Felix: Today I'm joined by Kirpal Bharaj from Stay Sixty. Stay Sixty produces reusable water bottles that combine a sleek Scandinavian inspired aesthetic with intuitive design innovation and was started in 2017 and it's based out of London. Welcome Kirpal.
Kirpal: Hey, Felix.
Felix: So the idea behind this business started with your own experience with dehydration, so tell us more about that.
Kirpal: Yeah, it was funny experience. So it was just a routine blood test, just a usual checkup that you need to make sure that everything's I suppose working correctly. I suppose as you get to a certain age when you're over 30 years of age and you need to just check that things are ticking along okay. So it was a case of the nurse not being able to take any blood from my veins during a routine blood test and which I thought was really strange and quite worrying, but apparently it was just a case of just severe dehydration. And she's like, it can happen quite a lot so it's more common than we realized and actually it happened to my father as well strangely. So it urged me to obviously hydrate more regularly, but that was through single use plastic.
So the big Evian bottles and things like that until just a bit of research actually, I think it was just something I saw on TV where it basically inspired me to look a bit deeper into the environmental impacts of single use plastic water bottles. So then I started searching for a reusable bottle, but at the time there really wasn't anything that I could find that really matched the aesthetic that I look for in the accessories that I carry. So I'll be honest, I'm quite fussy about the type of things that I carry in terms of accessories, the type of clothes that I wear. It's not a case of designer labels, it's just that they need to be designed well and last long.
So I couldn't find anything that really appeal to a male audience number one, and really had the design principles, the look and the quality that would make me want to carry it on a daily basis, which I found really important. So I think I just went to my brother and said, "I think we can do a better job here. I think we've probably got the skill set to actually really have a go at this market and create something really good." So we just went for it and luckily that's kind of I suppose how we started the business back in 2017.
Felix: Obviously this is an audio format, so can you help us out by describe a little bit about what the bottle looks like? How does it stand out on the shelves?
Kirpal: Yeah, so it's very different. So I suppose firstly, I would say around 90% of the water bottles that you see are off the shelf from China. So they would have been designed a good few years ago by Chinese designers and engineers in China and what happens is people from other countries will then just buy them off the shelf and not design anything. So that's what we would never do, we started from scratch, we looked at the other products and said actually, we can make it better through a lot of different features, but in terms of the actual aesthetic is very sculptural, it's got a very distinct shape to it. A lot of that's down to it has a carry collar we call it, which is a carry strap that wraps around the neck of the bottle which has got a patented design itself which is really important for us because it gives it its real form.
Also, it has a special cap that we patented as well. So the way that works is you semi-twist the top half of it and you can drink straight through it and it regulates the liquid flow. So it allows your body to hydrate more effectively because you can't gulp, gulp, gulp. Because if you're gulping and chugging water and you're taking it down too quickly, all that will happen is your kidneys think that they are drowning and you will just have to go to the toilet and it doesn't allow your body to absorb so it just lets out all the liquid. So there's a lot of different added functional benefits, the cap in the way it allows you to hydrate and structuring straight through it, the carry collar, the actual sculptural property of it, but also the way you can carry it.
You can carry it with a forehand, you can carry it in a certain way for running, you can grab it from different angles so it's really intuitive, instead of just the usual finger loop where you can just use your finger and swing it. And also it's got a really high grade paint to it, we color match all the components, so we take ages color matching everything. Again, we thought that that was something that within the market we're in people don't take enough care and attention and thought about. Whereas, we actually take a lot of inspiration from high end audio brands, like the Bang Olufsens, the Sonos' and things like that and even Urbanears and things like Common Projects, which are a really great European footwear brand. Where if you look at the care and attention to everything on that product from the color matching, to the materials used, to the finish and the quality, that's our inspiration and that's the process we put behind our bottles and our range.
Felix: So you mentioned too that you and your brother looked at each other and said that you think they have the skill set to bring this into market, what are your backgrounds?
Kirpal: So I've got around 14, 15 years in advertising. So media strategy, also creative agencies, media agencies. Some of these will be UK based. So Virgin Media, Barclays Bank, Hendricks Gin, Sailor Jerry's Rum and quite a lot of the big tier brands, so it would be a case of understanding. So we would get a brief, we understand their audience with the tools that we have, this is your target consumer, this is how we speak to them, this is where we speak to them, these are the touch points and here's your budget. So my job would be taking that client brief and really get into the nitty gritty of consumer market, product, literally everything to say, "Here's the strategy, here's best to go out there and market your new proposition, or your new brand, or your new product."
So starting a company and starting a brand, it couldn't have been any better grounding for me personally. I thought if I'm doing it for other people, if I'm any good really, I should be able to do it for myself. And my brother Raj has a financial systems background, so he worked for a company that used to print money in the UK. He was head of financial systems there so he's got a finance background I've got more of the creative strategy background so it marries quite well, I leave him to do the numbers and then he leaves me to do the fancy stuff and it works quite nicely.
Felix: In your background in marketing and advertising what are some of the biggest lessons that you learnt in that industry that can apply to much smaller businesses and startups, as people that are just getting started for the first time? I'm assuming certain things are probably going to be much more effective than others when you're talking about larger budgets and bigger scale operations compared to a smaller company. But what are some of the big brand strategies or tactics that people can employ when they're just starting their own smaller businesses?
Kirpal: It's a good question. It's very different because you're not dealing with ridiculous amounts of budgets. I think the key thing is start from the consumer, understand the consumer, do all of your consumer research, whether it's using things like SurveyMonkey speaking to your friends, speaking to anyone that might use your product to get a real idea of the market. What they're using, how they use it and what they think of the current products out there. I'd say a key part of my previous job was the insight part of things, I think the insight part of launching a business is really, really important because without that insight you're not going to create a great product or the right product to be able to get that product market fit with it if you haven't done the groundwork in terms of consumer research.
A lot of the campaigns that I worked on were big budgets, so there would be TV, a hell of a lot of digital advertising, a lot of out of home, some radio. Obviously, things were shifting more digitally, a hell of a lot socially, but I think a lot of brands now, even the bigger brands most of their budget will be social and digital based. And especially now in the current climate I think it's just the power of social and how you can really utilize that and leverage it for your benefit as a brand really.
Felix: That makes sense. Now you mentioned the market and consumer research, the insight is it really important early on maybe even before you even have your product that exists. And obviously you created this product to fulfill your own need to design a better functioning bottle that was sustainable and also fits your aesthetic, but were you able to expand the research beyond yourself and maybe your friends or family to figure out what the market might be interested in?
Kirpal: Yeah, so we did some SurveyMonkey stuff with mainly a lot of my friends within the industry that I was in, but also within our design team as well and their friends and people like that. So a lot of it was looking at what's out there in the market, why they weren't great in terms of the products, there are some very good products, but there are some very bad products as well. So a lot of it is looking at what's already there and how we can improve it, then speaking to the consumers to see how they would use it and how we could add certain elements to the product to make it more of an accessory that they would want to carry daily around with them. What makes it a better product for them to use more regularly? So to hydrate more, but also use less single use plastic because we are adding those bits that they really want and a key to them carrying it more often I would say.
Felix: Got it. And I want to call out that this differentiation that you're making which is to first, look at the existing products on the marketplace and then think to yourself, what can be improved? And the other approach is to go out and survey your consumers or your perspective consumers and understand more about their needs as well. So it sounds like you said that you focus mostly on basically looking at the competition, looking at what exists today. What were certain things that you were looking for in terms of areas that you wanted to improve and how did you actually make those improvements?
Kirpal: Well, a few things. So a lot of the stainless steel bottles that you see in the market are quite clunky, it's actually they're not that intuitive in the way that you can drink through them. So what was really important number one is making a commercially viable product on a number of levels. So it needs to be a commercially viable retail price, so for us in the UK it's 35 pounds which is an expensive point, but it isn't a 95 pound water bottle because what we found is the tech side of things wasn't needed. So there are smart water bottles that are great, but the people that we spoke to were like, "Actually, I don't want to spend that much on a water bottle.
What I want is something that number one looks great, feels great in my hand." So that's number one that we had to look at, really great stunning visuals, really distinct and a really design led product so it looks a certain way. Number two, it's easier to hydrate from, you don't have to take a big bulky cap off all the time and keep hydrating. So I suppose we've eliminated that by the little semi-twist that allows you to drink straight through the cap. Also, it needed to be perfect for both water and coffee or tea. So a lot of times if you have like a sip cap it's either a straw, or a little hole, so the problem with that is nobody really wants to drink coffee from a straw it's just a bit weird, it's not a great user experience.
So we wanted to create a cap that is great for water hydration, is great for coffee and tea as well and then we've got the extra layers of insulation which keeps everything super fresh and super cold and super hot. So it needed to be perfect for both water, coffee and tea to make it the one bottle that you keep with you all the time so you really invest in it. So key to that was the cap really and then like I said, the aesthetics are really, really important as well.
Felix: Got it. Okay, so now you knew all these features that you wanted to add, to improve on, tell us about the design process. Once you had those ideas in your head, how do you actually turn it into a design that could be produced?
Kirpal: So when we originally launched in 2017, it was always a case of this is our MVP, this is the minimum viable product that we can release with the budget that we have. So it's a very good product, but with the budget we have is a hell of a lot of tooling. So it was making a simpler version of what we really wanted. So then we went about with our design team that we're really close with because my friend owns a design team so we work really closely, they're almost an extension of our team. It was a case of okay, here are the visuals that we like from other brands and they're not actually brands within our market just taking inspiration from them and saying, "How do we then create that in a water bottle really?"
So a lot of them were very Scandinavian, very minimal, that's the kind of look that we want and then we put pen to paper and started creating that with the team to come up with a few options to start with and then we narrow those down. There's certain functions on there as well that we added, so then we came up with a design that we really liked and thought would fit the brief. And then it was speaking to manufacturers in China to see what was possible, what the tooling costs would be which is where all the money really is, which is a really expensive outlay. And then taking it from there, what we found because it was a simpler approach for our first product, it made it easier to speak to manufacturers in China for the first time compared to the second product, which is far more technically advanced, the one that you see now where we spoke to a few manufacturers and they just couldn't produce certain elements.
So there's a lot to be said for a simpler product, it makes it easier to manufacture, but that was the brief to start with, but the brief now was a very different approach in a very different busy market to create a much better product. So it was designing something and then taking it to certain manufacturers to see the cost of it and then once we had the right manufacturer, the right costs, it was a case of then prototyping, tooling and then manufacturing on mass.
Felix: Got it, because I want to break this down a bit. So you first started off by working with the design team where your input was just to bring them essentially designs from other industries and said, "How do we replicate this in a water bottle?" So what was the iteration process? How long did it take from the time that you brought a bunch of photos of other products or other products that you want to replicate in the bottle? And then like you mentioned, some audio companies that you want to replicate their design, how long does that take between you having an idea of elements of other products that you won't put into yours, and then actually having something that you can see with your own eyes?
Kirpal: I'd say the first thing that you would see with your own eyes is obviously, the sketches. Honestly, that would probably take a good two or three months if you're doing it right. And then from there it's the 3D visuals, that can take another maybe two months, then it's prototyping. So what we did is a rapid prototype in the UK first to 3D printing, that would be another couple of weeks. But then what we did this time around is create a really great prototype with our manufacturer, that took around a month to create that first prototype. That prototype then wasn't 100%, we had to go back and get certain functional elements right, that took another two months. So it's a long process, if you want to get it right it really is a long process. So from initial I suppose idea down to getting that prototype, the prototype that you want to sign off was probably around eight months.
Felix: So you mentioned the first product was rapid prototyping with 3D printing, what's the benefit of doing it? I guess maybe the pros and cons of going with 3D printing for your first prototype, instead of just going straight to the manufacturer, which is what it sounded like you did for the second version?
Kirpal: So that was purely for sizing and to see because the product is so sculptural, how it would look. Because it was so quick and simple for us to do it we thought, why not? Let's check this, let's sense check the 3D drawings if you have the approach to just see how it looks. So the 3D printing, there was no functionality, the cap didn't work for example and the strap for example, didn't come off so it was more just the look of it. And it was just to say, "Yes, this looks right." So what we did when we first did the 3D printing, what we could see straight away the strap was too big. So that allowed us to recalibrate, change the sizing, take it in a little bit before we sent everything to the manufacturer. So it cut out that process further down the line which is what would have just happened. So it was just almost a sense check with the quick 3D printing more than anything else.
Felix: So during all these phases between the sketches, to the mock ups, to the 3D printing prototypes, do you put this in the hands of any potential consumers or target customers? Is there any testing that goes on during these stages?
Kirpal: I would say the first part of consumer testing is when we have a prototype from the manufacturer where there is some functionality elements. So I would say that was almost an alpha test where it was a case of people within our circle were testing it. So it only it was probably around five or six people, so the design team, us as founders, also just people that were close just to kind of sense check. What do you think? How does it look? How does it function? I suppose we've got a tight knit group of people that we really trust and we really rely on to give us good sound opinions because they have very similar tastes.
The ascetics that they like are very similar to us, the brands that they really like are very similar to what we like so I suppose we have some trusted people that we can always go to and get their opinion. So that's the first bit. The next stage was when we had a proper colored pre-production samples, then we went out and spoke to a few retailers and that's when it was more of a beta test I suppose.
Felix: Do you remember any tweaks or changes that you and the team wanted to make after these rounds of testing?
Kirpal: Yeah. So like I said, the first one was changing the size of the strap through the 3D printing. Through the functional prototype that we got from China, there was a hell of a lot that changed in the cap in terms of the way that it would stop in a certain point because it was actually very difficult to get a quarter turn and get the panel, there's a top panel that drops. So you basically quarter turn the top half of the cap, the top panel drops and you can drink through it, but what was happening to start with it was just like an infinite turn, which is just pointless.
So there was a hell of a lot of re-engineering to get the cap right, it was mainly the cap that's the most difficult part of the product. Everything else I would say was kind of, okay. Then when we were testing samples and testing colors, that's when there was a hell of a lot of paint testing, the right paint, the right finish, the right logo finish, the right finish on the silicon strap, the right finish on the cap, because like I said, even just color matching the component components took us absolutely ages just to get them right. So there's a lot of iterations along the way, we took our time to get it right really.
Felix: How did you know when you had a version that was ready to start bringing to manufacturers? I guess for your first version how did you know that okay, this is good enough for us to start looking for a manufacturer to do some production runs?
Kirpal: Good question. So we the manufacturer in place when we had the signed off sample, so we already had them in place. So we were already having conversations with a partner that was recommended to us. So we did our due diligence, so we knew that they were really, really good and we have a great partnership with them so that was great. So it was more I suppose when we had a certain sample that we could sign off with that manufacturer. The whole process was probably around 12 months of design, development, prototyping. And that moment it was just a plain stainless steel version, so it's kind of pre-tooled, but still stainless steel so it wasn't colored, none of the components were colored, but we could understand the functionality.
And it was that moment where I sipped from the cap, the flow was just perfect and the functionality was just right. I'm very fussy and it was an instant smile on my face and it was like, "Bingo! This is perfect. This is what we wanted, I'm really happy." I'm quite a hard man to please so it got to stage where I was really happy and then it was a case of finger on the button in terms of now we can get the colored samples, the functionality signed off. Now let's go for it. And once the colors are signed off then it's a case of yeah, hit the button on production.
Felix: Got it. First of all, finding the wrong manufacturer can cause a lot of headaches for you, but you mentioned that you found the right one and have a great relationship with them. Any tips here on identifying the right manufacturer to work with?
Kirpal: Yeah. So to give you a bit of background, so the first product that we created was with a different manufacturer than the one we have now. So we sold out of our range at a certain point, but we were still in the process of moving manufacturing, but we wanted to take our time to get it right and get the right manufacturers on board and get everything spot on. So we had a phase of around six or seven months that we were completely offline, and we had people coming to us and saying, "Can we still buy your product?" And retailers saying, "Can we still get your product?" So, "No, I'm really sorry but we don't want to sell that. If you can wait for a few months then we'll bring something new and you'll love it and we'll take it from there."
So one of the reasons that we shifted was they were not a great manufacturer. There are a lot of things that can go wrong in manufacturing general obviously, there's a hell of a lot that can go wrong in China, especially with IP potentially, or just communication not being great. So we learn a hell of a lot from being quite green and almost too trusting with people we didn't really know. So then moving forward, we have NNN agreements, we have multi lingual manufacturing agreements, we have everything in paper, all of our IP is protected in China as well. So we have really done things properly this time compared to the first time when you just don't know, and you just jump in.
But then what's really important is having that trusted manufacturer so first time around we went through Alibaba which wasn't a great idea. Trade shows in China or in Hong Kong are a great place to find manufacturers, like I said, ours was recommended to us, if you can get a recommendation pretty much on anything, but especially a manufacturer it's worth its weight in gold if you know they work with good people and good brands. The manufacturer we work with some of the biggest brands so we knew we're in good hands as well there. So it's always good to understand who they work with, what they manufacture and taking a look at the quality of that production and we knew we're in safe hands as soon as we saw the quality of their output and who they worked with.
Felix: Awesome. So you mentioned too about a lot of the potentially unknown or hidden costs with working with a manufacturer for the first time, can you go over some of those and what are certain things that maybe surprised you or that you can foresee other first time entrepreneurs being surprised by when it comes to working with a manufacturer for prototyping or a production run?
Kirpal: I think a lot of people don't realize the tooling costs involved in certain aspects of I suppose designing and creating your product. So obviously you need a tool or a mold to create certain components of a product and that can cost a fortune, especially if you have a lot of components in your product. So always scope out estimates for tooling I would say is really important before you really do a lot of things. Because you could have designed something that's great and you're really happy with it, you could have paid a design team a lot of money to create that and then you don't realize that you need to spend six figures on tooling something to kind of Kai-Bosch has everything.
Also, for us I think quality control with any manufacturing is really important. On our first round of production, we had to actually get a quality control team to check every single individual product because we weren't 100% on the quality of their output. That cost a fortune, they had to check every single bottle before we shipped it. So you don't want to get yourself in a situation where you have to have such an extensive QC process because it will cost you a fortune and a lot of that stems from basically bad manufacturing. We didn't have to do that this time, we had a good level of quality control where again, it's a third party team who go in and check a sample size of your product.
They will check everything from the packaging, from the barcodes to the quality of the paint finishing, from the insulation to the way that certain things have functioned, absolutely through the weight of the product, to the size of the packaging, everything. So always have an extensive QC process. If all goes well, it should just be a sample size of your whole production run just to more of a case of sense checking and it just puts your mind at ease more than anything else because if you have a good manufacturer then the quality of the production should be good anyway. So it's making sure you have a good manufacturer is the key and most important thing in China I would say in terms of manufacturing.
Felix: Got it. So that first production run where you were creating units for sale, how big was that?
Kirpal: The first initial production run was for the first product or the new range?
Felix: The first product.
Kirpal: So that was I think was around 6,000 units.
Felix: How did you get traffic to the store once you got those up? 6,000 units, how were you able to get prospective customers to come and check out the product?
Kirpal: So that was pretty much I think all through Facebook, so all Facebook advertising. So I'm self taught, I do all the social advertising, paid social in house so it was jus everything through Facebook and Instagram in terms of getting your funnels right. Obviously back then it would all be perspective awareness based targeting to really get our brand out there and it seemed to work quite well, because I suppose the initial product launched in a stage where less competition in our market, now there's a hell of a lot more competition and there's a hell of a lot more people on Facebook trying to get eyeballs and impressions. So we had pretty good cut through, some good creative, and a product that was distinct and stood out. So all of those things worked really well for us on Facebook and allowed us to pretty effectively and efficiently sell all of our stock within a certain amount of time obviously.
Felix: Got it. Okay, so with Facebook advertising you mentioned at first was just putting awareness for your brand, for your product, how do you introduce a new product, a new brand to a marketplace that as you know obviously has never heard of you before?
Kirpal: I've always said that product is king or queen, so what we do is focus on our product as much as we can. So the quality of it, the look the aesthetic, then photograph it, make sure your photography and your images is high end as it possibly can be, but be distinct, be bold, be different, be better, is almost our mantra. And by doing that, it's easier to get your paid marketing, your earned marketing and your own channels to work a hell of a lot more effectively and efficiently. So because our brand it was more distinct, is a very different looking product and is very high end in terms of the premium aesthetics, the premium website and everything that we would do, it allowed us to get awareness and cut through probably more than we should have.
Every pound that we would spend work efficiently because we took our time to create a very, very good product, get the branding right, get the imagery right which made our paid for channels work better and more effectively and more efficiently. And then the creative was very distinctly, we used some really nice gifs and stop animation and some really high end photography and it allowed us to cut through and do pretty well within our market and within Facebook, which is everyone's feed now is full of ads so you just have to be distinct and be bold and be better whether it's your product or whether it's your advertising as well. So it was about being distinctive to get the awareness really.
Felix: Got it. So you did you hire outside an agency to do the photography? It sounds like you did have photos, but also some animation or video as well for the product?
Kirpal: Yeah, so it's all outsourced. We have a good tight knit team of photographers, animators and people that we work with that gives us the premium look and feel that we want. I always think get the best images that you can, the best photographer that you can, obviously on budget, but if it makes you feel like a much bigger brand. And especially for us, we're we're asking people to spend £35 on a water wall so we have to have everything looking right and everything super premium. So the photography is a real part of that because especially on Instagram, everything is super visual at the moment so we outsource everything just to get the highest quality that we really can.
Felix: Got it. Now how do you effectively work with a photographer or a creative agency that you hire to make sure that the assets, the creative that you get at the end of the day ends up the way that you want it to look?
Kirpal: So I see myself as a co-founder and a creative director as well, so I kind of not storyboard the shoot, but I know what I want or what we want as a team. We've got an idea of the aesthetic that we want and again, a lot of that is looking at other brands and again, it's not in our market, it's brands in other markets that we really like that kind of imagery. And then we'll just speak to the photographer and say, "Look, we love this, can we emulate that?"
What we'll do, we'll have a set designer as well as part of that and then between us we come up with a mood board of what we want. And then the set designer will create the assets, but we will be at the shoot to make sure everything looks right and that everything's on brand, I suppose. But we're confident the people that we use, so they understand the aesthetic that we want and it's just more of us to be there to again, it's just a sense check. It might be a bit of input here and there, a bit of direction in the styling and things like that and that's kind of it.
Felix: At the end of that shoot, do you remember how many assets you walked away with for your advertising and what a good amount that other entrepreneurs should aim for to have enough for you to use in paid advertising?
Kirpal: This is a good question. I like to get as much as I can, probably too much sometimes, I probably pushed my luck a little bit in terms of the amount of output that I want from a shoot. Sometimes you think that can be a good thing, but what happens is it can deteriorate the quality of certain things. I personally think now it should be a case of focusing, understanding what you want from a shoot. So whether it is a still life shoot, whether it's a lifestyle shoot, whether it is animation, what we've done sometimes is try and to squish them together and have everything in one.
We've had a shoot where we've had probably around 50 to 60 assets and I would say we've probably used about 20 of them whereas, I think we could have got better quality if we had separated things which is what we do now. So when you get photographers that are better at certain things and will specialize in certain things whether that is still life versus lifestyle, what we've done before is tried to put still life in a lifestyle shoot in one and it hasn't worked anywhere near as good as focusing particular shoots. But I would say you would want at least 20 assets that you can use from a shoot.
Felix: Got it. Okay, so now once you set up those Facebook ads with those assets that you have where are you driving them? Is it just to a product page or where on your website do you drive paid traffic to?
Kirpal: It's a bit of both, so it depends. So if we're using a carousel ad, and carousel ads can work really, really well, so that's where you would show like a collection of products that you have on sale. So for us it works well because currently we have four products, they're all the same product, but just in different colors. So we just have the four in a carousel with color matched backgrounds and it is really distinct and it works really well. It's minimal, but it creates good cut through and what I've noticed on Facebook if you get it right, what seems to happen with carousel ads is you get a hell of a lot more impressions than a normal one unit ad so that could work quite well.
And what that does, that drive straight to that product page of that particular ad so it's almost like a shopping page, a shop listing page on Facebook. So you can select the product you want to look at, click on it and go straight to that product page. That works well because there's less friction, but the problem is it doesn't allow you to do that mid sales point, which is sell people into the brand unless they're going back into the website, then it's a bit counterintuitive. So we have a combination, we have like a carousel ad that goes straight to the product page and it's a lot less friction in terms of that purchase journey, but then we have some animation which drives just straight to the homepage.
So what that does is allow people to flow through, understand the brand, understand what we do in terms of our sustainability initiatives. They can see more images of the product and why we're better and the spec of the product so it's a combination of both really. Then we have retargeting ads at two different levels, actually we have I think three different levels at the moment. One is just people that have clicked on the website and that optimizes for purchases, abandoned carts, and then a reach base one which is a much more cost efficient in terms of hit more numbers. It's more mid funnel retargeting, as opposed to hitting more people that have clicked on the website. So there's quite a few layers in the way we do it.
Felix: So I think when especially when you're just starting out when you have smaller budgets, I think it's easy to default to think transactionally like how do I get the sale now? If I show an ad now and they click on it, how do I get the sale within the next minute? You're saying that sometimes or for you, you also have this desire to sell them into the brand. Can you say more about that? If you were to do that and sell them into the brand first and the mission and the values, where do you take them and what does that look like once they arrive?
Kirpal: I suppose there's a couple of things. So we try not to green wash people by talking about plastic pollution all the time, that's a real problem at the moment. There are too many brands that are just talking about that and actually don't have a great product so we try not to talk about plastic too much. We do on our ethos page and I suppose firstly it is the design principles and we sell them into the design of the brand and why it's better, why it's tangibly better. And also a more of a slow fashion look at it, so you buy better, you buy less, which means that there's less natural resource being used, there's less carbon being emitted because you're buying it once and then you keep it because it's made so well.
So that's one thing in terms of the sustainability story. Then the other part of the sustainability story is the fact that we help with the prevention and collection of single use plastics in the ocean through partnership with Plastic Bank. So we donate to them as part of each purchase to help, almost offer a root cause solution to plastic pollution. We also offset all of our carbon through wind farms in is it Luzon think is in the Philippines. So there's there's a lot of different elements to it. So we drive people to the homepage, that's more about the aesthetic and the design of it and the slow fashion and the quality, then if people want to actually find out more about our ethos then there's another page that talks about the more kind of us giving back and helping in terms of offering a root cause solution to plastic pollution.
So there's a couple of ways we look at it, but we don't oversell it, we don't hammer people with it. There's nothing about it in our adverts, our adverts are just, here's the product, here's why it's better and then we sell them into the sustainability initiatives and the slow fashion element within the different pages on our website.
Felix: So I want to talk about the almost like cost benefit of this approach to sell them into the brand, sell them into the values that you hold as a company, as a brand first. So when you do that obviously, the con to that is that they may not buy on their first visit because of the additional friction that you mentioned before. What is the benefit? Does that create a more valuable customer over time? What does it do for you as a business if you are on the first touchpoint selling them on the brand and the values first?
Kirpal: Personally for me, I think every brand should have a purpose I think that's really key. Currently moving forward more than ever, that brands with purpose will resonate more with the right consumers and will stand out if they're doing good. So for us, it's not just a branding exercise we want to do good I supposed to people as a brand, it's really important to us. So it's something that we would always want to do, we always wanted to do as part of setting up a business is how do we have positive impact on things around us really whatever that can be? So we always wanted to be a positive company in that way. So for us, it's just that this is our brand, this is what we do and people like it because it makes sense and all of the initiatives that we do make sense in terms of the product that we have.
Because it is naturally we are reducing single use plastic by people buying our product, but then we are also offering another solution. So first and foremost, I think brands need to have a purpose. At the moment you will see more and more brands doing it, I think pretty much all brands will be doing it now. But I think consumers can then understand that they can trust you as a business, you're doing the right things so that trust then can lead to more sales. And more repeat customers they will talk about you more to people, so more word of mouth so there's a variety of ways of looking at it, but first and foremost is for us personally we would always want to start a brand with purpose.
Felix: Got it. So not necessarily go a profit and loss statement decision that you're making, this is more about almost for personal reasons, which is obviously totally valid. So you mentioned to us that one of the best ways for you to drive more new customers is through PR, so you've been featured in British GQ, Wallpaper* magazine, The Guardian, how were you able to land that kind of press?
Kirpal: Thankfully the press got behind us quite well. We used a PR agency, so we did outsource that so a really good team and we used them again for the launch of our new product. And also because again, being a brand with purpose it does help because it does give you that story, it does help with the press. It gives them something to talk about and also again I've always said, if you have a really, really great product that really helps with that earned media which PR is and people talking about you because it's like, "Okay, we can see this is tangibly very different. Okay, this is why it's different. Okay, this is the positive things it does. Okay, I can talk about that, it gives me more to talk about as a journalist."
So we use a PR agency, but because of what we're doing and how we're doing it I suppose we're giving them more to talk about, our press releases then have more information, more of a story and allows journalists to get on board with it really. And what we do also is certain journalists we will send out sample to, so all of the press that you see they would have had a sample of our product. Which is great for us because it means that they love the product and then they talk about it. So again, it leads back to having a great product.
Felix: Right. I think press at the end of the day is just a retelling of your story, your original story of your brand so if you don't have a story or your story is only, I have a product and there's nothing bigger than the product then it's really hard for price to do their job because there's nothing to retell to certain degree. So I think that's important, the benefit of having a story, a brand story while you're doing it makes the job easier for press outlets to tell your story because they have something to work with. So I think that makes a lot of sense of how this all ties together. Now you mentioned to us as well that another great way for you to drive traffic is through these best of guides. So can say more about that for anyone out there that might not know what that is? Can you explain what are these best guides?
Kirpal: For us it's when people are searching 'best reusable water bottle' or 'best water bottle to buy in the UK'. For us that's really important, we need to do more of it, we have a few hits that work really well for us because it's a great part of the purchase journey. So if someone is I don't know, if you're making no idea, a hat for example, bad example, but if you're in the best hats to wear this summer guide and it's online, the majority of people are going to be googling what's the best hat to buy this summer? Then naturally if you're in I don't know, GQ or something that's naturally going to rank really high in terms of Google ranking. So it funnels into your purchase journey, but then adds a really amazing layer of trust if a publication is recommending your product and you're already an active seeker for it, then that will obviously link to your website and it does a lot of the heavy lifting for you is how I look at it.
And it adds that layer of trust sales in your product before they've even got to your website and that's like gold. And we've had that specific piece where we had a really great write up in the 12 best reusable water bottles. And like I said, the conversion rate from that is the highest that we have from any anything in any channel because again, it does all the heavy lifting, it tells you about the product, but it's being recommended by a key journalist. So then as soon as they come to your website, which links straight to the product page, they don't even look at the ethos page and everything else they're already sold and they've already bought it within the space of a couple of minutes.
Felix: Yeah. There's no better way to sell a product in a lot of cases than a strong testimonial and especially an unbiased one from an external party that has some authority to them is the best combination to you to selling for you. You mentioned that one of your goals is to get into more of these best guides, how do you do that? How do you make sure you get on them? Obviously, having a great product is a table stakes, you have to have a great product, but what is the process, the outreach process to get on more of these guides?
Kirpal: So we found that it really is having the contacts. So again, it's the PR agency for us. I've tried personally, sometimes it works, but the PR agencies have all of the right contacts, they take them out for lunch, they're on the phone to them all the time, they're emailing them all the time so they have the relationship, it's far easier. Then what happens is they know when the guides are coming out or if they're looking to get onto a guide. They will check with the journalist which they probably have a relationship with already is it being updated? If it is great, can we send you a sample? So for us our PR agency does that for us. It works a hell of a lot more efficiently than a cold email from us, which we've tried.
It works sometimes, but not everyone can afford a PR agency so you can go to a freelancer for example to do your PR, but make sure they're in the right industry that you're in because that means that they will have the right contacts. So it's the case of understanding when those best guides will be updated, who the journalist is, making that contact whether it's yourself or your agency or your freelancer, and then follow up with a sample because they'll have to test it.
Felix: Got it. How do you find a PR agency that will work for you, that's going to be a good fit for you? It sounds like a lot of your marketing has been credited to finding a PR agency that is doing amazing work for you. So how do you find one that does the good work for you?
Kirpal: So there are a lot of agencies out there and there are a lot of agencies that will charge a lot of money as well. So I would say speak to as many as you can, if you can get a recommendation that's always the best way. So for us, I can't remember who they worked with who I really liked and I saw something on Instagram, and then found out who did the PR, and then found out through there because the hit, the press hit it was great. Actually you know what? I think it was a music artist I really like because I'm really into music and it was a piece. That music artists was wearing a pair of socks that our PR agency had basically sent him and that's how I found out and then I looked at their roster and it was all kinds of high end tech, premium tech brands actually and a lot of audio brands as well.
So it was kind of like, "Okay, this is interesting, this could fit." It's a little bit different for them, and high end eyewear and things like that they do, but the brands that they have are great which means that they'll have all the right contacts. So spoke to them and I really believe in having the right personality fit as well because you can speak to people and instantly see that they probably won't be the right partner because the fit isn't there. But as soon as I spoke to our team it was like, "Okay, good guys, we can trust them." And also just relaxed, not too salesy, not too pushy because a lot of the PR agencies are very salesy and very pushy because that's what they do on a daily basis is sell your product to journalists.
So it's getting that right fit, it's finding the roster that they have if it's right, if it's similar to yours which means that the journalist contacts that they have will be in the right market for you as well. But I think how we did it is if you look at a brand that you like, find out who their PR agency and then that might be a good way of doing it, an easy way of doing it.
Felix: Got it. I like that approach which is to look for people that are getting the results that you want and working your way backwards to find out who's getting those kinds of results. And you mentioned too that as with anything with any kind of business relationship that personal fit is so key, you don't want to dread picking up the phone or having meetings with someone that you depend on so much for the success of your business. So I want to talk about maybe some of the apps or tools that you rely on, more of the products that you rely on to help run the business. Can you tell us some that you recommend?
Kirpal: Yeah. So we've recently set up Yotpo for reviews which certainly you really need reviews and verified reviews on your website. So we set that up a few months ago. It's good, it's okay, it can be quite clunky sometimes, but it does what we need it to do so that's okay for now. We use MailChimp at the moment again, I think that's probably something that we could probably phase out, we're looking at other alternatives as well. So we probably need to be stronger on our app game to be honest, in terms of our Shopify platform. They're the main ones that we use at the moment, then we've got certain bespoke ones that allow us to add certain features to our pages that aren't standard on Shopify.
So there are apps built in by our developers that allow certain flows and certain elements to the product, but I'll be honest, I'm not that techie to remember the name of it. So I think we could be a lot stronger on our app game, but I think for us that the key for Shopify is it was so great to set up, to design, to make it as bespoke as we wanted to. but then the back end is super easy to use that we can look at it daily and update anything. We have a designer and a developer that we use to get things looking as we want it so it's more I think for us need we need a few more apps that we're looking at, but it's more the aesthetic at the moment that we've got in a certain place.
Felix: Got it. Awesome. So staysixty.com is their website, staysixty.com. Now I'll leave you this last question. Looking forward, what do you think is going to be the biggest challenge that you will face?
Kirpal: The biggest challenge for everyone and especially small businesses is the new norm after COVID, how does that look? How does that change consumers purchasing behavior? Will there be less consumer confidence? How does that affect digital sales? How do you optimize the D2C side of things, because retail is going to be a completely different ballgame? So there's a hell of a lot that comes out of what has happened with COVID-19 and how do we respond to it as small businesses as digital native businesses? How do we best optimize for the new normal I suppose and make the most of people buying digitally more than they ever have, but having less consumer confidence? So it's seeing what happens in the next few months and after COVID-19, understanding what the new norm really is, and then seeing how you can really respond to it from there really.
Felix: Yeah, I'm sure that's the same thought a lot of entrepreneurs mind. So I appreciate you coming on and sharing your experience and thank you so much Kirpal.
Kirpal: Cheers, Felix.