Daniel Flynn: I think the startup life and starting a business is like, you have to grow up very quickly in many ways and if you don't, the market's not very kind to you. As he said it, between you, me and anyone on this podcast, I start crying and I'm like, why am I crying? It felt like an actual movie. One of the Secret Service did a countdown from 100ft, 80ft, 60, it counts down 2010 and then the doors open.
[Voiceover]: Welcome to Add to Cart, Australia's leading E commerce podcast that expresses delivers all you need to know in the fast moving world of online retail. Every week, Nathan Bush from E Suite and an e commerce industry expert will share the news, research and insights that you need to know to keep you at the top of your game and of course, keep your customers adding to Cart.
Nathan Bush: Hello and welcome to Add to Cart. My name is Nathan Bush, host of Add to Cart and director at e commerce talent agency E Suite. Today's guest burst onto the scene with bott water that was doing good. Now 12 years later, Thankyou has raised over $17 million to impact the lives of people across 22 countries and they're no longer doing bottled water. Daniel Flynn is the co founder and the managing director of thankyou. Many of you will be familiar with Thankyou. It was revolutionary concept 12 years ago and it still is today. Its mission is to redistribute wealth from the extreme consumerism that we live in every day to those who are in extreme poverty. Daniel and his team are looking to rebalance the equation now today, thank you is stocked in major retailers including Coles, Woolworths, Chemist Warehouse and a whole bunch of e commerce stores that you will know of, including Amazon, Catch, Nourished Life and Bao Bag. On their own side, they only sell one product and that's the chapter one book, the first part of the thank you story. And it's not a bad product so far raising more than $2.6 million to supercharge their impact. In this episode, Daniel tells us why thank you started with a wholesale model and how he got stocked in large retailers early on and the impact that that had in scaling his business. It's a pretty wild story. We also discuss why understanding profitability is key to retail. We've heard this a few times, but it's even more so in businesses that have an impact. Profit shouldn't be a bad word. And in perhaps the 10 minutes of this show that could change people's lives, it's definitely had an impact on me. Daniel opens up on his journey with A psychologist and why he recommends therapy as an essential tool for everyone, not just when you're in the depths of it. And he even thinks psychologists should have psychologists. And we'll also have a little chat about the time he met President Obama. Not a big deal, right? All right, all right, let's get into it. Thanks to our partners Shopify plus and Signet. Here's our conversation with Daniel Flynn from. Thank you.
Nathan Bush: So Daniel, for people who haven't come across. Thank you. And I don't know how, but can you explain your guys mission and how you're doing that?
Daniel Flynn: Awesome. So look, fake is a little bit different. We are a social enterprise that exists all for the end of extreme poverty. So we're on a mission to make consumer product like hand wash and body wash, which a lot of people know us for, but make that purchase, right or wrong. And the wrong in particular that we're focused on is this idea that we live in one world that has these two extremes. And so one is extreme poverty. We have 736 million people living in extreme poverty, while at the same time we as consumers spend $63 trillion on stuff.
Nathan Bush: Right.
Daniel Flynn: And that's a lot of money. And thank you is a bridge between these two ideas. And we think if this idea could scale to many categories and many countries, we could grow the what has been $17 million raised so far into a number much bigger for the end of extreme poverty.
Nathan Bush: Wow. And did you set up that charity from the start?
Daniel Flynn: Look, we did. I mean, it's funny, at the very beginning we just, we did. We saw the problem. We thought let's use business as a force for good, but not just a little good or part. Let's just make the whole thing for it. And it was actually a really bold idea. And ever since that I would say we probably meet two groups of. Okay, three groups of people, one skeptics. No, don't believe it. Ridiculous. How much you pay? How's it working? I don't believe it. Right. So skeptics, that's group one, group two. I never knew that. I just thought it was a good product and I buy it and that's the majority. And then like group three is like, oh, I have drunk the Kool aid. This is the coolest model ever. And to be honest, we're okay if it takes everyone a long time to get to group three. And it's cool if you come there through the product, you know, because then you love the brand because it's a good product. And then you find out the mission and then you're on fire. And even if you're a skeptic or a critic, I'm like, cool, just follow along. Like, we're not going anywhere. We're going to keep building. If your critique is really helpful, we'll use that too. But we set out from the beginning with this mission and yeah, I think more and more people are starting to catch on.
Nathan Bush: And is that harder now? Now that there's so many companies out there saying that we're sustainable and that we've got all these credentials, but there's a lot of greenwashing going on.
Daniel Flynn: Yeah, look, you have just popped a little lid on a very big topic. Because I think. And I gotta be so careful. My words. Because I mean, no one wants to be the good police, you know, like out there being like, you're not good enough. And we don't wanna be that at. Thank you. We have seen some amazing, amazing companies genuinely doing amazing good and there is more of that now than ever. So that is awesome. I mean, the other side of it is we have seen a lot of cause washing and greenwashing and you can smell it. If you look deeper, you can definitely discover it. And I do think there is probably going to be a day of reckoning and a growing one to when maybe more of that becomes a lot more visible. Because yeah, there is a difference between an organization that is really focused on solving a social issue and using business for that versus someone that's trying to sell more product. And the latest craze is sort of purposely sustainability stuff. Let's package it up.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. And you can see from your journey that you've had to make those big calls throughout your progress to have that credentials. Like many people would have known you right from the start where you were doing the bottled water and you made the call not to do bottled water. Was that a hard call?
Daniel Flynn: Yeah, I mean it was easy and hard and most good calls have that tension. Right. So in one sense, we love the boldness of. Yeah, it was our genesis product. Sure, we're making millions of dollars in it, but it's not the future of the brand. And for all the right reasons, we should get out. There's another part of us that's like. And this is the hard bit. It's like, well, it's millions of dollars. And like, even though everyone hates on bottled water, it's still one of the fastest growing categories in the world. $140 billion is now spent on bottled water. And back when we started in 2008, it was 50 billion. And yeah, so it's a weird thing because it's. And then you ask questions like, but surely there's a way that we could do water in a sustainable way, right? And then we start looking into it and after years of venturing down different paths of biodegradability and this and that, we discover, well actually that's a bit of greenwashing or that does solve one problem, but it creates a whole nother problem. And so these were the kind of, these deeper wrestles. And then when we got to a final outcome that was for us the right call and probably a call that was too late. We should have made it years earlier. But that's okay. I mean we're humans as well, so we do make mistakes or we have an imperfect journey. But you know, it is easy to make calls that are ultimately right when you are founded on an idea that this is for social good versus it's just a kind of the wrapping paper.
Nathan Bush: If I asked you who you thought the Captain Planet was of Australian retail, I'm sure the team over at Flora and Fauna would get most of your votes. They continue to set the benchmark for sustainable retail and sustainable business in general. So we are so proud to share that they have partnered with our friends at Signet to create plastic free packaging. Using Signet's eco friendly protective packaging range, Flora and Fauna have been able to save 30 tonnes of plastic from landfill while keeping their 8,000 products safe in transit. As Captain Planet would say, with our powers combined. Visit signet.netaublog to find out more. We'll go into the E commerce world now because you've obviously got a great story and the sustainability story and the charity for the Retail for Good will come through everything. But we're an E commerce podcast and people looking at this might look at your website and go, you only sell one product online but you have an amazing distribution network of retailers who retail your products and retail them online as well. Can you tell us about that network that you've set up? Yeah.
Daniel Flynn: So look, I mean our products are in all major retailers, Coles, Woolworths, Kenway House, a whole bunch of independents, Igas, independent pharmacies and then through a whole bunch of kind of online e comm friends from like Bayo Bag who do hampers with us through to like the guys at Catch and Amazon and oh no, I'm going to miss people and get in trouble. But like so many amazing people nourish life. I probably should add the list up.
Nathan Bush: We had Julie on a couple of weeks ago, actually.
Daniel Flynn: Okay, awesome.
Nathan Bush: She was great.
Daniel Flynn: Yeah. Incredible team. So like, I think, I think we want to get. Thank you. Products everywhere. I'll be honest, one of the great tensions between, you know, mass retail and decom is doing both well. And I'm sure you've heard it before, and people talk about picking the path and I think what retail gave us was volume and it gave us the mass market quick. That's the, how do you put it? The compromise, I suppose, of a consumer experience and being able to have that one to one experience with the consumer. And there are some days and I feel like the grass is greener is such a true thing. Like I wish we were all E Comm and then meet some people in E Comm and here's some of the challenges and they wish they had retail. And we've tried to like tie the tension between both.
Nathan Bush: Right.
Daniel Flynn: What does it look like to be both? We did that for some time. So if you're on our website just before COVID we had all products you could buy online. And just to be really open about that, as much as, you know, E Comm is remarkable, we were struggling to make that very profitable even in comparison to retail, which is a tough business to make profitable too. And it's a real challenge. And so we have gone back to the drawing board in a very big way around the future of E Comm at thank you. And we think that where we play and what we play, the products we play with in E Comm are going to have to look drastically different to anything you discover of thank yous in kind of that mass retail market. And so we have great hopes for the future. We have some hard lessons along the way. Even around subscription, you know, such a cool word. So hard to make profitable.
Nathan Bush: Yes.
Daniel Flynn: Right. And profit's an interesting term. It's not necessarily the number one focus of many startups. Thank you. Has this weird reality, kind of a good one, I think. But some days I hate it, some days I love it. But we need to make profit because it's the profits that we commit to our mission, which is why people buy and trust the brand. So we can't get to the end of five years and be like, check this out, here's our top line revenue number. It's big. Let's clap. By the way, no profit in the last five years, but we've scaled now in startup community and in some circles that would be really celebrated. But actually in our world we've got to derive profit. And yes, you can have short Term periods where maybe you're not as profitable, but the watch out in subscription businesses is how to get them really profitable.
Nathan Bush: How do you.
Daniel Flynn: And I think probably made harder by also our retail business. However, here's some wins we had in E Comm and I just, you know, I think we launched a product titled Chapter One. It's a book. It had a small retailer footprint. For those that don't know our book, Chapter one is the first chapter of the. Thank you story. We've got this big idea about writing our book literally chapter by chapter over decades. So it's like an invitation to come on the journey. And we sold the first chapter, which is the size of a normal book.
Nathan Bush: No, it's not a small book.
Daniel Flynn: No, no, no. It's about 62,000 words, if I remember correctly. Ish. But we launched that book at a pay what you want price in retail stores and online. And online was this world where through E Comm we could connect with you and you had this bizarre moment of logging on, choosing what you wanted to pay. And that was unique online and in store. And it worked. We've had people be very, very, very generous. Started I think at 500, then 1,000, 10,000 at one point and 50,000 was the most paid. And we've had some people explore the other end of the spectrum. And it's truly. It was pay what you want for like five years. We just shifted it as we've gone to global because a whole bunch of weird complexities with global econ laws turns out pay what is illegal in some countries. They're very strange. But that was an example where it was highly profitable. But again, it was very much designed with E Comm in mind. And that's the future of our ecom plays, of which we have one. I'm not going to share the launch date because. Thank you. Classic. We have a launch date and then we're like, all right, what about a couple of weeks later? A couple of weeks later. Right. So I don't want to hold this to it, but next year we will be putting something out that is very much ecom focused and I can't wait to see it go. And hopefully it will.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, brilliant. On the pay as you go, did it come out above or below the recommended retail price that you would have set?
Daniel Flynn: Yeah, above. Above. But then over time that deteriorated, particularly in retail stores online we seem to hold ourselves a bit better. But yeah, over time it deteriorated and not too bad. I mean, at the end of the day, if we did run a normal book you'd be doing promotions. So if you took into account deep promotional strategy, we have ended up way on top. I think we've raised $2.6 million from the book and that is not bad. When we set out knowing that an average author in Australia, if they hit bestseller, they'll make between 5 and $50,000.
Nathan Bush: That's incredible.
Daniel Flynn: Yeah, we were pretty, pretty happy.
Nathan Bush: Was it painful writing it?
Daniel Flynn: Yeah, crazy initially. Like all good projects I have ever been part of naively thought, yeah, how's it gonna. We'll just write the, you know, like what's happened and stuff. And maybe it's a mixture of how we wrestle with ideas, but what was a six month project became a two year wrestle and yeah, we got it done and it's gone. Well.
Nathan Bush: That's brilliant.
Nathan Bush: And I think the book is a
Nathan Bush: great example even of your retail sensibilities because when you think about the pay as you go model, like you said, you don't have all the promotion costs and you know, the offset there, it's the same as the. You could have easily gone out as a D2C brand, but then there's all the customer acquisition costs. Whereas you've done a great job at getting on the shelves and getting on in the eyeballs of the mass market straight away.
Nathan Bush: You started.
Nathan Bush: Thank you. When you were 19. How did you get those initial deals to get into the big supermarkets like you did really early on?
Daniel Flynn: Yeah, well, look, first call out, one way I got there was definitely not alone and a massive shout out to some incredible co founders, Justine, who were actually married now, which is super cool. Jared and some amazing other team that helped build what was a slow burn. So for five years we couldn't get in. That's the long story short. The long story is a book, bit of a plug, trying to just get a couple more sales in there. But the short stories of five years, the big supermarket said no. We launched a very unconventional campaign which was really like a pull strategy. How do we pull this product out of the retailers? Using consumer power. And so we launched a video online called the Coles and Woolworths campaign. If anyone's international and listening and is not familiar, Coles and woolies are the two biggest supermarkets and they have a 70% market share. Some would describe them as a duopoly, others would say they would never ever bow to a small brand's request. But this campaign was a big shift because we launched the video, we said two weeks from today we're presenting to Coles and Woolies, but we're asking you, our supporters, to come with us to the meeting. And we asked people to upload a post, a video or even just a post onto their Facebook wall. So this is back in the day, everyone remembers when the Facebook wall, you could post on it for like a retailer or a brand and it would come up on their feed.
Nathan Bush: Yeah.
Daniel Flynn: So it was very disruptive because they try and promote their message, but then it would get like lost in like thousands of messages. So it was a very good time to launch this. And look, that's how I remember it anyway. It's a lot harder now to get noticed, that's all I know. And I think when we did this, people started singing, dancing, rapping, uploading their posts. And those that know the story know that a lot of media covered this. And then we had two helicopter pilots fly for free. Some giant signs we'd made titled Dear Coles, dear Woolworths, thank you for changing the world in brackets if you say yes. And we flew this over Melbourne and Sydney and then around their head offices for half an hour. And this was about how do we get off the Internet and into kind of the real world for maybe a more traditional business at the time or traditional buyers or even for just media. And you're trying to cut through and gosh, it worked. So to our shock, the industry shock. And as far as we know, this has never happened before or after five hours after the meeting at Coles and three hours after Woolworths. We had national ranging in both retailers. Wow.
Nathan Bush: And then did you have to work out the product or you already had the product sorted?
Daniel Flynn: So, so we had the product sorted. We basically backed ourselves on this campaign. We developed all product, all packaging. It's a very strange approach. Like we, we built this as if it's going to work. Then we booked a meeting and our suppliers are all like, why would you buy packaging before your first meeting? Like, this is not how it's done. And we were like, look, we can't exactly tell you why, but we've just got a plan and we've got to go with it. And you know, it was a, it was a hair raising few weeks. I tell you what though, the one thing we didn't plan for was them saying yes so fast. And so I think they wanted product within a month. And there was literally a battle for like who got it first. You know, like the morning of it was, it was a very much a shifting turning of the tables. IGA got in there as well. They end up getting on the same day. But we weren't ready for that. So it made for one big month because. And we nearly killed ourselves in that month, I think trying to pull this off because we just assumed at best maybe six months.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, it would have been an incredible thing. That first time you saw your product on the shelf though it was a
Daniel Flynn: mixture of incredible and also heck like that very nerve wracking feeling because one of the things you get with major retailers, you get scale but you also have to be ready for that scale. So if you look back over your pipeline of what your raw materials, packaging, finished goods, you've basically made everything that's on shelf, everything that's in their warehouses, everything that's in your warehouse waiting for the next order. But you don't know if anyone's going to buy it yet. Whereas I would feel like in E Comm sometimes you can start, build, pivot, test, learn and as you grow, and I'm not saying it's an easier journey, it's just that it was a weird feeling of like, okay, I just bought it. Is everyone going to buy it? Or if we just like are we done? Because if it doesn't sell then you.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, yeah. It's funny that you mentioned that chain because obviously you're trying to limit the impact that you have while you're going through that chain from raw materials all the way through. One of the things that your products feature, at least the soap that I've got in my shower features, is a unique tracking code to be able to track your impact. Can you share how that works?
Daniel Flynn: Yeah. So we very early on had this idea and it's really about trust. I think a lot of friends, even ourselves, we're naturally skeptical on anyone and anything that makes a claim about making a difference. I think because we'd heard so many bad stories and just the general vibe is trust is lower and that's a sad thing, but it's real. And so track your impact for us was like this idea and we'd seen some, we'd been inspired by some groups around the world. That's great. Charity. Charity water in the U.S. phenomenal. They had this program they built and really you could give them a dollar. So a donation, not buying a product, but give them a dollar and they'll report back where that dollar went. Exactly that specific dollar. And I think there was a few things we'd seen and we're like, we want. Thank you. Every product you buy, you to know exactly. And so we start building this thing. The back end developers are like, cool. So I mean it's been a lot of work. We've essentially built like a pseudo banking system. Like it's very, you know, over engineered for what it really needs to be. But we wanted it to be real. Like we wanted it to be like, you know, foolproof and full transparency. I mean it had so many bugs and then we'd fix them and more bugs and heck of a journey or for something that funny enough, very few people ever use. Like everyone's like, yeah, I love it, but didn't actually do it. But that's okay. It's still, still perform that trust building exercise. However the brands evolved and when 2020 hit, I mean, the world went into chaos and the charity sector went into chaos and thank you was already developing our future of giving, which is this idea called unrestricted giving. And it's the future of philanthropy. For those who aren't too familiar with philanthropy and how it works, I'd say the best analogy I've got for how we've worked in the past in the sector is it's like imagine paying for a friend's heart surgery and then telling the heart surgeon how you want that surgery done because it's your money. Like that's a weird thing, right? We wouldn't do that in medicine. Or like, if you like, imagine buying shares and I don't know, like after pay or Facebook and then calling up and being like, now I specifically want my share money that I put in to specifically not fund anyone's salary and I only want to do that. So in business and medicine that's not how it works. But in philanthropy it's kind of like that initial patient surgeon analogy and it's pretty bad. So thank you's moved to unrestricted funding, which means backing our pioneering partners and letting them and their management team make the decisions on how to grow, how to spend and then basically report on the results. But that means we had to walk away from track your impact because essentially track your impact is tying the money we give in tiny increments to specific outcomes, which is awesome at a consumer marketing level. And it's basically probably the worst thing we could do by our partners. And so, yeah, that's another change we made. Yeah. In the last three 12, 18 months.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. So is that how you spend most of your days now is like letting the thank you team run thank you and then are you more focused on what other impacts you can have by backing other people?
Daniel Flynn: Yeah, look, we've gone in ebbs and flows, so there was probably a season where for myself and even Justine, we were more free to probably do what you just said, but I think it's been a big 12, 24 months. So we very much in the day to day again at thank you. And you know, I would describe thank you as today. It is the lean startup that we once were and we kind of went through all different life cycles and scaled up and grew to a much bigger team, about 60 at one point, and a lot of systems and a lot of processes and a lot of rigor and heaps of good in that. We're so grateful for so much of that. But yeah, we had to kind of scale back and maybe go back to some of the foundations that built us and I think we lost a big chunk of that. So we are back to, I would say, some of the thank you of old with a whole bunch of learnings from the great processes and people and ideas that have come on to make thank you stronger. So we're very involved in the day to day and also the giving and where it's going, which makes for a pretty busy day. We've got two young kids as well, Jed, and our daughter Jordan, and she's like nine months old. So between all that and Justine's on maternity leave now, which basically means she's still doing a bit of thank you stuff, but not as much. And I'm more day to day, so that's us.
Nathan Bush: So you're not writing another book anytime soon, are you? Not with all that going on.
Daniel Flynn: I mean, I don't want to. We may have just finished the little project in the background, but again, who knows, you know, who knows? That's very elusive. You could read into that any different way.
Nathan Bush: So as someone who started thank you as 19, and I'm assuming you're a very different person now as a dad who's been through a lot and who's now actually giving and trying to help other people realize their dreams as well. How's your view on the world changed in that time from when you were 19 to now?
Daniel Flynn: Yeah, a lot. I mean, life makes you grow up, hopefully, But I think the startup life and starting a business is like, I mean, you have to grow up very quickly in many ways, and if you don't, the market's not very kind to you, I would say, you know, unlike if you work in a job and you sit down, you know, with a manager for your performance review, you find out what you're not doing, well, you kind of get a bit of time to fix it. Sometimes the market's not that kind. So if you're not performing well, you're out. If that product didn't work, it's over. If you make an error, it will cost you a million dollars and you will just have to learn to never make that error again. You know, and like there, you know, that sounded like a general example. Unfortunately, it was super specific. And that was at a time when we had invested already so much in systems and processes and it was a system error. But you know, humans, we build systems and you can build in slight errors and miss them and oh, gosh. So what's the perspective? I would say that the more thank you's grown up, the more we've grown up. A funny word to describe it is hopefully more humble now than back at 19. It's a very humbling journey, this whole thing, both in the scale and impact it's making. Like that's a, like, whoa, what a cool thing to be part of. And that's a humbling feeling. But then also too, I think, you know, you have to stay very humble and very, very hungry because, you know, complacency and maybe if you let that pride build in, drink your own Kool Aid, you can sort of see everything that's been built disappear overnight. So that's probably a big thing. I think on a personal level, there is so much I have learned. I look back at some of me as a younger, whatever leader, I don't know, and I just think, oh, that sucks. You know, you were too intense or just didn't listen well enough or listen to the wrong people and the wrong inputs. And I mean, you know, even depending how deep we go on this podcast, probably my greatest personal reflection is, you know, I spent so much more time than I realized caring what other people thought. And so that's. If I could go back and tell my younger 19 year old self something, it would be like you have to detach from this idea of trying to please people because I spent years trying to make everyone happy and it ends up being like a jail cell. And I had some great help with some great people, including a very, very skilled psychologist who helped me unpack some stuff. And we had to go like right back to the beginning, like me in primary school and I was like, what? This stuff's in the movies. But it was so helpful. And I would say that now we're not done. I feel like we're just getting ready for a future of thank you. We see much bigger than the past, but it took a lot of. It has taken a lot of internal work and perspective. To be here.
Nathan Bush: Australian brand Rolly Nation makes footwear that
Nathan Bush: is lightweight and the favorites are of suitcase stuffers around the globe.
Nathan Bush: So when Rolling Nation wanted to put
Nathan Bush: a greater focus on direct to consumer,
Nathan Bush: they migrated to Shopify Plus.
Nathan Bush: With integrations into Gorgeous for customer service, Smile for loyalty, Klaviyo for direct marketing, and Okendo for customer reviews, Rolling Nation were able to deliver a site that
Nathan Bush: was as lightweight as their shoes.
Nathan Bush: They immediately achieved a 62% improvement in page speed, which contributed to a 3.5 increase in conversion.
Nathan Bush: As Limp Bizkit would say, they're now rolling.
Nathan Bush: Rollin. Rollin.
Nathan Bush: To read more of Rollie Nation's story
Nathan Bush: and to see other case studies, visit the customer sections on shopify.com au/. If people are listening to this and going, I have that exact same problem. I don't know who to listen to. I've got voices coming at me from everywhere, which is very common with people growing their business. Do you have any advice on how to filter out the people you should and who you shouldn't listen to?
Daniel Flynn: Yeah, there's a great old proverb that says there's a wisdom in a multitude of counselors, I think. Or it says there's a wisdom in a multitude of counsel. I think one of the key words there is multitude, I think. And here's a great example. I had catch ups with mentors. Two different mentors that very different experiences in business, but they were both very successful. And I took a topic to them and they both had a 100% opposing view. And like we weren't all in the room together. So I'd gone individually and I'm going, what? You both think the opposite and you're convinced of it and now what do I do? Whatever I do, I'm going to offend one of you, that's for sure. And I'm a little surprised that two very successful people could have such different views. But that's the thing we have to understand about other people's perspectives. They filter through their life story, through their understanding, through their experience. And this is your journey, this is your story, and you need to discover the right path forward. And so I think it's really hard, but you have to be a really good listener. And an example would be listen to both of those mentors, right? You don't rule out one of them. You listen to both, you look for the gold in both and you might discover one's not right, one's not wrong. They're both right. They're both right from a different perspective. And that's the key to looking for the gold. And then you got to figure out what's the bit you take for you. And a guy told me this once. He was a mentor, in fact. And he said, daniel, never cut and paste 100% or even 90% of someone and what they share with you, even if they're the most amazing person you've ever met. And so I've started to kind of go with a bit of a rule of thumb. I think walking away with 10 to 20% of gold is a good result, and that's not to offend that other person. And sometimes it might be higher. But when you're gold mining, the dirt to gold ratios, it's a lot of dirt. And when I say dirt, it can mean you catch up with someone and they give you advice, but you're like, oh, but okay, you're seeing it from a different perspective. You don't know this, this, and this. And I used to get really caught up in, oh, my goodness, how do I keep that person happy? And that was my personal trap. So I would say to anyone listening, if you struggle with not just the fear of, like, what if we fail? But a specific fear of, well, I suppose for me, and that being, like, a fear of rejection. What if that person doesn't like me because I don't listen to them? And that is a deeper idea. And I spent some time unpacking that and getting some real help. And I would say that was the best investment I ever made as a dad, as a husband, as a business leader or whatever. Like, it was so good because we went deep on some soft stuff that turned out to be the hard stuff. That means now that when I think about the Way forward, classic even mentioning the word psychologist, I was the guy that would never, ever need that. And when I booked my first session, I was, like, ducking behind bushes as I went in, and I was like, I don't want anyone to see me. And honestly, I thought I'd do one session and then I would never go back. And in fact, he spotted it because he said to me, I don't think. Because I don't usually. I don't usually say this in the first session, but you tell me, Daniel, you think you have a fear of failing? I don't think you do. I think you have this fear of rejection.
Nathan Bush: Oh, wow.
Daniel Flynn: As he said it, between you, me, and anyone on this podcast, I start crying, and I'm like, why am I crying? It's just got me. I don't know. And As I drive back to the office, I'm all teared up, right? I get back into meetings. My assistant, who knew because she knew everything, she was like, your eyes, you know, And I'm like, they're red. I look like I've just. And so we learned, never book that meeting during work hours. But I'm telling you now, like, back in the day, I wouldn't even. I would see it as a sign of weakness to even suggest this whole. But now I'm telling you because I don't really honestly care anymore what you think as a listener group. Don't take that the wrong way, but, like, if it's of value to someone on this call, it's a game changer for you as a leader, as an innovator, because if you try and move forward, taking people's advice, but you have this, like, Achilles heel, which is like, you know, maybe fear of rejection or whatever, you know, that that's. That's going to be a jail cell. And I found myself in it.
Nathan Bush: So, anyway, thank you for sharing. That's. I mean, that's such beautiful advice. And I think the honesty is just amazing. And I think a lot of people will need to hear and really appreciate hearing it. Not to frame you as the expert in the topic, but if people are going, I actually think I need professional help as well.
Nathan Bush: Did you go there through a GP
Nathan Bush: did you kind of look them up online?
Daniel Flynn: Yeah, yeah. So, okay. As a joke, I think you're crazy if you don't have a psychologist. Just. That is a bit. And I also think if your psychologist doesn't have a psychologist, that's a problem too, right? Because, like, to debunk the whole thing. And I have said this somewhere before interview recently, I suppose I find myself now I'm talking more about it, which is great, but I was on a flight next to a psychiatrist, and he had been doing psychiatry in Hollywood, right? So literally in L. A for 40 years. And I was like, oh. I said, you must have had some people. I was like, I reckon. Would I know the people? And he sort of nodded. I'm like, who? He just shook his head. I was like, oh, that makes sense. You can't share that. And I was like, on that flight trying to get some free advice. And I'm sure the first person to do that. But I asked a very interesting question. I said, what does it take to not end up in the chair? And he later looped back to that question as probably a good psychologist or psychiatrist. What he said, that earlier question, he Said, how do you not end up in the chair? You have this idea of being broken and a mess and. And ending up there. And a fear of, like, what if that was you one day? He's like, but maybe the key to never getting there is realizing that you're in the chair right now and it's a conversation, and we're having it, by the way, like, and you should just have that conversation with people and unpack stuff like this. And I was like, good point. Wise man who's quite. You know, that we kind of. I just. That's. It went to sleep, and that was the flight, and that stuck with me. And when Justine was like, you should really talk to someone. Like, I'd had some pretty heavy thoughts at one point, and I'd say most people starting anything, you get some pretty. Pretty lonely, tough moments, you know, and it's a very confronting journey. So anyway, I literally cold Googled, like, I googled, and I'm like, going through websites of, like, I'm thinking this and I cold call and I'm like, this is a. Like, I'm so. At the time, I'm like, this is not going to work. I need a good. I need. I need a good recommendation. I cold call a guy. And it was a great journey. He was nothing like me, which is like, we're not. We're polar opposites in many ways, and then we're not in some. We share some common views, some common faith perspectives, which was nice. Don't think you have to just. We ended up and we connected in. I would say to someone, like, it's worth it. And in business, you invest in a whole bunch of stupid stuff, conferences and like, this tool and that ad thing, and someone tells you, you must have this, and so you invest in it, like, to spend. I don't even know, like, 100 bucks, 140 bucks or something. And I think a GP can give you discounts the first 10 sessions. But, like, we're talking in the scheme of your journey, a small amount of money, but in reality, the impact it could have on your life. I would almost want to hear a good case from someone as to why you didn't need. And if your case was too good as to why you didn't need to sit down with someone just to flesh out your thoughts, I'd be like, maybe you really do. And look, I'm having fun, but I sort of think I had it all wrong. Maybe as a male, maybe as just a person. I thought you could only do that if you're A train wreck. But I think all of us are kind of a wobbly train.
Nathan Bush: And who's got it all sorted?
Daniel Flynn: Well, apart from you. No, I'm kidding. No one. None of us. None of us do. And it's funny, the more people I met in very high, interesting places, you know, who I absolutely admired and looked up to and idolized, and sometimes I got to speak with, like at conferences, on stages next to them, and I'd kind of pick their brains afterwards and I'd be like, oh, my gosh, they're going through similar stuff.
Nathan Bush: What?
Daniel Flynn: Okay, who's got it all together? Like, I thought they did. So who does? And yes, I think we're all human. We should not walk alone. And that means walking with good friends, good partners in life, good business partners. And, yeah, I mean, you get an accountant if you need help professionally with your numbers. Get a psychologist if you need help with your mind. Yeah. Anyway, just. I've overplugged it.
Nathan Bush: No, it's amazing.
Nathan Bush: I think that, honestly, that could be the most. The 15 minutes of add to cart
Nathan Bush: that helps the most people. And it's really got nothing to do with E commerce. But if that just gets a couple of people who have been on the borderline of going, maybe I do, maybe I don't do it.
Daniel Flynn: Get it done.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. Oh, Daniel, thank you for sharing so much.
Nathan Bush: It's definitely going in a different direction
Nathan Bush: than I thought our conversation would go, but I'm sorry, pleased and so happy that you could share this with our audience. So thank you so much.
Daniel Flynn: No worries, mate.
Nathan Bush: Now there's a clip on YouTube where you are being interviewed by President Obama. I'm assuming that he's almost as good as me at interviewing.
Daniel Flynn: Yeah, look, it's hard to compare the two of you.
Nathan Bush: What was that experience like? What's it like?
Daniel Flynn: Yeah, it was a very. Use that word earlier. Humbling. Like, it was. It was. I mean, it was shocking when I found out the day before.
Nathan Bush: Yeah.
Daniel Flynn: So that. Didn't know we had an invitation to attend the Obama summit as an audience member. So not speaking, not nothing. Just an audience member. And I was like, wow, that's an honor. But it's also a long way to go for. Anyway, but I did the trip and then I was sort of over there going, have I made the right call? And then the registration queue, the organizers came up and were like, are you Daniel Flynn? I'm like, I am. That's a. Do you get back to my email. President Obama's requested an interview with you tomorrow morning. I'M like, what? And so that. That, like, I don't think my heart rate dropped from that moment until weeks later, because. Yeah. And he'd chosen three young people from apparently, this list of. I don't know, but. But it was really. It was a very big moment, and it was small. So big in the sense that Secret Service came in, locked down the room. It fe an actual movie. One of the Secret Service did a countdown from 100ft, 80ft, 60. It counts down 2010. And then the doors open, and in comes President Obama and a whole entourage. And I'm just like, oh, like, this is just too much. And like, the countdown was just too much. And he came over, and it was interesting watching him walk because he talked to people, and he could tell. He knew you could tell he was asking genuine questions. And by this point, Secret Service entourage, the three of us, there'd be 40 people in the room. It was the. I just. I was like, this is. I've never experienced anything like this. And then he knew our names, and I was like, okay. He asked questions for 23 minutes with. With no notes, and they weren't generic questions. So I'm like, how did he even have time to get briefed on this? He is a superhuman as an orator and a thinker.
Nathan Bush: And.
Daniel Flynn: Yeah, so that was what kind of made it feel small. It felt like you were talking to a really great person. And, you know, he introduced himself, and now we're doing, like, I'm good. I was like, I hope you're not feeling nervous for the interview. He's like, no, I'm not too nervous. Am I going good? And it just. It was fun, but we got pretty serious. There's some great topics discovered, and it certainly set. Thank you. On a very different trajectory because, yeah, they're an interesting. I mean, couple. And it was a huge honor to kind of have a spotlight on. Thank you.
Nathan Bush: Oh, you nailed it, too. We'll put the link in the show notes for anyone who wants to go check it out. But you did incredible. So you couldn't tell you were nervous at all. Heartbeat looked fine.
Nathan Bush: Good.
Daniel Flynn: So good.
Nathan Bush: All right, Daniel, what's next? We mentioned a couple of things or hinted at a couple of things. What's next on your radar for yourself? And thank you.
Daniel Flynn: Look, the world is in a really funny spot, and that is on every front, and I'm sure everyone listening is experiencing it in many different ways. I think what we're trying to keep front center. Thank you. Is that extreme poverty is, for the first time in decades going from bad to worse. So for the first time, I think it's in three decades we're regressing on the end of extreme poverty. So that number's going up and there are quotes of upwards of 150 million people more going into extreme poverty. And that could blow right out. Then you've weirdly got consumerism, the other extreme. It's still healthy. I mean these Louis Vuitton group, I think it was their chairman became either the wealthiest or second wealthiest person in the world for a moment there because luxury goods have just exploded.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. And we're not going anywhere.
Daniel Flynn: Yeah. What a time in history. So I just, I know everyone needs a handbag and I'm not overly trying to be critique luxury goods, but I'm just saying it's a weird time in history to have extreme poverty, dire straits and like social issues and also luxury goods. And I'm like, you know what? This to me is thank you through and through. People are still going to keep buying. It's what we do as consumers and let's meet them. So we're building a pipeline of product that is retail, E comm and also new categories or new countries as well. It's a super ambitious pipeline. It's too big really. But it also doesn't feel big enough when we look at the problem in the world. Do you know what I mean? It's like, it's. Some days you're like this is ridiculous. And then other days you're like, no, we have to do more. And I think we've got a good next. I don't even know how many years trying to fulfill those ideas and bring them to life. And so I would say if you knew the thank you come on the journey next year we'll launch some stuff same the following year and we'll keep building. But during the pandemic we had a moment which really reminded us that we have a role to play in the world. And it was selling hand sanitizer and hand wash. A lot of people listening probably bought a lot if you bought.
Nathan Bush: Thank you.
Daniel Flynn: Thank you. We actually, in 12 years of history we raised $7 million for our projects around the world. But last year in 2020, we did 21. We raised a further $10 million profit we distributed. So yeah, I suppose what's up next? More of thank you and bigger.
Nathan Bush: Very, very exciting. Now if people love the mission, think they can contribute in some way or another and want to get in touch, what's the best way to get in touch with yourself or the team.
Daniel Flynn: Awesome look. Follow us on our social channels. Thank you, Oz. Thank you, Nurture for our personal care. A whole bunch of channels on Facebook and Twitter, et cetera. But you can also sign up on our website to become part of the launch team. And this is if you are like, want an email from us probably once a year, maybe twice if we have a really good year. But you get the insight on, hey, here's the next launch, here's what we're doing, here's what's coming up. And we actually, all of our launches work because real people back them and those early adopters kind of get on board. So that launch team is like, I'm part of it. Hopefully you can be part of it. But yeah, sign up and let's launch some really bold things and, you know, keep raising money and doing what we're doing.
Nathan Bush: You're a legend. Thank you so much for joining us, mate.
Daniel Flynn: Thanks so much. All the best.
Nathan Bush: I feel really lucky because we've had an incredible run of founders on ADD to CART recently who are so humble and willing to show their vulnerable side. And we definitely, definitely got that from Daniel today. And I don't think he'll mind me saying this, but even though we've seen the huge success of thank you from the outside, it's obvious that it hasn't been all smooth sailing for thank you
Nathan Bush: and for Daniel himself.
Nathan Bush: And I'm so impressed and honoured that Daniel was able to share those experiences with us in a really raw and vulnerable way. I think it'll make us all better at looking out for when we need help and what to look out for in others. Here are three practical tips that I took out of my chat with Daniel. Number one, pay what you want. What an odd model. In an age where we have big data which optimizes pricing down to the cent, it seems strange to allow customers to pay whatever they want. However, it worked for Daniel's book, chapter one. They've generated 2. $2.6 million in sales from that one product, with the highest sale being $50,000. Now, it obviously won't work for everything and it's not the pricing strategy that I would immediately go to, but if you've got a low margin product and a hell of a lot of goodwill, it might be worth a shot for the publicity alone. Number two, pull strategy. Daniel and his team used a pull strategy to lock in their initial wholesale distribution through organic, social and video. They empowered their fans to put pressure on the big retailers to stock thank you products as a new way of doing business and with a little bit of PR savviness and a little bit of cheekiness. What resulted was a rush of retailers approaching thank you rather than the other way around. So it leads you to think, what kind of hacks can you put in place to make your most vocal customers help you overcome a big barrier that you haven't been able to shift by yourself? Number three 10% pure gold. That's what I'm calling this one. Anyway, Daniel's advice was to embrace mentors and people who have been there before you, but don't feel you need to take on all their advice, even if they are more senior, more experienced. If you in fact, he recommends don't take on all their advice. Take the little small nuggets from each conversation, maybe around 10 to 20% of each conversation, and bring them all together to create a unique direction that works just for you. To finish up, I have three resources for you.
Nathan Bush: Firstly, if you're a first time listener
Nathan Bush: of Add to Cart and you want
Nathan Bush: to stay up to date with new episodes episodes, head over to addtocart.com and you can sign up for our weekly newsletter. We'll let you know every time a new episode drops as well as giving you my three takeaways from each episode and a link to the transcripts so you can know that this is an
Nathan Bush: episode that you want to dive straight into.
Nathan Bush: Secondly, if you want a weekly roundup of the best e commerce case studies tools and research, sign up to the HIF Friday newsletter which is delivered to inboxes at 8am every Friday morning. I read all the e commerce news and send you the bits that I think you can take action from. Sign up at 12 high 12h I g h.comau forward/high five and the last thing. If you are looking to explore your next e commerce opportunity, head over to esweettalent.com we are a dedicated e commerce talent agency connecting the best e commerce talent with the fastest growing brands.
Nathan Bush: Check it out.
Nathan Bush: Sign up to the email and get in touch with me if you want to discuss your next move. Until next time, thanks for listening and keep those customers adding to cartoon.
