it's actually really cool it's real gifting period as well so it's sort of on the cycle with this Market where um we sort of go away for a few months over summer like it's a littleit of Christmas sort of gifting and we go away then we all fresh again so that's actually been a real gift for the brand of New Zealand and I think Australia as well so um yeah we're learning a lot so you you've touched on a couple of things Australia and another new product but um you know we to for the next you know 10 20 years of plant what do you it's it's really trying to just make healthier products for the world that's what we really want people to own stuff that's healthy for them and healthy for the environment and um like sustainability smashed around a lot these days but um it just I guess it seems quite skin deep in a lot of places like that word sort of lost its meaning quite a bit Yeah so for us because we sort of not stumbled into it but didn't do it intentionally it feels like our efforts are really genuine but because it's sort of really linked with our business model so the more we do in terms of selling our product it feels like the better we do in terms of doing the right thing with people owning products longer and just basically less resource going into the world so it's really taking that formula and just trying to expand it into as many product categories as possible with the theme of what we do and we've identified a few already y but um that's where where we're powering too yeah yeah it's interesting and it's going to change our world a lot having different products and not being Reliant so much on the weather that will make our our life a lot easier here and um yeah and I think the more we get out there the more each product category will look after the categories beside themselves too so yeah that's where we see the growth coming but just getting the right channels set up around the world and getting the right Partners we've got our own people in um in the US and Australia and New Zealand and um other markets with Distributors so those distribution partners are really important to be aligned with them and that's always quite challenging because um other couples have their own Ambitions and own needs so just making sure that we're really aligned as much as we can be to make those markets markets work yeah but every part of the world is so different it really is and you've really always got to go and live there to really understand it to deep because success always comes from that penetration in the market not the wood so that's that's been one big big lesson this year work how to get penetration yeah yeah him what are the topics well I think um that was yeah I've really enjoyed that that's yeah that's so that's really ins 20 something years of doing stuff yeah yeah we could talk about it all day yeah no that's really cting thank you so much for being CED with me yeah I really enjoyed that I'm going to leave some links for Greg and for Bland so that you can um you know just keep an eye on what they're up to and see the amazing products that they're that they're displaying at the moment um and again thank you for being so generous with your time you're welcome been fun thank you I