[Music] welcome to New Market Vox I'm markn Thomas New Market is New Zealand's retail fashion entertainment hospitality and business Mecca New Market V is a monthly podcast where we take a deep dive into the brains of a business leader but before we go on don't forget to follow us at New Market NZ on your favorite social Channel and hang on till after the interview for some new and notable things happening in New Market I actually tried quite a few different products before I got to the umbrella in London the idea literally struck me in the eye yeah in the face sort of had this history of a bit of failure really of trying a lot of things not working there's lots of products that I toy with in the background but sort of hold myself back knowing you've got to do one thing and do it well from tinkering in his dad's Workshop to creating something inspired by tradition but designed for the future those dark rainy days in London in the late '90s set this kiwi on a pathway to create something lorded as the best of its kind the world's best headquartered right here in New Market but selling to the world I am of course talking about Blunt Umbrellas and I'm joined today by founder Greg brebner Greg thank you so much for joining us oh thank you very much for having me wonderful so we're going to ask some questions quite wide ranging please feel free to share as much as you want to cool sounds great so tell us a little bit about your childhood where you grew up things like the bit of the background story yeah sure give you some context yeah I grew up um in rural Oakland so um not far out I guess today it wouldn't really be called rural but back in those days it was just a 10 acre block out in East Oakland and I think just being away from friends and that just home alone a lot more and dad having a workshop spent a lot of time just tinkering just trying to make things and I've got a father who's an engineer and just seems to be able to make anything and fix anything so that was sort of inspiration growing up and just spending that time in the workshop just love the idea of creating something out of out of nothing really just raw materials wood whatever just just creating anything really brilliant so where did you go to school and do you have siblings yeah I got a sister an older sister two years older um went to school Bay School which is East Oakland as well so we're always on the Country School bus going in so i b a bit of time on the bus thinking daydreaming about little product ideas and things but yeah that was the background I love it Bay is a great part of the country but great part of all so blunt blunt has become obviously iconic globally but also very iconic for New Zealand where did the name come from um the name really came about just from the shape of the product like we always think it's quite obvious CU it hasn't got sharp edges but that that really speaks back to the initial inspiration of being on those London streets worried about my eye being poked out yeah I'm just being a bit taller and umbrellas are actually quite dangerous things people don't really think that but they got those sharp edges and when you're walking around on streets and you're bit tall I just found myself arriving in London having to navigate through all those spikes as being something quite dangerous so do you think your physicality probably actually may have lead you down this as a as a bit of a pathway yeah I think so yeah because the idea literally struck me in the eye yeah the fast okay so you obviously you in London ideas started clanking through and your your brain's going into overdrive thinking about sort of you know some sort of solutions but where did you where did it all start yeah I think um like I grew up with this love of the idea of inventing like you grow up some kids want to be astronauts firemen or whatever but just to be an inventor in my mind was the best thing ever just that idea of coming up with a product and being able to sell it to the world and and making some money I was when I saw stories about that when I was K I thought my God that's that that' be so awesome so um so I grew up with that mindset and then I think as you grow up you realize things are a bit harder than they look from the outside and um sort of left me a bit and I just went through school I was a bit of a Daydreamer didn't commit myself that much but got through and got an engineering degree uh and then my first job out of um school was at fish from parle Healthcare and that was really amazing it was working on mobility scooters in fish from par the old scooters Mobility back in the day and um that was like a little business within a big business and just that first exposure to um I guess what a business could look like from All Points of View like Marketing sales manufacturing everything we did the whole lot but it was within the environment of a bigger business that had a lot of resource so those combinations of the two things just really set me out to see what a business looks like yeah so that was really cool but at the same time I thought I I really want to do my own thing it was kind of entrepreneurial thing bu away in the background so you came back from London what late ' 90s early 2000s yeah early 2000s so yeah so I actually tried quite a few different products before I got to the umbrella in London okay so um so I sort of had this history of a bit of failure really of trying allot of things not working yeah and that that's always quite interesting talking to people about everyone has these ideas in life and they get super excited and they go on the sort of roller coaster ride of convincing themselves out of it almost yeah yeah and I was really really sensitive to that that is The Human Condition though abely it really is yeah so um yeah from the outset you just have the emotional energy for it and you think of all these wonderful things yeah and then sort of reality hits I guess when you think about it for too long okay and and you talk yourself out of it and I was on that roller coaster so I got really sort of I guess frustrated what actually does it take to be successful at something like that yeah because it doesn't happen very often there's not many stories where someone's taken a product idea off the street so to speak and take it through and be commercially successful you've sorted out a problem you've actually nailed it leap frogging right through to 2024 you recently opened uh a retail store in in Kent Street New Market with your Workshop what's the rale behind that it's really about getting closer to Consumers like we we always had our service center so from day one we always serviced our blunts really really well which is big part of our story yeah um when you sell something that's worth quite a bit more than the competitors people expect that background service so that was always there but what we just found when people came in they um they wanted to buy as well like better we serviced our product the more they wanted to purchase we weren't really set up to do that that well yeah so we thought well what if we did do do that well and the way retail is going now it just seems that service and Retail combination is really powerful absolutely and we want to do it everywhere right but to do it really well we need to have that I guess that Flagship Lear and learn as much as possible so we thought if we can do that on our doorstep we learn so much about going out to the world and and doing it even better fantastic going back to those early design days when was there a Eureka moment when you thought oh my god I've nailed it what I'm doing with this design the changes I've made to this is actually going to be a game changer I think yeah I got super excited a lot of the time okay and it was a lot of it was over nothing yeah yeah but um I think I'm an engineer at heart so I think when I worked out that there's actually a different way to make an umbrella fundamentally with how the whole Fabric and The tensioning Works in it and when I got to the point where I realized I could do that differently that was a bit of a Eureka moment and then the other bit was um around the edge of our umbrella where it hasn't got those points there's a component there we call the blunt tip and finding that solution took a long time and when I got to that point I thought you know I've got something here as well so those blunt tips are basically umbrellas within the umbrella exactly yeah I actually only L that to my research but that's which I thought was quite fascinating yeah it's cool they're like a little two-dimensional umbrella that sits inside the pockets at the edge of the umbrella and they get pushed open like umbrellas do so yeah it's like six little umbrellas within the big umbrella okay so internationally you're retailing what Australia New Zealand the UK North America and Europe is there any difference in the buying behaviors from the different Geographic Zone and is there one area which has got geographically or per capita more umbrella purchasing than others um yes massively different and we're still learning obviously the world's a big place but um like ockland has just been phenomenal I guess that home territory we have a lot of rain we do yeah and being the home story and I think just the love for the product and the wind as well like we're a product that um needs the wind to really show itself above the competitors as well as the rain right so um even rainy places in the world where you don't get a lot of w the product probably isn't as relevant okay so actually finding that out just just the weather Dynamics is big for our product and then um there's the whole sustainability story is really big now for us as well so people that um see the value just through the endurance and just people that are hacked off with buying rubbish parts of the world like that so so there's lots of little hot spots but um yeah that's just just finding that but yeah Melbourne's huge that that's growing and that'll probably take over ockland potentially in the next couple years which is fantastic so to go to another country where you can see our product that that's when I get a lot of it's fulfillment we're not just the home home story we're actually uh doing it properly so are you retailing so online only overseas or are you going into stores around in those Geographic places as well yeah you've got to do it all like to create a brand you've really got to be in those stores and that physical touch point and the word of mouth is huge as well so when we get to shops where people love the product as much as we do that that's just gold so people are come in and see and go why is it so expensive and someone who I'm that might blunt themselves behind the counter and they give the story of why they love it you know you can't beat that it's just a real genuine message I've got to say I've never heard anybody ever say anything negative about a blunt umbrella not that I have lots of umbrella conversations but when I have had them uh blunt always oh my God they're amazing they're a game changer and the fact that they're designed to blow inside out and Back Again they're not going to get damaged that's a bit of a game changer yeah I thought Wellington might be quite a good Market it's massive I don't think you see many other umbrellas down there now actually I'll just get yeah cuz be out of Oakland another city and just see yeah product if it's a real so since you started the business and obviously that things have evolved over time as you know you're learning and growing all the time what sort of some of the major changes you've you've gone through as a business I think there's been two phases ready for the business and like every business starts in a startup mode and that's where you're pretty much just trying to survive and a lot of that's sort of LED massively by the offering and um I guess the the creativity and the passion and all that sort of stuff is um is really behind it so it's really LED by the heart a lot and then as you grow and you get to certain stages as a business you get need to become more sophisticated and then it needs to become more led by the head and that that's a massive switch and a lot of businesses need to go through and that transition was actually quite difficult and I think that's pretty typical of a lot of businesses that start from nothing yeah yeah so so that and from a people point of view that that's huge as well um just getting people initially it's it's people that um are in love with what you're doing and entrepreneurial themselves and then as you get further down the track you need more specialists so that's that's a just different mindset so so going through that transition have you ever had a moment or moments when you thought oh God I just want to sell up and walk away and do something else not really no because I don't think I've really had a plan B you know you talk about people that are successful it's like they never had another option like I never was really on a career path that I wanted to follow I always love the idea of doing my own thing really and there's always so much potential and when you see potential you just want to be you got a vision for what the future could look like you just stay in it I think you only sell if you lose that Vision Yeah Yeah you mentioned before that you know obviously you got a naturally inquisitive mind and you like to create stuff if you hadn't done the blunt umbrella is there another product you think I wouldn't mind giving that a crate to see if I could make that better oh there's lots of products that I toy with in the background but sort of hold myself back knowing you've got to do one thing and do it well yeah but the type of products that really intrigue me are the ones that have sort of been on a path um I guess into mass production and just sort of lost the Mojo like the umbrella y um like potentially like luggage could be one of them product like that and it just feels like um back in the day everyone was really creative with their offerings and everyone did things slightly different but then it got too expensive in markets everyone went to the factories in the East and then the manufacturers started to Define what the product is and then the brand sort of came in and made it more about the outside brand as opposed to what the product offering was so these sort of categories where the product sort of been the same for 20 or 30 years that really intrigues me I think that's massively right sort of space for Innovation yeah and that that's that's where I'd love to spend my future brilliant yeah what do you do to relax and and what are your hobbies so how do you sort of get away how do you get out of your head and sort of just uh you know really get yourself to a really calm space I think being on the water is the best thing for me I think just being even just away from cars and just the land um grow up on boats um Dad always had boats so that's definitely a different mode in my life so to actually get out in the water and and I think this time of year and I think that's why I like spring so much is because the season's coming back in and whereas winter you kind of get of that that getaway so um so I think yeah being on the water is my big sort of no spring I think it's absolutely a time of renewal as sort of come out of hibernation and get back into living again yeah hopefully we're all doing that now we had a very long very long slow winter exactly back to the business uh when has there been like a real pinch me moment like oh my God this is this is real and this is really bigger than I expected it to be um just lots of little moments I don't know if there's already been massive ones like this been definitely Milestones like I think when Karen Walker sort of identified us and we saw articles who sort of complimenting us and and we did the collaborations with there and because she's so much bigger than us and her exposure around the world that was that was like a real validation of yeah we're on the right track here that was awesome and I think um just getting into some markets and just just traveling and seeing blunts like more than one blunt on the street I was going to say that when you're walking get on the gods what are my walk up to them and have aers it's a bit OD want crazy guy uh do do you have any regrets no I don't think so I don't think everything's just a learning yeah it feels like things have probably taking a bit longer um in some ways just through lack of knowledge like I think today if you started out doing something like what we're doing the amount of just information like just podcasts like this it wasn't really rounded 20 years ago when we started right so it felt like um we're dragging the chain a bit because we're learning everything the hard way and um I'm sure there's a lot of things we could have done a lot quicker but um having said that when you learn things the hard way it's really ingrained so it's like you're actually learning it the proper way so and also as a brand to actually grow a bit slower I think you actually get a lot more credibility it's like there's so many Brands today that are like sping about you know the whole green washing thing and all that but when you can say you've been around like since 2009 we've been on the market like repairing product and that that's actually a fair bit of pedigree now so for trust in people when they come to buy our product we know these guys have been around for a while actually the repairing side of it is something maybe not everybody is aware of but you actually can have your umbrellas reped and fix up yeah yeah and that's something we're evolving all the time and to be a global offering where you can repair is actually quite difficult to execute because there that human element so our big vision for the future really is to make the products almost like a a Lego system where anyone can repair them it's like um like we like in the light bulb analogy it's like your house um if the light bulb blue you're not going to throw your house out but if you replace the light bulb right so it's like so many products today you throw the whole house out because something breaks on it so um so appliances especially they really problematic yeah so if you design it from day one that's perfect like our handles and umbrellas come off like a light bulb comes out of a light socket so there so many dogs chewing handles and things like that and people think their umbrellas are wrecked and there's some really quick ways to fix it and they can actually do it themselves and when they do that they just get so much more connection learn something new which is really good oh no it's really cool next time I dog has a go at my my umbrella handle I know what to do um expanding slightly no pun intended do you you have any sort of bucket list things you want to achieve either business or personally in your life I think I would like to repeat the umbrella Journey when it's right and just to prove that it's not the one trick pony sort of thing and there's plenty of things brewing in the background but it's just timing and when you have a brand and there's a vision for the brand it's got to be so pinpoint like we're a little New Zealand company trying to go to the world so just the focus is so so important and the bigger the market the bigger the noise the bigger the competition the more you got to be on your game so we we're continually working that out yeah competition wise do you is there a global player who you find yourselves up against no just just it's just really country specific it just feels like um again the manufacturers have defined the offering and each country has their own little brand doing their version of the same thing almost so we're kind of really unique with our technology being yeah quite quite different so um we don't really come across the same competition in every Market okay it's always different but having said that the flavor is is quite consistent yeah when you think back to those those dark rainy days in London I think many of us spent time in London in the '90s and it was pretty dark and rainy is there anything looking back you would have done differently getting you to where you are today no I think back those times were just really special I I think creating the vision for what could happen was massive I spent quite a bit of time just wandering the streets unemployed when I first got there and just picturing like region streets one place just this idea of these amazing umbrellas coming down these people having these awesome experience and I think just that in itself seated the future a lot just getting your head right for what the future could look like M yeah I think no don't think looking back could have done much different awesome so you recently shot a new campaign in Sicily is that part of the business like sun and UV that is evolving for for blunt massively yeah yeah the UV is huge um you know historically umbrellas in the sun were very specific to Asia I think but with the sun strength in this part of the world it's becoming very much a thing and I just notice year to year the strength of the Sun in New Zealand's crazy and skin cancer so um so yeah the fashion in the sun with umbrellas is changing and we've actually got a very exciting development for the beach coming up in the next year and um again that same flavor so and again for the business to actually spread through the seasons with an offering is huge like it's very hard to sell a rain umbrella in the middle of summer so to actually have have even like a you know a retail environment where you can sell umbrellas any time of the year is huge for us so I'm definitely a vision for the future so do you sort of see a time where you could be wondering ing around Oakland in February and people will have their their blunt sun umbrellas out sort of walking around the streets it's 100% yeah it's happening more now yeah so we definitely we've got a UV offering that we um bring out every year and that's growing each year for sure brilliant so what's next for blunt um well like I said um the sun offering is a huge Focus so um so the beach environment like we just love the idea of sort of owning environments when it comes to blunt like if you can own the street environment it's really powerful in the summertime to own the beach environment would be fantastic especially Australia and that's that's a huge huge sort of focus for us um just evolving the product um like the small product the Metro is our most popular model but the smaller we can make that we know the more popular it'll be so so that's that's a huge Focus to do that and then again just making them is repairable as possible that really sets us apart from from the the rest of the market so sustainable it's great people are all about there yeah and the whole industry has built up an obsolescence to tell you the truth like people it's actually in the industry's interest for umbrellas to fail so people will buy more so just going against the grain of that is really powerful yeah it's fascinating actually I think consumers are stared to demand more and more and more around the sustainability absolutely um you also have a range of dog jackets of which I bought one from my spaniel uh who wears his in the rain it's quite cool so what what was the thinking behind the dog is that to sort of complement the umbrella range 100% yeah yeah it's about the lifestyle side of it and anything that sort of you know I guess promotes the popularity of the umbrella and um yeah a lot of our markets we know that people have dogs and and they look after them as much as they do their children so um to give them that that um that offering as well and we had a a launch up in Rua and that just went so well just that that market itself just the N of dogs and the way people look after them it's people love their dogs and you know people always buy things for their dogs going to change Tac again slightly what's your favorite takeaway meal I think Thai food yeah yeah I love Tha food it's I guess the healthiness of it but also a bit of a treat love it yeah so what's the worst holiday experience you've ever had um oh looking back when I um first left University I um lived on a ski field in Lake Tahoe for um for a season and we had a weekend away as a holiday break and we went down to Las Vegas and cuz we didn't have much money we thought it'd be a really good thing to not actually get anywhere to stay for the weekend and just stay in the casino weekend and by the end of that we were very broken and it wasn't a good experience at all oh love that story uh what is next for for Greg personally um I think just um getting the bance of um of the work and the creativity and as the team grows just understanding how I fit into that model like um for a long time it was just me working on the product to blun and um we've got some really clever heads in the business now helping me out so it's just trying to evolve into that role and I guess also just globally what I can do to promote the brand more so a bit more traveling and um just just understanding markets better and just I guess yeah being being more helpful for the brand as a whole as opposed to just deep in the product how do you service those markets like do you do you do like trps around sort of the various Geographic locations every year or do you have local people agents operating for you yeah we've got a mix so um so early days it was just trying to be everywhere really quickly and really scatter gun the markets and that that was a bit of a mistake like I think kiwi's always think they've got to be in the big markets to be successful but the reality is like Australia's Next Door it's way bigger than us so so we've sort of worked out the best way to get into these Market just to have our own people there so in Australia we've got two of our own people there now okay so um so that gives us really good insight and to have that direct eyes and ears on what's going on every day is brilliant same in the US we've got that now and in the U UK we've got agent sales agents and again we've got them here at the moment actually in ockland so so the closer we are to these people who are in our markets every day the more micro insights we're getting so that we can actually really understand what's required and the more they understand the more they can do with their markets as well exactly so being here in Oakland and just seeing what a successful Market can look like and um and just having that vision for themselves and how that can be translated into their Market as goal so the business is obviously going to keep changing uh you're going to grow and I think as as more brand recognition hits out around the world it's going to pick up exponentially I'd imagine because it is such a great product how are you going to approach that change process I think it's just looking to others that have gone through it themselves as well and um especially I guess other people in New Zealand just just getting I guess some insights from people that have been on that juny already um it's just it's fertile new ground to me so I really don't know but you've got to be true to yourself you've got to be true to who you are and what you do and um for me it's not my most comfortable place to be like I really do probably slip inside my head as my comfort zone so I'm not the extrovert sort of traditional founder type so it's actually trying to work on that as well and actually being true to yourself but also what the market demands from sort of the founder of a business and maybe playing to your strengths and and bringing in people who can play to their strengths to help enable that to help exactly yeah and I think just sharing the story like I'm doing now it's it's really quite genuine like we've got nothing to hide so the more you can stay within your um I guess your you being true to yourself it's really important it is actually a wonderful and a very kiwi story where you've taken an idea and develop something which is actually gamechanging as a product it's quite remarkable yeah thank you yeah and I think the story for the UK especially like it's actually a UK story as much as New Zealand has been there so to actually get over there and actually shape it the right way for that market is really exciting too cuz for me to see the success there like we've got here in New Zealand is kind of Full Circle for me a bit I think I that's we not really feel like you've done it like the vision of region Street like I said just having that um yeah a number of Blunt Umbrellas walking down that street that feel really good that could be an amazing campaign actually like hundreds of Blunt Umbrellas and with our you know guys in bowler hats and P strip suits walking down be fantastic that'd be amazing yeah yeah absolutely so when was the last last time you were with family or friends and had a rip snorting Belly Laugh um I think it was very recently we just had lunch with um my cousin so the group of cousins got together here in New Market and um yeah over a pizza just hearing a stories from living in Columbia for the last 20 years and some of the things he got up to he's just such a character so he had a great time with him then it's good to laugh though right oh fantastic I love it so to finish off got some quickfire questions so please just blad out the first thing which comes to mind these some favorites what's your favorite book um James Dyson's um story of massively inspiring yeah favorite movie um UND Deadpool it's actually got blunt umbrella in it in the background scene yeah I only found out like two years later yeah my favorite movie any that wasn't a thing that was just no it's just like a prop but it's in the background you got to look really carefully that's fantastic it's like my favorite movie yeah cuz it wasn't even I didn't even realize to start with who's your favorite musician oh goodness so many I think um I Billy Joel I love yeah yeah so many yeah what's your favorite season I love spring actually I love the days getting longer yeah yeah yeah what's your favorite drink I'd have to be an xpa beer from down the road W Brewer yeah brilliant well Greg thank you so much for sharing some insights hearing more about your story um I've got to say I've Leed quite a lot uh it's been amazing so thank you so much it's been fun thank you very much well that's almost it for this month but there are a few things to keep on your rad Westfield is soon to welcome our first Cinnabon inside 27 we've got Nero tapw opening on Maro Street and John Barley corn Tap House is about to set up residence on the rooftop also outside Westfield on Broadway we've got the Cuba relocating from Osborne Street stolen girlfriends Club has reopened in Te Street and untouched world is making its debut on Osborne Street that's it for this month is [Music]