179 - Revolutionizing Natural Remedies with Innovative Sticker Solutions with NATPAT's Michael Jankie

Welcome to Listening with Leaders. I'm Doug Noll, lawyer turned peacemaker. I teach executive leaders how to listen to emotions rather than words so that they can become the leaders everyone wants to follow. And I teach those same leaders how to be authentically present, available, and connected to their families despite being insanely busy. I have learned that we are 98% emotional and only 2% rational. Learning how to listen to emotions is, in my experience, the foundational skill of life. Stick around to the end of the show, and I'll reveal how you can be on our next guest in 15 to 20 minutes. So let's get started.

Michael Jenky from Australia, of all places, and here I am in California. Um, welcome to Listening with Leaders.

And thank you, thank you for having me.

You're welcome. Let's just start off with, well, first of all, you are the founder and CEO of a company called NatPat, which can be found at natpat.com, one of the most fascinating company startups I've heard of a long time. Let's, let's start with your background. SaaS background in tech to a consumer product that has gone off the charts with success. There's a story there, Michael. Let us have it.

Yeah, I'll start with just firstly, in Australia, we have this, I guess, ethos or saying around tall poppies. So we're not very good, diametrically opposed to the American dream of, you know, anyone can make it. In Australia, we generally don't talk ourselves up because other people will cut us down. So it's not that I need to be humble, but I will talk humbly because it's, you know, in some ways unique. In some ways, I think it's just unlocking sort of natural abilities that probably everyone has in some way or another. So I'll actually start a little bit earlier. So my formal degree or my formal education is I have a Bachelor of Dramatic Art in Theatre Production. And what that means practically is I went to drama school to learn how to be a lighting designer and a production manager, which are both creative roles and non-creative roles. And I ran a business for about 10 years from when I was very young, probably 18, 19. I really started a business. I never really had a proper job or proper gainful employment. It's always been working for me and I guess hustling a system. And that, you know, honestly, that we could go back even further till I was about 5 or 6 years old, 7 years old, when growing up with my good mate Gary, who's one of my business partners today, about 100 meters or what's that, about 300 feet down the road. And we used to, fortunately our parents allowed us or didn't care enough to worry about us too much. They allowed us to, I guess, you know, roam the streets and start our entrepreneurial journey way back then. So we used to have a lot of fun, a lot of imagination came into things, but we would be selling things down the street. We'd be figuring out how to make a buck, so to speak, how to turn, you know, a leaf into 50 cents. And so that really kicked things off, probably why I've never really been gainfully employed. And always sort of figured out, ah, how do you make a bit of money and You know, it's sort of funny, I remember when I was 18 or 19 and I was doing a little lighting job whilst I was studying at university. I remember making $500 for a night's work and thinking back then, wow, that's sort of quite easy. You know, it's probably, I don't know, 8 hours work, $500. This is, if I could do this every day, I'd be rich. And you know, these things progress and I think when you're young, you learn a lot of lessons and the best way to describe my first 10 years of my career working in live entertainment. That was sort of my MBA into business. I think when I finally exited that business, it wasn't for huge sums of money, but it was a long education after 10 years. You know, I think when we sold the business that we were running then, it was maybe about 30 people working more or less full-time. Lots of inventory, lots of debt, lots of lots of staff. And I remember thinking, you know, this whole— towards the end of that last 2, 3 years of that business, I remember thinking, I just want to be out on the road enjoying being creative or enjoying, I guess, the magic of live performance, which is if you sort of block your ears and close your eyes, the audience has nothing. So everything that comes from unblocking your ears and opening your eyes for an audience is something that I had been a part of creating and I wasn't doing that towards the end of that business and really didn't enjoy that. And there was a number of other things I learned along that lesson. But after that or during, towards the end of that period, I had rekindled my friendship with this guy Gary that we'd known since we were about 3 or 4 years old and had been, you know, hustling in business for a while. And we started entering into the world of software businesses and it was sort of just interesting. It was a mix of sales, sales, direct sales and software and we were doing that for a number of years and we'd actually been on the hunt for a direct-to-consumer product that worked well within consumer product frameworks for online sales. And yeah, we sort of dreamed it up and it sounds like a big leap, but it's not. I think everything is about having an— using natural skills to understand what a consumer is looking for and then applying frameworks of how this can work better than other people have done in the past. And I think there's a big lesson in understanding a consumer but also not understanding a market. So I think when you understand a market too much, you lack an ability to innovate.

Right.

And so you, you can't, you can't see beyond the rules that you think exist. And so coming to a new market like, you know, physical goods was sort of a lot easier probably for me not knowing anything because I didn't know what to not try at the start and was able to learn and iterate quickly.

So Nat Pat, I mean, I love your internet tagline. I mean, your LinkedIn tagline, I sell stickers on the internet.

And tell us about that. You know, that's really funny. And, you know, coming back to that term, it's, I still get, I get great looks. People ask me, you know, maybe functions where I'll meet someone or I'll be introduced to someone and they'll be, oh, you know, what do you do? And I'm like, ah, I sell stickers on the internet. And I always get these looks of, okay. You know, but it's, you know, that line really came because, because my kids were in the car one day with a friend and the friend was talking about what, what her parents did for a living. And, you know, my kids were like, oh yeah, my dad sells stickers. And I'm like, yeah, that's true. I sell stickers on the internet. And I think it's just, it's a sort of fun line. It's harder for me to get away with it at this stage because we are in 7,000, 8,000 sort of rooftops or retail doors around the world. So it's not quite just on the internet anymore. But yeah, that That's my favorite line. And if anything, if I, if I can only hope that my kids understand that, you know, I sell stickers on the internet and they think that's serious. That's, that's the best outcome.

Yeah. So for the audience, what Michael's company does is they sell stickers that are very carefully and technically designed to solve certain problems. For example, mosquitoes. You put a sticker on, it's got a citronella base in it, and the citronella, as I think most people know, drives mosquitoes away. So you put your sticker on your shirt and you're mosquito-free. You've got, you've got stickers that have essential oils that have scientifically based mood-altering capabilities, like for kids that are high-stressed, it calms them down. Or if they need to focus, it's got essential oils that they put their sticker on and it helps them to focus. And a number of really clever products on very colorful, character-based stickers that kids can use, or parents can use for their kids to help their kids navigate the world. Is that a fair statement of what that—

yeah.

Yeah, I think, you know, we— it's their functional stickers, fun being the operative word. They, you know, we like to think of it as, I guess, natural remedies that, you know, use tools that, I guess, you know, pharmaceutical companies can't really patent. So it's not that interesting to go to market, but they're sort of— they're lower impact. You know, our view is before going for a chemical or a drug or a hormone,, you know, try something lighter weight on the body, something that, that doesn't affect, you know, kids or people so much. Uh, try that, try this first. And, and like, if it works, like, you know, aren't you way better off than, you know, melatonin or sleeping tablets or DEET spray or, you know, all these other, all these other harsher, higher impact tools.

Wow. So you've been doing this now, you found, founded the company in 2020.

Yeah. Yeah. So we launched it sort of April, May 2020. So it's, it now feels like a very long time.

Yeah.

Right. Well, it was, we'd honestly, our iteration process, we see it as a bit slow. So we'd started talking about this business in November 2019. We'd sort of mapped out the parts for it in our heads as we do when we launch a business. But then it wasn't until pandemic really hit and Australia was really heavy with lockdowns that my co-founder Zion went, you know, now's a great time to launch this. Why not add some more moving parts onto the plate of, you know, managing office shutdowns and customer cancellations.

Right. But people were going outside because that's the only thing you could do.

They were going outside and, you know, we sort of had a feeling that e-commerce was going to have a bit of a boom with deliveries. You know, we certainly didn't predict everything, but we also knew, we also knew when we, you know, back in November that this product was, it was inevitable that it would work. It just needed to be launched and needed time and focus.

So here you are, what, 5 years later?

Roughly.

Not even, 3, 3 and a half.

3 and a half. Okay. 3 and a half years later and you got, I don't know, 6, 7 different products out there.

Yeah, I think we're up to maybe 10, 10 different products.

Something like that. I didn't see them all, but I saw there was, you know, a fair number of products over 3 years. That you, I think you just mentioned you're in somewhere between 6,000 and 7,000 retail stores plus your online presence. What gets, now that you got this thing going and it's flying, what gets you up in the morning and gets you excited?

Yeah. So it's definitely, so it's sort of funny you said, you know, now it's a number of products. I would say like people push us to make 50, 60 different products. And that's not in our nature. And, you know, we are in all those stores. And so coming back to your question, what, What I guess all this means is we've very purposefully grown this company, not in a, not so much a sustainable way in terms of time and efficiency, but in a way that we want to run a business. And so what that really means is over the years, all of us as founders have learned what we like and don't like to do in a business. And so speaking for myself, what I've certainly learned is that I don't love managing people. In fact, I don't enjoy managing people. What I enjoy is getting my hands dirty. I enjoy doing things. I enjoy discovering things, learning things. I enjoy putting something together and putting it out to the world. And, you know, that wouldn't exist if, you know, my hands weren't part of that. And that goes back, you know, to 20 years ago, my days in showbiz when, you know, when it was the, you know, block your ears and shut your eyes sort of mentality. And so what gets me up every day is like sort of new and exciting challenges, whether it be to, I don't know, register a company in Europe or to design some new products or to test some fun marketing ideas. They're the sort of things that sort of get me up and excited. It's these things that seem, I don't know, hard to other people, but easier for me. And I think the easier for me is also just because I'm good at making something from nothing. I'm not good at, what I would say is I'm not good at, you know, there's this theory of the zero to one theory. I'm very good at zero to one.

Right.

And not many people are. So that's turning nothing into something. Right. But when something gets a bit bigger and more serious and, you know, requires larger human resources, that's where I just sort of tap out and go, this is not fun. It's not for me. I'm not very good at it.

Yeah. So you're really, you're like so many people I've met, you're really good at creating stuff and you love creating stuff. But once it gets to a level where it has mature management and it's just sort of sustaining a growth and doing all the business stuff, you said, I'm out of here.

Yeah. I mean, pretty much. And like history proves that I'll probably mainly with Gary probably started as 7 or 8 businesses that we get to a certain point and we just go, we tap out and we go, no, this is like, it's, we've built what we, yeah, we've built what we can build. This requires someone to just follow processes and, you know, SOPs and get it done and keep growing. Yeah.

So with NatPat, what, what, what does that, what does that mean? Does that mean that you, you'll grow it up to a certain level? I mean, you've had really spectacular growth so far, but then just from your own how you understand yourself, it'll be time for you to either exit the company, sell the company, or move on and do something different. Is that kind of what you're saying?

Yeah. Yeah. Levels. So levels are really hard to, I guess, figure out. So most people go, oh, you build it to a certain revenue size or this or that. And my views on revenue and size of revenue are not linear in terms of relationship to, you know, how hard something is. I think it's just pick a number and think differently. Not all in all cases, but in many cases. I think this business, we will, you know, we have plans on, you know, a certain number of, I guess, customers and locations and, you know, growth. But, you know, certainly it's an 8-figure-a-year business. You know, we may well be able to get it to 9 figures before we have to hire some serious staff. And that, and so for us, it's more, you know, what next is It's letting someone else take the reins at the right time. You know, the right time might be when it gets, I don't know, things are more about compliance than new product or more about, you know, sales meetings than, you know, new marketing strategies. That's probably the time where it gets there, where, you know, maybe it's not growing at 100% year on year where it's growing, you know, far more sustainably in terms of revenue growth and and distribution growth. But yeah, and what, what for us, I don't know.

But at least you don't, I mean, you may not be able to quantify when that is, but qualitatively you have a sense that when we—

I think, yeah, qualitatively when, when it gets a, when it gets like when we need more staff more and less innovation, I think it's that point where we sort of go, we need a partner to, to really take this to the next level because we won't succeed taking it to the next level on our own.

As you look back on your career, what do you think is unique about you that's got you where you are today?

Yeah, I think, you know, privilege is this really interesting term that gets flown around and, you know, as a white male, people talk about privilege and white male privilege and that's certainly there. But I think The privilege is something that we all have, and it's about taking our environment and understanding how we can take learnings from our environment, be it how we grew up, be it socioeconomic, or be it, you know, anything. How, you know, what lessons we've learned and how do you convert that into that is a superpower or a skill that I understand that I can take and I can, you know, manipulate and grow. I think I'm very fortunate that, you know, successful or otherwise, I come from a family of, I guess, people who ran their own businesses. So I was never modeled to see family members having a day job and, you know, living life of earning a paycheck to come home at, you know, 5 PM or whatever it was and have dinner and, you know, go to sleep and just, you know, rinse and repeat. So I think, you know, it's, it's actually really hard for me to recognize it because I don't know any better. I just have to assume that, that there are alternatives out there. But the point is more that because that's what I saw, I was able to take that skill and go, ah, well, with my own family, wouldn't it be great if, you know, I can do pickups and drop-offs at school or, you know, like don't have to leave don't have to go, oh, we need afterschool care or these sorts of things, or can only go on holidays during school holidays. I think it's, you know, those sort of things come into play. I think I've always had a really keen understanding of people, and I think that's probably somewhat to do with an introverted nature rather than extroverted nature. I like to sit back. I talk less, I listen more. Um, you know, I think I like to understand what makes people tick or what makes people take certain actions or have certain desires or take certain pathways. Um, and use that, you know, when I can to, I guess in this sense, how do you design products that fit into the way we market? Or how do you market products to the audience we think will buy this? Um, And yeah, yeah, if that's the, okay.

One of the things that I was struck in, in our interview in Authority Magazine was the word fun. And you've made that, I would say, a fundamental value of your company. Tell, tell, tell us more about that. You don't hear founders and CEOs talking about fun is a fundamental value of our company. That's not, that's pretty rare.

Yeah.

And, you know, I guess when it does come up, most people are talking about it being a company culture, you know, to try and retain employees and that sort of thing. And that's not why we do it. And I actually find it really, really bizarre when I don't know, I see conferences full of, you know, folks wearing, you know, suits. It just seems weird like that. That's not fun. And, you know, if you think back to life, what, you know, what do we You know, what are we here for? You know, we're all gonna die at some stage in the next 100 years, call it, no matter how old we are. You know, what's sort of the lasting impression? And I think with kids, you want your kids to have fun. So how do you make your kids have fun? Have fun with them. And I think that's what makes it enjoyable. You know, we're fortunate the business works so we can have fun., and we can, you know, do fun things. But, you know, we, we just think what's— this is about enjoyment. Um, and this company in particular is about like, let's enjoy things. Let's— this is, you know, we're, we're, we're not, we're not curing a, you know, a terminal disease. We're just making life a little bit better, uh, with our products. Um, so let's make sure we can do it in a fun way because like, you know, that's just more enjoyable for everyone. It's fun, it's exciting. It's, I mean, you know, you look behind me, it's big colors. This is all, you know, on-brand items. Um, it's just how do, you know, how do we enjoy it? How do we do that? And not just for our customers, for ourselves as well. You know, it's, it's actually, actually this, what is now an artwork behind me is, is some branding work we did, um, over the last 18 months where we wanted to re-illustrate, uh, everything we're doing. And, you know, I remember we were looking with graphic designers, we were looking at design styles and, you know, these sorts of things and just, it actually, I was like, yeah, I mean, it looks all right, but it's not like, it's not triggering an emotion for me. It's not fun. And why is that? Because, and I knew why it was, it was because I'm an art collector and I've been collecting street type art since, you know, for the last 15, 18 years. And I remember looking at going, ah, it'd be good if it was more like, you know, this work from this guy, you know, this work, this work, ah, like the style, have a look at this style. And then at some point I just went, oh, why don't we just ask this artist that created these works that I keep referencing and like and have been collecting for 15 years? Why don't we just ask them to do all the branding work? And I remember pitching this to my co-founders and one of them was like, you know, that's, going to be horribly inefficient. You know, they're not a commercial graphic designer, they're an artist. You know, this is going to be slow, it's going to be probably expensive and it's not going to get the same outputs that we want. Like we're going to have to do a lot more work. That was one of my co-founders and the other one just went, what's the chance you're ever going to get to do this again? Go do this with the artists you like. And I was like, Yeah, that's fun. That's true. Let's do it. And so that for me, it's like really fulfilling to go, hey, like there's this artist that I've known since he was just starting his career. I really like his style. His style fits with our product and now I get to work closely with him making something that for me, I will be super proud of as opposed to just using a graphic designer from a catalog.

So what we're looking at behind you is that artist's work?

Yeah, that's, that's actually the, I mean, that's something he's made specifically for us. That's a, that's a whole drawing of chaos scenes of, you know, some new, new characters and features and objects that are coming into the NatPat world.

Huh.

So that was, that was a really fun experience. What did your, what did your artist friend think of the project?

I mean, he was super, super stoked too. And it was sort of this thing, he's like, you know, for him it was, he doesn't have kids, but he's got nephews and nieces and he kept saying, Wow, like my nephews and nieces, they use these products. It's so cool. My, you know, I get, I get to be a little part of, you know, bring joy to all these other little humans. And so, and so like, and that's really, you know, that, that's a super win-win situation, right? I get to pay an artist commercial fees that they're probably not always getting. He gets to create product that for me is I love and I will enjoy and I will forever look at these products. And go, you know, people don't know that this is just the artist from Melbourne that I've liked since, you know, he was 18 and just sort of spray painting on the streets. Amazing.

Amazing.

Well, let's switch gears a little bit.

This show is called Listening with Leaders. And as you probably know, if you've done any background on me, I teach people how to do deep listening skills because I think listening is a foundational skill of life. You mentioned earlier that that you're a little more introverted and you tend to do a lot of listening. Tell me more about the importance of that in what you do as you move through your entrepreneurial journey.

Yeah. So there's probably a few frameworks around that. One is, I guess, taking in more than putting out. And so for anyone that's, you know, part of YPO or EO or any other sort of business network, there's sort of fundamental understandings, which is only speak from experience and otherwise listen. And these sorts of ideas can resonate in the, which is not always true, but it's more someone's asking a question, has a problem, like an answer should be from experience, not a, hey, maybe you could try this. But the, this idea that when you are listening, no matter who they are, a manufacturer, a customer, a colleague, employee, superior, just trying to listen to, I guess, the words that aren't necessarily being said, but like the emotion out of it, the repetition in it, what's, you know, sort of underlying things. I think probably humans have a problem of really speaking the truth too easily. That's more they're trying to either be polite and talk around it or trying to be direct and just say, I don't like you, you should understand this already, and I'll just reinforce that I don't like you if you don't understand what I'm saying, those sort of things. So the listening side of things, important for me just in more understanding how to, you know, how to get a win. And by win, I mean a win-win. So for me, it's, I also have this weird anxiety that I want everyone to be happy with an outcome. So it's not, like, and I've certainly experienced and been, you know, people have taken advantage of me and I will always look at the thing and, you know, I'll be like, okay, I hope you feel good. You've taken advantage once and that's it. Like, I will not help you ever again or I will not do this ever again. And that's the lesson we've learned. So I'll assume that we're going to, you're going to be nice to start. And if you're not, that's, that's fine. It's, you know, it's the fool me once, concept. On the other side, the people I also love to work with are also listeners. So what's the best example I can give you? You know what, we all receive thousands and thousands of cold emails a year. And, you know, we came up with this theory, you know, so we're a very small team. For our impact. And so we were chatting as co-founders one day, we shouldn't just delete all these spam emails that we get from different agencies or different people trying to pitch us things because where we've had success is early days, people have pitched us something and we've gone, yeah, okay, let's take a call and they've turned out to be good. And so how this relates is we now, when people send us inbound emails, unless they're complete trash, we'll sort of reply with, Okay, you're telling me you're really amazing and your agency is really amazing. You can level up this. I don't have time to schedule a call with you or follow your sales process that you want to, you know, push on to me. But here's what I'll do. You found me. You think you know enough about me or you're pitching that you know enough about me. I'm happy for you to prove that. Send me an email with your best, you know, pitch or your best offer or opportunity or suggestions and If I'm actually impressed, I'll reply back. If not, you won't hear from me. And even on such a simple thing, what comes through so easily to, I guess, evaluate is some people will just reply with, yeah, I think we can really, you know, improve your conversion by, you know, 1% to 8% because that's what we do as a standard here, booking a call on my calendar. And for me, great, hard pass. You, you know, you are just trying to force me to follow a sales process. I know you will never listen to me. You know, and that, and that's either lack of experience or, you know, the type of product it is. Some people will reply and go, okay, here's what we, here's what we've got. I've made a video or I've done this or I've dug into here. I can see using this, you know, here's some examples I've seen used before. Here's where I think we can work and here's where I think we And so it's very rare, but someone will actually, I guess, listen to me or listen to what I'm not saying, which is understanding that we're looking for partners, we're looking for people who understand what we're doing, probably are parents, so can relate, may have seen our products, some may have used our products. We're not just looking for someone who has a structure that they follow and they want everyone, every company to fall in line with that structure. And so that goes for partners, that goes for team members. So it's, I don't know how I would be described by the team members I work with, but the way I work with them is that I just have really high expectations, high expectations that they're very detail-oriented, that they're listening, they're looking, they're paying attention, and that they're not trying to waste anyone's time, including their own. So for most of our team, there's no strict hours on work. There's a lot of people part-time, full-time, whatever that means, but it's more, I guess, outcome-driven. And so the worst thing someone can do is try and fill up their hours by scheduling meetings with other team members or anything like that because it's just wasteful, but they're trying to fill their hours and by filling their hours, they're inconveniencing and wasting everyone else's hours. And so from a team member point of view, it's that same sense of, you know, be quiet, be analytical, understand, truly understand or try and truly understand what the mission is, what the goal is, what the, you know, project is before just saying it, no, no, here's how I did it at my last company or this is just how it's done or I read just do this.

Well, Really interesting. Um, you're kind of a, you, what, what would it be fair to say that you're, you're, you, you, you classify yourself as, as more introverted than extroverted?

Yeah.

Uh, 100%. Yeah.

That's what, that's the sense I get too. I, I, and that's a lot of people don't get that. I'm, I'm extremely introverted, but that doesn't mean that I'm not, you're not outgoing.

It just means where do you get your energy?

Your energy from comes from inside yourself. Whereas for an extrovert, gets his or her energy from being around other people. And yeah. And so if you're like me, you'd rather sit at home, be with your family, read a book or watch the television or watch a movie than go out to a bar or a party or a conference or a meeting with hundreds of people in the room and you get to interact with everybody that I dread that I can do it, but I dread it. It sounds like kind of the same way.

Yeah, 100%. It's, you know why it is though. It's, I know in a small environment, people having a conversation with you have a very different expectation to a bigger environment. So in a conference and you know, it's that funny thing. I go back to people, you know, if I'm just meeting someone at a, if I'm being introduced to someone at a party or whatever it is, oh, this is Michael. Oh, what do you do? And it's like, I can see through your question, you actually have expectations on what success looks like. So I will tell you that I sell stickers on the internet and and you would just go, hmm, cool. Yeah. And a lot of people would just go, oh, well, you know, I'm a professional or I'm a this. So, so, you know, I must be better than you.

They're not listening to you.

They're not listening. And, and, but that's also, I totally understand that because that's about their own insecurities or validating their, their own, you know, securities.

One more question. I'll let you go, Michael. What is one thing about yourself that we wouldn't know about? We wouldn't have a clue about it unless you revealed it to us.

Oh, one thing about myself, unless I revealed it, you know what I tell you, I like supporting causes that, that have no, no way of getting support themselves or no way of solving their own problems. So I like environmental causes. I like animal welfare causes. Because what I find with any human-related causes is charity donations, giving time, you know, these sort of things is that, you know, government and people can generally help themselves, whereas people look down on, I guess, plants and nature and pets and animals and don't think to solve that. So for me, I guess, looking if I can make an impact to this world, it's I would rather, you know, help a koala or help an orangutan or a dog or a cat or a forest or just a gum tree, a lonely gum tree than other causes.

Beautiful. Thanks so much for your time today. I really appreciated the conversation.

Pleasure. Thank you so much.

Doug Noll here. Thank you so much for listening to Listening with Leaders. If you are a successful executive leader who would like to be on this program, please visit podcast.dougnull.com/podcast. If you got something out of this interview, would you please share this episode on social media? Just do a quick screenshot with your phone and text it to a friend or post it on the socials. If you know someone that would be a great guest, tag them on the social media to let them know about the show and include the hashtag Listening with Leaders. I love seeing your posts and guest suggestions. We are regularly putting out new episodes and content. To make sure you don't miss any episodes, go ahead and subscribe. Your thumbs up, ratings, and reviews go a long way to help promote the show and mean a lot to me and my team.

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