Speaker 1 0:00

Let's say you're the patent attorney. I've come up with an amazing idea. How much you as the attorney gonna now charge me?

Unknown Speaker 0:05

Well, initially,

Speaker 1 0:06

Wow, holy smokes. Abby, how many quotes did you actually get? Four

Unknown Speaker 0:11

quotes? And

Unknown Speaker 0:12

then what made you go with the one in Australia? The

Speaker 2 0:14

pricing, surprisingly, was cheaper than China and South Korea. No

Unknown Speaker 0:18

way. What

Speaker 2 0:19

I can say is that, if you have an idea and you believe it's great, start on it. Start working on it. Because as you become more involved with your product, you know you're loving what you're doing, you start to sort of make it just better and better. What do

Speaker 1 0:31

you think are some of the key lessons that you've learned through manufacturing that you can share? First of all, I'm Matthew Fraser, and this is Amazon e com secrets. I'll be sharing with you the secrets that helped me go from millions in debt to an eight figure entrepreneur. If you're ready to escape the nine to five and live life on your terms, let me show you the way. Hey guys, welcome to Amazon e com secrets. My name is Matthew Fraser, and today, I have an extraordinary guest. I think this, this podcast episode is going to be unbelievable, full of so much gold. Because normally, what happens in podcast world is you hear from people who are already multi, multi millionaires with amazing products. But today, Abby Izza, he's all the way here from Melbourne, has decided to jump on in because he wants to share part of his journey before, right on the cusp of becoming a multi millionaire, he's created this incredible product, which we'll dive into later, but we want to understand what it has taken to get to this point in his journey where he's just about to make his website live. He was just down at his factory today, packing products. So it's very, very new and exciting. So, Abby, thank you so much for joining the podcast.

Unknown Speaker 1:47

Thank you for having me,

Speaker 1 1:48

mate. I want to start with just a big thank you for coming on board. Because, as I said before, a lot of people just don't want to share, sort of, the beginning story. And when I invited you on here, I said, you know, by the time you're you're a big success, sort of, you know, a couple years down the track, five years down the track, you'll forget all the things that you've been sort of working on. It becomes a bit of a distant memory. And I think it's so powerful that you're going to be able to share probably what the last sort of two years or three years to get to here. So let me, let me open by saying, Are you completely crazy going into E commerce? Are people looking at you, going, you're insane.

Speaker 2 2:24

Yes and no from me, no from others, yes, because, you know, it's been a very long journey. It's taken me, what, three years from when I first started, and I haven't stopped, not one day. So it has been a crazy journey for me. A lot of stressful moments. You get ups and downs, but determination is what's getting me through this.

Speaker 1 2:50

Yeah, and so this is, this is your not. This is not your very first product day. Let's talk about the product, just to give it some context so people understand what

Speaker 2 2:59

it is. Okay, the product. I came up with this idea quite a few years ago where I was getting just frustrated with with bags. So it is a bin product. And every time my wife, she's very organized, and I would always have to look for the bag roll, or which was always misplaced or be put somewhere so, and I just got to a point where I just chuck any bag in there. I found then sometimes, you know, when you pull out the bag, it's got this dripping or the wrong bag size, or something going on with this bag. And so I just said, you know, I love, I love creating products. I've always had that in me, and I just sat down one day, so I've got to make this thing. I've got to make a better, better system for this. And I just, you know, sat down and started drawing and putting things together, and I came up with this idea.

Speaker 1 3:58

Abby, do you have a habit product with you?

Speaker 2 4:01

Yes, I do, actually, yes, I've got all my shop. I'll just grab it for you. Okay, this is it there?

Speaker 1 4:06

Wow. Okay, so, and the bag goes inside of that container.

Speaker 2 4:10

Yeah, you just open it up, and the bag rolls it's in there. And then you pull the bag through, and it's got feet fasteners that stick here, and then air freshener that gets stuck on this, and it just goes inside and in the bottom of your bin, and off you go. Okay, it's about

Speaker 1 4:30

to be available for sale. And hopefully by the time this airs, people can click on the link somewhere in the description and go and buy some of these products. So, Abby, this, this is not your first product, is it? You've you've done something before this. Do you want to talk about? To talk

Speaker 2 4:43

about that? Yeah, when I first got into E commerce, I did a, it's called the docking station, and that was my first product that I launched on Amazon. And, yeah, and so What year was this? This was in two. 2021

Speaker 1 5:01

Okay, your first product in 2021 and was that a flying success?

Speaker 2 5:08

It was actually, you could sort of say, because as as I once, I learned how to actually go from sending my product from China to Amazon US, and sales started coming through. So it started to build up. And gradually, yeah, I only sit in 100 of them at the time. And, yeah, I sold them all, and I loved it. And I just love the way this e commerce, you know, e commerce is and,

Speaker 1 5:33

and so, so why didn't you then continue with that product?

Speaker 2 5:39

Okay, that story there is because I was involved in a mastermind, and in our mastermind, we had confidentiality agreements that would talk about our product, but want to go outside our mastermind group. And I had that idea, and believe it or not, it was in my file, and it was playing in the back of my mind, and said, do I show them? No, do I show them? In the end, took me six weeks to introduce it to them, and when I actually showed them on paper what it was, they absolutely loved it. And they said, Wow, this is this is awesome. I haven't seen anything like this. And then one of my mastermind colleagues said to me, why don't you approach a paint attorney? And it went from there. So I actually approached a paint attorney. He loved the idea. He thought it was spectacular, and nothing out there like it. And, yeah, and then I stopped my Amazon econ journey and just focused on this, purely from that day,

Speaker 1 6:33

right? So the first product you would say you sold out of the first 100 units, yeah, is that right? And then you came up with this, this this new idea, which is the product that you've just shown, which is called bin mate, and you decided to pass the original product. Now that you sort of learnt the process, you've had products shipped into Amazon, you understand that, and now completely focus on this brand new invention of yours, correct? Is that? Right? That's right. And so how long has it now taken you? So from when you came up with this idea to today,

Unknown Speaker 7:08

it's taking about three years.

Speaker 1 7:09

Wow, three years. And what? Because, what? A lot of people that come into E commerce think that it's going to be quick, you know, like it's, yeah, you're going to get up and running within like, a couple of months. But of course, when you're designing a product from scratch, it can take longer just looking back now. Abby, what would you say to people who are thinking about designing their own product, knowing what you've been through, and perhaps, is there any tips you could give them?

Speaker 2 7:34

Yeah, definitely. What I can say is that if you have an idea and you believe it's great. Start on it. Start working on it, because this bin Mac took me about five or different designs by the time I came up with this, and just started, you know, taking out all the little mistakes or it's not going to work. Was that going to work? But, yeah, I just stay determined. Did prototypes, samples, yeah. And just as you get, as you become more involved with your product, and you got to, you know, you're loving what you're doing, you start to sort of make it just better and better. And, yeah, and, you know, and just don't stop,

Speaker 1 8:17

you know. So looking back now, Abby, was there any time where you thought this isn't gonna work? I'm gonna, I might have to pull the pin on this.

Speaker 2 8:28

No, because when I did do my sample, I did actually try it and it worked. And it actually it worked. It did have a few little flaws in it, but that's what, that's what I corrected at the time. So, yeah, I just got better at just making it better the product, to a point where now it was pretty much like it just works. So one of the

Speaker 1 8:49

tips, I guess, yep, Abby, maybe, is that when you're doing some samples, you know, maybe take it to market, because I know you went out to some other people, you didn't just sort of create it and then not show people, right? You showed some people that went and tested the samples. And isn't that, right? Yeah, isn't that right?

Speaker 2 9:03

Correct? Yes, I got the I got it actually made through D printing for my first couple of samples. Because to make a tool these days, it costs you a lot of money. How much value

Speaker 1 9:14

does it cost to make it to make a tool? Okay? And when you and what do you mean by tool? Yep,

Speaker 2 9:20

a die. So a tool die that's actually gonna it's made out of metal, and it gets hardened, and it actually forms your product with with plastic, so and so, with my tool, it cost me 180,000

Speaker 1 9:36

Wow, to get this $180,000 Yeah. Holy smokes. Abby, that's an astonishing amount of money. And this is before you've even sold a single product, correct? Yep. And so when you actually had to pay this $180,000 how were you feeling at the time? I

Speaker 2 9:58

just didn't think about. It really, if I thought about it, it would make your second guess. Am I doing the right thing? Do I go ahead with this? I just didn't think about it because, but initially I believed my product so much that was my determination, and there was nothing that was going to stop me from not creating this product and getting it out there. It is a risk. But prior to that, I did get quite a lot of feedback from coaches that I have and even Adam Hudson consumers. Adam Hudson, who's a who's the creative role of education, and the feedback was phenomenal. Everyone loved the idea. It was a convenience. It served the purpose, yeah, and that was my main thing, because it actually did that served the purpose, and it was convenient. It just made me more determined to actually get this on, you know, get this out there. Can

Speaker 1 10:54

I ask you, Abby, you know, you've got this point now where you're about to send $180,000 to a manufacturer to create the tool. Okay, I already have no no, but you just take, you take your mind back to that point. Yeah, I'm just trying to just paint a picture, because I can imagine a lot of people who are listening to this absolutely, their jaw is on the floor right now, thinking you, you just spent $180,000 on the tool, right? This is, this is not, not even the samples and the and, of course, the packaging and all the other testing and what have you that needs to be done. And not even any product itself, right, just the tool. So when you had this conversation, and I know you said you had amazing wife, you know, what was that like, you know? And what was, what was it like? I guess she's obviously given you support to do this. But what was the conversation at that time? Well,

Speaker 2 11:43

at the time before even all this, when I put it in the bin and I got her to use it, she loved she liked it, she loved it, and I kept it in there, purpose just to see, is she going to continue using it, or she's not, this is

Speaker 1 11:58

the sample that you've got now in your kitchen, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 12:02

And from the moment that was put in in the bin, she she has absolutely loved it. She actually rang me when I was out seeing a customer, and she said, Look, I just gotta praise You for this idea of, I absolutely love it. It's so convenient. She goes, I look forward now taking out the rubbish. Okay, how's that? How's that? That's

an endorsement. So,

Speaker 2 12:26

yeah, it is. It was a positive, you know? It was absolutely positive, and she has been very, very supportive. That's the number one thing. If it wasn't for her, I don't think I'd go ahead with it, because I also wanted her to be on board with me on this product journey together, because it just made me just fully focus on this product. And

Speaker 1 12:47

so when you said to her baby, we're gonna have to put in $180,000 she said, Hey, no problem, Abby. Just say, Are you sure?

She said, Where's my car? You're gonna buy me?

Speaker 1 13:04

So you went, you can have a new car, or we can build, we can get a product tool,

Speaker 2 13:09

exactly. Yeah, it was all in good humor, you know? I mean, I didn't joke with her a bit at the time, but look, she was really supportive. And she said, Look, that's do it. That's it. Okay. There was no looking back from her or from me. That's

Speaker 1 13:25

fantastic, because I often say, Yeah, you know, having that support and network around you is, is so, is so important. There's many things in my life where I've had to make decisions as well. And if it wasn't for the support of my wife, you know, I wouldn't have gone down certain paths. And so I just want to, you know, I guess, highlight that, because I think it's really, really important to have that really strong support network, particularly when you're in this entrepreneurial business journey, right? It can be lonely, and you're going to get other, lot of people saying that you're no good, and what are you doing, and giving you doubt. But anyway, that's really powerful. So great to hear. So after this point, you've, you've just spent your $180,000 on the tour. What was after that was that all the money you had to spend, or was, was there something else

more money? There was more, much more money than we spent.

Tell us about

Speaker 2 14:18

that. Well, the main thing that first, before they even the tooling, was the patents. Now, obviously, you want to protect your product from getting copied and from other companies. And so what I did when I actually approached the paint attorney, we did a paint and search and came back saying, there, we can go ahead with it. There's not much. There's nothing like that out there. And it just went from the process, from there now that journey has taken, has taken one and a half years to get it through, and I had to pay extra money to get it prioritized right, get a prioritized examination. So. So I could get it within that one year, yeah, and

Speaker 1 15:04

so at this stage, I mean, you're brand new to this. You haven't had patents before, right? And so you don't know about them. How did you go and find a patent attorney, one that you could trust? Well,

Speaker 2 15:18

I actually enrolled in this course called reliable education. And the guy that created was Adam Hudson, and through that, he had all his resources on there. And Eric was actually on there as a patent attorney to go to. Okay? Approached him, yeah, no, he's based in the US. Okay,

Speaker 1 15:40

so you approached him, and you what, you just got a single pattern for the US. Or, how does it work?

Speaker 2 15:47

Well, I did get a single paint in the US. That's where it first started. From there and and along the process, you know, you're paying it's called a utility paint. So what? Which I did go for, which covers the whole concept of the actual, the product itself, and, yeah, and then there's stages that you go through during the paint, the patent itself. So he actually forwards it to the paint attorney office in the US. And if they get rejections, then he tries to overtake correct that rejection. So, but you got to keep paying more money and more money and more money. So when

Speaker 1 16:26

you say more money, because people are dying to know this, how much money are we talking you know, I've just, let's say you're the patent attorney. I've come up with an amazing idea, and I see a lot of people who come up with amazing ideas, right? But now they want to protect it, they go to a patent attorney. How much you as the attorney going to now charge me for my amazing idea?

Speaker 2 16:49

Well, initially you get told that a concept, a utility patent, is about $10,000

Speaker 1 16:55

US $10,000 yes, okay, but, and is that a guaranteed success? Abby, does that? Is that a guaranteed at that stage, or is it it might be rejected, still?

Speaker 2 17:10

No, it could still be rejected. Okay, it's just, it's basically just up to the attorney himself, what he can get through for you and how strong the painting is. So if you've got a great attorney, you can get your really strong paint covering pretty much the whole thing, or there'll be certain things covered and certain things, certain things not covered. So and that can happen through that whole process. So you need to sort of know what you're covered for, because if somebody else comes along and tries to copy it, they can actually copy what's not been protected, yeah, and make it similar, and just, you know, just rectify it in different ways. So you just need to know, really, what you've been covered for. That's the main thing. Okay,

Speaker 1 17:59

so fast forward to now, because I know you've got a number of patents. So what do? What is your your patent cover now, and how many territories?

Speaker 2 18:10

Okay, well, I actually have just applied for covering. I already had a paint in the US covered. And then from there, during your patent, your patent journey, the the attorney will ask you, do you want to go for a worldwide painting? Now that comes in, if you do go yes, then you COVID for 18 months, a worldwide painting. Then after that, you can either stop it at that and just leave it at one country. But if you already applied to or you can actually, he will ask you, do you want to apply for other countries? And which I did? So I went ahead and I covered Europe, I covered China, I covered Australia and New Zealand. So, and I've also got, I've already covered the United States. That was already done, okay? And they're all the countries that I cut, yeah.

Speaker 1 19:00

And does that mean the $10,000 covers all of those territories, or how much extra are we talking to cover all the worldwide territories?

Speaker 2 19:09

No. Well, the 10,000 initially, when I started with in the United States, has actually gone up to about 60,000 plus. Wow, because along the way, I've had a couple of rejections, and then, because I applied for a PCT, which is the worldwide patent that cost me about 10,000 Australian and to get it prioritized, a prioritized examination on that patent that cost me another $6,000 Wow. So yeah, so it all adds up. So the US is actually a line costing me about 60 plus now, and I've just paid another 23,000 to start the applications in all those other countries.

Speaker 1 19:55

So we're now talking upwards of what of $100,000 would you say in. Happens?

Probably, yeah, wow,

Speaker 1 20:02

it's a huge investment. And just a reminder to people listening, we still haven't actually sold anything at this point. So you've put up $100,000 there. You've got another after this. You've then gone and done, or during this process, $180,000 for the tool. What other, I guess, big cost. Where there Abby that came up to in the journey thus far, before you've even sold a single product,

Speaker 2 20:28

well, creating a website, right? That that that journey also has cost me close to $10,000 at the moment. So there was $10,000 spent on that, and pretty much a lot of trialing, going forward and backwards,

samples on things, the samples,

Speaker 2 20:54

yeah, that's cost me, you know, somewhere between five and $10,000 right? So my journey. You know, when you add it all up, it's cost me close. I reckon at this point of time, I'm probably around about the 400 450,000 at the moment. Wow.

Speaker 1 21:10

That is incredible. Abby, do you think about that and think, Oh, my God, I'm $400,000 into this. It's almost like there's there's no return. I'm just saying is because most people would not have the balls of steel that you've got to even get to this point.

Speaker 2 21:28

Yeah, that's why they say to me that I'm absolutely crazy. And then they go, they just look at me, they go, I can't believe you just actually spent that much money. But to me, it's different. To me, you know, I have a I have a big passion for for e com. I love what I do. I enjoy it, and I've enjoyed the journey of my product. And I really just ignore all the feedback that I get. I don't do that deter me in

Speaker 1 21:54

any way. You mean you don't need the feedback. You mean the negativity that? Well, you sorry,

Speaker 2 21:58

the negativity. Yes, correct. Yeah, yeah. So, so I just, you know, just ignore all that, and as long as I got my wife support, I don't need anything else,

Speaker 1 22:08

then you're good. Let's talk about Abby, where, kind of where we're up to now, right? So just just share with us and the listeners now, because I know you've just come back from the factory seeing your product pack. What was that like?

Speaker 2 22:23

To tell you the truth, I almost actually tee it up, because I've worked so hard for how many years, and to finally see your product being made from your tool that you spent 180,000 and then you see operators actually packing your own product. And, yeah, it was just, I couldn't actually describe it. I even told the tool maker, because he was there too. I said, I cannot believe I am actually here today watching my own product being packed in front of my own eyes. It's

Speaker 1 22:56

an amazing achievement. And just to remind people too, yeah, your product is actually, when we talk about the tooling, and that plastic holder that you held up, the bin mate itself, is actually manufactured not far from where you live in Melbourne,

Speaker 2 23:09

exactly. Yes, it's Yeah. And so how did

Speaker 1 23:13

you find someone like that? I mean, because obviously there's a lot of people thinking, I want to go manufacture my product, thinking automatically, I need to go to China or India or Pakistan, right? So what made you think, Oh, I'm going to get it manufactured in Australia?

Speaker 2 23:29

Well, I did, actually, did approach those countries too. So I was recommended to go overseas when I first started. And I did get quotes. And I had zoom calls with several companies overseas, in China and in South Korea over the tooling. Now, the thing is, I never actually rushed my my decision on anything, and I sort of had that always that I'm not going to rush into anything until I'm absolutely 100% sure I know that that feels right. So I did get a quote from South Korea at the time, which was 40,000 us to make the tool, but just to make the product in South Korea on its own. That's without even being no packaging or anything. Was at the time, $4.73 us and if I was to calculate what it comes with and then getting shipped over to Australia, and the packaging, the boxes and everything, so it was going to blow out to virtually like, you know, I can't even do much with this product. I can't sell. I can't even make much profit on it, because it just add up all the profit when you actually add it all together, right?

Speaker 1 24:43

And does that include the shipping of the product too? Because, don't forget, you've now got to have it shipped, and you're going to going to be initially retailing your product in Australia, so now you've got to factor in international shipping,

Speaker 2 24:56

exactly, right? Yeah, I did factor all that in. And it wasn't viable at the time. I just wasn't convinced with the cog, the cost of the good with everything in it at the time, so, but I wanted to get more more quotes and just shop around a little bit before I decide on anything. And China came back was which was around about 100 and was $110,000 for the tool, but the reason being that might that I in China, it, it's a special tool which actually welds the insert in the actual lid at the same time. So half the tool speeds around because there's a lot more work to it than just a plain tooling game. And then I had a friend of mine that I know here that works in the plastic industry, and he's a manager, and I actually rang him up, and I said, DNA tool makers here, I wouldn't mind getting a quote and comparing overseas and here. And he said, Yeah, I do have a person I can actually put you on to, which he did, and I contacted him, and it went from there. We sat down, we spoke exactly what I wanted to do, what product I had, and then he came up with ideas that we can get rid of the costing by making the whole product pretty much automated. So there's no there's no assembling involved,

Speaker 1 26:19

right? So a bit of Australian ingenuity actually has proven to be a much better outcome for you. And, and ironically, it's 10 to 15 minutes from your house, yeah, the factory, which is, which is incredible, right? When we're all thinking about, Oh, we have to go to China and fly over there and meet with different people over there, and it's 10 minutes from your house. Amazing. And so now we're at this point where we're about to launch the product. Okay, what are some of the things that you didn't know about before creating this product that you now know, for example, websites and things like this,

Speaker 2 27:01

I didn't know much about anything. To tell you the truth before I jump on this journey, I hardly knew anything about e com, what was involved, and even how to go about anything in e com. I just I just liked it. I just enjoyed it. But how to do anything I had no idea. But if I look back when I started in today, wow, have I learned so much? Have I learned so much from everything, from websites, patents, production tooling, who to go to who to see, the contacts that I have now that just makes my whole journey easier now. So now I'm in a much better position that in future. If I did create another product, it wouldn't take me that long and to learn all that process, yeah, but that's the beauty part about about your journey. You know, when you're doing e com, especially when you've got your own product, yeah?

Speaker 1 27:53

And we just want to drop into that you're actually one of my clients now, a that I mentor and help with this expansion of product, and I guess where, where I step in is more so to do with, I guess, taking the product to market, which is what I do with other existing products. And funny enough, one of my main products that I, that I take to market have an exclusive distribution on, is in the healthcare industry. And that product is also plastic based and is manufactured in Australia, on the Gold Coast, of all places which have which, funny enough, is probably half an hour's drive for my house. And I think what's interesting for people to know about, you know, you just mentioned before Abby about, you know, you didn't know much about e com. I think you did in the sense that, you know, you'd already tested, you had a test run of those initial 100 units in Amazon. Okay, so you knew how the Amazon landscapes works, but when you came to me, we decided that, yes, we could have your product in Amazon. But what was more powerful, we think, is having your own website and generating traffic through social media to your website to create the sales and and I just want to share with people. The reason we did that was because, ultimately, different products suit different platforms. And we think, because this is such a unique product with, you know, if people, if people go to Google and search, they go with a search intention of, I need a bin, bin bags, trash bags, things like this. And then the idea will be, your product will be displayed there through Google on those types of search terms. When someone goes to Amazon, they're going to with with search as well. So we'll have people come up your listing will come up there as well on Amazon through the similar type of searches. But we want to get to people who aren't going to Google searching for bags as well, which is where social media comes in, where we're going to put in these ads. So as they're scrolling through their Instagram, for example. Ample. We want something that pops up, that's quite powerful, and so what we've what we're going to do is utilize and Abby's Abby loves this. We're going to utilize more of the humorous side of things, because, as you can appreciate, you know, Abby loves his product to death. But most people don't really care about a bin or a bin accessory, right? They're not passionate about that, but we want to do is utilize humor to help make the sales of the product. So Abby, talk to us about some of the journey, I guess, within understanding that framework and also social media,

Speaker 2 30:37

right. Okay. Now, as you mentioned, at the point of time when I actually approached you, which was through the E comm site at the time, and I was at a moment where I was so unsure of myself. How do I go about moving forward with this product, even though I had pretty much the website, the tooling and everything else, but just that next level I needed, which you came along and you opened up that wide open for me, which I saw a different world on how I could actually take this product worldwide. And yeah, like, you know, and like you were saying, you know, and with the social media that we're actually working on currently, which is Facebook and Instagram and Google, like you mentioned, yeah, that's just been so unbelievable. Like, the power there, what you can actually do with this product and putting it out there and creating content for this in humorous ways. Yeah,

Speaker 1 31:46

I want to share something with with the listeners too, Abby, because one thing we talk about is your product. Although you've created bin mate that that plastic holder with the bags, and you sell the whole thing, what's so great about your product, and this, this is, this is gold for people, is you've also created a recurring revenue model. So you've got to you've actually created your own bag liner. And so now people come back to your website to buy bags. So I said to you that they jokingly you ultimately become the bag guy, right? You'll sell more bags than you actually will of the bin make product itself, which I think kind of flipped the way you were thinking about your business model,

Speaker 2 32:31

correct? Yeah. I actually, at that time, I didn't even think about that, but now that we look at it, yeah, when you mentioned it, becomes more of a reoccurring sales of bags, so and all different sizes of bags, and I'm going to be able to introduce more bags of different types. So funny thing is, yes, people do buy a bin mate, but they buy it once, but the reoccurring sales are going to be. The main are going to be the bags, yeah,

Speaker 1 33:03

which is, which is, which is astonishing, really, because you've gone and thinking, I'm going to create this bin, mate, and then you're actually going to be coming make probably more money from the bags themselves. Which is fantastic. Exactly. The other thing we've talked about is, how can we grow the business, even outside of just bins? And when we think about what else do people would people who buy bins and bin liners, yeah, what else would they want? And we've gone into things like cleaning type products, so we think ultimately bin mate will just simply add into its website a range of Bin mate related products, yeah. And so can I ask you, Abby, you know, what do you think have some of the key lessons, I think, up until now that you've learned through manufacturing that you can share?

Speaker 2 33:58

First of all, never give up. That's one thing. And through the manufacturing process, just make sure that the journey that you take along on creating your own product, that you're 100% and get more. How can I say like, you know, you get more quotes. You get, you approach more companies so you get a better understanding on how your product will be. Or let me,

Speaker 1 34:27

let me jump in on that, because I think that's an important tip there. So you went and got, how many quotes did you actually get when you went and got your tooling done? For example,

Speaker 2 34:38

I got at the time, I got four, four quotes,

Speaker 1 34:42

okay, and that was across all different countries or or just in Australia.

Speaker 2 34:47

No two in Australia and two overseas, one in China, one in South Korea, okay,

Speaker 1 34:52

yeah. And then what made you go with the one in Australia? Was it the price point? Was it they the delivery time?

Speaker 2 34:58

Yeah. Yeah, it was. It was pretty much a lot of things that I sat down and I wrote down the advantages and disadvantages what I'm going to have with South Korea, China and the manufacturers here. Now, the hardest thing is that where I sort of made me think more Australia was that it's locally. I could just drive down if there was any mistakes in the production and the pricing, surprisingly, was cheaper than China and South Korea. No sound

Speaker 1 35:35

cheaper in Australia. That's because most people think that, you know, you can't get things manufactured industry, because it's going to be the price is going to, I guess, just be so high that you can't make profit.

Speaker 2 35:48

No, that's not true, because that's what I thought at the start. I thought, you know, everyone just goes overseas, but just look into your backyard, and believe me, you will find great manufacturers that will look after you, and surprisingly, you know, you will get pretty competitive pricing from them compared to overseas.

Speaker 1 36:09

Let me ask you, I want to just bring this out, Abby, because I think it was really keen. I have spoken about this on previous podcasts, but it was this bit of advice that I gave you on something. But I want you to share the story, which is about the website guy and how he tried to do a deal to basically take your business.

Speaker 2 36:27

Okay, do you remember that? Yes, I do that part there when I was working with the website guy here locally. And at the time he also was surprised about the product, and he loved the product, and he was really helping me a lot. And I'm thinking that, you know, he's helped me a lot, which he was, but in the end, it sort of he came about, and he just up, fronted me and said to me, Look, instead of me charging you for your website, I wouldn't mind taking 10% out of your whole company, out of bid, mate. Now I just put it in a nice way. Okay, look, you know, thank you for that, and I'll think about it. So I went away, but I had in my mind already that I wasn't going to take any partners on. And got back to him say, look in a kind and nice way that look sorry I'm not going to take I'm not taking on any partners at this point of time, this journey. I'm going to take it on my own, and I'll see where it leads me.

Speaker 1 37:29

I want to just drop something in there, because I remember the conversation we had and you were thinking about it, you know, I mean, you were like, Oh, Matt, should I take this? I know, deep down, you kind of didn't want to take partners, but there was something that I think you thought, if I just, if I don't have to pay this guy now to build the website, all I have to give him is 10% in the future, right? And once we worked out the numbers, because if we think this business is going to where we think it's going, and if we just use an example of the business gets to 100 I'm just use $100 million across the world, right? It's the value of the business. And you now need to give this guy, would we say 5% 10% so we're talking ten million at some point, you may have to then pay him out. When initially he's only costing how much, like, 1500 bucks or something, or $5,000

Speaker 2 38:24

right? Yeah, at the time, it was five and a half $1,000 at the time. Yeah,

Speaker 1 38:30

yeah. So my point to people listening is that it's it might, sometimes it might sound good by saying, oh, we'll just give him 10% of the company because, but if you actually go and think about how much your company is going to be worth, you might find that it's better to pay the guy the $5,000 today and not have to then end up paying this guy ten million potentially, or even a million dollars Abby into into the future. And that's, I think, a key lesson there is probably just pay for things that you don't need to now. It may be different if you had an actual investor, right? Because he wasn't going to really, essentially put in money. So the different situation might be, you needed some money, let's say hypothetically, to do the tooling right, and you worked out a deal and said, Look, Jimmy, he's going to put in the money for the tooling, because perhaps you didn't have that money. And then you could say, and the upside for you is, I'll give you five, 5% 10% in the future of a future sale or something, right? That's probably a case where you would do that. I also want you to just share another story that we've had over the over the past few months, and that is your brother. And this always rings in my head, Abby, where he said, Why don't we just roll it out. So to give people the context, what we're doing is we're rolling out in Australia first, because the product is manufactured in Australia. It makes sense, of course, to simply start the sales in Australia. Now, what did your brother then say,

Speaker 2 39:56

Yeah, well, what were they said? You know, why don't you just sell worldwide straight away? It. And I said, Yeah, I don't think that's the easier said than done. And we said, No, be easy. Yes, just get the sales and just just fill up the orders. I said, Yeah, but you know what happens if I get how many orders, you know, worldwide? And then that's when you said to me, well, let's work out the numbers. And we said that if we got point 5% from United States, Europe, only from those from those countries there, now that would, I think the numbers were something ridiculous. I think it was at the time I had to come up with, like, just for the production cost, I had to come up, like $32 million

Speaker 1 40:45

it was a lot of money. And so the point is that you know you're going to have people in your life that are, you know, perhaps not experienced at doing things, who don't understand the process. And although we appreciate some feedback that you know you have to be, I guess, wise in who you take the feedback from is it's from someone like your, you know, your family member, who has never rolled out products before, or from someone who has. And once we did the numbers and we said, okay, look, let's just hypothetically say we're going to sell this across the world straight away, yeah, which means we now have to make more production to ship it across the world. So we're now talking a lot of expense. I think we worked it out. Like you said, it was millions and millions and millions of dollars of upfront cost to get the product sent overseas in warehouses, to then start making sales. And so it completely became unviable. And I guess for people listening thinking about, you know, which country should they start in? In in Abby's case, it makes sense to start in Australia, because the product is manufactured in Australia, and what we're doing is we're going to actually test it in Australia through the ads the website, make sure the conversions come through. And I guess what I say, we iron out any wrinkles, because there's going to be a full process of acquiring the customer. The customer comes to the website, they buy the product and then get shipped to them. Something happens, there's a customer service now involved. So we want to get all that is dialed in and humming nicely before we then think about rolling it out to any other territories, because as once we've got it all humming away, we can then just rinse and repeat. Abby, I'll just ask you this question too, because one of the options for us is to do a different type of business model. Did you want to share the you know, I'm talking about with the licensing,

Speaker 2 42:34

with the license, yeah? With the royalties, yes, yeah. Share that. Yes, yeah. We did discuss that, also that that's an option for me down the track if I wanted to license it overseas. So I initially get a manufacturer in the US that say where I can license it to them, and I just get royalties from them, so it could be maybe one or 2% and I just get a paycheck from them, and I don't have to do anything, and they pretty much do all the production, the selling, the advertising, and yeah, I just, I just get a paycheck from them. And I can also do that in Europe too. So I could pretty much expand it anywhere and just put license it to all these manufacturers overseas and just collect royalties from more than all and I wouldn't have to do all that work and that, all that process that's involved in it. Yeah,

Speaker 1 43:28

and so that's something that we discussed at some point, do during this past few months, is that, you know, you initially thought I have to sell this across the world myself, right where you didn't realize the other option, or one of other options, is to license it, because you now have you own the IP the intellectual property being the patents and things like this. And of course, so rather than having more manufactured in Australia and shipping them out yourself, which now comes at an inventory cost to you and shipping cost, and then, of course, you've got the other costs of potentially more websites and then further ad spent. You can actually license the product to somebody else in a different territory who would essentially just run everything. They would perhaps organize the manufacturing in their own territories. So then save on international shipping, they would then organize their own website and distribution and customer service team, and then you could one of the options is to perhaps sell them at an upfront license fee. For example, it might be 25 or $50,000 up front, so that they have exclusive rights to your product. And then through the sales, you receive a royalty. And of course, there's many different ways to skin that cat, and it's all based on the negotiation with someone in that territory and and, of course, we haven't even gone down the track of putting it into physical stores, Bunnings, Costcos, things like that. But I think one of the things we've decided at this point is to actually not go, not go down that route initially, because. Of the extra costs that may be involved, because for people listening, when you go down the route of retail, you it's not direct sales. So right now, if Abby sells a product on his website, he gets paid immediately for that product. If you're having to ship it into, let's say, Bunnings, you might have to come up with 10,000 units, let's say for a quarter. But Bunnings is not going to pay you immediately for those goods, so you're going to have to Shell out the money for the inventory at a large bulk amount, and then it could be most likely somewhere between 6090, days even plus, before you get any money back. So that might be something that Abby and Bin mate do down the future, when there's more cash flow and cash reserves in the business, but not something we're going to look at initially, until we get things up and running. So Abby tell us about, I guess this is probably up in closing of this incredible conversation, deep dive into your business and this amazing bin mate product that's going to revolutionize kitchens. And actually, it's not just kitchens, is it? Where else, if people are actually interested in this product, Abby, where, where would it be suited for? Like, who would it be suited for?

Speaker 2 46:13

Pretty much, where there's a bin you use a bin mate, so it could be in the office. It could be hotels, hospitals, even in your baby room. So with all the nappies, it could just be put into that, into that bin. So it really, it's pretty much in any bin, even in shopping centers.

Speaker 1 46:37

So there's the catchphrase, if you have a bin, you need a bin mate, exactly something like that. I'm not, I'm not saying I'm the best at slogans, but there we go. And so what I'm going to do for the people listening is they're going to, I'm going to include the link to your website if they want to support a local entrepreneur to it to get a head start and make some sales. And if you do buy one of these products. We'd absolutely love. If you left a review, you can hopefully it'll be available on Amazon as well, but also through the website, leave us a review on there. We hope you absolutely love Abby's product. Abby, anything further you want to say,

Speaker 2 47:14

No, I just want to thank you for the interview, and thank you to everyone that will support me through my journey with Bin mate and purchasing one and living reviews. Yeah. I just really think you know, you know, everything that my whole journey has pretty much. Abby, yeah, and everyone that's been involved in it, yeah, excellent.

Speaker 1 47:35

Thank you so much. Abby, one last thing, will you promise that you'll come back in six to 12 months, once it's humming away. You're making all these sales promise that you'll come back and see us, even if you're driving a Lamborghini.

Speaker 2 47:51

Definitely, definitely, not sure if I could fit in one, but definitely, I will come back. And I would love to share my journey, and I would really love to help everyone out there that is on that same journey, or is thinking about it, that I'll be more than happy, you know, in any way that I could help them, and I don't want them to be afraid of what they're trying to do. Excellent.

Speaker 1 48:14

Yeah, that's so good Abby. And I just want to say too, if anyone else is out there who's is in Abby's stage. You're an inventor, you're a brand owner. If you have a product and you want to take it global, feel free to reach out to me, and perhaps we can also work together to help get your product globally into the market. So Abby, I want to wish you the all the best. I know we're going to be working hand in hand to make this happen, and I look forward to seeing you into the future, and I really appreciate you exposing and opening yourself up and sharing this incredible Australian journey of entrepreneurship. All right, thanks so much. Abby. Take care.

Thank you very much. All

Speaker 1 48:49

right, bye, for now. Bye, bye. Thanks for tuning in to Amazon ecom secrets, if you enjoyed this episode, the best way to show your support is to give a five star review on Apple podcast and Spotify and make sure to subscribe on YouTube so you don't miss an episode. You can also find more at I'm Matthew Fraser on all social media platforms. Thanks so much. Take care. You.