Rob Ward - Quad Lock and Episode 3 of Melbourne Geek

Tommy: Wait a minute! Crossface!

Rob: The Daily Talk Show, a conversation sometimes worth recording with Josh Janson and Tommy Jackett.

Josh: 106 of The Daily Talk Show.

Rob: How are we?

Josh: Yeah, good. It's Tuesday. We've got Rob Ward from Quad Lock.

Rob: Thanks for having me, guys.

Tommy: Mate, pretty special day to have you on and also Kim Jong-un. And Trump meeting for the first time.

Josh: Yeah, that's— I feel like, uh, a lot of important meetings are happening today.

Tommy: And there was something else that, uh, is pretty big news. Obike guys are done.

Rob: That's it.

Tommy: They're getting taken from all— from Melbourne.

Rob: What do you do on your weekends now?

Josh: I know Tommy was already talking about like, um, getting, getting one like and mounting it on his wall.

Rob: Yeah, I got an Obike story.

Tommy: Do you?

Josh: So can we— let's explain who Rob is.

Tommy: Yeah, because I actually brought up the bike because I was looking at your Insta and there's an O-bike in your Instagram. But Josh, I'll let you do, uh, the housekeeping.

Josh: Yeah, Rob is the co-founder of Quad Lock. It's like the number one way to mount your phone to things, specifically your bike.

Tommy: I was gonna say, is that their marketing campaign?

Josh: That's me.

Tommy: Do you guys say it's number one? Or are the people saying it's number one?

Rob: I think the people have spoken, but it's definitely number one. I'm just, I'm just trolling you.

Josh: It's no, literally when I— you just— and you've been playing this game, TJ, ever since we worked on some Quad Lock stuff together. You just go outside and you'll just see them on every bike. And I was watching a camera, a lens review the other day, and you in London and you just see people using Quad Locks. Yeah.

Tommy: It's what I love is you guys, your friendship, because how long have you known each other now?

Josh: What, 9 years? Well, it's— when did, when did Quad Lock start?

Rob: It must be like 7 or 8, 7 years or something like that. It was before 2011.

Josh: Yeah, 2011.

Tommy: So you've, Josh, you've seen from the outside Rob's business growing and yeah, well, I mean, becoming the number one ghetto to Still pretty good.

Josh: Well, no, because I remember we did, um, we connected through me when I was doing Melbourne Geek.

Rob: How often does that come up?

Josh: Uh, how often does Melbourne Geek come up? Yeah, a bit, given how shit it was.

Tommy: Did you know, Rob, that he had a sticker on his car, like a full decal that said Melbourne Geek?

Rob: If there's one thing I know about Josh is that He would have had that before he even did his first post.

Josh: So true, had the logo sorted. No, I had a caricature, I had like a full-blown— but yeah, so I think it was, uh, uh, our, um, my other mate CP who works with Rob, the other co-founder of Quad Lock. I think he may have reached out initially being like, hey, you've got a Melbourne, Melbourne blog 'Will you cover us?' And I said yes. And so Quad Lock was going— it was the Opener case at that time. Yeah, yeah. And explain what the Opener case was.

Rob: It's the one of the first ever Aussie Kickstarter campaigns. And so probably when we did that, doing a Kickstarter campaign was more of a storey than what actually Opener was. Yeah, but Opener was pretty cool. It was, um, pretty gimmicky, but it was effectively an iPhone bottle opener.

Tommy: Yeah, and I looked at the video you made. I think it's the video that you made.

Josh: Which one? We did one.

Tommy: I looked on your website, Rob, and I, and I went to open a case and it has like its own website area, and then it has like a video of like, um, all of its uses and like shows you coming out. Looked like it was made on iMovie, but that's probably, I'm sure, high production back then.

Josh: I feel like there was a mix. We had one from a guy in Canada who, remember he did that one on the cork? Oh yeah, type of thing.

Tommy: Yeah, in summary, it like, in short, it's like a like a— it almost was like a switchblade out the end of your iPhone where you charge it from, and that comes out as like this full industrial-looking bottle opener. It's actually a sick idea. I mean, your phone would probably be 7 centimetres thick now if you were having your pocket, but without having to snap your phone. But interesting, so why did you decide— what was the interest in making that other than opening beers?

Rob: Oh, I think back then it's sort of— we're doing a couple other businesses at time, which were fun, but we started to realise what we wanted to do was more of a consumer product. And we were actually seeing at the same time that the barriers to entry of capital to get an idea off the ground, access to people, telling people about what you're doing with social media, just being able to transact with people, like ecommerce, that kind of thing. It sounds silly to say some of this stuff actually, but back then it was that we saw that those barriers were sort of falling down around us and we thought there's no real reason not to do something. And then we sort of started thinking, okay, what? We don't have any money. We don't really have enough friends to be able to make a minimum order quantity of this. How do we, how do we get something off the ground? And we knew that Kickstarter was out there. We had to sort of hack that to get on as Aussies. Aussies couldn't really get on at that time. Really? Yeah. We figured out that, you know, if you put ads on Facebook, people clicked on them and they did buy things. And when we figured that out, we're like, oh, that's going to be handy. And from there we just thought, you know, what would that product look like? And I remember one day, I think it was, I think I thought about it all week and I rang CP and I went, what if we put like a, everyone likes bottle openers because everyone likes beers and you don't have your keys on you when you're drinking. So what if we put one on the back of your iPhone? It's the one thing you have with you all the time. And then we sort of come up with, I remember he designed something up and next thing we know we had this slide-out bottle opener and we were running a Kickstarter campaign and yeah, it sort of snowballed from there.

Tommy: It's funny 'cause it's not like it's, you didn't reinvent the wheel. You just combined a few things that are awesome together, your phone and drinking beer. We've got a coffee order coming in right now.

Rob: Nice guys. How you doing, Jacinta?

Josh: Jacinta are bringing coffee. Yes, you can take a photo. So Rob, can you explain now how big Quad Lock is? Like how many people, how many things are you selling? Thank you, Edo.

Rob: Yeah, in Melbourne, in Prahran here, Greville Street, we have, there's 12 of us full-time.

Tommy: 2 currently standing in the doorway with their phones out.

Rob: Yeah, we're probably on the storey now, I'd say.

Josh: I don't know if they got that, but I somehow spilled coffee on my pants.

Rob: Josh is being awkward, so everything's normal.

Josh: Don't worry. It's fine, it's fine.

Tommy: It's good troll Rob.

Josh: Good troll, good troll. No, so the, yeah, so how many Quad Locks have you sold?

Rob: I don't know the figure, but it's over a million, over a million Quad Locks.

Josh: It's a lot of Quad Locks.

Rob: It's a lot of Quad Locks, there's lots of them around. You know, you don't have to really look too hard anymore. And that's in a lot of sort of major cities around the world, which is fun. You know, we're sold on apple.com where, You know, we have things like, uh, just crazy stuff's always happened around us, which is good. And a lot of it's luck, and a lot of it's, I think, just being in the right place at the right time. Like Chris Froome, probably the most famous cyclist in the world, like, he uses it on his training rides and things like that. And that's just pure organic. Um, we have, you know, lots of customers all over the place now. I think in the first 3 months we sold into— I think I remember this stat the other day, it was like it's over 100 countries. So it's, it's growing, it's growing quick.

Tommy: Yeah. And just, I'm sure you know, Josh, so you're hearing things for the 50th time in a row, but I think it's still interesting, like, um, the how you even came up with the concept of Quad Lock.

Rob: Yeah, yeah. I mean, to be honest, the initial idea of Quad Lock came, um, CP came up with, probably not as what it is now, but the sort of, you know, like all ideas, they sort of start somewhere. And it was when he moved to Sydney for a new design job he had one of the first iPhones cracked that, not cracked screen as in cracks, you could use it back in the day.

Josh: I knew that as soon as you said that Tommy would have no idea what you're talking about.

Tommy: Yeah, I actually thought crack 'cause I remember—

Rob: I could see that in your eyes.

Tommy: No, I remember people cracking.

Josh: What was the actual jailbreak?

Rob: Jailbreak.

Tommy: Jailbreak, that's right.

Josh: So jailbreak the phone, so he had it set up.

Tommy: That's when prisoners escaping get a phone on the black market?

Josh: Exactly. So jailbreaking then would've been, were they even doing third-party apps then or what was the, Oh, that's right. He, CP, had it so he could use a piece of hardware that was like a game controller.

Rob: Oh, that was the thing that he— yeah, that was another thing he came up with. It was like a— yeah, you could put like old Nintendo games on it if you jailbroke it as well, remember? Like King Kong. Um, yeah, but anyway, that— so he was in Sydney and he had a new job and he was riding around and he was like, geez. And that was when Google Maps was like brand new on iPhone. And I mean think about, like, we just take maps on an iPhone with, you know, you only have to use—

Josh: yes, you only have to use Apple Maps once to realise how important, like, a good maps app is.

Rob: Yeah, but anyway, he was there doing that and he's like, isn't it— wouldn't be cool if we could— if I could mount my phone on my bike? And then I suppose that was the initial start of the idea, and then from there grew into this mounting system that we could do everything we do today with it. And it's still growing at the moment. We're still working on stuff that will come out in the coming years.

Tommy: So going to creating something like this, is there a thought that it is so basic? And did you ever think, surely someone else has done this? And why?

Rob: Like, yeah, yeah, I think, I think, I think there's, there's two things here. Is it one, we'll sort it with something like, um, you know, like iPhone bottle opener or something like that. Like, yes, someone could have done it already, but even if someone's done it already, it doesn't mean it's not worth doing if you can do it in a better way, but also if you can sell it better than them. And like, I tend to think now when you look around, you find something that no one's ever done, even tried to do, or it's sometimes what it is is that there's actually no money in that market and that someone's thought of it and they've tried to do it and it never went anywhere. But at the same time, you can sometimes have an original idea. It's probably more rare than having the idea that has been thought of before because— and the serendipity of the way the world works is people think of things at the same time because at the same— we're all got similar influences on ourselves.

Josh: Yeah, well, the iPhones come like people, uh, jailbreaking their phone, they're starting to cycle, all these sort of things start to, to happen.

Tommy: Um, so just quickly, did you think Quad Lock in its initial idea phase, you thought it was an original idea?

Rob: Uh, yeah, the way, the way that— I think there was other things like putting your phone on your bike, but see, CB had the idea way before we did anything with it as well, like, like, like a lot of ideas in life.

Tommy: Yeah.

Rob: Um, and it just— we— so we had that idea before Opener, but it just seemed bigger and harder to get off the ground, so we did Opener. Um, and then from Opener, then we, then we poured money and all sorts of resources into Quad Lock, uh, and then grew it from there. But it was a slower burn than Opener. Opener was sort of, you know, you remember the PR we got with Opener like straight away, Josh? It was, it seemed really big back then.

Josh: It's probably not, not that big, but well, you, it's because you were, you had the Oakley office, was it Oakley? Yeah, yeah, so you're in Oakley, you had all of these, like, factory laser, um, laser cutting machines, cutting machines, laser business, and you're getting into 3D printing. And so you had all these websites going, you had like a 3D printing website, you had ones on, um, had the 3dprinters.com.au, the blog. Yeah. Yeah.

Tommy: And so that's early days.

Josh: So this is, so this was 2011.

Rob: Yeah, but I mean, that stuff started probably like 2010. Yeah, you know. 20, yeah, something like that.

Josh: And the funny thing is with the Melbourne Geek stuff, I, uh, classic JJ style, went, filmed episode 3 of Melbourne Geek, which was never aired.

Tommy: Was it 3 of 3? Oh no, they didn't even air it.

Josh: I don't think— we never did. I— but the, um, I remember I felt—

Rob: he's come a long way.

Josh: Yeah, I feel like I, uh, I felt bad. And so like, I was constantly— it was this weird thing where it's like, I really liked Rob and CP, so we're just trying to like We just sort of got over the fact that that was never going— all the filming that we did for an afternoon was never going to air, but we created all of this.

Rob: That's how it happened, right? Now you mention it. Yeah, because I'm sitting here.

Josh: Well, I remember I tried to— I found on my hard drive, and we'll need to release it at some point, of a Skype interview that I did with Rob where I was like, you know that classic case when you don't have enough content And so it just becomes this game of trying to salvage something. And so what I said is we needed Rob in the video. I think I'd only filmed CP so far and I wanted to get Rob's side. And Rob was like, where were you working at the time? You were in—

Tommy: I was expo.

Rob: Yeah, I was, I was working for Farley Laser Lab at that time.

Josh: What do they do?

Rob: And, you know, big industrial laser and plasma cutting machines. Heavy, heavy, heavy equipment.

Josh: —like a sales role, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah.

Rob: And I was, I think I was in like Sydney or something at the time.

Josh: And you were, you took like, yeah, half an hour when you were at the, on the expo floor to Skype in. And I recorded the interview, which also just sits on my hard drive. Still haven't done anything with it. But the funny thing was—

Rob: I can't believe we made it without it.

Josh: Yeah, I know, I know. But the amazing thing was that we ended up going to Macworld. So in the beginning of 2012, January of 2012, we both went to Macworld. And for me, it was my big entry into doing, uh, events for Melbourne Geek and covering them and being the guy going like, oh, what product are you selling? And Rob and CP were going over as— was it like Opener as the main thing, or was it Quad Lock?

Rob: I think, I think Opener. I think I think, I'm just trying to think, when was, what was the date since, I think maybe Quad Lock wasn't actually properly released. We just finished the crowdfunding campaign, but it wasn't, it was still being manufactured.

Josh: Yeah, you hadn't had your first round of actual manufacturing yet, but they had a booth and it was amazing. Like I had, I remember I was on my own first time travelling on my own.

Tommy: This is San Francisco, right?

Josh: Yeah, and we're in San Francisco and I just hung out with Rob and CP the whole time.

Tommy: You've showed me the photo of you guys in the bar together. Yes, yeah, yeah, we were having a few lemonades.

Josh: Yeah, we had pizza and all that sort of thing.

Rob: But yeah, it was— I still remember him rocking up when we first met and he rocks up and he's like, everyone's offering me Roxy in the street.

Tommy: What? Should we get some Roxy? What's Roxy in the street?

Rob: Do you mean oxy? It was oxycodone.

Josh: It was because it was, there was a, I didn't know that I was, living near the Tenderloin, like in San Francisco, for the, for the few weeks that I was there. Yes. And so I had my 5D around my neck walking around just like, I'm in San Francisco. And I just had, yeah, all these people like, hey, want some oxy? Want some oxy? I was just like, oh no, thank you. But, um, yeah, no, so it was interesting. But I mean, talk about early days and like with Macworld, for instance, it was the first Macworld that Apple had just left.

Rob: The first one that sucked real bad.

Josh: Yeah, well, it was the— in the sense of everyone was doing cover iPhone covers. So literally you'd go to this expo and you used to like, um, I'd never been before, but there was lots of different sort of, you know, different Mac apps and just—

Rob: I think these things always seem better though when you're at home watching the highlights on YouTube than when you're actually there walking around the events. Yeah, like way better.

Josh: Well, that's like NAB and all that sort of thing. Like, it's the reality of it was a bunch of people selling iPhone cases. Yeah. And what were you thinking when you got there?

Tommy: Did you see people doing similar things? You're like, oh shit.

Rob: Nah, no one, no one had anything similar.

Josh: They're all going pretty bling bling with it. Yeah.

Rob: Yeah. Hello Kitty. Yeah.

Josh: And like that, this is where like the, the lens adapters and stuff like that, lens adapters, OtterBox was, was big there. Waterproof was just coming out.

Rob: Yeah, like a lot of screen protectors. I remember there was stuff that's mundane but was new, newish then. Yeah, yeah.

Tommy: And people are making money somewhere from so many different things, just random things.

Rob: I think when you think about stuff in general, it's easy just to let like something slide, but then when you actually think of how many people in the world are, and like how big a niche is— like I remember the other day I was listening to the, to the podcast and you had, um, was it your friend Lisa was on? Yeah, you're saying, oh, hopefully people are thinking about this now or, or wanting this, you know, from coaching or from whatever it is. And I remember thinking, I think about it a bit different. I think actually, no, you just need to get to the people that want that because there's someone that wants that, there's someone that wants this, there's someone wants this. And those little niches of people who want different, completely different things, yeah, of actually huge when you, when you think about the scale of the—

Josh: are you playing in a niche, do you think? Yeah, definitely.

Rob: If we weren't in a niche, it would've been, if we were just a generic, you know, cover, trying to scale that is hard because unless you've got, especially 'cause you gotta think we didn't have any cash at the start.

Josh: When you say we didn't have any cash, what does that actually mean? What does a bank account with no cash actually look like? 'Cause I feel like it's due, no cash for me is like $20 grand in debt. Like what is no cash? Like what were you?

Rob: And I suppose like no cash means— 50 grand. No, I'm not too sure. I don't even know, I can't remember.

Tommy: You're talking relevant to what it will cost to set this up.

Rob: Yeah, relevant to what it costs. I mean, like we couldn't, you know, we did, to be honest, like CP and I did save up lots of money back in the day and it gave us like a grace period, but that's like— Paying your salary. Yeah, which just means that you don't have to pay a salary more like. Yeah, sure. You can just live. And have a life while you try and get something going. Yeah, but what it's not, you know, like with, with especially with hardware products and things like that, you know, it's, it's big money to get things off the ground and to get enough stock out there to do something at scale that it's worthwhile doing and that kind of thing, you know. And we, we scaled up to it, but, you know, like $20,000, $30,000 here from a Kickstarter, $40,000, they— that helped a lot. And we had these other businesses that were developing cash flow that we didn't need ourselves, that we could just funnel into the new things we were doing. Yeah. So it was really like businesses on businesses that paid for the next business that paid for the next business. And so it wasn't that we had, you know, $200,000 and, you know, it wasn't that we went to someone and said, this is our idea, you give us $250K, we'll give you half and then we'll go and— we didn't even think like that.

Josh: You just had enough cash flow to keep doing the next thing. Yeah, sure. I mean, Tommy and I are going into business together at the end of the year. What advice do you have for going into a partnership?

Rob: Uh, I, I think it's— I mean, the fact that you guys are doing this and you have to hang around all the time, because it's easy just to be mates with someone when you see them once a week, yeah, I think once a month. Yeah, yeah, anyone can do that. But I think what it is is you've got to You know, if you've got a little bit of stress or strain or something, like this isn't easy to get together every freaking day and do this, right? That's a good start that you know you can work together even if when you maybe not at your best, when you're tired, when you can't be bothered, all that kind of thing. But I think another thing that I think is important is being in a similar predicament. So, a good example is— So, I need to have a kid. So, yeah, I'm pretty sure. Literally, get to work.

Josh: Yeah. Okay, no, that's fair.

Rob: It's fair enough. All right, do you want me to call Bree or do you take that?

Josh: We can organise it.

Rob: Yeah, I mean, I've got my camera in my hand right now. Anyway, um, no, so I think if, you know, when we started, I think the good thing was— and I mean, this is the difference, I only come up with this sort of like, and I didn't even come up with this, I remember CP mentioning it retrospectively— retrospectively, that we see, we've seen other people do it and it hasn't worked out as well, but they've had, you know, they've probably wanted different outcomes. Yeah. And they've been in a different position at the start. So when you like starting position's different and then the end position's different. Yeah. It's going to be hard, like really, really hard. Where if you're, you know, we both, we're in very similar position where we had, you know, we both had a house, we both had long-term girlfriends at the time, which now are wives. We both had, we gave up good sort of things on the outside, like careers, or, you know, we were earning good money. Same sort of sacrifice. Same sacrifice. Lots of things are saying we could put in similar, um, from both. Like, we put in similar money when we needed to from both sides. So, and we both, you know, we wanted to this to be the thing that we were doing. Yeah. You know, it's not like, oh, you, you go do that, but I still want to do this over here. So it was sort of even at the start. We could, and we could move forward sort of together. So I think You know, we like, we wasn't some master plan. We didn't know all that beforehand, but in retrospectively thinking it, that's made it easier at the start. Yeah. Because I think at the start that's probably where the most stress and sort of pressure is to sort of make something work. Yeah.

Tommy: When things aren't actually working.

Rob: Well, it's not easy then, is it? I mean, it's not easy now. It's never going to be easy. And I think the other thing is you think, I don't know if everyone thinks that, I definitely do, you know, I just gotta get to here, I just gotta get to here. Like that, you never get to the finish line. Like it just keeps moving further away a lot of the time.

Tommy: You said aim before, and that's meaning where you start and where you end. Do you mean vision? Is this like you guys are on the same trajectory together that you're looking ahead going, that's where we wanna be?

Rob: Yeah, I think so. And I think, you know, it's not like we, you know, we're not that structured that we would sit down and write a goal and have a vision board and all that kind of stuff. But it's just that, you know, you want to sort of make, you know, we wanted to make something bigger than ourselves. We wanted to, you know, um, you know, push the limits. Um, you know, not because, like, I sort of think along the way there's many times where you could just go, okay, this is, this is good now, this is nice.

Josh: You could have sold out.

Rob: Yeah, you could have done that. You could have just thought, no, no, this is where we'll keep it, we're comfortable at this level. But then there's like that other thing that, you know, do you want to keep pushing and all that kind of thing. And I think as the, you know, when you first start as the two of you in a little factory in Oakleigh, late at night, and then, and you're, you know, it's all on you two and it's all between you two.

Tommy: It's not even your factory, you're robbing someone else's.

Rob: Yeah, that's the thing. Squatting. I mean, you gotta make ends meet. Yeah, I get it, I get it.

Josh: Squatting in Oakleigh will be our memoir.

Rob: No. We got robbed twice there. Did you? Yeah, it wasn't us. What did they steal, by the way? Yeah, camera gear. Ah, annoying. Yeah, I know. But then, you know, now, you know, I can almost go a whole day without talking to CP. Hmm. What's for lunch or something? Because there's all these other people, you're doing different things, you're talking, like, it gets so much more spread out.

Josh: How did you work out where to hire And how do you know if it— if you actually need more people?

Rob: We probably hire super slow, um, and, you know, we were— I think in, in looking back at it, we do things a bit, you know, it's differently, but for me it's sort of just intuitively it's a way to do it. Whereas we don't like go raise a whole lot of money and hire a whole lot of people and hope them we'll get that product market fit right and then eventually our market will match our, you know, our setup. We do the opposite. We keep it lean and then we try and make this massive wave and then we try and ride the wave. Then we try to get other people on the wave as we're going. We're not, so I'd say we're always probably— So you're underleveraged. We're probably always underleveraged, yeah. But that gives you the freedom to be able to do more stuff. Like, not everything has to work perfect, you know. When we want to, when we want to scale something, we want to, you know, dig in. And we, when we feel the time's right on something, we can go really hard. We can, um, you know, we— and a lot of what we do, we do it in a scalable way. So we don't just, you know, that's why our frustrations over the years dealing with the old school side of like distribution and things like that come from that there's all these archaic systems and inefficiencies and people in the way. And we just sort of think if we can get enough people that like what we do and want our product and we look after them, and we can do that in like a, you know, a sustainable way that's scalable, we don't need to have, you know, a tonne of people. You've probably seen how we work, Josh. Like, I don't know, I, I only know the way we do it in here, but then when I talk to people on the outside, I'm like 'Oh, I wouldn't do it that way.' Yeah, yeah. I think what I find— have the need first and then go and fix it, and then go and make— keep up with the demand, I suppose.

Josh: Which I think one of the interesting challenges is knowing when to switch on growth or to switch on, uh, you know, because that sort of under-leverage thing— I think about, uh, when I would do, um, projects for Envato when I was an employee, and Naysan and I, we went around the world for 3 months. We— flights, accommodation, per diem, all of our camera equipment for $50 grand, right? Like, fuck all money. Like, we did it for— the thing was, and we'll stay— like, we're staying in the shittiest places, Super 8s in LA where people are knocking on the door asking us to open up.

Tommy: And she's got some Roxy's for you.

Josh: And the thing is that it's, um, the reflection that Naysan and I had was it's like, uh, Collis never told us the budget. We set the budget. And so we had, we had inevitably, like, we could have said 70 grand. You put yourself there. Yeah. And so there is that little bit where it's like, at what point is this smaller thinking, or let's do it lean, when is it actually like a limiting factor?

Rob: But I think because It can be limiting, but you're just looking at one, one thing. So just say you— the— all the money you had was $100. Yeah. And you had $50 on that, like, and you've got another $50. What can you do with that other $50? Where I'm sort of thinking, if I've got the— if I've got $100, just, just a number, if I can, you know, if I, if I have to do this, I'll do this for $30, and I can keep $70 for what really scales something. So, you know, like when we talk about it, I would be like, um, I know, like I look at someone shooting a full-on TVC and I find out that they spent $400,000 on it. Yeah. And then I'm like, whoa, I'm thinking, fuck, $400,000. You've got to spend like, you know, tens of millions on that to leverage that kind of— and then you find out they spend $600,000 showing it to people. Yeah. And I'm like, okay, that's where I would go and, you know, try and get the best product possible for $50 and spend $950 showing it to people.

Josh: So where do you think you overspend then? If someone looked at your business, what would the traditional people say that you overspend in?

Rob: If you looked at, maybe they might say we spend too much on marketing, but if they look at how the business has grown and they really understood it, they'd be like, oh, maybe you should spend more on marketing.

Josh: So marketing means Facebook? Means?

Rob: What does it mean to you? Yeah, like, you know, like Facebook, Google, that kind of stuff. The scalable stuff. The stuff that, you know, pays the bills. The stuff that really, you know— I mean, nowadays when it comes to, like, you know, product, I think what it is, is, you know, we've got— so we've got 3 people making product or designing product. We can only— we'll spend as much as we can to leverage that and get the best stuff to market possible, but it caps itself. You can only do so much at a certain time, and you can only push something at a certain speed. Yeah, but then when it comes to once you've got that product and you've got that system to push the product through, you can start to scale it. And when you can scale it, it's kind of like, all right, so we've got all this firewood and the fire's this big, but with 2 people we can burn this small thing of firewood, or with the 2 people that we've got, we can burn the whole lot if we want.

Josh: And does it translate that though? Like, so say if you make— it does— if you spend $5 and get 3 sales, does that mean when you spend $10 you'll get 6 sales?

Rob: You get diminishing returns on everything. So that you get to a point where it works well and as you push past it, but that's where the art of it is. And it's not necessarily always in your spreadsheets, in your sort of workings out because we're in a tricky market where we've got seasons and we're worldwide, but then we've also got, releases of Galaxy devices, release of iPhone devices. So we've got this crazy seasonality, yeah, that goes through, which not just to do with it being hot and cold, hot and cold, as well as people are riding their bikes and more people are running. Oh, now we do car mount stuff, now we're doing stuff for this, now we're doing stuff for that. So it's always changing. And I think one of the toughest things for us is we have to understand the market because we can't really use our historical data that well because we've never been the same for that long. So you can—

Josh: do you— if you— do you have ways of road mapping or predicting, and how close Are you with that?

Rob: Uh, we, we used to, we used to try do it, but now it's just, you know, we're pretty sure we'll sell a lot. Like when an iPhone X, it's like just make as many as we can at the start and then we'll catch up and then it'll work its way out. But when it comes to it, you know, just say if you look at something like something simple, you know, like it's not simple, but like the funnel, how we sell, right? We can run that with the people we have here and that, and you can run that for you know, to, you know, a million people or $4,000, or we can run it to, you know, 50 million people and, you know, much greater sum of money. Like, that stuff— spending more or talking to more people or getting the storey heard by more people doesn't necessarily mean more staff, doesn't mean more— it just means scaling what what we're doing and what the system's doing. Because at the end of the day, I think that's where the, for us, where we've had the wins and also what means we can keep going and what pays for all the new stuff we want to do.

Tommy: You guys are doing pretty well on social media thanks to Josh who made all your videos.

Josh: Well, I mean, the funny thing is Quad Lock is one of those clients that's like— They're annoying. No, Rob knows what he wants. Like Rob, like It was more my job was to help him just implement the things that he knew that he needed to do because they've over all these— the one thing that I've learned about Quad Lock is just you create a system and then you've just got to sort of test against it. And as soon as you remove the system, you're then— that's where it becomes a little bit harder to actually measure if you're successful.

Rob: And I mean, everything we do, we're just trying to beat what we did. Yeah. And so it's like, we'll try anything, but we're trying it in a way that we can learn from it, and we can either go, it's a— it wins or it loses. And I think that way of thinking for me is like perfectly fine. I, I feel really comfortable with it. But I've realised over time that it takes a little while for people to be comfortable with that, and it's, and it's It's because it's not saying that, you know, because I know Josh could make us a video that he'd show you and you'd love it and it would look amazing and it would be actually a better video.

Josh: I mean, better is this subjective thing, which is like, would it sell more Quad Locks?

Rob: Exactly. Maybe not. So you're saying you create like—

Tommy: and I know just from working on the Quad Lock stuff is you guys are crafting it to the, I guess, niche audiences that, yeah, you know, will, you know, respond to those, those videos. A guy who actually got an office around the corner from here, he does marketing stuff, but he was telling me the story, and I think you've probably heard some version of this, where it's a spray tan business, you know, spends $800,000 worth of ad spend through Facebook, and essentially Facebook own their business. You know, it's like around that, you know, I know you guys probably do a lot into social media. How, much of that plays on your mind, that you're on borrowed land?

Rob: It does, but I'd rather, you know, I think there's, there's only one way to have access to the, to the people, right? And there's this, you know, providing good content, getting people to, you know, opt into your content and things like that is, is good. Could we ever have had enough people just opt into, you know, organic content to keep this thing going? Impossible. So it's kind of like you're damned if you do, damned if you don't. But I do think on— I mean, for me personally, I sort of think, you know, like when radio first— you know, when print first started, there's person— people who first started printing the first ads probably did really well. And then when radio started, first people advertising on radio probably did really well. And then, you know, TV— people on TV at the start probably did really well. And then, you know, now we have the whole Web 2.0 and social media and things like that, and The people who you look around, people who figured it out quick did do very well in that. And there's a lot of businesses built around a very similar time that have done very well through it because they understand it and they were new to it. And the good thing was there wasn't the big kind of money in it that means, you know, to go get a front, you know, because the kind of people that— the kind of numbers that see our stuff, it's, it's not like— it's more than if you went and got like the front page of the Herald Sun, right? Yeah. But do you know what it costs to get the front page of the Herald Sun?

Josh: Ridiculous. You have to murder someone.

Rob: Yeah, I'm gonna go the inside page with the quad lock. But do you know what I mean? It's so expensive because you're going up against people who don't need to make return on their investment and they're just there to say to their boss, oh look, we got the Herald Sun, isn't that cool? And they're like, that's great. Does anyone read it?

Tommy: I don't know what land they're living in though for that kind of stuff.

Rob: I don't know either, but people, they're still selling it. They're still getting that money. Which is crazy. I think it's like—

Josh: I think it's, uh, it's legacy.

Rob: But the good thing is there's all these industries built around it. There's, there's advertising agencies built around it. There's, um, media buying agencies built around that. All this, you know, even though the people aren't there, all this other stuff— and they're selling it on— has to fall down before, you know, habits change. The main thing I worry about is not that Facebook owns this or anything like that, is that I look at, you know, where, where the big budgets come into it and where as things get more expensive and that kind of thing. But then at the same time, we have a product that people come back and buy again and again and again. So we've— to get the foothold in the market that we are in now, even if you come with a bigger budget, um, you know, maybe more product, still you can't just click your fingers and have like a brand name synonymous with a certain industry. Yeah. And that's sort of what Quad Lock is now. You know, if you want something to mount your phone, we're the best, we're the best thing on the market in an active lifestyle.

Tommy: Yeah. And how much have, um, how much have you changed from the time that you started to now, your capacity and, and what, what you think about on a daily basis?

Rob: Because it's a good question. I'm, I'm sure I've changed, but because it happens slowly and over time, you don't— well, for example, see it or feel it as much, I suppose.

Tommy: My wife's got a candle business, uh, nowhere near successful as Quad Lock. My wife's it's candles.com. Yeah, you can, you can get to her candles through there.

Rob: Did you buy that?

Josh: Uh, no, I think Tommy— I bought that. Yeah, but I do own O'Bike Fishing.

Tommy: He owns that. Um, but we went through— this is something very little, and I guess, you know, you're playing this big space, and this is something we went into, this little business that she started. And we got a website, and we got a candle order, and her friend bought one in Sydney. We paid for the shipping, it went there, A month later, I open up the mailbox at my office. There's the candle that you sent. It had been sent back to us. We got charged a fee for having it sent back to us. And my point of saying all this is that these are all the things that you just would never think about when you go into a business.

Josh: You're ready to close down the business.

Rob: Oh, we shut up shop.

Tommy: We declared bankruptcy. And, uh, no, no, but that— yeah, you know, early day compared to now, like, your capacity now I imagine would be to take on, to take on all this shit. You're not thinking about the—

Rob: you're not—

Tommy: but you're sending a case out.

Rob: No, but I think what we did do— this goes back to— I remember what we did do is, like I said, when we did like, you know, Opener and Quad Lock, we wanted to be scalable from sort of day one. We tried to make it— we tried to make it so that if we had success doing what we were doing, then we wouldn't have all this other crazy work of shipping stuff. We still did all that, don't worry. But the way we sort of set it up was more scalable, like, from day one. And I think it's just, you know, being aware of what's out there, what's available. Like, back then in Australia, there wasn't anything. AP really missed the boat on e-commerce and things like that. But Amazon Prime, is that— uh, no, Australia Post. Australia Post.

Josh: Yeah, so that was it. I was going to ask what AP was. Yeah. And so I'm Proud of you, Gaz.

Rob: Thanks. Yeah, no, Amazon wasn't here back in 2011. But the thing was, so I think when you do something like this, what it is, and I see this with other businesses, is what you don't want to do is be set up in a way that if you have success doing what your core thing is, whatever that thing is, that you then make all this other bullshit, unsundry work that you don't want to be doing. So like, you know, a good example, a simple example might be, all right, you set up a, you know, selling something, right? And you're there and you're selling and you're doing the job that you're meant to be doing, which is selling this product or providing this service. But then what you don't want to have is that when you do that, it actually takes you like 3 hours every night to reconcile your books or to, you know, go through and handwrite invoices. You want a good system in the background that while you're doing what you're meant to be doing, having success here, this part will take care of itself. So to a certain extent. So everything we've done is trying to have a setup somewhat like that. And sometimes we've done it better than others.

Josh: What's been your priorities? What do you like doing? What do you hate doing? What's something that you ended up doing that you—

Rob: I think it's not necessarily at start, it's not like what you like or what you hate, it's what— Makes sense. Makes a difference, what has a real impact. So, you know, if it's, you know, we're better off sitting down and like working out the right copy to have in the video that people want to hear and make them transact than, you know, you know, then packing 10 orders or doing this or doing that. Like, that has to be done, but if there's a system that we can use and pay someone else to do that, that's scalable. Where like, you know, you need people who know the product, who, who are sort of thinking outside the box to try and make the thing that will give you those 10, 20, 30, 40, 100, 400, 1,000 orders.

Josh: So what do you actually care about? Like what do you think about in the sense of getting—

Rob: often it's just simple stuff like what can we do to get another Quad Lock customer? And is it, is that financially driven?

Josh: Like do you have financial goals where it's like we want to be getting certain amount?

Rob: It's just, you know, look, I think a lot of it's been over the past, you know, at the start it's just because we need them so we can keep doing what we're doing. Yeah, like at the very start. Then it becomes this thing that, you know, we want to be the best in the space, you know, we want to be the number one. Yeah. Then you try and do that, and then it becomes that now everyone's trying to copy you and take you on. And number one, how do you even—

Josh: how do you measure that? Do you like—

Rob: what do you just— if you see, you know, you're never going to get accurate stats, right? So I see things like And I mean, and then you look on Amazon, there's a lot of like $20 amounts sold, but I don't see that as our sort of—

Josh: How much is a Quad Lock?

Rob: It's like, you know, $69.95 or—

Josh: How do you justify how much— US, that is. How much do you, how do you work out what something costs? Like how much is margin?

Rob: To be honest, a lot of the time it's guessing. It's guessing, but parts of it are when we first started was what it cost to make something. Yeah. And then work, you know, work, work up, not go from here. Because when we started, there wasn't a thing that was a benchmark. A benchmark. Yeah. So you're not going, okay, the market pays $100 and we've got to try and make it work for $100. So we've got to be able to make it, ship it, you know, customer support, returns, all those kind of things. It was more, okay, it costs us this much and we need to make this much, we need to do this, and we need to be able to reinvest in the business and in marketing, it's gonna look somewhere around about here. Yeah.

Josh: And we just did it with that.

Rob: And then at the end of that you go, is that what people would pay for this? Do you think that's about right? And then when you put it as a .95 and it sounds about right.

Josh: Put sale next to it and then they buy it. Tommy and I are trying to work out what we prioritise with our business. Yeah. So, We're doing media type stuff, original content. Is that, does that mean that you've got to move the car, Tommy?

Tommy: No, it doesn't. I've got 15 minutes.

Josh: I don't know why that went off. Maybe because you said it earlier. Yeah, I had to. Smart guys. The, yeah, original, it's an original media type company, all that sort of thing. What are you saying, Robbie? Feel free to say it out loud.

Tommy: Do you want to turn off the air con?

Josh: Is it too cold? Yeah, we can. Rob's in a t-shirt. Yeah, yeah, sure.

Rob: You just put a beanie on. Oh, true.

Josh: There we go.

Rob: I just thought it made me think of it.

Josh: Didn't even think about that. No, so yeah. Tommy and I doing this thing, we're trying to work out where to invest our money in the sense of, is an office space worthwhile? How do you work out what?

Rob: Okay, I think it's, it comes back to invest where it matters. And that's for me, I mean like we could have afforded a bigger, better office space probably years ago, but it wasn't the priority. And then it became more of a priority as we were growing and we wanted a better, cooler spot. And that kind of thing. And you sort of come to realization, you know, like, it's— I mean, everyone— I know lots of people, everyone who works here likes coming to work and we have a good time and it's a pretty fun place. But it is nicer being in a nice spot. But it's nice, you know, like, but what's it— what's it worth? Who buys a Quad Lock? Who knows? Yeah, you can't put a price on it.

Josh: So you can't put a price on cool.

Rob: So you, you can't, but at the same time, um, you're not— that's why we were in a, you know, factory in Oakleigh when we started, kind of thing. So It's a nice to have, and we can afford to have some nice to haves now kind of thing. But I think early, early on, we just instinctively would go for the things that matter, the things that are like— one of the things we always say is like, what's going to move the needle? So if you can do this, this, this, and this, which thing is actually going to move the needle? What's going to make a difference in what we do? And why is that? And then we gravitate more towards the things that are going to make a difference, because there's a lot of stuff you can spend time and energy on that never make a difference. And I think an awesome example is, um, with this podcast, is only having the jingle and the logo. Yeah, by episode 100. Yeah. And I, and I know when we, when we spoke on the phone, I think, I think you're just organising it at the time. I was like, I wasn't— I was just like, yeah, that's awesome that you're doing it now because I know you like doing that.

Tommy: Yeah, but the good thing is, it's been itching since the start. Of course he has.

Rob: But the good thing is, like, the old JJ would have done it and done 3 episodes and then be on to something else by now.

Josh: 2 and put the third one off, gone to Macworld.

Rob: Yeah, no, no, but seriously. And then so now, you know, like, because actually no one gives a shit about the jingle or the logo except for probably you. Yeah. So, but you've done 100 episodes deep, you've got this thing, you know, yeah, treat yourself, get the new joint, get the logo, get the jingle, but concentrate on like what matters. And I think that's what— when I was texting you the other day and said, um, you know, like congrats on getting to episode— I can't remember what I said— congrats on episode 100. I was saying— I was thinking like, now's the time. This is, this is, this is me. This is what I would do. Yeah. And I don't know the metrics behind podcasting, and I don't know the space as well as you guys do, but I'm just thinking if I speak broadly about just, you know, I don't know if it's business or what it is, just achieving something, I would like— I just think at the start you can't be super critical of what you're doing. You've just got to go. You just got to move forward at all costs because you actually— you don't know what you don't know at a certain point when you first start. You can't self-edit at the beginning. No, you can't.

Josh: You just won't have any words on the page.

Rob: It's like complete— it's like, you know do open a case, get ripped off, and every— there's a million of them sold now and they're not ours, right? Yeah. But if we never move forward with— if we stopped it, we couldn't afford a patent. If we hadn't done it in the first place, we wouldn't have got to get doing Quad Lock, right?

Josh: So, and that's all the game as well. I think that the other thing too is it's like, it's realising like, what is the reason—

Rob: may not be the actual thing. Yeah, you don't know what's the thing. Exactly. But you just got to keep moving forward at all costs.

Tommy: But It's what Hamish said. Yeah, he said it might not be 630, that you then go, hang on, the penny drops, kind of the penny drops, and you realise this wasn't the thing, but it had to— you had to do it to get—

Rob: you have to do it. And it's kind of like 3D printers, lasers, you know, Opener, Quad Lock. Maybe Quad Lock's not the thing, you don't know. But it's, you know, you don't— it's like it's the journey, it's not the destination at the end of the day. Like I said, the finish line always keeps moving further away, but I think at a certain point, once you're just pushing forward and you push forward and you push forward to a certain point where you've got that flow and you're starting to do it, that's when you've got to get self-aware and sort of self-critical and start going, okay, so we're doing this, why are we doing that, does that make a difference, what is it that, um, you know, like for you guys, I don't know what it'd be, what is it makes users connect, where do you find out that you're getting new people from, like for us it's um, you know, okay, we're doing this, we're doing that, we're doing this kind of ads, we're doing this kind of product. Ah, we, you know what, we actually don't stick that well in that market. We, we have a good product, the people who have it like it. We're not that good at getting lots more people in that market for some reason. But hey, there's this other market over here where we're just crushing it and we're not even trying that hard. Actually, why don't we try really hard there 'Nail that, we can always come back to this thing.' If you're starting to get critical of yourself, even if you'd like something—

Tommy: Are you removing the emotion?

Rob: Yeah, I'm removing the emotion, being sort of logical, logical to a point where it almost makes people feel, I think, uncomfortable at the start. But then once you get used to it, it's actually liberating because you can go, 'I'm not doing that.' Yeah, you know, it's like with emails, like if you ask, I don't reply to lots of emails. Yeah. But I don't really feel bad about it either.

Josh: Well, I think that's like, even Tommy and I on this journey, the more we get in, the more we are open to critiques as individuals where we say, okay, that one, that show didn't feel right. I think it was because of X, Y, and Z. I think we could do this, we could do that. It's like, it's— you don't want to have that at the start because at the start you're literally—

Rob: stop you from doing it.

Josh: Yeah, you're literally just trying to— it's sort of like you're running up—

Rob: when you're running up a hill, rocking up is enough.

Josh: Yeah, exactly, to start with. And yeah, and so now we're starting to—

Rob: but you've nailed the rocking up part. Yeah, exactly. You can't just accept just rocking up's enough anymore.

Josh: So how do you stop from just getting— like, have you gotten bored through any of the, the journey?

Rob: Oh, not— I— not really. I find as soon as I think about that, something changes or something happens, and I get pumped about, oh, this is going to be hard, or this is— I don't know how to do this, or yeah, you know, we got to go and work this out, you know, we're doing this new thing, how do you think we're going to do it? Like when I, you know, just the thought process kicks at something and then you just go, and then you, you know, you end up running around for 3 weeks with Josh shooting from like 6 till 6 every day, writing scripts, and you know, that kind of thing. Like as soon as something always pops up to me. And I think if you're, you know, when you're really immersed in something and you think about it a lot, I remember I had someone say to me once, so you just do the iPhone case thing now? I'm like, yeah, bro. Yeah, yeah, just the iPhone case. So it's just you? And I'm like, no, it's I think we might have like 6 or 7 people at the time. So there's like 6 or 7 of us and they go, oh, so what do those guys work on? The iPhone case thing.

Tommy: I mean, that's simplifying it for this person, right? That's what I mean.

Rob: Like, you know, I think it's like there's as much or as little as you want to get into it. Um, if you don't really get into it that much, you're probably not going to get that much out of it. But, you know, the world's complex. And I, I think it's all the little wins that add up in the long run. It's not the one big silver bullet. But at this— in saying that, there's— at the very start, there's big things that make big differences. Then as you, as you nail it, like, you know, rocking up like we talk about, like just, just getting a show on the internet for people to listen to is— if you, if you're not doing that one big thing you can't have success. But once you've done that, then there's all these little things that'll, you know, get that compounding effect and start to really add up in the long run.

Josh: Yeah, it's that thing of— I, I find the, that the quote, we overestimate what we can do in a day and underestimate what we can do in a year, like, that really resonates with me. Yeah, because there's so many times where I'm also I've just got these big dreams of what I, you know, it's like I speak to— You get paralysis because it's too big. So, you know, there's film students who say they want to go to Hollywood, but they haven't made a single film yet. Yeah. And they're missing that whole other— they're missing the journey. And they don't realise that the journey is the fun bit, right? It's like—

Rob: Oh, it is. It is. It totally is. Like, I think back, like, I think back to when we started and everything we've done along the way is, I mean, I heard CP say the other, oh, the good old days when we could just do this. Yeah. And I'm like thinking it was, we don't think, oh, we weren't paying ourselves or we had this, we think that was frigging awesome. We had so much fun. It's not really about, it's nice to have success, but if you were just doing it for money or for whatever, you could go home and be really not very, a nice person to be around where, you know, I know I can go home, feel good about what we get done in a day. Sometimes I get nothing done in a day, but I've hung around with good people and I know we're on a way to getting something done, um, and you feel good about it. Where if you, if you were just— I think I read a thing the other day saying, you know, um, a business that's sole purpose is, is money is a poor business. Yeah. And when I read that, I think— I don't know who said it, someone they're probably smart. Um, that sort of resonated with me because thinking, yeah, it's, it's true, you know, you've, you've got all these parts to a business. It's like the, the customer-facing part, good product, good brand, you know, we get awesome storeys back all the time and we love that people are riding around the world with Quad Lock, we love all that. But then you've got, you know, the people of Quad Lock and what they're doing and, you know, the lifestyle they get to live because they work here and the fun stuff we get to do. And there's all these different parts to a business that's It's not, you know, not in a bank account, not in the P&L, not in that kind of thing. It's, you know, the fact you get to rock up and do fun stuff. Yeah. Is a big part of it.

Josh: I mean, you had an exciting thing happen not too long ago. Ollie came into the world. You and Pam had your first kid. Yep.

Rob: What date was that? It was 27th of March.

Josh: You had to think about it. Yeah, I did.

Tommy: Yeah, so he's a month older than— Oh, not even.

Josh: What are you gonna say? No, very young.

Tommy: So a year, he's a year younger.

Rob: Yeah, yeah, yeah, just a year. Yeah, so he's 10 weeks, 11 weeks old today.

Josh: And so what's the, what's been the, uh, what's been the learning?

Tommy: Oh, to get shit all over, it's not good, vomit all over you, wear black. That was his tip that he gave me. I've got a big stain on my shoulder. I said, fuck it, Bodhi.

Rob: See, I saw that. No, I think It changes your perspective on stuff. And like, you know when you have like mind shift changes and these things happen over time, that is something that happens on a daily, I think especially for a dad. Probably moms start to get that a bit along the journey of being pregnant. But did you find that like, it just all of a sudden it was funny, it was different.

Josh: I saw Ido and Jacinta who brought in the coffee just before, in Collingwood, they were riding their bikes to work. Yeah, yeah. And Ollie had just arrived in the world and I said, "Oh, what's been happening?" And they're like, I'm like, "Have you heard from Rob much?" Like, "Nah." They said, "He said he was gonna like be, he's like, yeah, as soon as we have the kid, I'm gonna be back in it." All that sort of thing. And they were sort of laughing at how much of a shift they saw in just like how sort of, because you're pretty wired, you're pretty sort of on the ball with things, and there was— they were talking about a noticeable shift. Yeah. Um, how do you describe it, describe that shift?

Rob: It's, you know, unintentional. It's— it just happens. You don't— it's not a decision. Where most things in life, I, I find, especially for me, most things in life are for me, you know, like I will not really do things They're practical.

Josh: You talk in this sort of like very sort of logical, practical sort of way. Yeah.

Rob: So, it's a decision. I weigh things up and I'm like, this. And maybe wrong or right, but that's how I do it. And that thing, it just happens to you and you're just like, oh, okay. So, I feel like this now. How do you describe, what is it?

Josh: Is it a desire to be looking after him?

Rob: No, yeah, there's that, but I think it just puts things in perspective and you know what's important is still important, but its scale has changed of importance, I think.

Tommy: Um, it's not— how did it— for work and for this company, I think it—

Rob: I mean, I think it's— for me, I'm like, for me it doesn't really probably make a difference, and I'd probably cope otherwise, but I'm glad it sort of happened at a time— at a time now for the company, um, and for me. But at the same time, you know, I'm sure I would have been wrapped to have— for it to happen at any time now thinking about, because it just becomes, you know, the— you have all these things are important and you think that they've got this hierarchy of importance, and then all of a sudden something just shoots right up the list and goes to number one and you're like, oh, okay, that's how it happens. And I don't think you can think— you know, we're talking about before, I'm aware that I will feel like this because it's natural and it's instinctual and all these kind of things. But even like getting better and thinking like that before it come along, I was still underestimating it. Yeah, you can't really put yourself yourself in— like, for example, I reckon Tommy will be thinking about what I'm saying differently to the way you're thinking about what I'm saying, JJ, even though you're aware of this and you've probably heard the same thing from multiple people.

Josh: Yeah, you guys are in the cult. I'm still sort of like looking at the cult being like, yeah, I sort of— I get how they're smiling and nodding.

Rob: Yeah, yeah, yeah, patronizing.

Josh: And so like, what sort of empathy did that build with— because CP you know, your co-founder and mate had a kid before. Yep.

Rob: I think that for me was also, I got to see that a fair bit as well. And that sort of sets a little, not an expectation, but—

Josh: It sets the tone. Yes, it's a tone, I suppose. But do you think, were you sort of under, it sounded like you were underestimating it still in the sense of you're like, ah, yeah, mate, ah.

Rob: I think what it was, I was ready to accept. I knew I wouldn't be able to theorise what this one's going to be like. So, I was ready to accept whatever comes my way. Yeah. But it's the same thing as before, like people ask me like, do you care if it's a boy? I was really like, I actually do not care if it's a boy or a girl. I don't mind. I just— I want a boy. I'll just, I'm happy. Yeah. And like, I mean, lots of people, like lots of my mates are like, oh, you must be stoked it's a boy. And actually now, that I have a boy, I'm like, oh yeah, I'm rapt. But you take me there before, and I remember really clearly sitting there and thinking, am I one way or the other? And thinking, no, I'm neither way. I don't mind what it is.

Tommy: Well, I think, you know, if you listen to these podcasts, Josh and I talk about this a bit, and, you know, Josh is very, you know, thinking about how he's thinking. That's my phone, that's my parking. But you're thinking about how you would be thinking in that moment, and yourself, I guess.

Rob: Yeah, it does go out the window.

Tommy: Yeah. Yeah.

Rob: But I think you can, to some degree, it can be useful in a lot of parts of life. But I think if there's parts of life where if you think you're going to sum it all up in one thought and you're going to nail it, maybe this is one of those parts where you're just not going to. Yeah.

Josh: I think that there is, putting the practical hat on for a sec, I feel like there is a, there's definitely not a right time to do anything, especially having a kid or getting married or doing those big things. Starting a business. Starting a business. I think that there is, I think what makes it harder for a lot of people is you hear this and so, and we're so used to using our gut instinct on so many things in life. And the idea, I think that there is a middle ground where I think that you both knew that you're ready to take on that challenge or what, you know, whatever it was, you were open to that opportunity. And that's all you can really do. And I think that that's—

Rob: Yeah, you're ready to accept whatever it is. Yeah. That's the way it's going to be kind of thing.

Josh: And it's sort of much option.

Tommy: The roller coaster, but it makes you like, for me, it was the most vulnerable state I've ever been in.

Rob: Yeah.

Tommy: Thinking about your kid could have problems before they've even come into the world and you have nothing you can do about that. And it's like, whoa, I'm so out of control here. And you know, business life, like a lot of the time we're trying to control our environments. Yeah. It's one thing you definitely can't control.

Rob: You just have to be willing to accept what is going to happen. I mean, the other thing is, this is the other thing, and just when you think you've got, like, this is post-Kid, just when you think you've got it now, like, I think, oh, you know what, I can get him, so I got a few tools up my sleeve, I can do this, I can do that, I can do this. Two weeks later they change and you're like, what the hell, this used to work, it's not working anymore, what's wrong with this?

Josh: It sounds like you're describing iPhones. It's like you get it, you don't know if it's going to have that many bugs, they get them all sorted and then they fucking do another release and everything's What's been more rewarding, baby or Quad Lock? Just finish us off. Yeah, I feel like Tommy's the only one that can ask that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rob: There's only one answer for that.

Josh: Thank you, Rob, for joining us. Friend of the show. You are one of the guests that listens regularly. So thank you for that. And for, you know, the occasional text of, of feedback and things like that.

Tommy: I wonder, your review is probably the best review we've had. Oh yeah, it was the early iTunes.

Josh: Yeah, it was, what was it? It says like random but great or something. And it was referring to the fact that they go all over the place, but it's sort of what makes it. Yeah, that's something.

Tommy: Particularly no destination in mind, but somehow it finds its way back to somewhere. I liked it. No, no, now I'm remembering it.

Josh: Yeah, we've got a couple of emails. Oh yeah, we got Wayne Peters, who is a relative of mine. Like, my mum's one of 11 kids. Yeah. So like, basically everyone in Victoria, like, I'm related to in some regard. So Wayne's been listening going from, I think, Geelong to Abbotsford every day. Thank you for listening, Wayne. Michelle sent a beautiful email as well about the topic of suicide and all that sort of thing from yesterday. Oh, I've never missed that one. Yeah, because I overread it first. But yeah, feel free to send through your emails, hi@thedailytalkshow.com. We'll have to get Rob, we'll have to get you back on when I come back from my trip.

Tommy: I haven't talked about this, but is there some kind of The Daily Talk Show code for people who want to buy Quad Lock, get 1% off?

Josh: They get 10% if you just go to the website, you can fill out your email address, you get 10% off.

Tommy: Tell them Quad Lock, tell them The Daily Talk Show sent you.

Rob: Yeah, tell them Daily Talk Show sent you. Exactly.

Josh: And, um, the iTunes reviews, they sort of help, I guess.

Tommy: Yeah, they do. I think they do.

Josh: Maybe not. Ego boost. Yeah. Thanks, Rob. Have a good one. Cheers, guys. Thanks. Bye.