Athan Didaskalou On Redesigning Luggage

Athan: The Daily Talk Show.

Josh: It's The Daily Talk Show, episode 470.

Tommy: Weekend banter, happy Sunday.

Josh: Yeah, uh, Ethan did ask, well, halfway through I then panicked because of the, um, you basically set me up.

Athan: Yeah, you smashed it, you smashed it.

Tommy: I was watching a video recently of us, Josh, and we've— because we're fucking doing this all the time. I looked over, I looked at my mouth when someone else was saying something and I was miming what Josh was saying.

Josh: So you— it's such a bizarre thing. Yeah, we're, we're comforters for each other, but at times we can be the trolls.

Tommy: But, um, we want to make it comfy. Welcome to the show.

Athan: Very comfortable. Thanks for having me, mate.

Tommy: You just rocked up on your scooter, double jacket, living the life. I actually heard the scooter outside.

Josh: I was like, ah, Uber Eats.

Athan: No, it's just a little side hustle we've got going on. I mean, we've heard you're a hustler.

Tommy: That is this epic side hustle. But I had a moment where I was like, maybe that is—

Josh: no, no, no.

Tommy: And then you rocked in and you're in your leathers. You're looking cool.

Josh: Have you always been a scooter guy?

Athan: Always been a scooter guy. I wear the leathers so that other people think I ride motorbikes and they're like, this guy's rough. But then they see the bright red scooter outside and they're like, oh, that's lovely. Very Euro.

Tommy: Vespa.

Athan: Vespa. Always Vespa.

Tommy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. All older type or a new Vespa?

Athan: Actually, it looks exactly the same. They haven't changed the shape over the last 10 years or so. Uh, I actually bought the Vespa when I was at uni, uh, because it was a great, great little runaround. So I had it, I've had it since, what, '06?

Josh: Where about did you go to Vespa House on Johnston? I did, yeah.

Athan: Yeah, Frank, Frank there is fantastic. They're great people. Actually, he, he, I rocked up in my car, had a Jeep at the time, and he's like, What's that piece of shit? Get out of that thing and let me give you a key to this. I said, Frank, listen, I only want a 50cc. I just want to muck around in the inner burbs. And he's like, listen, the most dangerous thing you can do is get a low-powered bike. Take the big one. So he gave me a 250. I was like, I mean, I'll take it.

Tommy: If you ever need it repaired, we have a guy. I'm sure you could go back to that place. But our mate Scooter Derek, he's a Vespa.

Josh: Like, there's not many people who can service Vespas.

Tommy: The older, the more knowledge he has. Yeah.

Josh: But anyway, he's a scooter— Derek is actually pivoting from repairing scooters to having a podcast. He turned his dyno, you know, dynos to like test cars or like in this case scooters.

Tommy: Yeah, it was a scooter-specific dyno.

Josh: So he had a dyno so he could basically, you know, run it at full revs and test it out. He's turned that space, indoor space, into a podcast podcast studio because it's like soundproof, like, because it's like really good.

Athan: It's good idea. Really good.

Josh: Anyway, he's based, he's on Easy Street.

Athan: How easy.

Josh: Yeah, it's super, super easy. But anyway, he, uh, we constantly see him looking at his phone because he's got all these clientele of, because people have been coming to him for years and years and years. But now he's in his podcast booth and all these people are trying to get their, uh, Vespas fixed.

Tommy: It's a weird pivot. I mean, uh, You've had quite a few businesses in your time. What's been the biggest shift in terms of industry or just even, yeah, lifestyle?

Athan: What a segue, by the way.

Josh: That was, uh, not a segue, a vespa. A segue is more—

Athan: This is the Daily Puns Show. Josh, Tommy, and Ethan. We've heard worse. We've heard worse. So what was the question? What's the best pivot?

Josh: The best, the weirdest, the strangest industry switcheroo that you've done?

Athan: I think categories, people seem to think that category switching is a big deal. So if you say you do, well, I used to, you know, I used to work in advertising, but now we're in luggage. I was like, luggage, really? How did you, how did you get into that? And that kind of category change, people start to think, well, that's a big jump. But, you know, a lot of the time it's the business model behind it that's quite similar. You know, Vespa fixing to podcast is actually quite a big jump either way. But I would imagine that Uh, for him it's actually like, well, I've got all the equipment and there's actually not that much learning. You know, audio people tend to go between podcasting to filming things to— there's a lot of synergies between that. And then they'll find themselves doing documentaries, and then you find themselves doing— they find themselves doing tours, you know, because they're already doing those. And how did you get there? You know, you're just an audio nut, and, uh, and you know, the progression is easy. So I guess when you see the little steps to get there, it's actually not that big of a big of a jump.

Tommy: So as an entrepreneur, you're not worrying too much about what it is, it's about the business model that's backing it?

Athan: I think so, yeah. I mean, you, you, you tend to sort of see things as problems that you want to try and solve, and you see that opportunity in the problem itself. So you'll say things like, well, um, you know, talk— to talk luggage, well, you know, these guys are making ridiculous margins. Samsonite's 90% of the market share, um, they make ridiculous margins and they're ripping people off once you know how, how that's made. Can we do something better? And that's how that starts. And you're like, well, maybe it's like a— I sort of reference it as like a wobbly table at a cafe. You kind of— it just, it annoys you enough to like, go, I can't eat. That's it.

Josh: I need some blowups.

Tommy: Yeah, I need some bloody paper over here ASAP.

Athan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, your partner's sitting on the other end. Don't worry about it. You're like, no, hang on a second. I need to— give me something.

Tommy: You know, that bread, hard bread.

Josh: Get it. I'm going to get it under there.

Athan: So you've got— it's exactly like that. You know, it just sits there and you're like, I've got to do something. I've got to try and fix this.

Josh: But the funny thing is that it's always the case where it's like, it's a little wobble. How fucking hard can it be to fix? Turns out it's normally harder than what you think. And so you've created July Luggage, July on Instagram. Solid. Someone who loves a good Instagram handle.

Athan: Good name, right?

Josh: So it's extremely, extremely good. What was the moment where you were like, hang on, this is the wobbly table, I need to fix it?

Athan: Well, there's a cafe around the corner called A Coffee down on Sackville Street, right near Easy Street. For our Vespa friends out there. And basically, you know, self-employed, you hang out in cafes quite a bit. My business partner Richard also was running Brose Furniture at the time, so that was his baby. And we'd always find ourselves in this cafe. We'd always spend the longest amount of time in this cafe. And, you know, you sort of get to know the guys and you're like, hey, you give them a heads up.

Josh: Nice pure white. You feel like you're in a gallery a little bit.

Tommy: Exactly.

Josh: Yeah.

Athan: They've done a good job.

Tommy: Yeah.

Athan: You know, and so when everyone leaves, when the rush is gone, you definitely notice the other people.

Josh: Yeah.

Athan: Hang around the longest. And we just got chatting. So my business partner is very much a supply chain sort of guy, very businessy, very like knows, knows his numbers, knows how to manufacture things. And I'm kind of the opposite. I'm like this brand guy. I'm like the guy who colours in things, you know, like the fun guy. He's the business guy, I'm the fun guy. Anyway, so we talk about things, we just get chatting, we chat about his business. I'd give my, my advice and chat about mine and he'd give me his advice. And then we just start talking business models and like the rise of direct-to-consumer and how easy it's been to get things manufactured and start to retail them yourself. That's, that's a relatively new thing. Even though e-commerce has been around for a long time, it's been very, very difficult to source things. So what we found is, uh, you know, there's a big rise, especially sort of Europe and US, um, and, and what were the industries in Australia that weren't really being touched on?, and didn't really have that, that sort of— there's a bit of a barrier. There's a whole heap of, you know, there's a whole heap of, uh, teeth whitening stuff and things like that, you know, because they're quite easy to source.

Tommy: But now all of Australia have white teeth.

Athan: That's right, it doesn't end, you know, those, those Instagram ads, they just get you. Um, but, uh, but things that are a lot harder to manufacture, like luggage and furniture, uh, end up, um, you know, they end up sort of off the table. Uh, they're quite difficult to access, and then you have these legacy industries that just maintain their dominance. So, you know, with Richard, with Richard by my side, he's like, I reckon we can manufacture some amazing things, but we need to be able to, to position them right and make sure that we do everything else right. And we need to, you know, we need people to trust the name. And, and that's where we came up with July. And that was the idea behind it, you know, July being the best time of year to travel.

Josh: Yeah. I feel like the last 6 years, every July I go away to the US, or like it's summer somewhere else.

Tommy: Well, if you don't go away, just look at Instagram, you feel like you're in bloody Mykonos with everybody else.

Athan: Greece seems to— the Greek islands seem to be very popular at the moment.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: Have you got an off-road version of your July luggage to get through those bloody rubbly areas in Mykonos?

Athan: No, they'll survive. They'll survive.

Tommy: Where does Ezy fit in the decision-making process? You mentioned you know, you've got these hard things to manufacture, or things that are more difficult, or there might not be as much in demand, which could seem— that's hard. Are you looking for an easy product, a no-brainer?

Athan: You don't want easy. If, if it's easy to do, then everybody would do it, and, and most people end up doing it anyway. And if you have any success in it, if it's easy, you'll find a lot more people competing with you as well. I feel like you want the difficult— you want it to be a bit tough so that you can go in, commit a year to making them, launching, being proud of what you do, and, and then knowing, great, we're gung-ho, we're all in, everything seems to be working, uh, nobody's going to be following us for at least a few years because it is tough, you know. At the very least, you buy yourself some buffer if you do a good job. And that's, that's just from product manufacturing, you know. From a brand perspective as well, you want to back yourself into, into a really good position so that it's very hard for people to follow on in. You know, you talked about the Instagram handle, you know, a very key part to, to the brand element was securing @juliey. Yeah, because it's a brand builder and it's a trust element. You sort of see it and go, well, that's, that's interesting. That's kind of cool. And you— and there's an instant element of like, I kind of trust these guys. They seem legit. They don't seem like they're just OM, off the shelf, uh, and with a, with a new badge on it.

Tommy: It's a weird currency. What is it? What do you think it is if you were to put it in a nutshell?

Athan: They're all little things that, that build on trust. So like the, the colour scheme, the way that the website's built, the way the transitions happen, the, the type of photography and investing in photography. They're all, uh, you know, if you had to put it to a metric, it's a, it's an emotional, emotional buildup of trust thing, um, that is— you couldn't quantify it in one little thing, but as a collective you go these kind of feel like they're part of a family of things that I've associated with trustworthiness in the past.

Tommy: I mean, a lot of people who aren't in the product development or sort of internet landscape in a business sense, probably— I mean, this is also subconscious for them. Like, they're not going, ah, July, but they're going, I see all those crummy domains and crummy _653, you know, It's like, but I know it's, yeah, it's a weird thing. I just haven't thought about like why I trust it. I know that I trust those things because I'm in it, Grant, but I don't really know why.

Athan: Yeah, it's like a dodgy email, right? You can taste it. You're like, something's going on here, you know.

Tommy: Dear Sir, Madam, you're like, the prince is not bloody getting on to me, you know.

Athan: Why me? Yeah, it's a weird thing. And yeah, really hard. I don't know what it is and what that measurable point is, but It's a collective of things. And I would say it's like looking at somebody and being able to trust them just by looking at their face.

Tommy: Mr. 97, what do you think of his face?

Athan: Definitely trustworthy. He's got a good smile to him. You know, it's those curls, the teeth whitening that he got done. Is that what that gleam in my eye is?

Josh: Bond Street Dental.

Athan: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Josh: Ethan, you were before July, you had another business, 3000 Thieves. There was a section which was on demand, which I find interesting based on everyone seems to be talking about SMS. Like Gary Vee was just in Melbourne and every Tom, Dick, and Harry is getting on the SMS bandwagon. We were pumped, we were pumped and excited. We're like, fuck, we need to set up a number.

Athan: Okay, what's our SMS strategy?

Josh: Yeah, what's our SMS strategy? You were doing it a few years ago and thinking about it, what what's getting missed based on the movement and the trend, um, and where do you think it's all at at the moment?

Athan: SMS is a funny one, right? Because anyone will tell you the first thing that most people say is, oh, it's 100% read rate, everybody reads their SMSs. And, uh, and so everyone gets quite excited. They're like, well, my emails only have 10% open rate. Um, and SMS is good, but it's, it's, uh, it's quite manual. It's a super manual process. I remember doing that SMS thing that you're referencing for 3000 Thieves. I was working full-time while doing that and the volume would just come in. And so I'm like, I'm basically doing work, replying to SMS, trying to organise stuff, and it was chaos.

Josh: How much automation is there in it now?

Athan: There's a lot more, but there's more bot services that would do it. But the whole point of SMS is that interpersonal, you know, feeling. So you can only get away with bots for a certain amount of time.

Josh: Yeah.

Athan: Until, you know, until you want to talk to somebody.

Tommy: Do you remember that service? Was it Banjo? Bingo? You'd SMS it and then it sends it?

Athan: Bongo.

Tommy: Bongo. Yeah. How old are you?

Athan: Uh, 33.

Tommy: Yeah. So it would have been like, I'm 31 and I remember when I was probably 14, it was big. I went round to this girl's place and she's on her laptop. She's like, yeah, I'm just studying and doing Bongo. I was like, what do you mean? She's like, oh, I reply to the people.

Josh: That was founded by Dan Angelini, who does Movii standing desk.

Tommy: Oh yeah. I know the other guy that founded it.

Josh: Bought a Ferrari out of that shit back in the day.

Athan: It was— everyone was on it, you know, like, do the bongo. What do they say? And it's basically just Google searching and replying back.

Tommy: Yeah.

Athan: You know, which was quite cool. It was magic back then.

Tommy: It was. And so is the magic there now, do you think, in the tech stuff?

Athan: I reckon the bots have kind of eroded a bit of it. Yeah. Which is where you need that human element.

Tommy: You need a 14-year-old girl who's doing a study replying to you.

Athan: You know, it is actually quite a magic feeling when you are replying to one of these things and you actually get like a little spelling mistake or you get something that just goes, this— oh, it's a human. Great. You know, let me, let me reply back. You feel it. And which makes it quite nice. And I think that's, that's a really good thing. Even, even phone calls. We know like when we're talking with customers and there's like an issue with delivery, if we call them straight away, they're shocked. They'll email through and go, I've got a problem with delivery. We see it. We call them straight away within 30 seconds and they freak out. You know, it's such a simple concept, old school a little bit, but, but people love it. People love the human.

Josh: People are freaking out that their phones ring.

Athan: They're just like, oh my God, what do I do with it? You know, there's no words that's coming up.

Josh: My phone is making a noise. Yeah, yeah.

Athan: So I think SMS is a great strategy. To go back to what you're talking about, I think SMS is a great strategy. You can use bots for a certain point, but I think you, you should start the conversation with the human element. That's the trust builder.

Tommy: I think probably a common word in your vocab is scale or scaling. Like, as an entrepreneur, everyone's looking to scale their business.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: How can you scale this approach, that personal touch?

Athan: I think you can. I think there's, uh, there's, you know, how many SMSs are you going to get? You know, 1,000?

Tommy: I might, I send 1,000 a day.

Athan: Yeah, you know, you just, uh, it's, uh, it's, you know, you can probably reply to like 10, 10 people, 10 messages per person. Yeah, I think it's, it's definitely scalable, you know, to a degree. There's assistants, there's, there's pre-written stuff, but I think the, the human element is very important. It depends on the objective. Yeah, if it's something like just sending through shipping details and, and, and just, you know, automating a lot of the stuff that would have gone through email. Sure, you could definitely scale that up. But if it's things like customer service, like, oh, you know, um, you know, I'm, I'm— something's happened to my lining on my suitcase, what do I do? Or how do I clean the case? Uh, you know, it's really frustrating to get a bot back. Yeah, it's really frustrating, you know. And, and I've been doing it with the Qantas bot on Messenger, you know, like trying to find out— I've got, you know, issues with, uh, you know, I wanted to request a meal and then I just kept getting the bot and I was just, you know, when you're calling on those automated phones and you just, you know, the trick is just keep pressing zero until they're like, okay, cool, now we'll just send you somebody to talk to. That's all I want. I just want somebody to figure it out and have a chat to.

Josh: The Instagram handle, July, obviously very powerful, backing it up with having that sort of personal touch, having people on there commenting. Are you pedantic on your strategy when it comes to how you engage with your customers or your audience?

Athan: No, uh, I think, I think the, the key thing, uh, for us has always just been, uh, well, we do a little bit of, uh, you know, brand personality training, um, and but, but the guys replying, like, there's a, there's a team of us that all sort of have a hand in it, uh, and it's important for everybody to have their own personalities come through as well. So the whole thing is like whatever it takes, just make somebody happy.

Josh: So what are the rules? Like, what are the rules for us? One of the things is we don't even have that massive of a following when it comes to Instagram or social media. But when you have a group or team working on it, it can be a bit of the bystander syndrome where it's like, ah, who's going to regram this thing and who's going to write back to this thing? How do you work out that?

Athan: Yeah, the regramming is separate to customer service. Yeah, that's a whole separate That's a whole separate thing. But when, when replying to people, look, you, you know, especially from a, from a customer service perspective, the rule is always acknowledge their concern. So things like, you know, I, I can't figure out the lock, you know, or I've forgotten my, you know, the lock's not working, you know, which is typically I've forgotten the code, you know. So we're like, okay, well, I'm really sorry. You know, I'm really sorry. Like, sometimes locks can be a little tricky. You have to acknowledge their concern so that you're on the same team with them.

Josh: But you can't acknowledge that they're a bit fucking dumb.

Athan: Well, I would never say that. And sometimes people just need a little bit more assistance in getting that over the line. But you have to help them out. You got to show them that you're on the same team. And I think a lot of people come to the table ready to fight. They're like, can I just speak to the manager? I've got an issue with my thing. And you've just got to go, we're on the same team here. Let's get that resolution. And that's, that's definitely one of the rules.

Josh: Yeah.

Athan: Get them on the same side and then use your own personality to get them over the line.

Josh: So that's the customer service side. What about the general interactions? Like, are you getting many people who are, you know, just engaging on more like a personal, a personal level? Yeah.

Athan: You know, we sort of have that brand personality and it sort of helps. It writes itself. You know, we say thank you, enjoy your travels. It's never really about our— for July, it's never really about our products. We're always engaging with like, oh my God, your photos look amazing. The trip looks great. We want people to explore. So if it's like, if it's somebody from our design team who has a particular preference for beautiful photography, they'll end up engaging more with the photographers and just going, wow, I really love where you— this museum in Tokyo, really lovely. If it's, you know, if it's me, I'll sort of find some other guy. Like, I love, I love anyone who does like some creative video stuff. Like, I reply more to storeys than anything else.

Tommy: Yeah.

Athan: And the, you know, storeys end up being a lot more fun because people don't care as much.

Josh: Yeah.

Athan: Yeah. So you end up just going, that's sick, that's really nice. You know, having that personality come through is okay. I think.

Josh: What's your screen time like on your phone?

Athan: Through the roof.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: What are you talking? Yeah.

Athan: Should we pull it out?

Tommy: Yeah.

Athan: I mean, I've just, I just formatted my phone just so that I could wipe that screen time quite clean. Josh, tell Ethan what your screen time was last week.

Josh: Ethan, it was, it was on our Instagram.

Tommy: Instagram account.

Josh: 25 hours on Instagram last week, which was— I had, um, annual leave as well. But, um, oh, you've got— is that dark mode that you've got?

Athan: I've got the dark one.

Josh: Do you like dark mode?

Athan: Uh, it's okay.

Josh: It saves battery.

Tommy: You really did, um, reset your phone because that's— yeah, that's low. Or you just—

Athan: that's like— no, I did reset it.

Josh: I really did reset it. Uh, go to the day.

Athan: 4 hours. 4 hours today.

Tommy: Or almost a bit of YouTube today.

Athan: Do you know what? I actually do it to fall asleep. It helps me fall asleep. So I watch a really boring video and then— You actually have to have—

Josh: I mean, this is very counter to no blue light just before you go to bed, which is like close your eyes to a YouTube video. Well, it's at least like a warm looking image. What do you want? What sort of stuff?

Athan: Just really boring.

Josh: So Daily Talk Show episode.

Athan: Yeah, you guys are great. No, it's what I watch. It's— they're quite funny. They're like science videos where they explain like certain things, just really boring topics, you know, which are interesting, interesting things to listen to. But, you know, at night you're just like, all right, I need to—

Josh: Are you actually watching or are you purely using premium? Are you like turning off and just having the—

Athan: Yeah, it's a bit, it's a bit of that. Yeah, yeah, it's a bit of that. So I'm not actually looking at it. I just like listening to it. It's like a podcast, but, you know, with a bit of video attached.

Josh: Are you using YouTube Premium?

Athan: I'm not.

Tommy: Okay. Have you learned anything out of these boring videos? Is there something that you've just— sticks there?

Athan: Uh, what have I learned? You know, I've learned a couple of things, uh, but they're all— it's all like useless information that you never really need until, you know, when like this. No, I'm just trying—

Tommy: I'm trying to recall the moment.

Athan: I'm trying to recall even some of it, and, uh, I don't really think I can.

Josh: Well, there's a, um, on the car map They have like Stephen Fry telling like boring stories.

Tommy: While you're driving?

Josh: No, Calm.

Tommy: Oh, sorry. I see, see, car map.

Josh: No, Calm.

Tommy: No, I heard car map as well. Is he doing GPS now? I was like, imagine Stephen Fry.

Josh: No, the Calm app.

Tommy: Calm.

Josh: Calm. Yeah. Calm. Calm.

Tommy: It's just boggin' Aussies.

Athan: Yeah.

Josh: How do you say, like, if you're a swimming What's that called? The P-O-O-L. How do you say it? What?

Tommy: Pool?

Josh: Pool.

Tommy: Pool.

Athan: Pool.

Josh: Pool. What else is it? Pool. Pool.

Tommy: Pool. Oh, tradie.

Josh: No, so that, yeah, he's got like, like talking about lavender or whatever, going into detail.

Tommy: That's a great voice.

Athan: He's got a great voice.

Josh: But it sounds like you can't switch off. Maybe. Is that, would that be a—

Athan: Oh no, it's just nice. It's just nice. This is getting deep. He's projecting. It's just it's just nice to fall asleep to audio. It's a bit like white noise, and some people prefer this. Like, no, no, totally. But like, you know, when you listen to those meditation apps, it actually frustrates me at the speed in which it goes, you know, so slow. Now take a deep breath, and you're like, come on, mate. Like, it's just way too much for me.

Tommy: So let's get through this 10 minutes.

Athan: Exactly, exactly. I've got some sleep to do here. So I know I just like listening to stuff, you know.

Josh: Yeah. No, I mean, I'm this— I have to— the reason I'm pushing you on it is because I have to listen to something going to bed, like audiobooks.

Athan: Oh, you as well, right?

Josh: Like literally everything. So I've got like 180 Audible books and I'll like switch between them. There's one, Daily Rituals, which just talks about people's rituals, what they do in a day, and just sort of get sleepy listening to that.

Tommy: You would have heard a lot of entrepreneur storeys being this burnout journey where they've had a crucible moment where on the other side they come out, they're like, never again, too much stress, it was crazy.

Athan: No, I'm good.

Tommy: You're good? Well, I think there's, um, a good entrepreneur, I would think, is able to live in and, and process and deal with a bunch of stresses, right? So my friend who's got a business that does high volume of sending out like tickets, like just that— it's not my business, but I know the stresses that he has about all of those little things. And I'm always blown away about how he doesn't really get fussed about them.

Athan: Yeah, right.

Tommy: What fusses you though? What makes you not okay within a business?

Athan: It's cyclical, you know, things change and things happen. Um, you know, sometimes you know, sometimes there's a delay in stock, sometimes the colour's not right, so you've got to go back to the factory. Sometimes, you know, like I came back from Sydney at midnight last night, you know, and I had gym at 5 in the morning and that kind of stuff, you know, you've got like every day is banked up with something because you've been away for 3 weeks.

Tommy: Did you listen to your boring thing when you got home?

Athan: Yeah, I was— I did. Yeah, I can't even remember what it was though. That's, you know, pretty sure I was doing research on the podcast.

Josh: What would you type in?

Athan: I do. I was listening to the Dan Ilic podcast app on the plane last night. He was great. I do love him. Yeah, he was a good guest.

Tommy: And so you've worked out how to kind of go with the flow on.

Athan: That's right. I think you've got to, I think especially when you're, when you're starting things, you don't know what the answer always is. And so you just, you're comfortable figuring it out. And I think a lot of the, a lot of the time for a lot of people who start their own businesses, start their own things, they're comfortable figuring things out for a while. That's probably the one trait with people who start businesses a lot, or, or, uh, people, you know, people even with the same business doing new things, they're quite comfortable going, well, I don't know what the answer is going to be, uh, but why don't we just do this for the next 6 months and see what happens?

Tommy: Is that a learned behavior, do you think?

Josh: Uh, I—

Athan: yeah, I think for sure it's a learned behavior, uh, whether it's self-learned or learned through, through family or friends or people who are open to that kind of risk. Some people are like completely risk-averse and they're just, you know, nope, I need to know exactly what I'm going to be doing and exactly the outcome. And some people are like, well, you know, let's start a podcast or let's, let's start a luggage business, uh, let's start designing, let's start doing things, and I'm pretty sure we can do this. Like, I'm, I'm sure like all the pieces match up. Let's, let's go. Um, you know, how long have you guys been in, in, in this game for?

Tommy: 2 weeks.

Athan: 2 weeks.

Tommy: How you feeling?

Athan: Yeah, I'm fast asleep.

Tommy: I haven't slept. No, a year and a half.

Josh: Yeah, for this podcast. For the podcast. Yeah.

Athan: But you do a production company as well?

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: Yeah. And so we've been doing that for like 12+ years. So, but you know, different iterations of it. One of the things that we don't necessarily get to experience being in that service business versus what you're doing, which there is a tangible product, is seeing it out in the real world. Have you had moments yet when you're at the airport and you've seen someone with July?

Athan: Definitely. Yeah, we look out for it.

Tommy: We love it.

Athan: Yeah, we live off it. We see— so if we see somebody with a July, we go up to them, we're like, how is it? Where are you enjoying it? We take a photo with them. It's great.

Josh: It's really, really good. Because you can charge on them, can't you? You are like, ask for a little bit of juice.

Athan: Just like, phone's flat. Can I just sit with you for a little bit? No, we do. We live off it. And you know, for— we're at a volume now where we're almost going to say one every time. So we're pretty wrapped with that.

Josh: That's so good.

Athan: And but for a long time, obviously we didn't say anything. So we're like, oh, you know, I wonder when that's going to happen. And then it happens.

Josh: What is the competitive advantage of the bigger guys? So the Samsonites, as you're saying, like the democratisation of this sort of stuff, it's becoming easier outside of market share or the brand equity of being around for a long time. What do they still have being at the scale they are?

Athan: A lot of it is to do with the brand. So, uh, let me explain to you how, how you would buy luggage day to day. Uh, you're gonna go on your trip, you've booked it, you booked the flights probably 2 to 3 months in advance, uh, and around 6 weeks out you're like, well, I probably should, I should probably should book the hotel, I probably need some luggage as well because I don't have any. And you're likely to go to like a retailer, so Myer, David Jones, RCV Club Strand Bags. That's typically where, where you'd be going in Australia. And, uh, and you sort of get there, you actually don't know what you want. So you rock up and you have no brand affinity yet. You're just like, I kind of just need a big one and a small one. And then you're looking at the big ones and small ones and you're like, oh, you know, red, red's nice. I wouldn't mind a big red one. Uh, and then you're looking at the price and you're like, well, this one's $800 reduced to $400. That's a that's a good deal. And, and then the salesperson will say, well, you can either have the, uh, the Samsonite for, for the $400, or I've got one that's exactly the same called Simpsonite, and you can have this one for, for $300. And then you make the brand call, you make a judgement call and go, well, you know, it's all about price, I'm just going to throw this one out, or I like Samsonite, I know the brand, I'm just going to make the jump and, and, uh, and and get the Samsonite. I thought I'd put that on.

Josh: So that's fine. There you go. That's happened to me.

Athan: And, and so that's, that's how you buy luggage. You walk out of there going, well, you know, good enough. This is what was in store. This is, this is kind of what I've walked out with. And it's that's the dominance. They've come in and gone, well, Samsonite owns American Tourister, they own Tumi, they own Delsey, they own practically all the brands that you— that are in the shop.

Josh: Are they all acquisitions or are they—

Athan: Tumi was an acquisition. American Tourister, I think, was, but a long time ago. Um, it's a portfolio strategy. So, you know, Samsonite sort of meant to represent this, this innovation and businessy kind of vibe. American Tourister is more colorful, a little bit more playful, cheaper. Uh, Tumi's more of a luxury, luxury play.

Josh: On the acquisition stuff, when starting July, are you already talking about, okay, this is a long-term thing, we could potentially be sold at some point?

Athan: Yeah, I mean, you know, if they come along and give us $500 million, just if you're out there, Samsonite. But no, we're not. That's not the active goal.

Josh: So when you get a bunch of cash from an angel investor, what's the conversation in regards to recouping that money?

Athan: Yeah, I mean, a lot of it, we're open to investment, but not acquisition. There's two different things from that perspective because we need capital to grow. That's probably one of the biggest challenges with direct-to-consumer businesses is that you're not just this guy going to, um, going to the factory, buying heap of stock, and then finding a buyer to buy a container lot. You're actually doing the retailing yourself as well. So you're taking on the burden of risk with that stock. You need the capital to be able to carry it through. So investment is very much the barrier to a strong direct-to-consumer business. And our investors get that, you know, they sort of, they get their dividends at the end once the company is scaled up.

Josh: And so is it one of those things that once you— because we've seen so many Kickstarters fail over the years of just completely underestimating what it takes to get to the market and almost selling too many and then they can't fulfil and all that type of thing.

Tommy: And all the people waiting for their Kickstarter.

Athan: Yeah, I've, you know, I've only gotten like 1 out of 10 Kickstarters like delivered.

Josh: Yeah, I mean, I had one that was like a global SIM card thing that was meant to— you're meant to be able to use Wi-Fi anywhere and it would use like a 4G. Great idea. It was great, but it was— ended up being a bit of a lemon. Like, it doesn't even work. Anyway, the cash flow thing and having enough money to continue once you've got the first amount. Like how many iterations or how many sort of shipments do you have before you can actually start?

Athan: You know, it depends a lot on the business model. Um, so I won't, you know, comment specifically on July because we're just at the beginning of the journey. But, but generally speaking, um, it depends on the, on the strategy, right? Depends how the leaders are sort of running it. There's a trend in the US especially that is like growth at any cost. So they will keep bleeding money in order to maintain that growth rate, which at some point they'll eventually have to go, have to IPO in order to recoup any of that money back. And that's, that's just how they run that ship.

Josh: Yeah.

Athan: Where there are others, again, a little bit more of an Australian, European conservative mindset where it's like, well, we need a little bit of investment upfront and then we can continue to grow and then be profitable very early on and grow off our own revenue and profits. That's, that seems to be sort of a more Euro-Australian vibe.

Josh: Does that mean that the luxury of, say, having USB connectivity is a hard sell when you start looking at the cost of a product from a production standpoint?

Athan: Yeah, yeah. A lot of it, a lot of it's opportunity costs. So I'll give you a really good example with, with what we do at July. So when we were first developing and designing, we were late to the game, right? Samsung has been around for a long time. There are a lot of other luggage brands out there. Uh, what we did was just read every single review we could, and we found where the issues were in their bags. So all we did was aim to fix those issues. Biggest one is that, uh, polycarbonate cases— a lot of people end up getting corners and edges pressed in because when a case lands flat, the impact is spread. But if it lands on the corners, the corner dints in. That's where a lot of the issues were. So we needed to fix that, and our industrial designer was like, Well, we make the corners, we make the edges rounder, and we protect the corners with, with aluminum. Easy enough. But a lot of what determines this— the most interesting thing that I learned at the beginning of the journey— what determines the shape of the case is actually the little black plastic things that hold the wheels. The shape of that wheel housing actually determines the shape of the suitcase. And those wheel housings, because most factories are like, just get it cheap because we've got 3 other people that need to make money off it before they get to the retailer, just get them off the shelf. So they all end up having the same shape. In order to get that rounder edge, we needed to retool. We needed to get a curvier wheel housing. So we invested in that. And that's where that investment comes in to go, well, you know, the luxury of just, of, of, of just getting things off the shelf, you know, and you end up getting a subpar product. You, if you really want to do direct-to-consumer, right, and really want to own your product in the manufacturing process, you've got to start investing early in those things. So USB is one of those things, but the curvature of the case is like a— was a big component for us.

Josh: So is there IP in that? Do you then try and like patent that type of thing or—

Athan: Yeah, we couldn't do the curve. We couldn't, we couldn't IP the radius of the corners of the case. We did, we did try though, but we've got the innovation patent for, for the battery component in the housing there.

Josh: And so does the battery, because I know there was a bunch of issues with people couple of years ago now with the inbuilt batteries and then the laws all changing in regards to flying. Is it a removable battery that you guys have?

Athan: Yeah, as a removal. So what ended up happening was a few years ago there was a, there was a wave of, uh, of smart luggage, uh, where, you know, from a design perspective it makes a lot of sense. You integrate the battery, you make it super simple for people, and it looks quite clean. Um, and what ended up happening was the Samsung thing happened where the lithium-ion batteries were flammable. And so airlines were like, no, no batteries, no batteries on the plane, especially in cargo. So, so yeah, they changed the rules and all those companies who had, who had containers of product went out of business overnight.

Tommy: Scooter ones, the ones that like an electric moped through the airport.

Josh: Yeah, I mean, that's—

Athan: they're still coming out on Kickstarter.

Josh: Really?

Athan: Like you're just looking at them going like, one in 10, you know, these guys just have really good like video motion graphics people. They're like, let's just have some fun.

Josh: Well, that's the funny thing. I mean, that's the obvious one, the scooter one. But there was, there would be, uh, you could see it being a quick and easy business decision around, hey, let's value-add, let's put a battery in it. That could be the end of a, of a, of a business.

Athan: That, that, well, that's why like a lot of our focus is not on the battery. It's a, it's a nice feature, um, and it's a lifesaver It's one of those things you don't think about until you are— you're at the airport and you don't have any batteries. Like, hang on a second, my suitcase has a battery pack. Okay, great. Um, but we focus on the design, so fix the things that people were unhappy with, with their current luggage, uh, make it beautiful, make it pretty, um, and, and people love it. People have been enjoying the bags.

Tommy: Making big changes, because, you know, changing one little thing can be a huge clusterfuck. Are you apprehensive to go in to re, you know, overhaul something or pull out something?

Athan: Not at all. Like, I mean, what are you going to lose, right? Like, that's the, that's the thing. It's just time and money, which, uh, time you can't get back, but money, money you always can, right? Um, no, I mean, that's, that's the fun of it, right? You've got to have the, you've got to have that personality to just go, let's just do it and see what happens. And think with product, with physical product, things always evolve. There's never a final, there's never a final product. Much like with that, much like with any, with any art or, you know, anything you produce, there's always a little bit more you could do. You have to, you have to make a judgement call on where you stop for now. And then the next time you go, what if we did this? And we'll change a little bit of this, a little bit of that.

Tommy: Having business, a business partner, you said you're the colouring guy.

Athan: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tommy: You've got the business man.

Josh: Do you at least do it within the lines?

Athan: Well, that's, that's where the creativity comes in.

Tommy: I mean, how do you identify and what is the strength of a colour guy?

Athan: I, I, the biggest learning I've ever had is, uh, know what your weaknesses are and have an ego big enough to not worry about it. That's, that's probably for me the biggest lesson I've ever learned for myself.

Josh: You need to identify them, right? So you need to have the ego to move on from, but the, the removing of the ego to know it's there. What is, what is it for you? What are you shit at?

Athan: I'm really bad at the accounting finance side of things.

Josh: Really bad at it. Tommy looks after it. Apparently you told Bree, my girlfriend, that I don't give my receipts in.

Tommy: You don't? I'm still waiting on a couple.

Josh: Well, there is. She put one in my bag for AusPost.

Tommy: I'm still waiting on it.

Athan: I've got to take a photo of them. Otherwise, there they go.

Josh: Well, I do, but then they're amongst all my food photos.

Tommy: The way I look at it, Ethan, is that if he at least takes a photo, when we get audited.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: Send it to this guy.

Athan: Yeah.

Tommy: You just deal with that. It'll be the biggest clusterfuck on earth.

Athan: Can I give you a pro tip?

Josh: Yeah.

Athan: Are you ready for this one? This is, this is like hacker tip.

Josh: Okay, great.

Athan: You take a photo of it on the day.

Josh: Yeah.

Athan: And, and when you ever need to reference it, if you use Google Photos, the Google Photos app.

Josh: Yeah.

Athan: You just search receipts and it, and Google Photos knows that's a receipt.

Tommy: Yeah, we'll be fine.

Josh: I've done that before with finding a burger photo. I didn't think about it for receipts. That's a good idea.

Athan: Great one.

Josh: And so the, um, so that's your, the finance stuff. Did that fuck you in any businesses? Have you had to reconcile your own Xero?

Athan: And yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, anything to, anything to do with Xero, like, it's my life goal to never log into Xero ever again.

Josh: Uh, well, they have two-factor, so I struggle because it's like, what fucking car did I drive in?

Athan: You know, they're deep questions. The Xero questions are very deep and very emotional. It's like, what did your How did your mum call you when you were 4 years old as she tucked you in? I don't know, man.

Tommy: But I'd probably say that what happened with Josh would have happened with you. I sent him the invitation as the admin to get into Xero and he never signed up. But he's back in now.

Athan: So you're the numbers guy.

Tommy: Not even. I quite enjoy, like Xero, what I like about it is that it's this process and it's like it's taken a lot of the thinking out of it for me. So I can be this dummy that can just press a few buttons and get cash flow, you know, get, understand.

Josh: Yeah, it's probably the perfect thing because I think that Tommy can say, okay, this is where we're at, this is what it's looking like. And then I think that where I can come in is the creative way of like how we can make it work. It's like, oh well, if you move that bill one other day, then cash flow is great. Like moving shit around and doing all that sort of thing.

Athan: Yeah, whatever it is, right? It's like just knowing that some things you like to do. Yeah. And that you're good at doing those things. And then some things you just like, look, like, in order to achieve any progress, I need to give it to somebody else. And, um, and I find having, having a business partner who's the exact opposite, um, but, but still connected at a certain level really helps. You need to trust them. You need to trust that they're going to do whatever it is that they do well without you ever having to need to know about those things at all. Um, and, and I feel like especially with, with Richard and July, we've definitely got that relationship. Where, you know, he's like, hey, I've got a call with a lawyer. You do it. Have fun. You enjoy that. I'm, you know, I'm just going to— I'm going to go have— I'm going to go party with some people down at the store.

Tommy: What's that, mate? I'm on the Vespa.

Josh: I can't hear you.

Athan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've got to go. Sorry, too windy.

Josh: Do you actually have a hands-free on the Vespa?

Athan: Do you know what I do? I've got a helmet that's loose enough. I pop it on speaker and then just jam it into the helmet.

Tommy: Heaps of people do that. Heaps of people do that.

Josh: That's outrageous.

Tommy: They're usually Uber drivers anyway. From what we heard, you're one of them too. Yeah, so you've got— it's a luxury, right, to have a business partner that's the opposite.

Athan: Josh, that you like as well, and that you get along with. All those things, it's like a relationship, you know. You've really gotta— you get a bit lucky, but you gotta work at it as well.

Tommy: And so you could earn those luxuries by going through all the shit. But if you're in the shit, if someone's in the shit right now where they're like, got all these things, I'm a solo business owner, what, I'm a, you know, sole trader or whatever, how did you weather that storm?

Athan: You've got to outsource, you know. It's as simple as that. You've got to find somebody who can do it, you know. If you take on that burden, you definitely— it doesn't matter what YouTube app, what YouTube video you're looking at, you're not going to sleep. You are, you're awake all night, like, you know what I mean. There's a, there's a threshold. You've, you've definitely got to, got to outsource it. You got to get some assistance on that and focus on the things that you can do. There's, um, I mean, I used to, I used to be in advertising. I used to work worked with Honda quite a bit, and there was a great Honda quote that I used to quite enjoy saying, which was, pull the sail with your stronger arm, you know. So in order to progress, so, you know, in order to keep going, you just got to grab what you're good at, get your strongest arm, and just go forward with it. And the stuff that you're not that good at, I think the only way around it is to outsource it as much as you can.

Tommy: So focus on the strengths that can increase the business itself rather than spending that time in the weeds of the shitty stuff that you don't like doing.

Athan: Yeah, I mean, everyone's got a different strategy, right? But if, um, you're never going to be good at everything, I don't think, unless you're a special person, then you're already good at it. So, uh, if you're not, if you're not that good at stuff and, and you don't like doing it, outsource it. Do the things you're good at. You'll enjoy your work 10 times more. You'll feel more accomplished, you'll feel satisfied with what you do, and you've got, you've got, you know, you're still going to be on top of it, right? So the accounting, so I'm still on top of it, but I don't have to do the day-to-day.

Josh: Are you an ideas guy?

Athan: Yeah, I like to think so.

Josh: Do you have to tame them? Because I can imagine, uh, being, you know, you've just been traveling, being at a bunch of airports, hotels, you're probably seeing a lot of luggage, a lot of friction, a lot of opportunities to come up with new products or, you know, update your current ones? What do you do with all the ideas?

Athan: Yeah, they're fun to have. Ideas are fun to have and they're cheap. Ideas are super cheap. So you can have a million ideas and be and have a good time with them and chat about them. You can spend hours talking about them and then you're 75 and then you don't do anything about it. You know, actually one of the ideas I used to love talking about, there's this, there's this guy who— it's nothing to do with luggage, by the way, but it might, you never know— is this guy in in St. Kilda on Ackland Street. Um, it was this Indian dude who set up next to 7-Eleven and opened up a vending machine store with no staff, sold everything that 7-Eleven did at like 30% cheaper. And I thought, what a genius idea, what a brilliant guy. All he would do is come in like every couple of days, restock the vending machines, and then leave.

Josh: It was a good business, I'm guessing it would have been.

Athan: I think he's doing all right, you know.

Josh: I actually saw, um, so I watched a documentary on Amazon Prime of Coca-Cola versus Pepsi. And there is such competition with, um, even some of the, uh, high schools in the US where they'll give a bunch of cash to schools to be the exclusive drink. So they'll like basically buy the school stadium, uh, you know, or $50 grand a year over 10 years or whatever and build, build the stadium. But there was a case where Coca-Cola bought into one of the schools, and Pepsi paid a house across the road to set up a Pepsi vending machine outside where all the kids hung out. That's great. It's pretty, pretty crazy.

Tommy: It's a creative approach to something.

Josh: I mean, yeah, from a competition point of view, there's creativity in being able to compete in interesting ways. Have you done any of that where you've been able to— being the underdog done something creative?

Athan: You know, our most creative approach is to produce beautiful luggage at an affordable price. That's as, that's as creative as we've gotten to begin with. We haven't really needed to go down that path yet. Yeah, because I think the, you know, the beast, the main beast being, being Samsonite is, is just not looking at us yet. I don't think they're worried.

Josh: I mean, something I find interesting, we should be. I think what's interesting with you is you're happy to talk about the competition. There is a strategy in competition doesn't exist. Uh, has that been a strategy to we will talk about the competition, or is that just naturally what you do?

Athan: It's interesting. No, we don't typically talk— we don't typically look at the competition. Um, in these scenarios, um, you know, we're obviously talking about it, and, and there needs to be an enemy, there needs to be somebody that you're going after. And there's a goal, right? The goal is like these guys have dominated for so long, basically abusing the system of like mass production, mass distribution. There's, there's definitely a better way to do it. Do you know, do we talk strategy?

Josh: So is that a strategy based on Australians love underdogs? We actually think we could sell more units if people know that they're being ripped off based on and using the bigger, using that brand name rather than being a premium brand as a ripoff? Because that's how, how you framed it. When I see it now, I'm like, this is all the same shit. It's like when my mum told me, you know, the t-shirt in Best and Less, the Mango one, it's made in the same store where Mambo's made. I was like, fuck, I'll just wear— I was wearing Mango, just feeling like a real boss. Is it— is that a strategy? Are you specifically speaking as a team about that?

Athan: Yeah, we, we, we actively don't look at our competitors. I think that's a strategy, definitely, because it's very easy to see where— it's very easy to see where the man is, but you always want to go where the ball's going.

Josh: Yeah, sure.

Athan: And so you want a footy analogy.

Josh: Yeah, just grand final. It's a good time.

Athan: Sunday they would have already won.

Josh: Tigers, can't believe it.

Athan: Unbelievable by 63 points. So it's important to not constantly be looking what everyone else is doing. You want to be looking at, uh, brands and people that inspire you and go, that's beautiful, we'd really love to be part of that.

Josh: Yeah.

Athan: Um, and, and start doing things like that.

Tommy: Ethical business, uh, running one. It seems that when you look at someone like Samsonite, where they start mass producing, and it's like they become about the bottom line because they're so big, right? And it's their focus. How do you— right now, where your business is at looking at how you do things and maybe where you want to go, is ethics on your mind, top of mind?

Athan: Service is definitely— I mean, ethics is always, is always top of mind, but, uh, how you represent that is typically through the level of customer service you, you give people. So you want to make sure, one, the product is as phenomenal as you're saying it is, uh, and then two, when they get it or on the process of getting it you are like constantly on top of it and you overcommit to it. Like there's a, I'll give you a really good example. Early on, so we got a warehouse in Sydney as well. Somebody was leaving, Australia Post delayed the shipment just because they can't deal with big boxes.

Josh: They can't deal with any packages, which is amazing.

Athan: It's a love-hate relationship. You know, if you're out there listening, I suppose please just put us on the priority list. You know, sometimes they just delay things and it was Friday afternoon This lady was going away on Saturday, so, you know, she's like, you know, where's my luggage? Like, I'm really worried about it. Was never going to get there, you know, Friday afternoon from Australia Post. So, you know, we sent an Uber over from where we were in Homebush to Bondi, and I did it as a premium to guarantee that it would get there. So we ended up— we spent $130 on an Uber and pay cow on a Friday.

Josh: Premium, was it? Was the July Uber coffee. Let's just say, Uber Black.

Athan: Sleep hat on, you know, like you got to do it sometimes, you know, because the drivers are more open to grey area deliveries.

Josh: I hope you went into the car, took some mints and water.

Athan: No, we're in Melbourne. This is all, this is all, you know, this is, this is all outsourced, right? So, you know, we called up the warehouse and we're like, hey, listen, there's going to be a car that rocks up. Don't freak out. Just put the box in. Yeah. You know, and we're sort of like SMSing with the, with the customer., who was following the journey along the way and couldn't believe that what had happened. You know, the carry-on's $295 retail. We spent $130 on the Uber to get there. So like, you know, it was one of those situations where you're like, just whatever it takes, you know, and that you could consider that as an ethics thing. But it's like, well, cool, our ethics are, you know, be as customer-centric as possible. There's something in the system that's not our fault that delayed the customer's case but is leaving tomorrow. What can we do? You know, and we've been known, like, I lent somebody a case the other day who's just a random customer who's like, oh, you know, I'm, you know, I want this color, but it's out of stock. So, but I'm going away tomorrow. It's like, of course I'll give you one. Just here, take this, travel with it, beat it up if you want. Yeah, bring it back. And when your case is ready, we'll give you that one.

Tommy: But I just sent my mattress back 99 days yesterday.

Athan: Koala?

Tommy: Nah, I'm joking. But I was wondering, does anyone do this shit? Because you've got the 100-day return.

Athan: Yeah.

Tommy: Does anyone actually send a case back 99 days in?

Athan: Case? Yeah. There's two types of people that return cases. One is for colour because computer screen and how some people see it on the screen versus how it arrives is a little bit different. Some people are very particular about that.

Tommy: I mean, to wait 99 days, I mean, I'm happy to wait.

Josh: But they're probably doing it straight away.

Tommy: I think that's okay. I'm talking about the common person. Competitors.

Athan: Competitors are the only other people who buy and return, mate. You know, they buy it, they cheque it out, they're like, 'Oh yeah, what's going on here?' Return. That's okay, we don't mind. We know, everyone knows. But yeah, you know, we just, we just take it.

Josh: I've got an idea. Um, uh, is it a good one? Well, I want to find out. Let's, let's test out.

Athan: Yeah, two jackets. Yeah, two jackets.

Tommy: Yeah, leather jacket and puffer jacket.

Josh: No, I think it— right, so, uh, you've July luggage. Uh, what about the idea of— okay, when people buy it, do you know where they're potentially travelling to? Do you ask any questions around that sort of stuff?

Athan: In the, in the store we do. So if you come to the store, the, the retail team will—

Josh: Where is, where is the store?

Athan: At Emporium in Melbourne.

Josh: Oh, awesome.

Tommy: Great spot.

Josh: That's cool.

Athan: Great spot. Yeah.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: So because what I was thinking is so many times that I've been to the US, less so now, but especially maybe 6 or 7 years ago when I go to the US, you get your 2 bags, you buy, you bring 1 bag, and then on the way back you end up buying another bag for all the shit that you bought, right?

Athan: Yeah.

Josh: So what about the idea of if someone picks the US, you have a service so you get an email, uh, when you're in the US saying, hey, it's July, you can pick up— like, you can pick up a second July case for X price at these hotels. That's the idea.

Tommy: Yeah, good idea.

Josh: What do you think?

Athan: I like it.

Josh: Why is it bad?

Tommy: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Athan: We'll SMS you the contract later.

Josh: I mean, so, I mean, there's millions and millions and millions of those ideas, right? You can just sort of, you know, connect dots. How do you know when to, when to do something like that and when not to?

Athan: Uh, you know, in, in that scenario, you've got to know how much convenience you're, you're really, uh, offering. Um, If the— okay, so if we're going to workshop this workshop, this—

Josh: yeah, I love it.

Athan: So the idea is that you go away and, and you're travelling and you've got extra stuff you want to bring back with you. So you need a convenient method to bring that stuff back. Sometimes that's buying a new case. Sometimes it might be what if you had a foldable duffle bag that sat within the case? So every case came with a, with an extra, with an additional soft carry-on that would fold in. You know, so you can add that in pretty quickly as like a add $10 to the, to this thing and we'll tuck that in.

Josh: The second duffel, you know. Oh, do you know what you could call it? August?

Athan: No, no, no, no, no.

Josh: I think it's, I think it's 30 Days Have September, April, June, and November. Your birthday's July 30, is it?

Athan: 3rd.

Josh: 3rd.

Athan: You've done your research.

Josh: No, clearly not. I fucked it. He's negging you. So 31 days. Maybe it's called the July 31 on the final fucking day you're heading home. You have the duffel, the July 31, where you put everything in. So I like that idea. So keep going. So the duffle bag.

Athan: Yes, you do duffle or you do things like, I mean, the cases all nest within each other. So you could easily do it as a bit of a comms approach and say, well, you can buy 2 right now as opposed to later at the airport.

Josh: Are you doing cubes? Do you guys sell cubes?

Athan: We just, yeah, we just launched accessories. Yeah, cells, not cubes because they're not square.

Tommy: Yeah, I can't get the sharp corners.

Athan: Yeah, well, cubes, cubes are particularly even sides on all things. Yeah, whereas, uh, you can't call them cubes because they're all different shapes.

Tommy: Yeah. Um, see-through luggage, is that just a joke?

Athan: That, that is a thing that every luggage company does and nobody buys them.

Tommy: Everyone has some fun at the airport.

Athan: Really? Yeah.

Tommy: And I'm like, no, no, sorry, sorry, haven't seen them on a person. I've seen them in a luggage store. It's almost like a gimmick.

Josh: Yeah, unless you're fucking going to the US with a million M&Ms, it's going to look like shit.

Athan: Yeah, I mean, I've— yeah, I'm not, I'm not the best, uh, I'm not the best packer, you know. My, my— it never looks that— it never looks pretty enough to, to show people anyway. It's just a lot of underwear, you know. It's like 40 pairs of underwear and one t-shirt. Like, it's not—

Josh: what about the— it's not art, uh, with hard— I love the look, the aesthetic of a hard case. The one thing, I travelled for 3 months and staying at heaps of small hotels, the hard cases open up. So, you sort of almost have to have them completely open to access stuff because otherwise the hinge starts to break. Is there a reason why hard luggage companies aren't doing the, like a just sort of a top where it will just open up and flip up that's not a whole section.

Athan: Yeah, definitely. It's everything in luggage, like with most things I would imagine, is an opportunity cost. So as soon as you start adding, uh, soft things, it actually makes— that's the weak point for, for the luggage. Then that, that, that is the bit that either breaks or rips, uh, first. So you either say we, we want to have a case that's super strong, um, that is very, very tough to break, and, and and damage whatever's on the inside. So which means you have no weak points on the outside. If you say things like, well, we want a case where you can cram as much in as possible for the lightest weight, then you do like a fully soft, a fully soft bag. Yeah, because the fabric weighs nothing. You can— it's stretchable, so you can really jam it all in. It really depends on what the, what the opportunity cost is. So, you know, the hybrid ones, always the weakest point ends up being that soft element.

Josh: The, I guess the industry having small, smaller operations within Australia, was there any, anyone or any business that was really supportive of you guys? Is there anyone that actually says, hey, we're doing something that's not what you guys are doing that you actually talk to about this stuff?

Athan: Like complementary industries sort of thing? Yeah. I mean, anyone in the design world has been super responsive to what we've been doing. We've had such great feedback. That seems to be one of our core audiences, and they love it, and they love what we're doing, and they appreciate the effort that we're going through from a, from a comms marketing perspective in terms of like even as simple as who's doing the photos, who's doing the styling, the kind, the kinds of photos that we're doing. It's actually one of— it's been a key thing where we're like, we're just going to invest a lot into getting amazing creative people helping us create great moments on camera.

Josh: Yeah.

Athan: And, and it's, it's been brilliant. You know, it, it comes off in a— every person has something new and unique to bring to the table, and they apply their creativity to what you're doing. And that's, that's the kind of dialogue we end up having with, with other people in the industry, but mainly creative industries.

Josh: And so hiring people, uh, what's, what's the key that you're looking for when you're hiring people in all different— whether it's a creative director role or a customer service?

Athan: What do they've got to— they've got to be the right cultural fit. They've got to be all hands on, all hands on deck. Everything goes.

Josh: What does that mean? Because I always wonder, because that's always the dream. That's— it's almost code for you work as hard as we need to work to get it done, which is almost like what we all want as business owners, right? It's all like you just need to fucking show up and do it.

Athan: Yeah, well, you've got to lead by example, you know. So we're all in there doing everything, you know. I've put a couple of suitcases on the Vespa and I drive down and deliver it to customers when we need to.

Tommy: But zero, get fucked.

Athan: A couple of pickup Macca's on the way if you want as well, deliver that as well. No, but we do what it takes. We do it. And it's not so much about constantly working. It is about just getting the result. If we're saying that we're customer-centric and we're saying we'll do anything it takes to keep people happy, then that's what we, we commit to. And we, you know, you've got to enjoy yourself as well, you know, uh, you have, you got to have some fun too. But, um, it really is about culturally going, I'm okay with a title that says this, but by the way, somebody needs to go pick up the booze for the event tonight. Who's going to go and do that? Yeah, cool, I'll go and do it. And you've got to be people who are comfortable with that. There's a lot of people that aren't.

Josh: And is there an onboarding process? So obviously, like, it takes a while for people to completely understand culture. Are there things that you do or meetings that you have, say if you weren't happy with an interaction on a customer service thing or you would have done something differently, are you doing retrospectives on that stuff?

Athan: Uh, look, to be honest with you, once you're— if you're in the team, you're in the team. You know, we're still, we're still pretty young. Yeah, we're not, um, you know, we're not that, that aggressive on the hiring, on the hiring front, uh, that once you're in, you know, uh up front we try and make a good judgement call, like anybody, you know, like you just want to make sure you hire for culture, and the skill set is important, but you can always learn things.

Josh: Do you correct though, I guess is the question, like realizing—

Athan: We coach, we coach, it's a coaching process. Yeah, so I mean there's many different types of leadership. We definitely have a strong element of coaching and vision, so we sort of set the bar and go, this is what we're trying to achieve This is what we're all about. By the way, these are the steps that we need to get there. If you don't know how to do 3 of these things, that's okay. We'll coach you through it and we'll show you how to get there.

Tommy: You've had multiple businesses and entrepreneurs can tend to be, you know, quite, uh, looking everywhere for the next thing. And I know that you, with July, it's, it's been the thing that you've gone all in on, you know, that hasn't been a side hustle or, you know, you've had a bunch of stuff going on. How distracted do you get, um, as an entrepreneur by the other sort of potential, you know, beams of light out there?

Athan: Yeah, I mean, I've spent a lifetime being distracted by those things, but, um, you've— once you find yourself in the right, the right kind of business with the right kind of people, those sorts of, uh, those sorts of creative opportunities come within the business. Uh, so you say, oh, I'm really excited about doing this foldable duffle bag thing that's actually a little add-on that, that slips in the thing. What would it take to get that done? So you end up being more of an entrepreneur than anything else and you start coming up with great ideas and the team supports it and you go ahead and do that.

Josh: I reckon the duffle thing will happen. I mean, if you do, I will, you know, send you a— I mean, I didn't come up with it, but that's why I love you come up with different ideas and then it's like the what if and then like adding and, you know, is that just back to sort of the not looking everywhere and then saying it's almost a reframing.

Tommy: Look in my business to be the entrepreneur within the business for the business.

Josh: For sure.

Tommy: Is it, um, do you think it's a trap then for a lot of entrepreneurs out there that are just looking everywhere? Like, not complacent. I'm a bit complacent with it. I'm not sold on this, but it's okay over here now.

Athan: Um, it's each to their own depending on the, on the life stage they're at. I think it's, it's an important thing if you're doing something and you're not satisfied in it to it to keep looking. And that's a fundamental— you know, you never tell anybody, no, no, you stay put, you just keep doing that thing. If they're not satisfied, then they need to keep looking. I think a lot of it is how you build your home. And if you can build a home where you're comfortable in, you get your creative output. What are those things that they say that build happiness? So it's like autonomy, mastery, and something else. I can't remember what that third one is, right? But let's stick with autonomy and mastery, right, for now. Yeah, so, you know, you need to be autonomous with what you do and make your own decisions. You need to be the master of it. You need to be pretty good at what it is and feel like you're getting, um, you know, you're dominating in that and you know everything about it. And whatever that third one is, you've got to do that third thing.

Josh: Purpose.

Athan: There you go. Thanks for the Google, man. And you've got to have purpose with it too. So If you, if you feel like those three things are what you're doing in your day-to-day, I feel like you can start to get creative with it. You know, you just like, you enjoy every little workshop moment like this. We're like, great, let's do a job. Let's just, let's try out a duffle bag, or let's, um, let's see if we can, if there's a better creative way we can solve. Maybe it is the airport thing. Um, I think, I think looking around is, is more around, uh, how far out. Is it within the business? Is it, is it external? Are you looking for different people? Um, it's actually more about, uh, it's more about you searching for yourself, I guess. Yeah, I think there's anything else.

Tommy: It's an interesting thing because you could feel, um, restless as a person, but then it's like acknowledging the restlessness, and then do I— even though I'm feeling this, do I commit to the thing and stick at it? Because maybe it's on the other side.

Athan: Maybe you're not looking for another thing, maybe you're looking for another you. And, uh, sometimes you've got to look within yourself to think Am I happy with this me? And how many more me's are there before I'm happy with, with where I am?

Tommy: I'm not looking.

Athan: That could be—

Tommy: I'm not looking, but I like it.

Josh: Yeah, I think it's a— yeah, awesome message. Uh, thanks so much for coming on the show.

Athan: Thanks for having me.

Josh: Uh, July on Instagram, that's the easiest way. Do you find that most people— are people clicking through in regards to traffic, Instagram, Google, all the different things? Where are people coming to you from? Where are that?

Athan: Where's the main, uh, yeah, Instagram. Yeah, Instagram's the, the biggest. And search. Yeah, yeah, people still searching Haves.

Josh: I saw I, um, was on the Instagram account and, uh, within 30 seconds I was getting retargeted, uh, on, uh, Insta Stories. Is that a big part of the, you know, your marketing?

Tommy: That's quick.

Athan: Yeah, yeah, we, uh, we, we, we do social a lot. Uh, social is a big part of what we do. Social and search.

Josh: So just go on to their Instagram and then they'll find you.

Athan: You'll never forget us.

Tommy: I went on and I got a text message in one second from Ethan.

Josh: Actually, it was a personal message.

Athan: I can deliver food to you within 10 minutes.

Tommy: And a suitcase if you need it.

Josh: It's The Daily Talk Show. hi@thedailytalkshow.com is the email address if you want to send us an email. Also appreciate any reviews on Apple Podcasts. Otherwise, we'll see you tomorrow, guys.

Tommy: See you guys.