#84 Say hello to reusable period products with Robyn McLean of Hello Period

Hey, kia ora shmay. Welcome back to the latest episode of the Be Better podcast. Thank you as ever to our listeners. I'm meeting increasingly more listeners of the podcast as I'm out about. That's quite scary because who knew that people were actually listening? But thank you.

If you're a new listener, thank you so much. If you have been listening for a while, please don't forget, give us a review somewhere on whatever platform you're listening on. It. It will help us ultimately. But anyway, enough of that. Welcome to today's guests. So today I have got Robin from hello, Period. How's it going?

Good morning. It's going really great.

Excellent. And where are you dialing in from today?

I'm in Sunny Hawks Bay.

The Sunny Hawks Bay.

Oh, yeah. Central north island for all those international listeners.

For the international listener. We do. We do have a few international listeners. So, yeah, it's sort of east coast of the north of the north island of New Zealand. I very rarely had a bad day's weather when I've been to Hawke's Bay. I used to be. When I was a medical rep, I used to go to Hastings. What is it? Hastings Hospital or Napier.

Yep. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, yeah, you scare there quite often. And every time I was there, it was always a beautiful sunny day. So.

Yeah, not today. No. Well, some funny story, actually. It's weltering today and I'm in a jersey only because it's got our logo on it.

That's commitment to the brand. I love it.

This is like total brand commitment. Because I am really hot right now.

All right. Really hot. All right. You know?

Yeah, yeah. Commitment to the. Commitment to the brand. Love it. It's what all good small business owners are about. Yeah. I pretty much wear a grow good T shirt everywhere I go, much to my wife's disdain. I think on the weekends he's like, oh, can you not just put something else on? It's like, well, why wear someone else's brand? When I have a brand, people ask.

You whether you're a gardener.

Yeah, that has come up sometimes. Or, yeah, you know, do I sell weed?

So I mean, if we were in the States, we probably. In fact, maybe we should look into this. We could have our own brand of medicinal cannabis, you know, help you, help you grow good. We'll help you get some good ideas to grow your business. Okay, well, we'll give you a split on the royalties on any of those. That seems reasonable. Yes. So for people who don't know who you are and don't know who, who or what hello is all about. Yeah, give us, give us the info.

Sure. We, we are a sustainable period care brand. I am the co founder. We founded hello Period. Well we actually were originally called hello Carlos in 2017 and.

The reason why we were called hello cup was we launched with a menstrual cup and really never had any plans to go beyond that.

But now we're the only sustainable period company in the world that has a product for everyone. So we do menstrual cups, menstrual discs, period underwear pads, specialty menstrual cups for different cervix heights.

And liners. So everything nice.

So yeah, I, I guess for the males listening in, I mean I, I live with my, my wife, my mother in law and my daughter so it's a fairly estrogen filled environment and we're not quite at that stage of having to fully you know, a level biology. I've got some, some vague you know, memory of yeah the, the menstrual cycle and what goes on. But yeah, maybe, I mean well in general do you think most, most women know why they should be using your type of product versus something else or do you feel that.

No, I think it should be explained.

Or is it just for us blokes who don't really know goes on but if you could maybe explain like what why you. Why is what you're doing and why it's different from before, I think that'd be useful. Yeah.

So sustainable period care or reusable period care I should say that market that we specifically focus on, it replaces single use products so replaces tampons and pads. So the tampon equivalent would be a menstrual cup or a menstrual disc. So they're internal products and then a pad, single use pad equivalent would be our period underwear or our reusable pads.

There's been very little innovation in the period care space. So when we started in 2017 absolutely like literally no one had really heard of menstrual cups and we were explaining what they were to virtually everyone and you fast forward six years and that the landscape has totally changed. So they've absolutely become more mainstream but still not everyone knows what they are or how to use them and things like that.

So.

Essentially a menstrual cup will hold three to five times more and disc will hold three to five times more blood than a tampon. But not only the benefit of that is awesome for the user but if we're talking about planet benefits and cost saving benefits, they last at least 5 years. So each product will replace over 2000 single use tampons and pads.

And the same sort of numbers with underwear and pads. And.

I guess our biggest challenge is to educate and to get people. When you, when you've been so used to one way of doing things, it takes a lot to change people's mind. And it's in the same way that, you know, a lot of us took a long time to switch to reusable shopping bags, you know, plastic bags. It seems like a crazy concept now that, that we had single you, that we had single use plastic shopping bags at every single shop.

And you know, but now people are like, yeah, I'll grab my reusable bag. And so it's, it's the same thing once you've, once you've tried it and you've got the hang of it and realize that it's actually better for you, better for the environment. It's, it's an easy win at that point. Yeah, yeah.

It's because beyond the B Corp stuff that we do, we, we do, there's a bunch of other training that we offer for B Corpse. And one of the, one of the sessions I've got is a change management session. Really just high level, like introduction to the idea of change. And the one thing I remember from that is the longer you've been doing something a certain way, the harder it is to think about changing because it is a habit. And that's the same. Yeah. Habits or just, you know, the way we've always done something in this company. Yeah. If you're trying to introduce a new software platform or whatever it is in the company, the longer someone's been used to the old one, the more resistant they will be because it's just easy. And for whatever reason you've been, I guess there's also within sort of certain personality types, some people are more loyal in general, maybe to a brand or what have you.

Yeah, totally. And I, and I think, you know, back to.

Why. The why for me was.

I had had terrible periods all my life and I'd heard about menstrual cups but I'd never tried one because I didn't know anyone else who used them. So I thought that there must be a reason for that and they couldn't be that great. But then curiosity got the better of me and I tried one and it really changed my life in terms of it held more and it was more comfortable. So from that moment on it was about.

How do we make these mainstream and convince everyone else? And again yeah. Work on changing that habit. Because there's no reason, I often say my end goal of this business is for.

Tampons and single use pads to only be seen in museums as part of an exhibition on how people used to manage their periods in the olden days before better things came along. Because that is it.

You know, we wouldn't be, we wouldn't be creating a product that was less comfortable or, you know, so everything we do is about wanting the, the user to go, ah, there's no way I'm going back. And that's the main feedback we get is, you know, I wish I'd, I wish I'd made the switch sooner. So, you know, it's what.

Yeah, yeah, that's super cool. Because I think there's so much we look back on. One of the examples I use when you sort of talk about purpose, you know, and, and why quite often we end up leaving living lives that.

Are maybe not ours to a degree, is it? There was a guy called Edward Bernays who was in charge. Well, he, he created like the modern world of consumer marketing in terms of how to get people to buy things that they don't really need. And the example of him was he got more women to smoke cigarettes in the, in the 30s and 40s because it was mainly a male habit. But the companies recognize that, you know, 50% of the population aren't even smoking this thing. So but we'll, we know, we look back and go, well, why would you make someone have a product that you, that we now know is bad for you? Um, and I think we'll look back on a whole bunch of stuff as, as we look, as we look back, you know, because one of the things he got GPS to do was prescribe cigarettes. It's like, how do we sell more cigarettes, get a GP to prescribe it? So I think, you know, we look back on that and go, well that's just insane. Like what?

It is so insane.

GP would do that. But equally. Yeah. And so I love that analogy of like a museum of, of these relics of God. Can, can you imagine that, you know, great, great, great, great grandma had to use these things. God, what crazy idea were they insane back then? I think there's so much of our just take, I think it's the thing, we take so much for granted, so much for normal that we just think, well, this is, this is the best that anyone's ever invented because it probably is based on where we are in the space time continuum, but actually is it the best that we could have, probably not.

Yeah. And you know, again, it's in that same vein. It's like until people start questioning things and it seeps in and it's again, like, I think you could have the same argument around plastic stores. You know, why do we even need a store? You know, we all know how to drink out of a glass. You know, even paper ones, you know, they're fine, but there's still an add on that that doesn't provide anything of use.

It's pretty, pretty low value. Yeah.

Yeah.

In terms of its utility. Yeah. 100. So when you sort of launched the company, did you do a bunch of research into the history of traditional period care? Do you sort of know where the modern range of pads and tampons come? Because one of the only thing I think, I guess I'd really heard about particularly tampons, was the possible toxic shock or the possible elements of toxicity in it, which again, you sort of go, that seems counterintuitive. Why would you put something inside you that is possibly going to harm you? So, yeah. Do you know how we got to where we were?

Well, well, I think, you know, obviously traditionally that period care was all external. And then, and then people wanted something a bit more convenient for something they could wear while swimming or that wasn't.

As bulky. And so, you know, that's where tampons came into the picture. And then that tampons are associated with toxic shock because.

Essentially because they can dry the user out and then that increases the risk of an abrasion. So toxic shock is a bacterial infection that gets into your bloodstream. So it's actually nothing to do with the product or the period. But it's. There are more cases associated with tampon use just because of that drying out situation where, you know, then if you have an abrasion and you creating a nice warm, moist environment for bacteria. And they love that. So I often say to people, toxic shock is not a female thing. It's also not a period thing. Jim Henson, who, Jim Henson, who created the Muppets, died from toxic shock syndrome. So, you know, it's just if there's that pathway for the bacteria, right? But I guess then that leads on to the benefits of using a menstrual cup or a menstrual disc over a tampon is that they're not drying the user out. It's a, it's collecting period blood and then the basically just pulled out a bit like a tampon and then emptied and reinserted. So it's, it's just there's there's a, like a tiny handful of cases of toxic shock syndrome associated with using cups and discs, but that since 1930. And in, in those I think there's actually only two recorded cases.

Right.

They had been left in for days and days. Like basically the user had forgotten about her. Right? Yeah. So.

Much safer, in short. So again, as well as the reusable benefit. So it's all these things sort of built up and kind of motivated us and really inspired us I think, to encourage that next generation of users. So Mary and I, my co founder, both had daughters when we found, well, we still have daughters, but when we founded the business they were coming into their teens and we kind of just wanted more choice for them. So we're not, we're not the type of people who would ever say you have to use a menstrual cup or a menstrual disc. You know what, what we can offer is providing alternative choices which until recently have just not been on the table. Because you've got.

Large companies, you know, there's this monopoly on traditional monopoly on period products where you've got large companies who are not motivated to make anything that is reusable or sustainable because they have users half the world who buy their product every month. You know, it's a cash cow. Why would they want to do anything to change that? So the interesting thing, you know, it's not just our business obviously, but it's a lot of great purposeful businesses have been able to start thanks to social media and the Internet. You know, we back in sort of say the 1960s or 70s, you know, and even 80s and 90s, all you could really do to advertise was to have a big budget and take out a newspaper ad or an ad on television. You couldn't reach people in the way that we can now and create these sort of mini movements that grow.

And you know, that's been particularly amazing I think in the period space where we can reach an audience and educate them and say, hey, you can, you know, you could try something else if you want to. And a lot of, I guess a lot of our customers are, you know, our customer base is definitely skewed to that younger 20, 20 to 30 year old consumer who really are really mindful about the planet, really mindful about what they buy, what they put in their bodies. There's no regulation about, there's no mandatory labeling requirements for tampons and pads. So which is crazy.

And I think it's probably because.

Periods have just been tainted by this oh, let's not talk about them because they're kind of involves blood and yuck and let's just park them somewhere else. So as a result, a lot of the products out there have just fallen under the, the radar of, you know, they should be being looked at because they go into a very, you know, sensitive area of the body.

Yeah, that's crazy.

It's so crazy.

We were hanging out with the team from Grin Natural who do the toothpaste products. Yeah, like that. I think it was their toothpicks. They're like FDA approved for sale in the US So it's like two dental products need to be FDA approved, but period don't get that.

Well, no, we, yeah, we are, we are fda. Our products are FDA approved.

But in terms of that testing, I guess sort of saying, well, that efficacy. I think you're so right about the embedded way that companies operate. So one of our clients, Ollie from MedSouth, they do repurpose medical device products. So the main product they started off with were these like leg stockings that they use that you put on people post operatively. And they were traditionally single use. And you know, I spent 10 years as a medical device rep and there was always this big argument between, well, is single use better than, you know, re sterilizing it? And a big push from all the companies. Think of the health risk now if things get cleaned or, you know, it can be cleaned perfectly, whereas freshman out of the packet, you know, guarantee safety the whole time. But you're right, actually, no, it's. We want you buying a thousand of these a week, not one every 10 years.

That's right. And you look at those, you know, even those compression socks. And in the same way when I talk about the waste generated by.

Single use period products and I normally talk in just the tampons themselves or the pads themselves, that's not even bringing into the equation the packaging and the, you know, the pamphlets that are in each thing. Each one, you know, it just.

Multiplies pretty quickly.

Yeah. Really?

Yeah, yeah. It's insane. So what were you doing before this?

What was the journey to suddenly.

This is probably why. Because only a crazy person would start a business in the way we started our business. So I was a journalist and.

Met and then I, well, started my career as a journalist, a newspaper journalist working for papers around New Zealand and then moved into marketing. And Mary, my best friend from school and co founder was a nurse. So we actually had these great complementary skill sets.

In terms of. I had the curious mind, I guess, and love of words and marketing because a huge part of what we do is making periods fun in the sense kind of talking about them in a colloquial way. And really.

I think what stood out for me when we were doing our research was how maybe scarily people were talking about periods and kind of talking about them in a way that just was really dull and boring as well.

And so just again tapping into that younger, younger audience. So that's where my love of words and writing came, came to the fore. So, and, and I think Mary, with her medical background and, and knowledge of anatomy and things like that really helped when it came to us designing our products because we designed all our products from scratch. There's a lot of players in the period care space that just, well, a lot of brands will just buy crappy white label products from Alibaba and put their own name on them. And you know, like, I just, I don't have much time for that.

So, you know, from, from the get go, we approach things differently, I guess in the sense that it was always customer led.

We only wanted to create things that we wanted to use and that really appealed to us. But we didn't have any startup knowledge, any business knowledge. We didn't do any, I'm always saying, you know, we'd done no sort of research. We literally designed a product, funded it and set up a rumpty website and did some googling and worked out how to start selling and just, just hit go. And both of us really expected that we'd be able to keep our day jobs.

And this was kind of going to be our passion project. But immediately we found our people and also I think immediately we found women who were saying, thank God, you know, I've been waiting for something that is better than what I'm using. And yeah, we quit our jobs pretty quickly.

Nice. That's super cool. Yeah, there's quite a few people we've interviewed recently with like a bit of a similar story. And I think there's like Perry Drysdale, I'm thinking of from.

Untouched World and there was another female founder, owner. All very similar stories where you didn't have any business acumen or knowledge and you were just kind of like, there's a really cool quote from Neil Young, the singer. I remember watching a, like a documentary about his, you know, his career I guess today. And they asked him, you know, because, because he was manning a guitarist in a band. And then they said, how do you get to singing? And he just said, oh, this one night know, we were short of A singer. And so I just grabbed the mic and started shouting at it. And I just think that's such a good analogy for starting a business. Like sometimes you just got to grab the mic and just to shout in it and you don't know what's going to happen. But if you've got that passion, you know, and I think again, it's like all the companies that we interview, you've got, there's a real mission, there's a real purpose behind it. Whereas like yesterday we spoke, Tamara, my colleague and I spoke at University of Canterbury center for Entrepreneurship, just introducing them to the idea of B Corp. They've all got startup ideas, all of them are purpose driven. Eight to ten years ago when I, when I did, I've done, done the gig, you know, off and on for about eight to 10 years, eight, 10 years ago there'd be like drone delivered pizza. It's like, you know, just we're going to create a unicorn that's going to try and, you know, make become a billion dollar company, but fundamentally selling something that people don't really need. But I think, yeah, it's definitely, and I don't know if you saw there was an article in NBR which is like a New Zealand business, I think it's New Zealand Business Review or New Business Review. The data is now unequivocal that B Corps outperform in terms of resiliency and financial performance over the long term. And I think for me it's that sense of purpose and if you're doing something positive and contributing, people want to get behind it. Whereas if you, if you just launched, I don't know, like the Kiwi version of Tampax.

Would it have been as, as impactful? Would you have been as interested, you know, would it have got, got the traction? Probably, probably not.

Yeah. And I, yeah, I think, I think you're right. I think B Corp businesses tend to be, the people behind them. Tend to be.

Yeah, not your, not necessarily your typical person.

They, you know, I think their interest in their customers always outshines everything else. And I, you know, I, I mean, I often say B Corp businesses can sleep at night. There's some businesses out there, I don't know how owners can.

Live with themselves, with what, what they're doing and the lack of thought or innovation. You know, if it's all about money.

And there's no care in what you're doing whatsoever. Yeah, it's pretty sad.

Yeah. But I mean I always like to say, how do these people sleep at night normally on Egyptian cotton and silk sheets, you know, they're like, I just don't care. I think there's an element of that in any population group. There's some people who just don't care and it's all about them. And. Yeah, you know, yeah, regardless. But yeah, I think. Yeah, I mean, I don't think. I know. Increasingly more business owners, more businesses are going, hang on a minute, there's more to life. Maybe we can think about how we approach our business. How do we, you know, bring our staff on the journey, how do we, you know, do better by us? We're talking with a friend of mine, Sandra, on Auckland Wednesday, because we're looking at launching like a governance training program for board people who are involved with B Corps and companies that want to go or non B Corps, but who are doing more around their social and environmental impact to help them understand what it's actually all about. Because most governance professionals still kind of like, yeah, but it's just about making money.

Right?

And it's like, well, yes, that's a part of it. But yeah, there's, there's so much more to be considered and those businesses are outperforming. So it's kind of like if you actually just care about making more money, you should really be looking at doing more good because the data's there.

Yeah, absolutely.

And so do you think you, like, you've always been someone who, who's been thoughtful or considerate about purpose and, and doing good? Like, have you been. Been someone who's always cared about the planet or doing good? Like, because sometimes, you know, when we interview people, they're like, yeah, like Since I was 4, you know, I was that kind of kid walking down the street, you know, looking after sick animals or whatever. But then there's a bunch of people who, more like myself, who were like, naturally, I was pretty much looking after me until about my. And then had a bit of a moment and realized there's more to life. So no judgment either way.

No, I think probably a combo when I look back. So I was born in Hong Kong and grew up there till I was 8 and 1. You know, my. So my earliest childhood memories are of rubbish and insane amounts of rubbish. And so this was the 70s and you know, that seeing the harbor, we used to go out boating quite a lot. But you know, you would literally be sort of plowing your way through tons of rubbish on the sea. And so that's always stayed with me. And it wasn't a topic that was talked about and it was just you know, sort of a given Hong Kong, it's just polluted and it's yucky and you'd go swimming in the sea and there'd be tar in the sea and.

But I was also a nature lover, so I remember the conflict of those two things sort of from a very early age and worrying about the animals and how do they swim in that, you know, amongst all that rubbish.

So, you know, but it didn't, it didn't really.

Shape me as much as it did, I think once I started probably having kids. And.

I think that the nappy thing, when you start to have kids, is really confronting.

And then the movement towards cloth nappies. Well, actually wasn't a movement towards cloth, it's a movement back, you know, so I look at. We had a. We had a nightmare, actually. The generation that is sort of now back to probably the 60s, we've been, we've. We've got a lot to answer for because prior to that, of course, you know, my grandmother's generation, they were darning socks and they were, you know, using handkerchiefs and they were very. Everything was reusable back in those days. They were really. They were a lot more mindful and thrifty and of course, you know, Plastic Fantastic didn't exist. So.

I think that the backlash of the very rapid consumerism that happened in the 60s, 70s, 80s, period, I feel now more than ever. And I think we were quite an early B Corp in New Zealand. I'm not sure what number, but we've had B Corp for over three years and we're just in the process of doing a recertification at the moment.

Well, we've just finished that, so.

And I think.

You know, this being part of B Corp has really helped me think about all aspects of my personal life. So it's not. The great thing about, you know, going through that process is not. It's not just about your business, it's about you're looking at everything through a. Through a different lens and.

How you can do better. And so then I think back again.

To my childhood and.

You know, like, I wish I remember thinking, thinking about having big nets to clean up that ocean rubbish as a kid. I remember that concept in my mind and now it's a thing where, where people capture that rubbish and recycle it. And it's amazing. But.

Yeah, so I don't know to answer. That's a long way of answering your question. Yes, I probably have been aware of.

Being quite aware from an early age, but that didn't stop me Using straws for a long time period of time when I was in my 20s and baths.

And you know, I, I, you know, also I, there's a lot of pressure to.

Do good and I guess what we don't want is to scare people off just picking something and making small changes because they all add up 100. Yeah, yeah.

It's funny, you talk about your, you know, like your grandmother or our grandparents generation. When I first moved to New Zealand in 2004, I was doing quite a lot of flying, working as a medical rep and I was in Queenstown for a conference and this company doesn't exist anymore, but they have these like cloth belts with a, the buckle is like the one that you have on a plane. I thought, oh, well, that's kind of cool. I'm flying quite a lot. That's, you know.

Yeah.

A sort of quirky sense of humor, I guess. Anyway, just, it's, I've still got it. And, and last year it started fraying quite badly on the edges, you know, on the back where it's obviously under the most tension. And I took it to one of the repair shops in one of the local shopping malls. I said, oh, hi, I just want to see, you know, if you can repair this. And the lady looked at it and went, yeah, but it will be cheap for you to buy a new one. I was like, sorry, this, this is the repair and you know, like, you know, the tailoring place. It's like I've come out of my way to come and do this. She's like, yeah, but I said, I can't get another one. The shop doesn't exist. And also I don't care because I want to keep this for another 20 years. Yeah, just like, it just bemused me that, you know, the person in the industry of doing repairs and alterations was like, I just got to get a new one. But that's, I think the modern world is just built on convenience and quick and cheap and easy.

Yeah.

And it doesn't, I mean, I guess it, in some ways it does seem to be slowing down. I guess people are more aware of that. But I don't know, you just sort of think, well.

As we were saying when we both started, like, you know, we're both pretty flat out today and it's Christmas coming next week and that's going to be pretty busy. It still doesn't feel like there's, there's that much time for you to. I think that's half the problem for the average consumer. When do they have the Time to actually stop and think with most of their decisions that they're making.

And it's just, I think Covid led, led people to have a bit of a stop and pause and start looking at some ingredients lists and what have you. But yeah, fundamentally it's, it's tough.

Yeah. And actually you know, on Christmas, these big commercial, commercially driven now commercially driven holidays. I, I am the, the biggest Christmas Grinch. Like I, I don't buy presents because I don't, you know and I also am very open to say I don't want presents myself. I, I, there's nothing I need and my kids are old enough to understand my grinciness now but there's, there's also nothing they need. They might say otherwise but you know it, it, it's that oh panic, I don't have anything. And, and then you're buying shit that you know is going to end up in landfall. And when we do our Black Friday sales we, we say the same thing like everyone loves sale but we never do them for one day. We, we, we any of our sales over a period of time. So and we always say so that gives you time to think and really work out whether it's something you need or something you don't need because you know it where that innate sense of fear of missing out just playing on people at the moment. And yeah, yeah, I really hate how the, the commercial industry operates.

Yeah. For people who are unaware there's a really good book you can go and read. I feel like having spent most of my life in sales and marketing, I know how the system operates. So I know, I know when I'm being sold to. But for the uninitiated, if you go and read a book or watch a couple of YouTube videos by a guy called Robert Cialdini who wrote a book called Influence and he talks about the six tools of influence and the number one biggest tool of influence is scarcity. And in scarcity the biggest. So you know, you can have time, scarcity, volume scarcity, what have you. The biggest lever in scarcity is time bound scarcity. So this is only available today.

Yeah.

Which is what all of these things are built on. And, and you, you more people are more likely to be more compelled to go it, buying it.

Yeah.

They're not because you have that deep sense of fear of missing out and that's what the modern world of marketing and sales is built on. But I just think most people are blissfully unaware that they.

Play. Yeah, they're playing with their buttons. We can, we can make more. Turn left now. Look at that. We did it.

Yeah, it's interesting. It's always been, when we first started we refused to do any sales or participate in Black Friday and. But then I realized we were also potentially shooting ourselves in the foot because we, you know, our goal is to get as many people embracing sustainable period care. So if a sale can get them over the line, then that is helping us to help them and help the planet. So, you know, I think again, it's a, it's probably a frustration for a lot of B courts when you, when you're trying to do good, you know, a product based B court, I mean.

But you don't, you really are anti that.

Mass consumer event.

Marketing ploy associated with, you know, Cyber Monday as well. How do you, how do you participate and still again, still stay true to your values? And I think for us it's like, well.

Yes, sustainable period products are more expensive, but they save the user and they're a more expensive outlay. But you save thousands of dollars making the switch. So for Arsec, one of our hello Capsule or Halo discs, the average person would have paid for it after three periods and then they have another sort of five years of use. So all the periods from that point onwards they're just saving money because they're not buying tampons or pairs.

So it's kind of that education and it's a bit like clothing, you know.

You do, you do get what you pay for and you know, a $6T shirt, it's just not going to last probably.

And so it's more beneficial from a planet perspective to buy something that's ethically made with good materials that's going to last you longer.

Yeah, it's a minefield out there.

It is, it is. And I guess it also ties into that, you know, if you are struggling financially, you know, cost of living crisis, currently inflation, blah, blah, blah.

You'Re more focused on the here and now rather than the, yeah, okay, I, I will invest a little bit more, but maybe you, for a lot of people, they actually cannot invest that little bit more right now. So like you say, it's, it's waiting for that thing to be on a sale or, or what have you that gets them into the game. You know, the more people we help with B Corp, the more people we talk to on the podcast. It, it's just so blindingly clear to me now. Whereas it didn't used to be. I think, I think when I first got into this whole world, I was, I was a Bit more dogmatic. And it's like you're either doing good or you're not. It's, it's really hard. It's, it's, it is utterly gray and it is all shades of gray. And you know, we think we're doing the most good that we can. Could we do more? Possibly. But if we do that, we're going to make means we can't do this. And there's always these constant trade offs and there is no, there's no playbook. You know, people like yourself are building the playbook as to how we can try and do this because it's not been done before. And so it is going to be messy. It's going to be, you know, there's going to be, you know, wrong paths that we go down. But I think the general intent of business owners like yourselves is the aim is to do good. You know, we're not starting from the place of how do we maximize our financial return on this. So the intent is good, but it's always going to be tricky to maximize that impact because, yeah, we don't know how to do it. If we did, we'd all be doing it. So, and so with your journalism stuff, what were you focused on with that? Was there like a particular type of story or article? Is there a particularly famous one that we should all know or would we know? What was the big, you know, the big scoop?

Well, oh God, I did some horrible, you know. You know, you do some horrible cases when you're a news journalist and you're covering, you know, things that aren't always nice.

But then after being sort of a general news reporter, I became the arts reporter at the Dominion Post in Wellington. And I loved that. So that you, that was meaning that I got essentially tickets to every gig and show that came to town and also got to interview pretty much all the stars of those shows and also movie stars. And.

You know, I, I interview. I got the only New Zealand interview with Neil diamond when he toured years ago. That was pretty exciting.

Just because, you know, I guess I grew up in a household where my parents enjoyed his music.

But I loved it. I really, really loved it. And I think the arts is just a lot nicer and kinder as a, as a subject matter to focus on.

Yeah. Rather than murders, death, destruction, car crashes. Yeah. If it, I mean, I guess there's the link. If it bleeds, it leads from.

Yeah, that's right.

Journalism to periods.

Yeah.

Not so much, period. Unfortunately. Like again, it was interesting because when we, when we first Started that business. We couldn't get any media to do a story on us because they were like, no one wants to read about periods. And now they're very topical and kind of.

You know, the discussion around periods has infiltrated things like, you know, all our elite athletes have specific training programs that are built around their menstrual cycle. So they are, they are training to do with their menstrual phases, which is really cool.

And.

You know. Absolutely. Now I hear people talking about period poverty is a big issue and mainstream media have finally kind of gone, okay, we can talk about it.

Yeah, it does seem to have. Yeah. Turned a corner. I mean, my daughter's at an all girls school and yeah, they have some available. You know, it's. There's conversations around it. Yeah, yeah. So it seems to be definitely.

Yeah, and that's great. You know, that's, that's normalizing it. Putting products out.

Gets the conversation going.

So who's the worst celebrity that you ever interview? Who is, who is the most, you know, what's the word I'm looking for? You know, most. The most diva or were they all pretty good?

I have to say. Okay.

Or can you not spill the beans? Are you under. Oh, I don't know, some NDA when you.

Well, when you say diva, the first that comes to mind of Kan, like. But she's quite notorious. Yeah.

Right. So you kind of knew what you were walking into.

Being tricky. Yeah. So.

Paul Holmes was once very rude to me, but he then called up and apologized.

Yeah, no, initially I really. I hit a soft spot for him. I thought he was an amazing journalist.

But no other, other ones are really cool. Like, I remember interviewing Michael Buble and he sang to me down the phone. And, and Donny Osman was pretty cool.

I interviewed 50 Cent, which my teenage son thought was pretty cool.

Mom's actually. Yeah. Pretty cool now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for 30 seconds. And then you're back.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

So can you get, can you get tickets for Tom Jones in. In Hawke's Bay for us?

Oh, my God. Every time, like, it just makes me feel really old when I think that people that I thought were old when I was young are still alive and performing. I'm like, God, I must be so old and that. You know, are they wheeling him? No offense to Tom Jones, but possibly. No, he's been around a while.

He's been around a while. Yeah.

Yeah. So, yeah, I reckon the undies that people throw on stage must be getting bigger and bigger.

Like balloon size. Yeah. We're parachute. It's a parachute. Yeah, classic. Yeah, we were possibly. I've got a couple of some half Welsh. So. Yeah. Last time I saw, last time I saw Tom was in Cardiff Castle in I think 1999 or 2000 sometimes.

I'm proving my case then, you know. And did you. And did you think he was pretty old then?

Yeah, I mean, at that point you kind of go, he's getting on a bit.

Yeah, yeah.

I went to the Rolling. The Rolling Stones with my mum. That would have been about 10 years ago. And you sort of go, they were, they were old then and they're still going. Yeah. I mean in some. You kind of go. It gives me hope that maybe I might still be, you know, doing something reasonably meaningful in 20, 30, 40 years time. Although I thought it would be nice to retire at some point.

Speaking of stories. Yeah. I got the exclusive when Pete Richards came a cropper with a coconut.

So I would have been part of that story in some way because. So I used to be a medical rep and I used to sell the spinal instruments and implants that they used for. Yeah. Head, neck and back surgeries.

Yeah.

And I feel, I feel like I can say this story because I don't think there's going to be any orthopedic surgeons listening to this podcast. There were in, in Auckland Public Hospital, there's always a on duty orthopedic surgeon and an on duty neurosurgeon. And one of. There was someone on, in Fiji on holiday who heard that Keith Richards had banged his head. Yeah, I was on his way. He rang his mate who was the orthopedic surgeon of call and he was a. He was one of those guys who kind of liked hanging out with famous people. And so he, he rang the hospital because he was on call, which doesn't mean he's in the hospital. He rings hospital from home and says there is a patient, Mr. Richards, being airlifted in from Fiji. He is to be admitted under no one's care other than mine. And so he turns up to the hospital and he's like waiting for Keith Richards. Meanwhile, the flight, you know, sending through the details, he's got what's called a subdural hematoma, which is 100, a neurosurgical procedure. And so the, the orthopedic and neurosurgeon end up having an argument in the hospital about who's going to take care of him. It's like, dude, it's pretty obvious, like if you're giving a go at neurosurgery just because you're like, you are going to kill Keith Richards. And then the, the, the surgeon who did the procedure, he had a really. Because he was a client of mine. It was fascinating because he had all these neurosurgeons from all over the world ringing him, saying, hey, I'm free, I can come over and do it. And he's like, well, this guy's a patient who's been admitted into my care like any other patient. I'm not going to treat him differently. I'm going to deal with the injury. And so he was like really second. Second guessing himself. And in the end, yeah, him and Keith Richards became really great mates and he invited him to come and be his physician. So he quit his job as a neurosurgeon in Auckland City Hospital and went on tour with stones for 18 months.

Well, I think actually he was the guy I spoke to. Yeah, yeah.

Andrew Law.

Yeah.

But they go, small world. Small world collide. Yeah. So he had quite a few stories after being on tour with the Stones.

For a little bit.

Bit different. Yeah.

I can imagine hanging out with the.

Tea room at Auckland Hospital with wrecks like me.

Yeah.

Well, there you go.

Yeah.

So getting back onto the B Corp stuff then, when did that first pop up for you? Because, because. And when did you first certify?

I should have prepared this earlier, but.

Yeah.

Yeah. So 20, 21 would be.

Yeah. And I don't. I think from memory, I think we were about number 30 or something in New Zealand. How many are there now?

We are up to about 130 now. So I think that that would be about right.

Yeah, we were sort of quite early on there.

And I don't even remember how we first heard about it. I think it was because we were spending a lot of time in the US and we were seeing it pop up there and, you know. Absolutely. When we first got certificate, no one gave a. Because they didn't know what it was. Yeah. And it was just like, oh, yeah, whatever.

Yeah. And then what was. You know what's been interesting over the last three years was people saying, well, how did you do it? You know, we did. We just sort of plugged away at it ourselves and. And people were like, well, how did you do it? It's really hard and we're just like one step after another and.

But I think what it's given us. Well, I think it's not really what it's given us. It's. Well, yes, it's helped us as a business in terms of always thinking about what we can, what we're doing. Is there something we can do better.

Really getting to know our systems and putting on paper in a mindful way what we're about and what matters to us.

But also I think from a consumer perspective, it really helps you know that that business is aligned with your values. If you're a mindful consumer, I guess you don't have to do as much digging. And I definitely, I research most businesses that I buy things from.

And if they've got a B Corp, I probably do less just because I'm like, well, I know that they've been through the wringer.

And yeah, we've just done the recertification and we're tracking. Obviously it takes a while for the results to come out. It's like.

Waiting for your school exam marks. But we're tracking to have gone up quite a few points, which is great for us. So that means we've improved systems and added things in that B Corp recognised.

But yeah, I really recommend anyone who has a business goes through that process to, you know, again, a bit like, helps you sleep at night better than a sleeping pill because you can give yourself a pat on the back and gives you, gives you something to aim for as well.

And I think like you say that particularly for, for businesses. I mean, my business was completely built off the cuff. I have never written a business plan. You know, it's just like, I think, I think I can do something here. Let's give it a go. But I think, yeah. That the B Corp framework gives you some structure to start thinking about around a business and how. Yeah. How and why it needs to look and start thinking about structure. If you're not, if you're less of a structured person like myself, possibly yourself. If you. Yeah. It's like, let's just get into it and give it a go. Yeah, it's like, okay, at some point actually we need to stop and think about how we're actually doing this. So.

Yeah. Yeah.

And what were the. Yeah. Any sort of major highlights going either first time round or second time round and anything. I guess, more so first time round. Yeah. Was that, was there anything that you were sort of surprised that it asked you or were there things that you're like, oh, wow, we didn't think we were that good at doing that, but turns out we are. Or. Yeah. Any, any major shocks?

Yeah, I think what I was pleasantly surprised about was the emphasis that it's not just on your business as such, the outward facing business. It's actually Also on the team and how you can, you know, make sure your team are looked after. And so we've just introduced an esop, a staff ESOP and things like that.

Which actually has always been on our agenda since day one and we've talked about it from day one. But it's for a small business. It's something that's very hard to implement and actually it's very expensive to implement. So it's.

You know, again it would be great if someone could come along and make that process easier and simpler.

Have you seen there's a company called Orchestra based in Auckland?

Well, yes, so we are with. We did, but you see we didn't do our ESOP through Orchestra because.

That with such a small team it's still neat. You still need a bit more because.

How big is your team?

Yeah, at the moment we're about four and a half. Okay.

Yeah.

So tiny. So you kind of need just a little play and then, and then. Yeah, anyway, yeah, but yeah, Orchestra is great.

I think again this is just a great summary of, you know, as we say to our clients, it's like do, do as much good as you can with what you've got and if, if giving ownership in the company is going to blow the business to pieces and it's going to make it mean that you go bust, well, it's probably not the best thing to do. Just that you can say for 10 minutes we were an employee owned company before we had to go into receivership. But yeah, having that, but again using the framework as to sort of. Okay, look, that's a really cool idea. This is the threshold we need to be at when we can have that conversation. But hey, if you keep working with us, if you're, if you're good employees, if you hang out with us, if you, you know, part of the vibe and connect to the purpose, this is what we're going to aim at. Yeah, super. Yeah, super cool. And so, yeah, what I guess, what does being a B corp mean to you?

Well, I think, I mean it's again, I don't think it's so much.

For us because we know that we are true to ourselves and our values and have always wanted to, you know, everything we do, we like to do well and you know, and stand behind. But I do think, you know, again it's, it's meaningful for our customers to know that they're supporting a business that's part of this group.

That is holding others to account.

You know, that's how I see B Corpse as being a really powerful.

It's a really powerful movement.

And the more of us who join.

The more other, other businesses go, okay, well, I probably need to pull my socks up. I, I don't want to look bad.

So I think, yeah, so for us it's just being, being part of the team. The, the wider B Corp team.

Yeah.

Nice. And I guess I should have asked this before because we're on that topic, but in terms of that tension between doing good or doing more good and, and keeping the money coming in, any tips or tricks or anything that you. That comes to mind with that area?

I mean, we, yeah, so we really struggled with that at the start because what we wanted to do was help everyone with a period and we literally gave away thousands and thousands of dollars worth of products and.

Potentially almost went under because we weren't doing things right. You know, you can't save the world if you're not viable.

And you know, there's a, there's a time and place. So I think we.

We do good by creating a product that reduces waste and is better for the consumer that buys it. And we still do a lot of donations, but we have systems in place now. You know, before literally we'd just give. Give away stock and it wouldn't even go through the system. We'd just be, you know, here, have this, have this.

And you know, the best thing that we can do for the planet is survive as a business. So we, so we have to work towards continuing to be a profitable business, a business in the more places we are, the better we do for the planet. So I've, I've, I've learned that, I think the hard way.

We'Ve sailed too close to the wind by trying to be too kind all the time. Not to say that we're not kind, but yeah, you can, you can definitely shoot yourself in the foot, kind of be a hero.

Yeah. Heroin. Yeah. No, it's so true. And that's the advice we give to our clients is like I said, do as much as you can with what you've got, but don't overextend yourself because there's been plenty of examples of businesses trying to overextend on the impact. But if you haven't got that steady ship, you know, it's, you will go under and it's that, that well worn cliche of you can't feel for an empty vessel.

Yeah.

You have to be full and it needs to be overflowing. It can't be.

Yeah.

You. Yeah. In drought, trying to eke out one More drop to give out to the last person, then you both die. Yeah, yeah. And I think you're, you're another example of a, A high scoring because I think you were over 100 in your first time score, which is a great score for a first time B corp. So, yeah, you know, that's kind of just proves that you're doing a lot of good from day one. Yeah. You're just another great example of a B corp where the bigger your business gets, the more impact you're having. It's 100 indexed, whereas. Yeah, it's not always the case. You know, there are some B corps who, okay, you're a better business because you're a B corp, but fundamentally the product you're selling, you could kind of go, do we really need that in the world? And maybe they've got more of an index to. Well, if we're doing well, we give more to charity. But yeah, yours is clearly. Yeah, the more we sell, the more.

The more impact happens. Yeah, that's right. And we've now got a tracker on our website which. So we've diverted over 500 million single use period products from landfill since we started. And our goal, which we will smash is 1 billion by 2030. So it's pretty cool to have something that people can really get their heads around like that.

And you.

Yeah, it's a lot.

That is a lot. What, what would that look like in terms of like volume if you did it in the old rugby pictures or.

Yeah, I don't know. I need to do that. You need to do that around the globe.

Yeah, yeah. Have some real visual image. It's like. Yeah, I think, I reckon. How many, how many state. What's like the big international stadium that everyone would know? It's like, yeah, how. How many concerts would you be able to have?

You know, the problem with this scenario though is that nest is not my strong suit. So I need someone else to do it because I'm like, okay, that sounds a whole lot like measurements and then working out some sort of circumference.

Yeah. Equations and percentages. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm the creative brain 100.

Yeah. I didn't get the math gene at all. Mainly also during part two. Mrs. Dalrymple, my math teacher when I was about seven or eight, who. I just didn't understand something. And she just said in front of the whole class, timothy, you're an idiot to not be able to. Oh, my God.

She sounds like the perfect storybook character.

Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. They were in her and her husband, he was the headmaster, she was the head of maths. Yeah, interesting couple say the least. But hey, we're all here now, aren't we? So we're all having fun. But yeah, me and maths, whenever I do talks or training events, I always pick on the accountants and people from marketing because the, it's a pure projection on the accountants because I've just show with numbers and marketing because I come from a sales background and everyone knows that the market is just like crayons and coloring in and the salespeople do all the real work. So that's, that's how I roll. I'm, I'm an equal opportunities offender when it comes to, you know, offending the crowd who've paid me money to talk.

Awesome.

So you're on the cusp of your next recertification. So obviously the worker ownership. Is that, is that what's taken you up on the scores? I would imagine that's, that's typically an area.

That lifted you do.

You know, we have also one of our products we were making in Australia. We've brought manufacturing back to New Zealand.

We've worked really hard on the. We're again bringing back all printing, packaging, manufacturing into New Zealand.

And what else?

Reducing. We're actually all working. We're fully remote now, so you know, having a dedicated office with sort of extra that we don't have very low. We're not traveling anywhere. The staff aren't traveling anywhere. Well, unless it's for work obviously, but you know, there's no daily commute for us.

Yeah, I think those are probably the key ones.

Nice. Very cool. And so what does the future hold? Where next for hello period.

We're focusing on Australia at the moment. We were.

Working a lot in the US but I think post Covid and again shipping rate, all those costs and carbon craziness, we thought dial it back, focus closer to home.

But really we just want to build, keep building brand and awareness and educating people about the benefits of reusable, sustainable period products.

Yeah, that's just, we just keep, keep talking and we, we see a big future for us in mainstream. We spent a lot of years sort of fighting the idea of being in mass, mass consumer places like supermarkets and. But actually that's where we need to be to have the biggest impact.

And so kudos to the supermarkets that give shelf space to products that don't turn over as quickly as others, you know, so because we all know shelf space is so valuable and so for us we're in countdowns in New Zealand and chemist warehouse and bargain chemistry and you know, we're not going to be selling like, you know, shampoo might be or things that are just used regularly. You know, products last for years. But I think there is actually a huge onus on those.

Supermarkets and big chain stores to do their part and to encourage their customers to buy sustainably where possible.

But I, you know, I understand that's a, you know, a bit of a friction point for them but you know, they're the businesses that are doing it. I think I, I definitely am more loyal to them and would shop there.

It's just all this tension, isn't it? And I think increasingly it seems that, you know, certainly what we're seeing from the UK and Europe, you know, some Waitrose in the uk, big supermarket chain in the UK that they have in store promotions around, hey, these brands are B Corp. On their online store you can search by brands of the B corp. So I think we're, we're seeing this trend where for the supermarkets and the big box retailers, they can make themselves look better right now by working with brands like yours. And, and I think, I think there is what it feels like there's a slowly edging, creeping towards a bit of a switch where actually they're recognizing that it's not about how many we shift, it's, it's, it's bigger than that. So, yeah, I think, I think you'll look back in 20, 30 years time and realize how much part of that movement you work. I think at the minute there's a whole bunch of cool, interesting stuff happening that's, it's, it's fringy, it's edgy, it's, it's pushing boundaries and it's hard to actually know really how much impact it's all happening. But yeah, I think in 20 or 30 years time again, we'll look back and go, God, do you remember those days in the supermarkets where basically they only stock stuff that sold like every 30 seconds? Man, can you imagine what crazy world that was?

Yeah.

So super cool. Bring it on, bring it on. I think it's getting there. It's getting there, it's getting there. Hey, well, thank you so much for your time. It's been great to get to know you, particularly with all your Christmas craziness that you've got happening with you. Yeah, I think we're, we're a few days away from that yet, so watch this space. But yeah, no, love what you're doing. Keep up the amazing work and thank you.

You too.

I hope you have a great.

Thank you for helping so many people on this journey. Because it's really, you know, it. It. It's a. It's tough, and it's great to have someone out there that can help hold people's hand.

Thanks. That's what we're here for.

Yeah. Yeah.

Cool. All right, we'll see you.

Okay, thanks.

Hey, it's Tim here. That B Corp bloke from Grow Good. If you want more content on purpose, B Corp. How to do more good in the world as an individual or a business, then you know the drill. Hit the like and subscribe. Check out some other videos. They're probably floating around here somewhere. You know how it works. Thank you so much. See you next time.