g: the early years...

You are the average of the five people you most associate with.

It is often said that you are a product of the five people you spend the most time with. Who is in your five? A significant other + colleagues + kids + mates + a pup + out-laws? 

It’s a bit frightening really because for some that circle can include people that you had no say in being in your inner circle. I speak of colleagues in work settings. 

You are sort of just thrown together based on skill set and role but then spend far more time with them than your significant other in many circumstances. I recently read where doing an audit of these five is a healthy first step to really reflect on those people and how they may impact your way of being. You can then make a choice to rearrange personnel who you want to be around. Try it out! 

It's all happening.

Day One in the UK and after a jet-lagged run through Kensington Palace Gardens we headed off for several meetings, before a quick feed at Borough markets. Heading back to our "office" (Thank you Pret A Manger's everywhere... ) , we witnessed a fleet of Range Rovers race past with none other than Rachel Zane, the paralegal from the hit US TV show Suits in her latest role as Duchess of Sussex. Today's episode was filmed at Royal Ascot with the horsies and all. I knew it was her as that hat was seriously battling to fit in the Rangie. 

Also today in London there is much "excitement" for The Donald's trip here on July 13. So much excitement in fact that a 6 metre high inflatable "Trump Baby" in a nappy and all will be launched over the Houses of Parliament in honour of his visit. Please note that that nappy is NOT one of ours...although at 70, statistically he probably IS wearing an incontinence product. I will just leave that there. 

If you want to get on board, the oversubscribed Crowdfunder is here.    

Today the work continues. Arrangements to start trials with nurseries, testing of new processing methods to turn our nappies in to resources, a PR agency or two to meet etc! 

 

 

 

 

When founders are married. And have kids. And have to travel. Take two.

...Ok, so we didn’t get divorced. But we did get funding and off we went. Actually, to really add to the degree of difficulty, 

- we were not only married
- we were (and still are) foreigners (Aussies who had just moved to the US to start the business - before all the cool kids did it) 
- with a consumer business (no Mr VC, we can’t just build an app…it’s an actual product. The world still needs products) 
- we were 14 months pregnant. I mean like REALLY pregnant with a two year old and a Rhodesian ridgeback too

We would rock up to investor meetings with this lethal combination and we did succeed despite the odds. And in fact our lead investor is a mother of 8 and now a grandmother of 2! 

I say all of this because our kids, now 15 and 13 have been raised in a household stretching from Australia to the US and back to Australia (along with a whole lot of work travel all over the place interspersed with a quick holiday here and there). This UK trip is no exception with all the inherent complications. When they were teeny tiny they would join us at trade shows - appropriate given we are in the nappy business, probably a little dicey if we were in the vaping business. Today however the kids are wrapping up assessments for school and will be on holiday in two short weeks. So as we fly, the older one is with my Mum and the younger one is with her Godmother. It seriously “Takes a Village" and we are forever grateful to family and friends who are always willing to help. 

When founders are married. And have kids. And have to travel.

Speaking of getting on a plane to the UK....when we first started out and we were out raising capital, I remember more than one Venture Capitalist saying there was no way on God’s green earth that they would invest in married founders.

So we got divorced, got funding and built an amazing  business. The end...

Back to the Old Dart

With a new part of our business, gCycle (www. gCycle.com.au), starting to simmer in the UK, Kim and I are off to the Old Dart again tonight (via Taipei - who knew?) We were in London in April to lay the ground work and we are heading back to launch. It’s a big step as the nature of the business is so different to the way we have done it for 14 years.

Since 2004 we have been selling our wares via retailers - Bricks & Mortar early on and now mostly via the DeathStar (aka Amazon) to Mums and Dads. In recent years, retail has undergone it’s biggest disruption since the forever. You know you are in a whole new world of hurt when the buyers for the largest bricks & mortar stores such as Walmart and Target are asking vendors like us “what should we do about Amazon then”. The recent bankruptcy of "Babies R Us", the world’s biggest baby retailer was a confirmatory signal of where we are today.

gCycle sees us selling a whole new kind of Plastic Free (TM) nappy directly to Childcare centres. We collect their used nappies each week and convert it into soil / power / fuel. We see it as a way to make a bigger impact in a shorter time frame. In retail, we work in 3 year cycles enrolling new parents in our gDiapers only for them to leave when their little ones are potty-trained (so selfish).

Childcare centres on the other hand have no such cyclicality, working their way through 3 tons of nappies each year. They then have to pay for that waste to be “managed”. “Managed” is a pretty way to say that their nappies get buried in a hole in the ground for 500 years each. We can put a man on the moon (or did we?), access 5,000,000,000 songs on our Apple watches but apparently the best way to deal with nearly all our waste including dirty nappies is to bury it all.

Suffice to say, it is not just the old make widget / sell a widget / collect the money / go home kind of business. We are trying to solve big problems around single-use plastic and waste management and that demands a different approach.

But we like the challenge! 

June 5: The world's very first Plastic Free Day.

As we spend the day avoiding plastic, a handy user guide from the New York Times for your perusal.

Note that come July in the UK in nurseries (that's childcares, not gardening stores...), those pesky plastic disposable nappies can be replaced with plastic-free gCycle nappies who can experience a Jesus-like resurrection after use and be turned into soil, fuel or power. A modern day miracle I tell you.

 

 

 

A second Circular Economy business brewing in the household

My surf-mad, 13 year old son has his heart and mind set on designing a Circular Economy - inspired surfboard. He had his first conference call with Lamina Flow, a Yamba, NSW based surfboard redesign company this afternoon. 

Here's a video if what they are up to: 

Like me 15 years ago not realising just how bad nappies are for the planet, surfboards are dead awful for all concerned. The industry is yet to enter the 21st century with most shapers being a little bit backyard in their approach. The process of building a board with layers of oil-based poly foams and resins is just as bad as a nappy. And the average pro-surfer goes through 100 boards a year. And they do that because boards snap and no two boards are identical so surfers want to have choice. It's interesting to me that there is actually no perfect replicability in the manufacturing  process of a surf board. They are all slightly different. And they all end up snapping. Unlike say skis or snowboards where a complete break is unlikely. So the industry is ripe for disruption. 

Pity this afternoon's French, Science, Maths and English homework because it just ain't going to be happening. 

 

 

 

Well this is quite the news...

 

While Rome burns, the EU is actually doing something announcing sweeping changes to how manufacturers  make stuff and take stuff back and take responsibility for how it is disposed. A whole raft of disposable products will be banned and landfills will be phased out. This is big. Really big.

For other major developed countries (I am looking at you America and Australia), get inspired and make a move. Or obsesses about your hapless President's tweets or embrace climate deniers as our leaders are doing Down Under...

 

 

 

 

Procrastination: The Masterclass.

Not happy Jan. 

I took procrastination to a whole new level this past weekend thanks to a multitude of deadlines coming up this week and a complete lack of will to really get on with it. For there is grant funding available for projects like ours but it requires actually applying for them all. 

Grant writing you say? How hard could that be? But first, six sections of Saturday's Sydney Morning Herald to read. And the surf looks pretty good. And then some grant writing was had. And there was indeed a fair whack of writing leading into Saturday night. Missed a mates 50th and all. 

Sunday arrives and I'd committed to a bit of Old School (as in at the school I went to in the 80's) touch footy months earlier. Playing on an All-Star 80's team with people around my old age (let's call it mid 40's shall we?) against people way younger than us (including kids I taught back at the old Alma Mater), it was the perfect storm for the calves, the hammies, that dicky meniscus and all the ACL's. It was only after that wrapped up that I knew I needed to hunker down and I was seriously so close to getting my hunker on. Alas, no hunkering ensued. It was an afternoon of "let's get some vacuuming done" and "My legs are sore" and "Who wants to go for ice cream?".

Fast forward to now and it is 5 am on Tuesday morning and the wife / co-founder and I have pulled an all-nighter to get one of the wretched applications in. (Well, she's doing most of the work. I am writing this. You get the picture). Deadline is today, Tuesday May 29, 11.59pm London Time. We have heaps of time...sort of. 

 

 

PS: Here are the 80's All Stars in case you were wondering: 

 

 

2018: the year we figured out we kind of suck as a species.

 

2018 has been quite the year in the exciting world of waste management. I jest but as a species we really are on track to drown in our own waste while eating that last Avo on toast washed down with a skinny flat white. 

Thanks to the National Geographic, this was the year we all figured out plastic was not so great. It was also the year China said "You know what, Developed World? We are done taking all your "recyclables". You go figure it out". And in that moment we all realised that while we felt awesome separating our plastic from glass, without China paying for it, there is no recycling market. So in Melbourne and Sydney, container loads of our recyclables accumulate while the Government figures out what to do. 

In addition to that, last week the EU announced the phasing out of landfills by 2030 and with that an expansion of what is known as "EPR" - Extended Product Responsibility. Basically, if you make it, you take it back after the consumer is done with it. 

"A new component is the landfill reduction target. This sets minimum requirements for extended producer responsibility schemes for products such as packaging, for which a recycling target of 65% is foreseen by 2025 and of 70% by 2030. Across the waste spectrum, by 2030 the law obliges all EU countries to ensure that all waste suitable for recycling or other recovery, in particular in municipal waste, does not go to landfill. What’s more, manufacturers of products covered by the schemes must take responsibility for their proper disposal as well as contribute to the cost. The waste package also encourages the use of recyclable and reusable packaging". 

The initial focus is packaging but the next obvious step is the product itself. And that my friends, in a world of plastic is going to demand some serious product redesign. 

Related to this is a book I am slowly working my way through called Sapiens, a  great, if not disturbing read about the history of us. What is astonishing is how we have managed to really cock up the earth in such a short period time. 

200,000 years ago - First Sapiens rocked up

70,000 - Homo Sapiens figured out imagination

40,000 - First indigenous folks landed in Australia

12,000 - Agricultural Revolution

5,000 - Writing invented - yay us

Up until this point, the planet is looking pretty sweet. Then 200 years ago, we fire up the Industrial Revolution which was great if you were the boss but fairly sucky for everyone else. 

After 200,000 years of living in tune with our planet, we take just 200 years to take us to the brink. It's remarkable. The most "intelligent" species could easily wipe itself out in short order. 

And on that happy note, if you're looking for a fantastic dystopian drama, check out A Handmaid's Tale. Season Two is a cracker with the Colonies looking a lot like where we are heading. 

OK, that post went kind of everywhere. More focus next time.