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pg 2 pg 3In Hindsight by Nokia - Rip Curl - Foreword In Hindsight by Nokia - Rip Curl - Foreword

A foreword from the founders of Rip Curl, Brian Singer and Doug Warbrick

When we started out, we didn’t have the internet or a book like In Hindsight to reveal what it really takes to make a business idea work.

If we did, we might have been doubly inspired by the personal stories of Will Young from Campos Coffee, Abigail Forsyth from KeepCup, David Handley from Sculpture by the Sea, Hayden Cox from Haydenshapes Surfboards, Jaimie Fuller from SKINS, Shelley Barrett from ModelCo and Marcus Blackmore from Blackmores.

To us, the most valuable part of this book is the Note to startup self, written by each entrepreneur. We think of them as Post-it® Notes from inside a business brain – invaluable advice to take away with you.

We hope you enjoy these entrepreneur tales as much as we’ve enjoyed our own forty years of entrepreneurial living.

We were fortunate to marry our personal passion for riding waves with a way to earn a living. A shortage of new surfboards drove us to make the better boards we craved for ourselves and our friends.

We didn’t see ourselves as entrepreneurs – we couldn’t even say the word. In the beginning, we were the customers and our friends were the customers and we went from there. We just wanted to surf better so we had a go and that was how Rip Curl was born.

Like many of the entrepreneurs in this book, we’ve seen our own business survive and grow from two of us making and selling a few surfboards a week in a little Australian country town in 1967 to a global brand that now employs a couple of thousand people.

Success to us has really always boiled down to not failing, though we’d like to think we’ve learned something along the bumpy way. We know that if you don’t like what you’re doing then you’ll

give up in the tough times; and trust us, if you run a business there will be tough times. It’s important to find people to work with who share your passions and values and then treat them the way you would like to be treated.

Of course technology has played a big role for us at Rip Curl. If you make good products then it’s essential to tell your customers about your products in the right way. The internet is the ultimate communication tool if you use it correctly.

pg 4In Hindsight by Nokia - Jaimie Fuller - SKINS

Skinned aliveJaimie Fuller, 46CEO of SKINS

Jaimie Fuller swears like a drunken sailor on shore leave. He has stuck two fingers up at Nike, been slapped on the wrist by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) and written million dollar cheques not knowing if he’d get the cash back. Jaimie’s big personality and devil-may-care attitude may have rubbed a few of his competitors the wrong way, but he must be doing something right because the forty-six year old entrepreneur has taken SKINS compression sportswear from the verge of bankruptcy to global domination in nine years.

Favoured by the English Cricket Team, Manchester United and the likes of Brett Lee and Steve Waugh, some would say Jaimie has earned the right to swear.

Jaimie’s tips for success:

Keep a clear goal in sight, plan for the long-term, get good advice and take risks. You’ve got to have balls if you want to succeed and bite off more than you can chew; and chew like buggery.

Jaimie’s story

Jaimie, you don’t know shit, you don’t know what you’re talking about. That’s what the CEO and Creative Director of my new advertising agency told me just the second time I met them in 2004.

They were showing me their concept for our first print and television ad for SKINS and it was nothing like I had expected. Here we have a proven technology that delivers real benefits to the wearer and I thought the least we should do was explain the technology.

Founded in Australia, SKINS is a sportswear clothing company specialising in compression garments for cycling, triathlon, golf, snow and general sports which are sold in retail sports outlets. Now based in Switzerland, SKINS employs eighty full time staff worldwide.

In Hindsight by Nokia - Jaimie Fuller - SKINS pg 5

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I said to them, you know what, you’re right, I don’t know shit, but it’s my money and I need to be comfortable spending it.

We argued for over two hours and they stuck to their guns and I eventually took the risk. If you play it safe you’ll always wonder what could have happened. I love these guys forever because the ad was the turning point for SKINS – it launched us as a brand and got people talking.

I bought into SKINS at the end of 2002 at a point where they were about to go bust. They had this great product idea conceived by this brilliant guy, Brad Duffy. He realised that the technology used by the sick, the infirm and old people in horrid flesh coloured compression stockings could work for athletes by incorporating the same concept into modern day fabrics.

I was looking to get out of the printing industry and broaden my business horizons. Brad wanted to sell me the distribution rights for the USA, as his investor well had run dry.

They were more focused on making the brand famous and ignored the technology. I thought at the time it was a dumb-arse way to sell our product.

There were just a couple of elite athletes wearing our brand in the print ad mock-up, only you can’t see they were wearing our product. Then there was this line saying we don’t pay sports stars to wear our product, they pay us.

I was nervous because I figured SKINS has this great technology and there’s nothing in the ad that talks about it. Plus there was a f&*%$ng upside-down Nike swoosh on each athlete’s face where their mouth should be!

In Hindsight by Nokia - Jaimie Fuller - SKINS

But I wasn’t interested in just the US – I wanted the whole lot – the concept made total sense to me.

After meeting with Brad, it was obvious the company was in trouble. I rang him and said Brad, let’s cut the shit, you’re in trouble. How much do you need and when do you need it. He told me how much he needed and that he needed it in seven days, so I committed there and then and invested without further thought.

It was a now or never moment where I just had to act very quickly on something I knew was right. My advisors all told me that I was crazy and I should complete a proper due diligence, but there wasn’t time.

We stirred the pot in our first year by going against the grain. All sports brands pay sports associations, clubs and elite athletes to wear their brand. Instead we went straight to the elite clubs and we spoke to the doctors, physios and strength and conditioning coaches. We’d explain the technology, leave them some samples to try and then in every case within

forty-eight hours we’d have 100 or more units ordered at full retail value less ten percent discount for bulk.

Trust me, it wasn’t deliberate, we had no f&%*king idea that this wasn’t how you do it. The idea of approaching the guys paid to look after the athlete’s best health interests just made total sense to us. Just because there’s a standard way of doing things in an industry doesn’t mean there isn’t a better way.

It worked for us because it would have been impossible to try to explain to big boofy blokes why they should be wearing tights. Getting the athlete’s trusted medical support team to recommend a product automatically gives it kudos; and once the athletes wore SKINS, they loved them.

Opening retail doors in Australia was really hard. They were selling Nike, Puma and Adidas running tights for $70 but they didn’t have our technology; their tights were purely for thermal purposes.

“Just because there’s a standard way of doing things in an industry doesn’t mean there isn’t a better way.”


pg 8 pg 9In Hindsight by Nokia - Jaimie Fuller - SKINS

“I’ve never done any advertising or marketing in my life and we thought

“f*&§k what’s going to happen, we’d better look at our inventory levels, shit we’d better make more product.”

We were trying to get the retailers to sell SKINS to their customers for double the price at $140. So in our first year, we had to show that the science of SKINS makes it worth the price. But we didn’t have any studies or tests that proved it.

We started with some pilot studies and then we moved into commissioning independent reviews and tests that proved the technology improved performance and recovery. If you make a claim about your product, you have to back it up with facts – the consumer

won’t just blindly believe you for long.

At the end of 2004 we were in 120 stores and I told my sales manager that if he could show me how he could get into a further 180 stores then I’d chuck a million bucks on the table for a TV campaign.

We met with our new ad agency and told them how the majority of our sales were to elite and professional sportspeople. Their creative director said don’t f&*%$ng lie to me, I know bullshit when I hear it.

I showed him a file of more than 100 invoices including some from the Football Federation of Australia, Cricket Australia, the Australian Rugby Union, plus just about every AFL and NRL club you could imagine.

That’s when he came up with the ad concept that put us on the map in mid 2005. We knew Nike would scream and probably try to sue us for using their logo. We even prepared a gag for the billboards with censored by US corporate giant printed on it to cover up the Nike logo. But Nike didn’t say boo. I found out a couple of years later they realised that if they tried to squash it we would make a huge song and dance about it and they didn’t want us to have the publicity.

It was a big call for us. I spent more money on marketing than I was turning over at that stage and I was shit-scared. I’ve never done any advertising or marketing in my life and we thought f*&§k what’s going to happen, we’d better look at our inventory levels, shit we’d better make more product.


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It worked. By June 2005 we were in over 300 stores and by January 2006 it was 600. Today we’re in almost 1,000 in Australia. Would it have worked if we had just done public relations? I don’t know. The ad itself created publicity for our brand. If I hadn’t taken the risk with a controversial ad then we wouldn’t have got that publicity.

But I was in it up to my Jatz crackers. Whenever I had to write another cheque for half a million, I didn’t do it with a huge smile on my face but I did it thinking that it was a good bet because I could see the progress we were making and I knew the odds were better than good. You have to invest in your business beliefs to make them grow.

The moment we started advertising and marketing, our competitors started saying whoa, what’s going on? Adidas then went to the Collingwood AFL team who were buying our product and told they weren’t allowed to deal with us anymore.


“I was in it up to my jatz crackers. Whenever I had to write another cheque for half a million, I didn’t do it with a huge smile on my face but I did it thinking that it was a good bet.”

The same thing happened with almost all other clubs we were selling to who were sponsored by the big brands.Then there were internal fights within clubs between the medical department, the coaching staff, and the marketing staff. The marketing team is saying well hang on, we’ve got commercial obligations to Adidas, Nike, Puma - whoever. But the doctors, the physios, the coaching staff and the players were saying well f*&§k that, we want our players to perform the best they can, they’ve got to have this product.

So we had to change the nature of our relationship with sports clubs from straight sales to product contra deals. Rather than sell them the product for cash we’d sell them the product for marketing benefits to the value of

“Technology was important in making the move overseas. I reckon I do the work of ten men from thirty years ago with just a mobile phone and email, while dealing with multiple time zones and multiple issues.”

the product. In a couple of cases we paid them cash as well. This was my mistake.

Those couple of cases meant that when we ran our TV campaign again in 2006 we were technically in breach of advertising regulations. The ACCC had a go at us for deceptive and misleading conduct because we were making claims that we don’t pay sports stars for our products and technically we were.

Now look, I had a file of over 200 transactions and there would’ve been around fifteen that were in breach of terms because we either did the contra deal for marketing space or ground signage. It never occurred to me that this meant we were paying athletes and were technically in breach but I

now know you can’t fight the technicalities of law.I’ve got to say I was really pissed off on a couple of levels. First of all I feel I was very badly advised. I was told to fight it and it cost me a lot of money. If I’d been told listen Jaimie, it only takes one and you are technically in breach, you’re rooted so you need to settle this, then I wouldn’t have argued and I wouldn’t have fought it.

I had trusted the lawyers when it blew up but when it comes to legal advice you should always get a second opinion. It was a very costly lesson for me as a young businessman; but I learnt just how powerful the ACCC is and how critical it is to know the possible pitfalls of every distribution and pricing decision.


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We paid our fine, I paid my legal costs, I paid their legal costs – which were horrible – and we got on with doing business.

After that I wanted to expand to overseas markets so we brought in a private equity investor. I set out to turn SKINS Australia into a sales and marketing subsidiary which is what it is today; and then shift the global functions like IT, Legal, Finance, Brand Management and Global Sales to Switzerland where we are based now.

Sounds easy, right? I went in as a small Australian business with a small minded Australian way of thinking and assumed because we did something one way in Australia, then Europe and the rest of the world must do that too. We thought that the Australian way was the only and the best way. It wasn’t and we had to adapt to other cultural ways of thinking and doing business if we wanted to expand.

Technology was important in making the move overseas. I reckon I do the work of ten men from thirty years ago with just

a mobile phone and email, while dealing with multiple time zones and multiple issues. I think we take technology for granted, but then I’m not too young to remember when the fax machine was revolutionary.

We may be in Switzerland but we try and do as much as we can to keep the Australianness in SKINS, short of wrapping the bloody flag around our shoulders or sticking a boxing kangaroo on our packaging. Staying strong to your brand roots is important to brand integrity.

You’ve got to have balls if you want to succeed, though some people call it stupidity. I know I’ve taken lots of gambles in this business and I’ve made lots of mistakes. It has been the most amazing ride and I’ve had an education you could never acquire through schooling in a million years. The great part is that the ride has only just started. Would I do it again? F$*&king hell yeah.


Now listen Jaimie.

Don’t think you know it all at the outset – you don’t. Go get some industry expertise or you’re going to have to plug some f$*&king holes later on. You’re impulsive, I’ll give you that, but you need a bloody plan. Working hand to mouth without thinking long term is not going to help you.

Incorporate branding a lot earlier into your business. You’re a lot more than a product – you’re a brand. Start thinking that from day one and you won’t have to change tack later on.

Keep taking risks - they’re going to pay off for you, just get a second opinion whether you like

it or not. Make sure the advice you get is from the right quarters and PAY ATTENTION to it! It’s pointless seeking advice if you don’t listen and use it.

Jaimie

Jaimie’s note to (startup) self


pg 14In Hindsight by Nokia - Will Young - Campos Coffee

Spilling the beansWill Young, 38Director of Campos Coffee

Will’s blend of Bermudan meets Canadian accent makes him sound Irish and many would say he shared their luck when he first started out. After a ‘run in’ with Starbucks that saw him broke and in hospital, he turned that luck around, launching Campos Coffee to an Australian public starved of good coffee bean taste. Fifteen years later, Campos is one of the nation’s most respected coffee brands and Will still speaks Irish.

Will’s tips for success: Do your research and protect your brand at all costs, money is irrelevant if your quality is compromised.

Will’s story

Can you believe I had never drunk a decent cup of coffee until I was twenty-three? I was on a surfing trip of Australia in 1996, and no, I don’t surf but I thought I did.

I was terrible at surfing, but not as terrible as the coffee served up in surf towns at the time. Not that I came from a coffee culture. My family lived in Bermuda and the best I got was American drip filter.

Campos Coffee has gained cult status in Australia for fastidious attention to coffee detail and commitment to a perfect coffee every time. With a signature store in Brisbane and two in Sydney plus a plethora of top end restaurants on board with the Campos name, Campos Coffee has been heralded by The New York Times as coffee worth ‘a twenty-two hour flight’.

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We found a space to open eight months’ later in a great location in the city and bought it with $60,000 of money maxed up on credit cards and loans from our families back home. I don’t think there was anyone we didn’t ask a dollar from.

We thought we had a real deal but we soon found out why it was so cheap, $300 a week, when the bulldozers and jackhammers moved in.

I had this idea of educating the world about coffee and lighting up everyone’s coffee palate like mine had been. My mate and I dreamt about bringing our coffee to the world and we had this intricate forty-five page utopian-style plan we’d written to open a cafe. You know the kind – the one where you live upstairs and bake muffins when you wake up and take the tray into the cafe and everyone wants one. Yep, it was so naive.

Eight months into my surf trip, a friend I went to uni with in Canada, Chantz Strong, introduced me to Coffee and Things in Randwick, Sydney. It was owned by a coffee madman called Andrew Gross.

I had a flat white and he said don’t add sugar, just try it without. He was right. The whole experience was a total coffee epiphany for me. This was obviously how coffee was meant to taste.

Chantz and I became totally obsessed with coffee. I wanted to replicate that coffee epiphany over and over and wanted to know how to make the best coffee possible. We hung out at Andrew Gross’ warehouse as much as we could and he was hanging out with John Russell Storey who now heads Lavazza, so it was like the coffee dream team.

We would take crates of milk over and just make coffees on his machine in our spare time. Practice makes perfect when creating a quality product – hanging around the right people to learn from helps too.

“Practice makes perfect when creating a quality product - hanging around the right people to learn from helps too.”

In Hindsight by Nokia - Will Young - Campos Coffee

Little did we know they were building Australia’s first Starbucks right in front of us. If I had done my research better we could have saved ourself some serious grief.

It was a nightmare. We had to record the construction sounds for our lawyers to prove the decibels and we then closed for nine months without paying rent and both worked elsewhere until construction was finished. When we returned, the rent was five times what it had been and we had a mammoth international chain to compete with.

Starbucks’ coffee is expensive and not the highest quality but their location meant they got all

the passing trade plus the tourists. We tried to keep the business going for three months but it was futile; so we closed and lost everything we had borrowed and more. Our friendship fell apart and it was very upsetting. I’ve never gone into business with friends since, despite some asking. I just won’t do it, ever.

By then I was a complete wreck. I was twenty-six years of age and looked fifty-five and ended up in hospital with kidney problems from getting to work at 4.30am, baking muffins until 6.30am then serving until 4.30pm without enough time to even go to the toilet.

It was heartbreaking. I had lost my family’s money and my best friend and my coffee dreams were shattered – for the time being. The last thing I wanted to do was go back into business but in hindsight, if Starbucks hadn’t opened we wouldn’t have closed and I wouldn’t have later bought Campos. So some good came of our naivety though Chantz and I haven’t really spoken since, which is really sad.

“We tried to keep the business going for three months but it was futile; so we closed and lost everything we had borrowed and more. Our friendship fell apart and it was very upsetting.”


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outside which ran through the house to power it and started giving barista lessons.

You have to understand, I resembled a backpacking hippy with long hair and a beard back then. Andy, the owner of Campos, liked to chat while serving coffee but he certainly didn’t believe I could buy his place. Why would he?

I certainly learnt that no amount of work is worth your health or your friends. I also learnt the importance of ensuring that other people in your business can do what you do and that they can do it just as well as you. It’s pointless making yourself indispensible because it can let down your brand.

My then girlfriend – now wife – and I went on a year sabbatical walkabout around Australia just to

get my health and sanity back. It took a long time but it worked and we returned to Sydney and moved into a share house in Newtown. My favourite cafe was already Campos in Newtown so I guess I just followed my nose.

After we moved into Newtown I inherited $10,000 and paid cash for a commercial La Marzocc espresso machine to be delivered to my house. I hardwired a 32 amp cord


“I went on a year sabbatical walkabout around Australia just to get my health and sanity back. It took a long time but it worked and we returned to Sydney... My favourite cafe was already Campos in Newtown so I guess I just followed my nose.”

But I had crunched the numbers, borrowed some cash from my father who had recently sold his pharmacy business in Bermuda and badgered Andy for two weeks. Within a month he sold it to me. Persistence pays off.

When I got there it was only making sixty or eighty coffees a day and charging $2 so it wasn’t making a lot. I just wanted to make coffee, make it well and make it fast.

Within six months we were selling 400 to 500 a day. Now we turn over 1,500 on a busy day, but I never thought it would be that big.

Our philosophy was, and still is, to always match the growing demand with quality supply; so we had two machines, three grinders and three baristas. I also wanted to manipulate every part of the atmosphere, so when the coffee arrived it had a

good chance of being well-received.The environment in which you experience coffee makes a great difference to the coffee itself. When you’re drinking a coffee at sunset on a secluded Caribbean beach and feeling happy, that coffee is going to taste better than when you are tired and grumpy and served coffee in an unwashed cup in a dark cafe with bad service.


pg 20 pg 21In Hindsight by Nokia - Will Young - Campos Coffee

Our music is jazz from the fifties and sixties. I carefully choose every song on those CDs and the baristas can’t comment if they don’t like a song. The music is for the coffee and the customers, not for the staff.

In 2002, baristas were paid $10 an hour. We were paying at least $15 and sometimes $20 so we could get the best. You pay for what you get and if your staff feel valued then the energy is positive. When we reached a benchmark moment in the business we’d take our staff to Tetsuya’s as it gave us a

chance to respect them and to expose them to the quality of service we wanted.

To be honest, we took a lot of our values from Tetsuya’s because they’re professional, nice and not snobby. If you ask them about wine they’ll tell you it’s a fantastic choice without going on about it.

Wholesaling was never planned, it just happened. A cafe owner from Mona Vale arrived one day wanting to use Campos coffee so we took him to lunch at the Boathouse in Glebe and we still have him as a client.


“When you’re drinking a coffee at sunset on a secluded Caribbean beach and feeling happy, that coffee is going to taste better than when you are tired and grumpy and served coffee in an unwashed cup in a dark cafe with bad service.”

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Keeping quality is so important to us. I train every barista that works in each of the cafes that stock us. If we get negative feedback about our coffee in a cafe we’ll go straight to them and discuss it and sometimes we’ll send out warnings. I have two drawers of files of closed accounts.

Direct feedback is vital to our survival and has been influential in determining the direction of Campos Coffee. With the internet and mobile phones, we have the ability to get lots of feedback from coffee drinkers and in extremely swift formats.

This has helped us monitor and protect our brand as it grows.

We get seven requests a day for our coffee from cafes and restaurants but we usually only agree to one a week. Taking on clients just for money doesn’t work for what we believe in.

We’re not trying to conquer anyone, we’re not looking for money nor are we influenced by it. The more our company grows then the more our share of the market grows and the less there is for people doing unsustainable or unethical things. But we don’t want to get too big, we want to be exclusive as much as humanly possible.

For a while I thought I knew everything about coffee, but you never do. You learn you know nothing and then it’s all cool. Sometimes the less you know the better you are at it.


“With the internet and mobile phones, we have the ability to get lots of feedback from coffee drinkers and in extremely swift formats. This has helped us monitor and protect our brand as it grows.”

Hey Will,

You won’t have seen Starbucks in Australia yet but you’re about to and trust me you’re not going to like it.

Just remember there’s no such thing as a free lunch. If a deal looks too good to be true, it usually is, so do your research and look for the hidden angles.

Quality is more important than quantity so don’t listen to the folks that will tell you otherwise. There are too many people feeling ripped off in this world, they need to feel they can get quality for a decent price. If they’re not, then change it.

And lay off the espressos! Ten is enough, twelve is just asking for trouble.

Will

Will’s note to (startup) self


pg 24In Hindsight by Nokia - Marcus Blackmore - Blackmores

In the familyMarcus Blackmore, 66Chairman, Blackmores Ltd.

Australian vitamin, herbal and mineral supplement company Blackmores was founded by naturopath Maurice Blackmore in the 1930s and the reins were handed over to his son Marcus Blackmore in the 1970s. The company has since listed on the Australian Stock Exchange.

Marcus Blackmore is Chairman of Blackmores, Deputy Chairman of the Defence Reserve Support Council, on the corporate fundraising committee for the Olympics, a board member for the Young Endeavour Youth Scheme, and Patron of the Australian Sailing Team. Did we mention he also flies helicopters for a hobby?

Marcus Blackmore dresses more like the captain of a luxury cruiser in pressed slacks and bespoke blazer with shiny gold buttons rather than the Chairman of a company. It’s clear his land legs would rather be at sea. The Australian Farr 40 yachting champion and Sydney to Hobart sailor has successfully navigated his way through the business world for over forty years. He counts the country’s

leading politicians as both personal friends and business foe and has put natural therapy on the medical map.

Tips for success:

Surround yourself with people smarter than you, fight for what you believe in, stay positive and don’t get disheartened. Believe in people and be persistent because persistence always pays off.

Marcus’ story

My father sacked me three times while I was working for him. Though if he were alive today he’d say I never sacked my son, he just left, but I reckon I got the sack. I think you’re tougher on your own family in business and he was definitely tough on me.

My father was a naturopath in the 1930s when all naturopaths were considered quacks.

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So I worked for him by day to pay my fees and went to university at night but the problem for me is I like my sleep – I go to bed early and get up early – still do. If they’d put uni on in the morning, I could have been a Rhodes scholar but it was on at night so instead I was a failure.

While at university I was conscripted into the army to serve in Vietnam. I didn’t have front line duties but I did work on a ship which I loved because I secretly harboured dreams of being a ferry driver until I later realised they don’t make much money. The military is a system, you don’t get a lot of entrepreneurs in the army, but I definitely learned a lot of leadership skills that helped me later when I trained as an officer.

When I got out of the army I was offered a job with a big American container shipping company. They were going to pay me a hell of a lot more money than my father was ever willing to pay. It was one of the few times in my life when my father actually wrote me a letter.

He used to get thrown out of clubs because they didn’t want his type there. But he got results when doctors didn’t.

He founded the first naturopathic colleges in Australia and we now have more naturopaths per head of population than any other country, largely because of my old man and his enthusiasm to share his knowledge. He was a definite pioneer. I grew up with the business. My school holidays were spent going to work with my father. I can remember the early days when I had to stick product labels in a scrap-book for him after school.

I left school after my senior year at sixteen and I went and did science at university, but it really didn’t grab me. All my life I’ve been very good at not doing things well if I didn’t like them. It’s a bit of a failing that I have, so I spent a lot of time playing cards at uni and didn’t really apply myself. My dad said, well I’m not paying for you to go anymore. If you want to go you pay your own way.

He had started buying health food shops and he wanted me to come back to run those. In the letter he painted a picture of what the job would be and said how keen he was that I come back and work in the business.

It took a lot of thinking, but I did go back. I’ve got an ego and I was questioning whether I would be truly satisfied in the family business with my father or whether I really needed to get out and do something for myself.

“I’ve got an ego and I was questioning whether I would be truly satisfied in the family business with my father or whether I really needed to get out and do something for myself. But I swallowed my pride and went back to work in the family business to learn what I could.”

In Hindsight by Nokia - Marcus Blackmore - Blackmores

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But I swallowed my pride and went back to work in the family business to learn what I could.

Of course the only way to satisfy my ego and stay working with my dad was to build it into a much bigger, more acceptable business. Thankfully I was smart enough to know my own limitations and so I sought out people smarter than me and spent time with them. I joined industry associations and cosmetic associations to meet as many people as I could and I studied naturopathy so I could understand more about our products.

I think that’s the difference between the pioneer and the entrepreneur. The pioneer is about the passion and the entrepreneur has more commercial connotations. My father’s contribution was the philosophical belief system and mine was more commercial. He was the archbishop and I was the minister in naturopathy.

My dad had sold the business back in the 1950s to his customers, to other naturopaths who he trained and created; it was almost a co-operative.

He believed he needed to do that for the success of the business.

He sold them shares in the business for a ten percent deposit and the dividends paid their shares off over the next ten or fifteen years. He gave me my first 100 shares and said you buy your own after that. Of course it was difficult in a private company to get shares. I didn’t own a house until I was nearly forty, because I consistently spent my money on buying shares in my family’s business so I could have more control.

“I think that’s the difference between the pioneer and the entrepreneur. The pioneer is about the passion and the entrepreneur has more commercial connotations. My father’s contribution was the philosophical belief system and mine was more commercial. He was the archbishop and I was the minister in naturopathy.”


In the early days, Blackmores was just supplying practitioners and naturopaths with their products. I was a rep at one stage, I worked in dispatch and I just did all sorts of menial tasks. It was a very small business in South Brisbane before we relocated to Sydney in the 1970s.

Then I worked in manufacturing. We had a skin care range and I used to make that too. That’s what you do in a family business, you try your hand at everything because you have to.

I’ve had a lot to do in my life with family businesses and they outperform all other businesses by something like twenty percent and I think the underlying thing is the passion.

One of the biggest challenges for us has always been employing people that have the same philosophical values as well as a commercial capability. We hope that when we employ people with pure professional skills that eventually they’ll become so imbued with the organisation

and what the company does that they become advocates for natural health. Invariably this happens.

I think a failing of Australian business – and business around the world for that matter – is to recognise the value of people. How can we put a value on people?

My annual report will say I’ve got a building worth $60 million and a load of machinery but there’s no statement to say how valuable the people are.

“That’s what you do in a family business, you try your hand at everything because you have to. I’ve had a lot to do in my life with family businesses and they outperform all other businesses by something like twenty percent and I think the underlying thing is the passion.”


pg 30 pg 31

because they know how much their people cost.I’ve always been more interested in the marketing side, in getting the message across. I look after the product and the people. My father was about the philosophy and he was politically active, especially when they were trying to ban naturopaths in Australia.

I’ve retained that interest because, at the end of the day, so much of the future of our business is dictated by politicians. He taught me that you’ve got to take a stand for the things you really believe in.

One of the reasons why Queensland’s water supply is less fluoridated than the rest of Australia is because of my father. He used to print newspapers for the naturopathic industry and he’d show photographs of people putting the sodium fluoride, which is the most toxic bloody thing, into the water.

Like my father, I’ve been at the forefront of a number of campaigns against the government when I think we’ve been unfairly treated.

The people on the factory floor may earn $45,000 a year but if I wanted to borrow a million dollars they’d charge me six to seven percent which is $65,000 a year.

The on-cost of employing people is anywhere between twenty-five and forty percent so you could say the factory worker is costing the company $60,000 a year; that’s the same as the interest on a million dollar bank loan. It is not unreasonable to assume then that a person is a million dollar investment.

So why wouldn’t I look after them? It’s common sense. We have a lap pool, a gym, a cafeteria; and everyone gets a bottle of champagne on each year anniversary of working for the company. The gym has become like a social centre, the place where the most junior people in the company interact with the most senior people, so it’s a real leveller in that sense.

The only time most businesses take notice of their people is when the business starts to go a bit quiet. Then they send their people out the door,

“We have a lap pool, a gym, a cafeteria; and everyone gets a bottle of champagne on each year anniversary of working for the company. The gym has become like a social centre, the place where the most junior people in the company interact with the most senior people, so it’s a real leveller in that sense.”


We started a campaign against the Howard Government when the Member for Adelaide, Trish Worth, introduced legislation that said that in the advertising of complementary medicines, we weren’t allowed to make a claim that a product was drug-free or free of drugs.

My dad used to put on the label ‘Drugless Remedy’ which was our position; we offer consumers an alternative – and, we think, a better proposition – to pharmaceutical medicines. My immediate reaction was that if this isn’t a set-up by the drug companies, I don’t know what is.

So we started a massive online action campaign and encouraged our customers to email their federal member. It was debated in parliament. I had senators coming to see me and both the Labor Party and the Coalition filed a motion for disallowance.

We went in to lobby the Democrats who, at that time, held the balance of power and we got the legislation thrown out.

If you work with complementary medicine and you’re successful then you’ve got to be a bit thick-skinned at times to deal with the criticism you get. I’ve had old-school doctors criticise me for the business I am in but I know how little they taught doctors at medical school about nutrients, vitamins and minerals. What many of them know about nutritional medicine you could write on the edge of a razor blade.

Blackmores puts a value on honesty, integrity and professionalism and being a cut above the average. You’ve got to engage your critics and turn them around. I was offered a position on the board of the Heart Research Institute and I must be the only person in the complementary medicine space who was ever Chairman of a prestigious institute like that.

The nutrition unit at the Heart Research Institute now researches fish oil and we’re selling more fish oil than ever before.


pg 32 pg 33

Last year we sold 320 million capsules because doctors in general practice are recognising the proven benefits through proven researched science and they are recommending it.Science and research has helped change the general public perception of health and wellness. The internet also has a lot to do with the success of natural medicine. We live in an information-rich society and now if you want to find out about anything, you just look it up on the internet.

If you go to the doctor and have some sort of disease, particularly if it’s a bit rare, the first thing you do when you get home is turn on the computer. By the time you get back to the doctor you’ll know as much as he does about the disease, which is confronting for him.

My generation absolutely believed what their doctor told them. If he told you to take a drug, you took it. Now we turn around and say well, is there some alternative? We’ve got a more questioning and challenging patient and I like to think Blackmores has helped with that.

Am I an entrepreneur? If I am, I’d say I’m second rate. I don’t think financial success is necessarily how you define an entrepreneur, although it’s an obvious measure, especially if you look at Dick Smith and Richard Branson.

But Father Chris Riley to me is a true entrepreneur. What he has done with Youth Off The Streets is inspiring. The fact he isn’t personally wealthy is irrelevant. Yet I have all these business types saying we must offer our business acumen to Father Riley and help him. I say he has a lot to teach us about business and entrepreneurship.

I know I’m blessed in my life. The last time my father sacked me it was after I suggested changing the colour of our herbal toothpaste to bright purple – I thought it would stand out more. I ended up feeling sorry for myself.

I didn’t have a job and I was living in a bedsit – ok, it was a nice bedsit in Mosman – and I saw this man who needed help just to cross the road.

Whenever I think there is something wrong in my wonderful life, I remember him. How can I complain when I have my mobility?

My dad did the right thing sacking me. I learnt that nothing comes for free. I understand hard work and thankfully now in my older years I understand the rewards of that hard work. I think Dad would be proud if he saw the company today but then he was a Gemini, so he might be proud just half of the time!


Dear Marcus,

Beware of your ego and that Aries stubbornness; it may get you in more trouble than it’s worth.

Listen to your father, he knows what he’s doing even though you won’t think so.

When you don’t know something, ask; and when you do know something, prove it.

Pack a life-jacket, you’re going to need it.

Marcus

Marcus’ note to (startup) self


pg 34In Hindsight by Nokia - Abigail Forsyth - KeepCup

Queen of the cupAbigail Forsyth, 40Co-Founder, KeepCup

The KeepCup is the world’s first barista-standard reusable cup and was launched in Australia in June 2009 by brother and sister team, Abigail and Jamie Forsyth. KeepCup has sold over 800,000 cups in the first twenty-two months of business.

Abigail Forsyth is on a mission. She wants to change human behaviour around the world and save the planet in the process. Appalled by the amount of disposable coffee cups wasted every week, Abigail and Jamie sought a sustainable solution that would keep both baristas and coffee drinkers happy. She almost lost the first sale at Energy Australia by burning some lips on a sample, but now KeepCup boasts a UK office and USA retailers – and Energy Australia’s lips have healed.

Abigail’s tips for success: Go direct to your customers if you have a great story to tell, cut out the middleman and make sure you have good systems in place. If it doesn’t feel right then don’t do it.

Abigail’s story

When we hire sales people, if they start with a request for business cards I know we’re in trouble. When you’re selling, you need to sell an idea.

I learnt this first-hand from a prospective manufacturer when KeepCup was in its design phase. He said if you can’t sell this off a prototype, don’t bother.

In Hindsight by Nokia - Abigail Forsyth - KeepCup pg 35

pg 36 pg 37In Hindsight by Nokia - Abigail Forsyth - KeepCup

It was valuable advice as just to get KeepCup to product launch would cost $250,000. This guy didn’t think there was a market for KeepCup – sometimes you learn more from the critical eye of your detractors rather than your supporters.

My brother Jamie and I owned a chain of six Bluebag cafes in Melbourne which we had built up over twelve years. They are cafes that sell fresh, healthy food in a ready-to-go format.

I had my first child, Bess, in 2005 and it was the first time I really had the chance to step away from the business and reflect on how I wanted my future to look. I wrote a list of things I wanted from a business. I wanted a product that was global and non-perishable, that didn’t require a high volume of staff. I also

wanted to do something I was passionate about – sustainability. Plus, I wanted a better family work-life balance!

I was always concerned about the amount of paper coffee cups with plastic tops that people were throwing away. Some Bluebag customers would bring in big ceramic mugs or thermos mugs but they didn’t fit under a proper espresso machine and I’d watch our baristas roll their eyes.

When we talked about developing a reusable cup we always stumbled over whether people would be bothered to wash the cup. My daughter Bess was having her milk out of a sippy cup one day and I thought, imagine if I threw that out every time she used it, how much waste would that be? That was my call-to-action moment. I realised getting people to wash a reusable cup was not negotiable and if I felt this way, others would too.

We wanted to make a reusable cup that looked cool, worked for baristas and compelled behaviour change through visual appeal and ease of use.

In Hindsight by Nokia - Abigail Forsyth - KeepCup

pg 38 pg 39

So we tested the market with reusable soup cups from Decor and we found that fifteen percent of our customers would reuse the soup cup. That was enough to convince us to go ahead. It took a year to complete the industrial designer phase.

Jamie ran Bluebag and I pulled out of day-to-day operations. When we were designing the KeepCup, my input was around the form and colour, the material and textures. Jamie was totally into the testing and the technical aspects.

I knew that sustainability was high on the corporate agenda so I did what that manufacturer had suggested and sold the

cups off the prototype. I approached some big corporates as part of their sustainability policy. NAB and Energy Australia both came on board with large orders. This gave us a great deal of confidence as we moved into the manufacturing phase.

Then it all went horribly wrong. We sent the first order to Energy Australia in February 2009 and one in ten of the cups leaked – the seal wasn’t complete – so they sent them back. I was totally gutted and so embarrassed; we had compromised the quality control process to meet the delivery deadline. It was total naivety and manufacturing inexperience on our part.

To Energy Australia’s credit, they told me to send my next sample to their OH&S team to review, which I did and they accepted delivery of an improved KeepCup three months later. It was a valuable lesson about product safety and integrity – and manufacturing.

“I was totally gutted and so embarrassed; we had compromised the quality control process to meet the delivery deadline. It was total naivety and manufacturing inexperience on our part.”


The product launch of the KeepCup was at the Federation Square design market in Melbourne and then the Powerhouse Museum design market in Sydney shortly after. Those markets were a real vindication. We saw that we had a product people wanted, that they’d seen a need for. Most importantly, they loved what we’d come up with as a solution. It was a really gratifying moment that I’ll never forget – it was the moment I knew we were onto a winner.

The word-of-mouth started spreading from the design markets but technology has also worked incredibly well for us. We have been enthusiastically supported by bloggers, reviewers and fans of the KeepCup who take the time to tweet and post Facebook comments about our disposable cup solution. Social media is a goldmine for finding people who like what you do and help spread the word for your product. Thanks to modern mobility, I can interact with our social media from anywhere.

Barista support has also been critical to our success. We wanted the KeepCup to have credibility in the premium coffee environment. It has been designed from the point-of-view of the barista, so the integrity of the coffee is not destroyed – as is the case in many reusable alternatives. Toby’s Estate and Campos Coffee both came on board early on, ordering KeepCups with their branding.

They provide branded KeepCups with the beans which gave us fast and massive reach that we couldn’t have achieved on our own. These were turning-point ‘halo’ clients for us – they add integrity to our brand.

A year after launching KeepCup, we sold the Bluebag cafes.

“Social media is a goldmine for finding people who like what you do and help spread the word for the product.”


pg 40 pg 41In Hindsight by Nokia - Abigail Forsyth - KeepCup

It was crucial that we did, because you can’t have a business where both owners’ attention is on something else.

You’re supposed to be leading your staff, but being mentally absent is not a good way to run a business as it lacks integrity. To be honest, it felt terrific when we sold it – like a total weight off my shoulders.

I had a second baby, Clarence, in June 2010 and although I took maternity leave and worked part time, when it’s your own business you never tune out completely, you’re thinking about it all the time.

I went to London when Clarence was three months old to give some guidance to our UK office. I had a nanny when we were there. She would come with me to meetings and sit in the foyer, and I would come out and breast feed, then we would put the pram in the back of the cab and off we’d go.

It was chaos but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I loved it.

Being in business with my brother helped – we’ve worked together for twelve years. We employed a general manager before I had the baby and she took over the day-to-day running of the business. The real challenge was training a general manager in a business that was brand new – we were just learning about ourselves.

In our first year, we sold over 350,000 cups and we’re at 850,000 just twenty-two months from launch. We have an office in the UK and have sold into thirteen Whole Foods Market stores in the USA. It’s absolutely crazy.

Fast growth comes with its own problems. We’re getting calls from people wanting to sell KeepCup or become a distributor. It’s really hard to get on the front foot, where you’re actually seeking partners that you want on your terms. We were in a response position all the time but we were still learning about our business and distribution channels.


“I had a nanny when we were there. She would come with me to meetings and sit in the foyer, and I would come out and breast feed.”

pg 42 pg 43

I think we moved to the UK quicker than we ought to as it has been really stressful trying to support an international arm of the business while we’re really still setting up our systems and processes and understanding our business in Australia. We didn’t adequately consider the UK market’s differences to the Australian and New Zealand markets. In Australia, the premium coffee roasters sell a branded disposable cup to cafes but they don’t do that in the UK and the US; so we need to find different routes to market.

Since that first day at the Federation Square design market, my focus has always been on winning business customer-by-customer. If you have a good product and a good story that is well told, it’s likely to be repeated. In this age of social media and rapid spread of ideas, it’s this repetition that is, and will continue to be, the cornerstone of our success.

What excites me is the way a business with a good idea and well-designed product can change human behaviour. That’s what gets me up in the morning.


“It has been really stressful trying to support an international arm of the business while we’re really still setting up our systems and processes and understanding our business in Australia.”

Dear Abigail,

Follow your instincts every time, they are good ones. Test your product, then test it again. You will want to please everyone but don’t please at the cost of your product quality. Good things take time, though you won’t have a lot of it.

Going global may be your goal but impatience can get you in trouble, so do your research thoroughly – the market will always be there for you.

Enjoy the ride, it’s going to be a fast one.

Abigail

Abigail’s note to (startup) self


pg 44In Hindsight by Nokia - David Handley - Sculpture by the Sea

Sea changeDavid Handley, 45Founder, Sculpture by the Sea

Sculpture by the Sea is a free visual arts event on the Bondi to Tamarama coastline in Sydney, and the foreshore of Cottesloe Beach in Perth. The exhibition has been running for fifteen years and attracts almost half a million visitors in Sydney every year. It costs $2 million to put on and nets more than $1.5 million in sculpture sales for some of the exhibiting artists annually.

David Handley does a perfect double cheek air-kiss, suitably peppers his speech with multisyllabic words and historical references and wears his heart on his sleeve. As a social entrepreneur he has brought artistic joy to the masses with the highly successful Sculpture by the Sea annual exhibition in Sydney and Perth; and now adopted by Denmark. He’s the first to admit he has made more than a few political enemies along the way but this is the arts, darling, so expect nothing less.

David’s tips for success:

No is not an option, so ask for what you want then ask again.

David’s story

I really discovered art in my twenties in Eastern Europe. The Berlin wall had just come down, I was studying a Masters of Law in London after leaving the Sydney law firm I had been working in and I really wanted to be part of history, to watch change in action.

I moved to Prague and got involved with the local art scene. Some friends had a small party in the grounds of an old chateaux whose ruined grounds were filled with contemporary sculptures.

In Hindsight by Nokia - David Handley - Sculpture by the Sea pg 45

pg 46 pg 47In Hindsight by Nokia - David Handley - Sculpture by the Sea In Hindsight by Nokia - David Handley - Sculpture by the Sea

I remember being amazed how art could be so visually theatrical and it was here the inkling for Sculpture by the Sea was born.

I have always felt the world didn’t have enough free things. Whilst I’m not a socialist or communist, I thought the capitalist model wasn’t exactly right either and that the world needed more ‘free things’ provided by society.

I did believe that creative exhibitions and festivals should be free to the public and I loved the idea of citizens taking charge to make that happen.

When I eventually returned to Sydney the idea of Sculpture by the Sea had coalesced. I had been messed around for a major film job and found

myself with just $100 in the bank but I wanted to make the exhibition happen. I had an idea in my head that the art world would be a lovely place to work, filled with creativity and beauty. It’s not – it can be hell.

In the preceding years I had ideas for free art events like inviting artists to paint canvases down Oxford Street but the ideas weren’t big enough - they didn’t have international scope. Then I thought I’d like to do something that incorporated Australia’s quintessential identity: the coast, the sea, the beach. You couldn’t put paintings outside on the coast – it would be a disaster – but sculptures could easily be exhibited outside if they were created for the event itself.

I wanted to connect sculptors with a new audience and I wanted people who weren’t normally exposed to art to experience its theatre and emotion – I wanted to recreate that same feeling I had at that chateaux outside of Prague.

pg 48 pg 49In Hindsight by Nokia - David Handley - Sculpture by the Sea

I was thirty-one and the only person who I knew working in the arts at the time was a friend at Christie’s, the fine art auction house. So I called her up and I said, do you think someone at Christie’s would like to be on a judging panel for a free sculpture show?

Sure enough David Cook, one of the fine arts specialists at Christie’s, joined the judging panel. If you don’t ask you will never get, so I just kept on asking.

From day one we thought laterally and looked for non-traditional sponsorship opportunities and it paid off. We did a recce of the beachfront site when someone said look at the water, look how clean it is; a couple of years ago you couldn’t swim here.

“From day one we thought laterally and looked for non-traditional sponsorship opportunities and it paid off .”

In Hindsight by Nokia - David Handley - Sculpture by the Sea

We contacted Sydney Water and asked if they wanted to promote the cleanliness of the water as an artistic backdrop and they came on board as a sponsor giving us $5,000 for first prize. I wish I’d asked for more straight up as they loved the first show and immediately pledged $30,000 for the second year.

I admit I made some crucial mistakes early on that impacted our funding chances later. I gave volunteer staff who worked with us for three weeks much better sounding titles because it was going to help them get their next paying job. As a result the perception from the arts world was that we must be making money.

We also had major banks and internet companies giving us a few thousand dollars and they were lower down the list of sponsors on the program than others. So there were all kinds of rumours that the big banks were that far down the program because the other sponsors were donating ridiculous amounts.

I wanted to put on a show that looked professional but the truth was we had no money. I only earned an average of $20,000 a year for the first seven years, and nothing for the first year, but no one would believe that and it infuriated me.

What did I have to do – show them my personal bank statement? Perhaps I should have been clearer about that at the onset but seriously, you don’t have to live in a garret and suffer to create art but you do need funding to exhibit and these silly rumours were damaging our ability to get that. It made me so mad that the arts bureaucrats were not getting behind something that actually brought art to the people.

“It made me so mad that the arts bureaucrats were not getting behind something that actually brought art to the people.”


I was sitting with sculptor Ron Robertson Swann on the cliff edge at the end of the day of the first exhibition, which was seen by 25,000 people on a $400 marketing budget, and it occurred to me that Sculpture by the Sea was the first time I’d done something where I felt my life was worthwhile.

We immediately started plotting the next year. Then Andrea Stretton commissioned Sculpture by the Sea to be staged in five locations around Australia for the Olympic Art Festival. Hundreds of thousands of people showed up and the media loved it. However, the arts world wasn’t so sure.

Our approaches for public funding kept being knocked back but I kept trying. I found out there is a fine line in the arts world. You have to sing your success to get funding but if you sing it too loudly others will perceive you to be well-funded already. I don’t know how I would have done things differently but I certainly didn’t push the right buttons. By the fifth year it was clear we had lost any chance of getting some decent public sector


funding, not helped by the fact that a handful of artists were actually making money from sales.

But it was always about the artists and the people. We needed funding to enable artists to show their work and perhaps have the opportunity to earn some valuable dollars so they could afford to exhibit again next year.

In 2003 I gave the rights to Sculpture by the Sea in Australia to a not-for-profit incorporated association that we set up. I kept the international rights for myself. Partly this was designed to shut the bureaucrats up so we could now operate as a fully legit not-for-profit organisation.

It also gave us tax-deductible status. Our donations went up exponentially – our private donations went from $30,000 to $90,000 in one year and they are now over $400,000 each year; but it still costs $2 million to run the Bondi show.As much as I love Sculpture by the Sea, it has been what I’ve called the joy of my life and the albatross around my neck.

We commissioned a study on the economic impact of Sculpture by the Sea and it brings in $23 million for NSW each year.

I was so angry that we had created this amazing event on the smell of an oily rag and it had the potential to bankrupt us every year. All the while the State was benefiting in tourism dollars without actually giving anything in return.

I wasn’t going to stop asking, that’s not in my nature, but I was clearly asking the wrong people and there comes a time where you have to accept that and just let it go. When I finally did it was like cutting out a cancer. So after twelve years of no funding from the NSW Government, we took our facts and figures to the NSW Opposition instead.

“As much as I love Sculpture by the Sea, it has been what I’ve called the joy of my life and the albatross around my neck.”


Thanks to the recent change of government we now have $300,000 a year of public funding for Sculpture by the Sea at Bondi. It is a huge relief and enables us to better support the artists.

Plus, our Cottesloe Beach exhibition in Perth continues to break sculpture sales records and Denmark are on board with their own version of Sculpture by the Sea.

When we started we had a fax machine and a landline. Now we have mobile internet access, over a dozen networked computers for eleven full time staff and immediate access twenty-four hours a day to our sculptors around the world and our sponsors. We can view an artist’s previous work and their work-in-progress online. It has certainly made producing the exhibition and my life easier.

What I set out to achieve in Sculpture by the Sea has been achieved. It has facilitated the dreams of hundreds of artists and brought art to the people while helping to generate more of a sense of community. When you watch four year old kids leap out of a car yelling the sculptures, the sculptures as they run to the artwork, you know you’ve made a difference.

“When we started we had a fax machine and a landline. Now we have mobile internet access... We can view an artist’s previous work and their work-in-progress online. It has certainly made producing the exhibition and my life easier.”


Dearest David,

Think long and hard before making this step. You are going to enter an established turf in the arts world, so watch yourself. For god’s sake, get yourself some business mentors on board from day one. You think you know what you’re doing but you don’t.

Your faith in mankind will be seriously questioned by some of the people in positions of power who get in the way and you will start to doubt the integrity of everyone you come across but do not give up, for despite the tough and very lean times, you will enjoy it.

David

David’s note to (startup) self

pg 54In Hindsight by Nokia - Hayden Cox - Haydenshapes, Fiber Flex

In good shape

Don’t be deceived by Hayden’s casual attire. He may look like he has just stepped out of bed with messed up hair, inside-out t-shirt and baggy shorts, but this is one high powered individual in the competi-tive world of surf brands. Hayden launched his self-titled surfboard company, Haydenshapes, at the tender age of fifteen and patented FiberFlex ten years later, riding a global financial crisis and patent issues along the way. Now his company turns over multiple millions of dollars each year and Hayden can wear what he wants.

Hayden’s tips for success:

Make your own luck, work hard and share your technology – you’ll make more money that way.

Hayden’s story

Am I an entrepreneur? Well you could say I’ve got a gambling addiction as I take pretty decent risks. My brother and sister have told me I’m totally mad and to others, I must be.

My mum taught me to surf when I was four which was pretty cool. She had surfboards when she was a teenager and thought it was a good way to meet boys; she reckoned the weight of the surfboards back then were enough to get a guy to help her carry them.

When keen surfer Hayden Cox started playing around with carbon fibre, little did he know that he was about to embark on the ride of his life. He developed a new technology, FiberFlex, which improves the speed and performance of surfboards. It’s now used by more than fifty surf companies around the world.

Hayden Cox, 29Founder of Haydenshapes Surfboards - inventor of FiberFlex

In Hindsight by Nokia - Hayden Cox - Haydenshapes, Fiber Flex pg 55

pg 56 pg 57

Of course I didn’t speak Japanese – still don’t – but surfing is an international language. I shaped thirty boards, loaded them up and went to Japan. I was nervous as hell ‘cos I clearly had no idea what I was doing. I only had around 600 bucks in my account.

I had a Visa card but you couldn’t pay for petrol with it and you could only get cash out at post offices. I ended up stuck on the side of the road outside of Tokyo with no petrol, no translator and thirty surfboards in the back of this tiny van I had rented. It was really frustrating but I never thought of throwing in the towel. Shit happens when you travel.

Then the weirdest thing happened: a mate I knew from surfing back home drove past in a bus and helped me out. That’s got to be fate, right? Then it got even more bizarre: I walked up to a shop to do my pitch and my boards were already in there. The guy that owned the shop had a mate in Australia who sent them over to him. The world has always been small for me.

I started shaping surfboards by hand when I was fifteen, mainly for friends and family. They were pretty crap but I thought they were good…at the time. I ended up in Bali after school and I worked over there for two months, getting eighty bucks to shape a board and I was doing five a day so it was pretty sweet.

Bali gave me good experience as I could really test out my boards in the water and I had access to manufacturers. But I really wanted to get Haydenshapes boards into the Japanese market so I could have Australia, Bali and Japan.

In Hindsight by Nokia - Hayden Cox - Haydenshapes, Fiber Flex

I sold thirty boards and came back with a Japanese distributor. I had a fair bit of gumption I guess but I have always been even-keeled, even when I’m freaked out inside.

If I hadn’t got on a plane to go to Japan then I never would have known that someone would’ve had my boards in the shop. We still sell to him. You generate your own luck, that doesn’t come from staying home and wishing.

The whole Japan experience gave me even more confidence to do things without a plan. A lot of my trips since have

been with no agenda – I arrive with an idea of what I want to achieve and see where it takes me. We’ve been successful every time.

When I was twenty-three my best mate had some insurance money from an accident that left him in pretty bad shape and he lent me twenty grand to set up my own premises in Sydney for Haydenshapes Surfboards. It was pretty big of him and without him this wouldn’t have happened. I still owe him the twenty K but he knows I’m good for it. If it wasn’t for him we would never have started.

“A lot of my trips since have been with no agenda – I arrive with an idea of what I want to achieve and see where it takes me. We’ve been successful every time.”


pg 58 pg 59In Hindsight by Nokia - Hayden Cox - Haydenshapes, Fiber Flex

After two years I got bored. I do that. So I started playing around with carbon fibre to help change the performance of a board by changing the flex pattern. I had this idea for a carbon fibre frame to extend around the outside like a tennis racket to take the flex away from the centre of the board. No one was doing it – it seemed obvious to me, but then, things do after you’ve thought of them.

When I first surfed the FiberFlex technology I thought, this is sick. I’ve got to do something serious about this, because this works. The technology can create speed in areas of a wave that a normal board can’t and it’s revolutionary because it can be manufactured in any standard surfboard factory around the world.

I kept the first prototype very quiet and went about patenting the technology. It was terrifying. Like most things I thought I could do it myself and half way through the patenting process I got really, really cold feet and felt sick in my gut.

I rang an attorney and he pointed out that my patent had to cover me internationally. Best phone call of my life. I wanted to have as much of the surfboard industry using my technology as possible so I wanted to license the technology to others, but I couldn’t do that if I didn’t own it globally. Thank God I made that call.

A lot of guys will create a technology and say oh, it’s just for my brand, but how stupid can you be? They’ve got an ego about their brand. Don’t get me wrong – I’ve got an ego for sure, but at the same time

I’m a business person and selling FiberFlex to every surfboard shaper in the world is my ultimate goal.

Lost Surfboards and Chilli Surfboards signed up for the technology within a month. I was totally stoked – Chilli Surfboards are one of the biggest brands in the world.

I got some FiberFlex boards to pro surfers like Dayyan Neve and Dan Ross. They loved them and started winning contests. Not that they weren’t winning before, but now they had more speed.

I have experienced tall poppy syndrome in Australia. Actually, even when I took my technology to the big guys in the US who had been shaping boards for years, they wouldn’t accept that someone my age had a revolutionary technology. They’d say ah, yes, carbon fibre, we did that back in the sixties. Well that’s a load of rubbish – it wasn’t even around back then.

“I have experienced tall poppy syndrome in Australia. Actually, even when I took my technology to the big guys in the US who had been shaping boards for years, they wouldn’t accept that someone my age had a revolutionary technology.”


pg 60 pg 61In Hindsight by Nokia - Hayden Cox - Haydenshapes, Fiber Flex

I don’t really give much time worrying about what others think of me. Sure, you hear rumours and comments from competitors, but you have to brush them off. I think it’s just envy but most people don’t realise what effort has gone in to creating what you do.

I have an older brother who has given me shit for years so I am used to it. But it’s different when you have to deal with it from a business point of view – you have to block it out and stay focused.

When the financial crisis hit, everything was twice as hard. Scratch that, probably ten times harder. No one had any money to

“As long as I have the internet through my phone and my laptop, I can pretty much see and do everything in my business – I don’t have to be in my Sydney office all the time and I can go for a surf and still get my work done.”

do anything so we had to grow in other ways.

I went and set up two more manufacturing plants in Queensland and one in Japan and we trained a factory in America.

As long as I have the internet through my phone and my laptop, I can pretty much see and do everything in my business – I don’t have to be in my Sydney office all the time and I can go for a surf and still get my work done.

Trust me, I get emotional when stressed, especially over cash flow. Every year you have more and more invested in it and the

risks become greater and there’ve been a few points over the past couple of years where cash flow hasn’t been the best. It freaks me out for a while but it actually makes you stop and look at how you can approach things differently.

I deal with the emotional rollercoaster in ways that are not so visible. I definitely first try to ignore the emotion but if I get too stressed I’ll go play in the waves and surf because that’s where the whole thing started.


pg 62 pg 63

It chills me out completely.The more I’m in the water, the healthier it is for my business and the more that my staff surf, the better the business operates. Because they go out there and they get all the crap out of their head and they come back and they’re frothing just to ride the next board, and then get that board to a bunch of customers. Surf is a great motivator.

I had a three-year goal just before the GFC to get eight shapers on FiberFlex and I now have over fifty. That blew me away. Now the biggest distributor of surfboards in the world, Global Surf Industries, has licensed FiberFlex.

They are also going to manufacture and distribute Haydenshapes boards to fifty-five countries. It’s huge for us, huge. Over the next year we’ll have over 400 percent growth in our business.

Change is happening every day when you have a business and you’ve got to adapt to it. I focus on the positives and put out the negatives as quickly as possible. I guess it’s in my blood as my grandfather was a total wheeler and dealer with property, buying up swamp-land and selling it as industrial. He saw an opportunity in everything. I must get it from him.

“Change is happening every day when you have a business and you’ve got to adapt to it. I focus on the positives and put out the negatives as quickly as possible.”


Hey mate,

You’ll think you’re starting this business so you can surf more.

Think again.

Hayden

Hayden’s note to (startup) self


pg 64In Hindsight by Nokia - Shelley Barrett - ModelCo

More than skin deepShelley Barrett, 37Founder, ModelCo

Shelley Barrett founded ‘smart beauty’ brand ModelCo aged twenty-eight with one simple product – a heated eyelash curler. The company now features sixty products and is in 1,500 stores worldwide.

Shelley Barrett has friends in high places. Dannii Minogue is on her speed-dial, Elle Macpherson and Kylie Minogue are fans and Victoria Beckham is seen at all the right places sporting Shelley’s ModelCo beauty compacts. It hasn’t always been this way. Shelley’s road to success has been filled with ‘no you can’t’ from non-believers. ‘No’ is clearly not a word in her vocabulary.

Shelley’s tips for success:

However much you think you’re going to spend, double it. Listen to others, you might learn something; and surround yourself with the right people. Network, network, network and be positive. Help people, it will come back to you.

Shelley’s story

When I was nineteen I started a business putting together fashion

shows and model search competitions. I had spent the year prior working as a receptionist at a modelling agency and I was constantly hearing the girls talk about being treated like cattle. I thought wow, if I could create an agency that didn’t just take photos of girls and ship them out, one that was more involved in everything from skin care to health and body, then I could make happy models and therefore a happy business.

In Hindsight by Nokia - Shelley Barrett - ModelCo pg 65

pg 66 pg 67

was listening to what our models said they wanted in daily beauty regimes that all of the luxury brands weren’t providing. They were all complaining to me about having their eyelashes ripped out by those old-fashioned clamper curlers.

So I was inspired to create a very easy-to-use heated lash curler to curl even the shortest of lashes with ease and comfort and went straight to work on developing it with industrial designers. At the time I had no idea it was going to turn into a global cosmetic empire; I thought it was a bit of a pet project on the side. We launched that product into Myer in Australia. They were willing to take it on, I think, for the novelty factor alone because it was so unique. No one was doing it so it wasn’t a hard sell to Myer but they still took a risk. I was still running my modelling agency but then the curler sold so well. Elle Macpherson and Kylie Minogue were saying they loved it.

With such great celebrity endorsement, I got excellent traction with

I spent two years running model search competitions where I would hand over all these fabulous winning models to the top agencies in Sydney and I thought hang on, I can do this myself and do it better. So I started my first real modelling agency when I was twenty-one.

I had one model when we launched and people said I was crazy, that I would fail. I think in any business there’s always going to be someone putting you down or saying it’s not working or not right. It’s hard enough launching a new business without people saying you can’t. I’ve learnt if you listen to the naysayers you’ll never get anything done.

People always ask me how I felt at the time, whether I had any fears or doubts, but I’m quite focused about the way I approach business. It comes from being an only child. My mum always said to me ‘no’ isn’t an option, go out and do whatever you want. So I did and I do – you can’t let fear get on top of you.

While I was still in the modelling business I

In Hindsight by Nokia - Shelley Barrett - ModelCo

“People always ask me how I felt at the time, whether I had any fears or doubts, but I’m quite focused about the way I approach business. It comes from being an only child. My mum always said to me ‘no’ isn’t an option, go out and do whatever you want. So I did and I do.”

magazine editorials and next thing the phone started ringing from around the world with buyers from leading department stores wanting to stock it. That’s the power of celebrity and the power of great marketing, but your product must deliver. It was an exciting time but I really didn’t have time to celebrate – I never have really.

After that one product, all our buyers wanted to know what was next. They had seen us launch one amazing product that was innovative, created brilliant PR, and got celebrity endorsement – they were excited and keen to see what was coming down the pipeline.

I was absolutely terrified of being a one-hit wonder and couldn’t bear the thought that our success was just luck and the planets aligning. At that time all my models had really bad looking self- tans. They often had stained hands and uneven coverage from tanning creams and gels, so I thought wouldn’t it be great if you could put a self-tan in an airbrush-like applicator.


pg 68 pg 69

When I spoke to manufacturers they said you can put WD40 in a can and fly-spray in a can, but you can’t put tan in a can. Just because it hasn’t been done before doesn’t mean it can’t be done.

We developed it over a six-month period and when it hit the shelves it was an absolute winner. TAN Airbrush in a CAN was the world’s first tan in a can – it created a new beauty category. Not only did all of the multinational beauty brands copy this unique innovation, but this product really launched the ModelCo brand into the international cosmetics arena and has gone on to forever change the way women self-tan.

It was phenomenal – it outsold kids’ toys at Myer during the Christmas period, then we launched into David Jones and from there it was rolled out into Priceline.

I was still trying to manage the modelling agency that then had twelve hundred models, actors and entertainers on the books. It was as an extremely busy time. I was so excited about ModelCo’s success but I had to remain motivated about the agency. My focus was split and I didn’t have time to run both businesses.

I ended up having to sell the agency, which was sad as it was something I was proud of; but the capital helped fund ModelCo so it was a double-edged sword.

I may have been a control freak at the beginning of ModelCo – some would say I still am. My trouble has always been that I feel no one works as fast as I work.

I had to change the way I hire people. In an interview people only tell you what they want you to hear.

“I may have been a control freak at the beginning of ModelCo – some would say I still am. My trouble has always been that I feel no one works as fast as I work.”


But it all comes down to the sales training and the energy that each individual has. You need to have people behind the counter who know the product, are passionate about it and ooze enthusiasm. We have developed a whole new training process to instil these qualities in our team.

When I decided on hot pink for the brand colour, people said you can’t have that big bright, bold colour. All the other standard brands were black, silver and white because they’re more cost effective to manufacture, but hot pink has always been my favourite colour.

So now I give them a brief, a mini project, and ask them to regurgitate the brief back to me to get their view on what they heard and what they think the task is. It’s really important to surround yourself with great people so I believe it is important to know they are right at the beginning rather than hire them and waste three months finding out you’re not on the same page.

How they handle the brief shows me more than a straight up interview does and I can make my mind up based on the outcome rather than what’s in their CV or the standard interview spiel.

I’ve also had to change the way we do retail. When ModelCo first went into the world of department stores I just assumed you build a fabulous installation, put your products on the shelf and get an amazing looking girl behind the counter to sell your products, right?

It was the biggest mistake I made. Just because I could stand behind that counter and sell a thousand dollars’ worth of product an hour I thought everyone could.

“It’s really important to surround yourself with great people so I believe it is important to know they are right at the beginning rather than hire them and waste three months finding out you’re not on the same page.”


pg 70 pg 71In Hindsight by Nokia - Shelley Barrett - ModelCo

Besides, we’ve only got a small amount of product on the shelf so you want to attract attention, ensure the product pops off the shelf and draws the customer in to your stand.

Victoria Beckham was seen with her hot pink Birkin bag from Hermes, this amazing hot pink outfit and a hot pink ModelCo compact in the grandstand at David’s first football match with LA Galaxy. That image of her was beamed all around the world. If the colour was black it wouldn’t have stood out. It’s moments like those when you think okay, you’ve actually created a cool, cult brand. So I was right about the hot pink standing out!

I was thrilled – and stunned – when I won the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in 2005. It was a great stepping-stone into having a network of people you can pull upon should you need to do capital raising or networking.

But I honestly couldn’t understand why they had selected me. There were all these other amazing people.

I was turning over $6 million and they were all turning $200 million. Some of the judges said that if they had money to invest they’d back me because they knew I’d work twenty-four hours a day for them. They might be right.

I also had my first of two daughters in that same year, 2005, but life was so busy it couldn’t stop there. After my first daughter was born, I went back to work three days later. I even asked if they had broadband at the hospital – they thought I was insane. Having a business is like having another child of your own. You just don’t get time to enjoy the children as much as you like when you run a business.

I manage fifteen staff in our Sydney office and our global team which includes twenty distributors and publicists. I couldn’t do it without my smartphone, email, Skype and a full-time nanny. You have to learn you’re not Superwoman and surround yourself with people and technology that helps you manage your time.

I live more on my phone and computer than real life.

Over a third of my year is spent travelling internationally. We’re launching into Boots in the UK right now with Dannii Minogue as the face of FIBRE LASH Brush on False Lashes, our latest innovation. The product went on sale in the UK on the 15th of June. It is now official that Dannii Minogue’s favourite lash product was a sell-out on its first day of launch. Thousands of women across the UK have flocked into Boots to buy the latest must-have beauty trend. Boots had to set up a waiting list in-store and are working around the clock with supply teams to ensure there is enough stock to meet demand.

I’m really proud of how far ModelCo has come. It’s tough playing with the big boys, but you know, I never relish the moment, because I’m always onto the next thing. Each time something great happens I say this time I am going to enjoy it, but I don’t because I’m always so busy. I don’t take time to smell the roses, have a latte and workshop it.

“I couldn’t do it without my smartphone, email, Skype and a full-time nanny. You have to learn you’re not Superwoman and surround yourself with people and technology that helps you manage your time. I live more on my phone and computer than real life.”


pg 72 pg 73

I don’t know if I have always been cut-and-dried, I think I’ve become that way after so many years. I wish I was more emotional about it. I compartmentalise each time frame and concentrate on what I am doing for that half hour, hour, day, week. It’s how I handle the pressure; and trust me, there’s always a lot of pressure.

You read these magazine articles about yourself and you win these awards and you know people must be thinking, her life must be amazing. Yes, I am very lucky but there have been some trying times too. I don’t have an amazing

business degree. I just learned the hard way, did everything from the ground up. I make mistakes every day. The only reason I am where I am is because I make lots of mistakes.

I don’t think there’s a secret recipe for success. I think it’s each individual’s personality that drives who they are. I just have one mode, that’s ‘just do it’.

I always have this saying that I can’t wait to go and make jam in Bowral but my accountant says I can’t see you ever making jam, you’d end up turning it into Cottee’s.

“I don’t think there’s a secret recipe for success. I think it’s each individual’s personality that drives who they are. I just have one mode, that’s ‘just do it’.”


Dear Shelley,

You may think you’re going into the modelling industry but you’re going into sales. You may think you’re going into the beauty business but you’re going into retail.

Be prepared, keep your eyes wide open, don’t be afraid to ask for help and lean on your family. You’re going to give it a hell of a go and bite off more than other people can chew, but you’ll do it.

For god’s sake, take the time to smell the roses. Relish those exciting moments, don’t throw them away with the wind. Shelley

Shelley’s note to (startup) self


pg 74 pg 75In Hindsight by Nokia - Nokia E6 & Nokia E7

...Enter the Nokia E6 and Nokia E7Nokia understands what it takes to be an entrepreneur. We know that accessibility, communication and mobility are fundamental to success, along with a dose of hard work, original thinking and a winning attitude.

That’s why we’ve created a range of smartphones for the entrepreneur in all of us. The Nokia E6 and the Nokia E7 allow you to be personally and professionally accessible whenever and wherever you want.

The sleek, compact Nokia E6 smartphone is the newest edition to the Eseries family. It combines a full keyboard and touchscreen, has a stack of features and a long battery life.

Microsoft Exchange gives you secure access to email, calendar and contacts. Microsoft has also brought its popular Office Communicator to Nokia smartphones for instant messaging and group chat sessions.

If you’re on-the-road and need to read and approve a document or file, you can open it on your Nokia and, if needed, edit then return to sender.

The Nokia E6 comes with an eight-megapixel camera and HD video so you can take snaps or shoot a video and share with your work colleagues, customers or friends via social media, MMS and email.

If want to impress an audience, you can connect your device to a large screen and display your presentation, images or video.

The world is the entrepreneur’s office and with Ovi Map’s voice-guided walk and drive

navigation, you’ll never get lost in a foreign city. You’ll also get the lowdown on restaurants and hotels in the local area so you won’t go hungry after hours, either.

The stylish Nokia E7 has a larger, four-inch touchscreen for easy viewing and a full slideout keyboard for two-thumb typing. It combines all of the features the Nokia E6 has to offer – including access to thousands of apps from the Ovi Store.

It takes a lot of work to be a startup success. Nokia supports Australia’s aspiring entrepreneurs with technology that works as hard – and as smart – as you do.

In Hindsight by Nokia - Nokia E6 & Nokia E7

pg 76 pg 77In Hindsight by Nokia - Mentoring competition

Got a great startup idea?Here’s your chance to learn from the best in the businessThe stories shared by each entrepreneur in this book demonstrate that building a successful business is not just about having a great idea. It’s also about having the passion, commitment and drive to turn that idea into reality.

Many of the entrepreneurs attribute their success to the advice and guidance they received along the way. To coincide with the launch of the Nokia E7 and Nokia E6 smartphones, Nokia is giving one up-and-coming Aussie entrepreneur the chance to get their business or business idea off the ground.

The winner will be mentored by Jaimie Fuller, CEO of sportswear clothing company SKINS. They’ll also receive $10,000 plus a Nokia E7 to help them stay connected.

For your chance to win, simply complete the form and in 500 words or less, tell us about your business or idea. Like any good business pitch, we need to know:

• what makes your business or business idea stand out• why you think there is a market for your business, product or service• details of your business plan and the steps you have already taken on your path to success• details of the challenges you are facing and why you think you would benefit from being mentored by one of Australia’s most successful entrepreneurs.

Five of the best submissions will be selected by Nokia and each will be asked to present their idea to a panel of judges, including:

• Chris Carr, managing director of Nokia Australia and New Zealand• Jaimie Fuller, competition mentor and CEO of SKINS• Suzi Dafnis, director of the Australian Businesswomen’s Network and panelist on the hit TV show Dragon’s Den

The winner will be chosen by the judges and an online public vote.

Closing date for submissions is 14th August 2011.

In Hindsight by Nokia - Mentoring competition

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