Latest / How To Protect The Ocean / Sparkling Water Without Plastic Bottles (from your taps)
Transcript
- 0:00We are in a time where we can't rely just
- 0:03on government to get conservation priorities past a certain
- 0:06line and to help protect the ocean or to protect the
- 0:10environment or make sure that we are doing things sustainably. There
- 0:13are some times when there's a government in power that may not help us and
- 0:17that may go sometimes the opposite way. It sucks, nobody
- 0:20likes it, but there are times where we have to rely on businesses to
- 0:24do what they need to do not only to make a profit, but
- 0:28make an impact. And that's today's topic. We are going to be talking
- 0:31to Marcus O'Donovan. He is the founder of CO2U,
- 0:36which provides carbon dioxide cylinders for
- 0:41your sparkling water. It's a fantastic model
- 0:44and you're probably like, how is this sustainable, Andrew?
- 0:48Well, it's sustainable in that you are using your tap water. You're making your
- 0:51tap water more exciting. You're not buying sparkling water out
- 0:55of a plastic bottle. You are actually enjoying your water and
- 0:58you get it on demand. And it's sustainable. And
- 1:01that's how it's sustainable. Does he go on and on about talking
- 1:05about how sustainable this product is, no. He
- 1:08just enjoys providing sparkling water on demand
- 1:12for people in and around the UK and parts of Europe.
- 1:15And I think it's just amazing. And I wanted you to get to know him and
- 1:18his business practice and all the other things that he's done over time that
- 1:22has prepared him for CO2U. So let's start
- 1:25the show. Hey
- 1:30everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm
- 1:34your host, Andrew Lewin, and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the
- 1:37ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean, and what you can do to live for a
- 1:40better ocean by taking action. And today we're gonna be talking
- 1:44about how to... have a business that's
- 1:47sustainable and not necessarily build it based on
- 1:50that sustainability. I think that's what's really important here. I
- 1:53think a lot of people, and I included, when I first started
- 1:57getting into the sustainability practice and looking at businesses and talking about
- 2:01the selling points of a business, I was like, let's talk about how sustainable this
- 2:04business is. Well, it doesn't always have to be that way. And I think a lot
- 2:08of people, a lot of consumers are getting tired of hearing about
- 2:11sustainability and tired of hearing, hey, you know what, you should buy this because it's good for
- 2:14the planet. People want to buy things because it's good for them. They
- 2:18can use it, it's convenient, and they want to do that. And that's what Marcus
- 2:21O'Donovan has really done with CO2U. It's
- 2:25a very interesting business model with a
- 2:28product that you probably never would have thought of as counting as sustainable. I
- 2:32didn't really think so when I first started this interview. And then as I went through the interview, I'm
- 2:35like, oh, I see what it is. This is sparkling water on demand. Instead
- 2:39of going out to the store and buying it in a plastic bottle or
- 2:42buying it in a single use plastic, you can actually get sparkling water
- 2:46on demand right from tap water. So you're not using extra water,
- 2:50you're not supporting companies who are not sustainable, bringing
- 2:53plastic into the supply chain and it being single use
- 2:57and it's not getting recycling, you're having at home, it's convenient to
- 3:00you and you get to excite your water a little bit and
- 3:03have a good time at home. I think this is something
- 3:07that becomes really important in terms of the messaging. And
- 3:10Marcus talks a lot about his entrepreneurial journey, which I think is
- 3:13really important. When we look at problem solving,
- 3:17which is basically business and entrepreneurs, they are problem solvers.
- 3:21We look at how can we create businesses that solve
- 3:24the problems that we're facing like in the ocean or in the
- 3:28environment and make things more sustainable. That's the
- 3:31problem that we have to solve. A lot of you in the audience wanna solve the
- 3:34very same problem in different ways. And Marcus talks about what
- 3:38he went through that built them to be resilient
- 3:42and start a business that some of the people in his circle said,
- 3:45I don't think this is actually going to work. But he proved him wrong just
- 3:48by saying, hey, I actually think this is going to work. I don't know a lot about the industry, but
- 3:52I'm going to find out a lot about it. It took a year and a half and I'm going to create something.
- 3:55and now it's blossoming. And I think it's really important to go back
- 3:59to his history to talk about how he built the resilience to
- 4:02do that. He worked in the TV and film industry as a kid, as a teenager and
- 4:06a young man, and then he started his own business, COVID kind
- 4:09of kiboshed that, and now he's got a new business and it's
- 4:12absolutely amazing. So we're gonna talk to him, and here's the interview with
- 4:16Marcus O'Donovan, the founder of CO2U, which
- 4:19you can find at co2u.com. Here's the interview, and I will talk
- 4:22to you after. Hey, Marcus, welcome to the How to Protect the Ocean podcast.
- 4:31Oh, I love it. I love it. I'm pumped. I'm pumped as well. This is
- 4:34going to be a lot of fun because today we're going to be talking to you
- 4:37about sort of your lifestyle in a second, in a second, like your life
- 4:41and how you become an entrepreneur from a TV
- 4:45career and a TV and film career and what
- 4:48that was like, why you made those decisions. And we're gonna cover
- 4:51a lot of things about, you know, sustainability in business, the
- 4:54challenges, the successes that you've seen and
- 4:58the challenges that you faced. We're gonna get into all of that stuff. It's gonna
- 5:01be a lot of fun. Before we do though, Marcus, why don't you just let people know who you
- 5:06So my name is Marcus O'Donovan. I am based in
- 5:10London in the UK, and I founded a business called CO2U.
- 5:15We'll get into it more, but what CO2U essentially does is it provides
- 5:19gas refills for home carbonators. So if
- 5:22you have, for example, a SodaStream or an Arky or any
- 5:26kind of device that makes sparkling water at home, we
- 5:29send the gas to you. You use it, once you're done,
- 5:33we send more and we collect the empty cylinders at the end. And
- 5:36there's a whole host of stuff we can
- 5:39talk about where that kind of fits in within this
- 5:44Yeah, absolutely. I think it's a really ingenious idea. You know,
- 5:47this seems to be a market that has really exploded
- 5:51over the last, I would say like five years I've seen it here in Canada anyway.
- 5:55Um, and, and so it's, I'm really interested in just seeing how you got into
- 5:58this, where, you know, and, and, and what made you decide to
- 6:02go into this. We're going to get into all that. It's going to be a lot of fun. I
- 6:06have to ask, you weren't always this type of entrepreneur. You
- 6:10were a little bit of a different type of entrepreneur in terms of you were
- 6:13TV shows and film, kids' TV shows as well. How
- 6:20Well, I think for me, I was always someone that wanted attention. Maybe
- 6:24that's slightly winged as I've got a little bit older. But certainly
- 6:27when I was younger, I desperately wanted to be in a boy band,
- 6:31actually. That was my kind of dream. And
- 6:36incredibly, I was kind of on that journey. And very long
- 6:39story, but I ended up doing this huge casting call
- 6:43for a guy called Simon Fuller, huge music
- 6:48mogul entrepreneur, and got
- 6:52signed into this kind of band TV show type thing
- 6:55here in the UK when I was very young, about 16, 17. And so I had this very
- 7:01exciting time, lots of money, sort
- 7:05of just a very slight taste of fame but not really.
- 7:09And I kind
- 7:12of remained in that whole world trying to kind of make it
- 7:15in kind of television presenting, acting, that kind of
- 7:18thing, did a lot of TV shows. I guess that
- 7:22was the kind of I did a lot of big shows, but I was the
- 7:25actor that kind of, you know, if it was Doctor Who, you know, I'm coming
- 7:29around the corner and saying, Doctor, your tea's ready. It was like,
- 7:34not extra, but not exactly the star of the show either. So
- 7:38it got to about 10 years in and
- 7:43I thought, hey, you know what? I think what I really want to
- 7:46do is sell. I
- 7:49think I was very interested in economics. I just didn't really understand what
- 7:54that was. I actually ended up in the food business. I
- 7:57started a business called Husk. This
- 8:01was a business that sold dry goods into hotels,
- 8:04pubs, and bars, so nuts, snacks, that kind of thing. And
- 8:09that was a rollercoaster of a business. Again,
- 8:13it was about a 10-year journey. Business
- 8:16went bust in COVID and then kind of rebuilt
- 8:20itself. And somehow, eventually, I actually
- 8:24sold it last year to a business here called Canbrook
- 8:28Foods. So it was not a massive business and not some kind
- 8:31of huge tech exit, but a lot
- 8:35of experience selling physical products and just kind of making Huge
- 8:39mistakes, lots and lots of times. And that really
- 8:43set me up for my next business. I'm really
- 8:47fortunate that I had that journey to
- 8:50get so much wrong. I'm not saying I don't get things wrong now, because we
- 8:54do, we all do. But it just gave me a
- 8:57wealth of knowledge and opportunity, which I didn't realize I
- 9:00had until I started CO2U. And I was like, oh, I
- 9:04already know how to do this and this and this. gotcha. So that's
- 9:09Let's go back that career shift between the TV
- 9:12and film to to the entrepreneurial sort
- 9:16of career path. In
- 9:20Korean film, you're putting a lot of I guess uncomfortable situations in
- 9:23terms of from what I've heard anyway, I've never had experience it but auditioning is
- 9:27very uncomfortable where you're being judged right away and you have to think
- 9:30on your feet and acting you have to think on your feet, not sure how much
- 9:34improv you get to do in some of these shows but you do have to
- 9:37like, make sure that you're ready for anything. Do
- 9:40you find that aspect of this type of
- 9:44industry, when you look at, you know, TV and film, compared to
- 9:47entrepreneurship, do you find that helped you prepare for the
- 9:54Yeah, I think what was incredibly helpful was
- 9:58all the rejection. Uh, and, and, um, as
- 10:02you say, being put in very difficult, uh, scenarios, being
- 10:05asked to do difficult things. Um, you did a lot of casting
- 10:09calls, things like commercials where you just walk in, you don't really know what they
- 10:12want you to do. There's lots of people sitting there watching you.
- 10:16You got to perform. Um, you know, you're being told for
- 10:19this reason or that reason that you're not getting the role, not good looking enough, not tall enough,
- 10:23Um, and so personal sometimes too,
- 10:27Like it feels pretty personal. Yeah. Yeah, pick up a very thick
- 10:30skin. And I think the real advantage that it
- 10:34gave me is the
- 10:37ability to confidently, to
- 10:41be outwardly confident when I'm speaking, or when I'm
- 10:44public speaking, or to walk into a room and feel, I
- 10:48don't know that it's, you know, my partner, she calls, she always tells me, I'm an
- 10:51extrovert, you're an extrovert. But for me, I just, I
- 10:55just love people. And I love, being
- 10:59present. And I think, you
- 11:03know, I'm in my early 40s now, but
- 11:06I think as I sort of get older, I
- 11:10really look back and value a lot of these things that
- 11:14I was fortunate enough to be a part of. You know, even
- 11:17if I didn't become Tom Cruise, I had some
- 11:21experience and some kind of journey within it. So to
- 11:25answer your question, yeah, that whole
- 11:29world of entertainment has been very valuable when
- 11:33it's come to pitching, selling, selling yourself, it's
- 11:38Yeah, and like you mentioned, rejection, and to
- 11:41be able to get over that rejection, it's experience, obviously,
- 11:45it can be tough sometimes, as we mentioned, What helps
- 11:49you get over that rejection, whether it be in a sale
- 11:53or whether it be at an audition, what helped you get
- 11:56over that so that now in business, if something does happen,
- 12:00God forbid you do get rejected or you don't get a particular sale or
- 12:04something doesn't work out. How did you,
- 12:07how do you get over that? Because it happens a lot in the marine conservation
- 12:11industry. We don't get a grant or something we want, you
- 12:15know, say a bill gets through, it doesn't get through. We deal
- 12:18with it, but we deal with, it can be very personal to us. And
- 12:21so a lot of people have problems with mental health throughout their careers
- 12:25because some of the things that, like the impact of the rejection could
- 12:29be a loss of a habitat or things like that. How
- 12:32does that work? I mean, for you, sometimes, well, a lot of times,
- 12:36the stakes were hard. You lose a job for TV
- 12:40and film or you lose a sale that's impacting on your business.
- 12:49Not easily. Look,
- 12:54you're asking me these questions now in hindsight, having been through everything
- 12:57that I've been through. I think at the time I found these things extremely challenging.
- 13:01It doesn't surprise me that you mention people struggling with
- 13:04their mental health over these kinds of things. I
- 13:08get it. I think where I'm at now is that I
- 13:12don't approach things negatively. I'm very positive, very ambitious, but
- 13:16I'm certainly a bit of a realist. I understand
- 13:19sometimes things can appear a little bit
- 13:22too good to be true, probably means they might be a bit too good
- 13:26to be true. And we're pitching to these big buyers at
- 13:29these restaurant chains or supermarkets, whatever they
- 13:32are, and they're giving us all these signals. But until the
- 13:36money's in the bank, as they say, you know, nothing's kind of
- 13:39guaranteed. So now I find
- 13:43all this stuff a lot easier and I've learned as well that I
- 13:47think when I was an actor, being honest, I was
- 13:50desperate. I was very, very desperate. It was very, very hard. It was a
- 13:53lot of competition. We were all desperate and it was a desperate sense
- 13:57when you walked into the casting rooms
- 14:00and you sat outside and everybody, you
- 14:04could smell it in the air. And desperation is
- 14:08not attractive. Nobody wants to be around or be
- 14:11pitched to by somebody that's desperately trying to sell them their product.
- 14:15So when it comes to selling something now, I just pull it
- 14:18right back. And it's kind of like, look, I've
- 14:22got this great thing. And it is a great thing. And
- 14:25we'll talk about CO2 and what it's doing and the
- 14:28growth and everything else. But it's like, if you want it, great. If
- 14:35Yeah. Yeah. No,
- 14:39but I mean, I think you're right. We're around the same age and, and
- 14:43I think you're right. I think when you're young, it really, it really hits
- 14:46hard and, and you take it almost personally and you don't
- 14:49know how you're going to get over it as you grow older, you come like
- 14:53cautious, you see the signs ahead and you kind of like, okay, hold on.
- 14:56I got it. I got to tread lightly here. And I know. what to expect, what
- 14:59not to expect, the signs are all there, and you tend to get over a little
- 15:03bit more, your emotions aren't as in it a little bit. Mind
- 15:06you, it could be a little bit different in terms of TV and
- 15:10film, because they're going after, like you mentioned, looks and personality, and
- 15:17Yeah, listen, there's a big difference between
- 15:20selling yourself and selling a product. Even if it's a product that you've
- 15:23created and you've designed, you can still pick it up and move it out
- 15:27the way, but you can't do the same with yourself. So if
- 15:30you aren't what they want, you aren't what they want, and there's nothing you can
- 15:34do You know? Yeah. No, a hundred percent. Very,
- 15:37very personal. It's a tough, it's a tough business. And I, I still have
- 15:41many, many, many friends, um, you know, still, still
- 15:45in that business plugging away and, well,
- 15:52Unbelievable. Yeah. I can imagine. I can, I can only imagine. But
- 15:56speaking of tough, you mentioned Husk closed
- 15:59down or really got affected during COVID, which
- 16:03was tough for a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of people out there, either
- 16:06lost their jobs or lost their businesses or their businesses were severely
- 16:10impacted. Another uncontrollable sort
- 16:14of challenge that hits you. Did
- 16:19you realize at that time, it's like, okay, we don't know how long this is gonna last,
- 16:22but I need to, I need to sell, or I need to shift?
- 16:28I remember my accountant said to me, he said, oh, it's two weeks. It's two weeks.
- 16:33And because it was my accountant, I was like, oh, great. OK, that's fine.
- 16:36And I just went to bed that night. And I thought, well, it's going to be great,
- 16:39because the whole of London's locked down. And it'd be
- 16:43fun for two weeks. It's something completely rare. Yeah,
- 16:48as it kind of snowboard on, I
- 16:51realized, oh, OK, this is going to
- 16:55change the world. And it has completely changed. It's changed
- 16:58everything. It
- 17:02was an extremely hard time for me. I know a lot of people did very,
- 17:05very well at that time. We did not. But
- 17:09what it did do for me was it it
- 17:13kind of forced my hand to start something new. And
- 17:16I'd had this idea for CO2, you kind of, I didn't really
- 17:19have the idea, but I kind of, I thought about it briefly once, but it was kind
- 17:23of floating around. And I realized, you
- 17:26know, I just had, we
- 17:31just had a baby with my partner. So she and
- 17:34I were kind of like, you know, what
- 17:39are you going to do? Or what am I going to do? And
- 17:43so it devastated the business I had at the time. But
- 17:47actually, eventually in came some of these government grants and
- 17:50things and I ended up being able to launch CO2
- 17:55kind of around that time using some
- 17:58of my own money, but also a bit of the money that I got there. And so A
- 18:03blessing and a curse. It
- 18:08Well, yeah, which we're going to get into in just seconds. I can't wait to talk
- 18:12about this, because I'm not familiar with this industry at all. And
- 18:15I think it's a really interesting one, especially from the
- 18:18sustainability aspect. But it seems
- 18:22like you've always had that entrepreneurial Spirit
- 18:26in you even like as a TV and film artist you still You're
- 18:31you're advocating for yourself You're you're a little on your own you have a team and
- 18:34stuff and then you get into husk and now you're in co2 you What
- 18:38made you like during those times some of the hard times not
- 18:42go get a job and decide to start another
- 18:48That's a good question. I've always had a sort of
- 18:51a huge fear of, I mean, I was
- 18:54naughty at school. I don't like being told what to
- 18:58do. So the idea that I would have to go and be
- 19:01a good boy and do what I was told, I just
- 19:04think I always that was never going
- 19:08to be for me. And it's been incredibly hard. I am
- 19:11not one of these entrepreneurs that hit big in their early 20s
- 19:14and made his millions and, you know, has since kind of built. That is
- 19:18not my journey whatsoever. And for anybody listening
- 19:21who is young and does want to become an entrepreneur, I'm
- 19:25so passionate about it. I think when
- 19:28it works out for you, it will change your life in ways that I don't believe
- 19:32any job could ever. change
- 19:36your life, but make no mistakes about it. It's
- 19:39really hard. You see all this stuff on social media, whatever, these guys flashing
- 19:44the cash, whatever. If that even does exist, it's
- 19:47a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of people that
- 19:50are successful. And that's why you hear about it. You don't hear about the 99.8% of
- 19:55the people that are really struggling. Me being, I haven't
- 20:01And I think that's the problem too, is we get distracted by
- 20:05the people who are doing this, sometimes not even, you
- 20:09know, not even succeeding, but they're kind of flashing this money when they probably
- 20:12should be. But we have to, I
- 20:15don't think a lot of people realize how challenging entrepreneurial
- 20:19life is, which is why I'm going a little down this road, because
- 20:22I wanted to get the idea of what
- 20:26you've been through to get a company that is
- 20:30doing well with Husk, and then all of a sudden, due
- 20:33to things out of your control for a lot of people, it gets affected a
- 20:37huge deal. And then to have the courage
- 20:41to start something else is amazing, because
- 20:45to get over one thing, and then to go to another, and
- 20:48to put all your heart and soul into another, It's
- 20:52risky. It is. And although sometimes a
- 20:55job is comfortable, which many of us have, and there's nothing wrong with it,
- 20:59entrepreneurism is that challenge. But like you said, when you get to it,
- 21:02and you start to see that success, it's
- 21:06almost success in multiple ways, not just the purpose
- 21:09of your business, the bottom line, like the profit, but also your
- 21:13own, like the fact that you succeeded in something, the independence, the
- 21:17decision-making that you get to do and not control that. I've worked in
- 21:20both aspects and I think there's a big difference
- 21:23in that. I can completely get where you're coming from when you finally
- 21:27get that taste of success, even if it's not a huge success
- 21:32And it's not by any means to knock regular
- 21:36employment. For sure. If it wasn't for regular
- 21:39employment, I wouldn't have been able to have done what I've done. My partner works
- 21:43in corporate, in finance. And for
- 21:47a lot of this journey, she's been the breadwinner. She's
- 21:50supported me and she's believed in me and believed in
- 21:54the process. And had I not had her and had that, it
- 21:57might not have been possible. So I'm by no means kind
- 22:01of belittling or suggesting,
- 22:04like you say, that there's anything wrong with having a quote-unquote
- 22:08normal job. I'm just saying for me, never gonna
- 22:14Never gonna happen, baby. Never gonna happen. Yeah, it definitely goes by personality
- 22:17a lot, right? And I think that's wonderful. Let's
- 22:22get into CO2U. This is a really interesting
- 22:25concept. It's a great business model. Can
- 22:29you give us a description of what the business is?
- 22:36Yeah, sure. Very, very simply, I think I said at the
- 22:39start of the podcast, if you're making sparkling water
- 22:43in your home, which a lot of people are now, and we'll talk about why, because
- 22:47a lot of it is to do with sustainability, of course, then you're going to
- 22:50need CO2. And here in the UK, there's one
- 22:54major supplier of this product called SodaStream, owned
- 22:57by PepsiCo. And I was a big fan of
- 23:00that business, and my partner bought me a SodaStream when
- 23:04I was using it. I loved it.
- 23:07And it kind of, the thing that was kind
- 23:11of eye-opening for me about the whole thing
- 23:15about making sparkling water in your home was that I drink a lot of sparkling water.
- 23:18So I used to carry, we're in central London, I used to carry these big two-liter
- 23:24bottles, like six of them, back from the supermarket. And
- 23:29I'd open them up. And once you open them, of course, they start
- 23:32going flat. You sort of drink a lot. They take up a lot of room. And
- 23:36suddenly, here I am with this kind of sparkling water on
- 23:39tap. So, look,
- 23:43how the business started, because you're going to ask me that question, I will tell you, was
- 23:47Sodastream had an offer
- 23:50where you could get the gas delivered to your house. But incredibly,
- 23:54when you finished using it, you had to box it back
- 23:57up and you had to take it down and carry it down to like
- 24:00a click and collect location to get back to them and get
- 24:04your money refunded, this, that, and the other. there must be a
- 24:07way in which this could all be done in your doorstep. And
- 24:10so that's what I said about building with CO2.
- 24:14And I'm so glad that I did it, but I have to say it wasn't
- 24:17straightforward. There was a very, very good reason why that wasn't
- 24:21possible. And it was simply that the Korea
- 24:24companies won't collect empty cylinders
- 24:28or use cylinders from people because
- 24:32they believe in some way that they might be dangerous. So there was
- 24:35a good year, year and a half where I thought the thing isn't
- 24:39going to work and I'm never going to be able to convince these career companies to work
- 24:44with me on this. But man,
- 24:48it was a crazy, crazy journey. It just started
- 24:51with me buying some cylinders and I sold
- 24:55on Amazon before and I looked, I thought, well, if I buy a thousand cylinders
- 24:58and I put them on Amazon and see if they sell and
- 25:04gone. Just like that? Very,
- 25:07very quickly. I sold these things. I thought, okay, If I
- 25:11can sell a thousand and sell them quick, there's
- 25:16something in this. This has got to be a thing.
- 25:21So I did two things. I'll tell you about some of the disaster, and then we
- 25:24can talk about some of the success. But I decided, I
- 25:27thought, hey, look, I'm going to need my own machine, I think
- 25:31like almost out of vanity more than anything else. So I
- 25:34had some stupid names for the company, for the idea.
- 25:37One of them was Fizzy Banter, terrible name. And my friends in
- 25:41marketing and I met up with him one evening and he said, oh,
- 25:44what are you up to? I explained, I said, I'm going to call it Fizzy Banter. He
- 25:48texted me that evening, he said, look, I cannot in good faith allow
- 25:52you to start a new business and call it this. meet
- 25:56me tomorrow and I'll give you your name and I'll give you
- 25:59your logo, free of charge." Lovely guy called Ardy. Anyway,
- 26:03he went to me and the next day he said, listen, this is your business. It's
- 26:06called CO2U. And I was like, of course it is, because it's
- 26:09exactly what this is all about. CO2U, yeah, makes total
- 26:13sense. And, you
- 26:16know, the whole thing was born. So, originally I
- 26:20had these machines to make sparkling water at home, so I ordered
- 26:23those and I ordered some test cylinders from this
- 26:26manufacturer in China and brought them
- 26:30all back to the UK, tried everything out, it was brilliant. So
- 26:33ordered the machines and ordered the cylinders. And this was
- 26:37around the time of COVID. So the first cylinders
- 26:40turned up and I was so excited and I shot this video and I told all my friends
- 26:44and I sent out machines to all these different friends. I
- 26:48didn't really get much of a response from anybody. I thought,
- 26:51well, it's kind of odd. I put the machines on Amazon. They started selling.
- 26:55I was like, okay, awesome. And they were selling well. I started
- 26:59getting people returning the machines. I
- 27:02thought, What's going on here? So I
- 27:06rang my friend Paul. I said, hey, how are you getting on with that machine?
- 27:10And he said, oh, well, actually,
- 27:14I couldn't get it to work. I said, what
- 27:17do you mean? Did you just screw the cylinder in? And he said, yeah, I know how it
- 27:20works, but I cannot get it to work. Anyway. After
- 27:25speaking to a number of other different people, lots of people had problems working
- 27:28the machine. I thought, I don't believe this. These guys who've
- 27:32made the machine, they've given me a faulty product.
- 27:35It's over before it even started. Because I'd invested about
- 27:39£70,000, all the money that I could put into this thing I put in. I was like, it's dead. And
- 27:43it was terrible. I went to the warehouse the next day, started trying out
- 27:46all these machines, and they weren't working properly. Some were
- 27:50working a bit, some weren't. So I was tearing my
- 27:53hair out for a couple of weeks, arguing
- 27:57with this machine manufacturer. Look, what's going on?
- 28:00These machines don't work. They said, Marcus, we're the largest producer of
- 28:03these machines globally. Here is the video of your product going
- 28:07down the production line, being tested. They always work. We don't ever
- 28:10have these problems. So I was going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And
- 28:15in the end, after having been assured by
- 28:19my cylinder supplier that they'd given me the exact same cylinder that
- 28:23we'd used during testing, turns out that because it was COVID, they'd
- 28:27sourced an identical part for the cylinder,
- 28:30the valve, that's exactly the same. There's nothing
- 28:34different about it. But actually, when we measured it, it was about a
- 28:37third of a millimeter out in its design
- 28:41or whatever, and it affected these machines. And the worst part about it was I
- 28:45had 7,000 cylinders on the water coming from
- 28:49this same manufacturer. And I thought, well, that's it. it's over.
- 28:52Anyway, long story short, the cylinders arrived, and
- 28:57they'd used the correct part on these other
- 29:00ones. It had just been this brief little thing that
- 29:04they'd done, and they hadn't been honest about it, and
- 29:08everything worked. And then from that moment onwards, It
- 29:13has been for the most part an extremely exciting, enjoyable
- 29:18journey where we then grew 500% in year two
- 29:22and we've doubled in size ever since. I've
- 29:26gone through a few rounds of investment.
- 29:30I've been very, very lucky. First investor I was put in front
- 29:33of, Anthony Bolton. And he
- 29:38said, all right, I'll invest. And then the second investor I
- 29:42got in front of, a year and a half later, Louis, he
- 29:45said, yeah, I want to bank you. I want to invest. And then Recently,
- 29:50at the end of last year, the business is growing and
- 29:53growing and growing and I can't finance the growth. So I
- 29:56said to my manufacturer, oh, you know, the problem is
- 30:00I just can't afford to buy the amount of cylinders I need to
- 30:03buy from you. And he said, all right, well, you
- 30:06know, we'll have a think about payment terms, whatever. Anyway, they came
- 30:09back the next day and within about A
- 30:13week and a half, I'd sold a
- 30:16small amount of the company to Victory, which
- 30:20is one of the largest gas cylinder suppliers globally, firefighting
- 30:24equipment suppliers. So yeah,
- 30:28that's where we're at today. It continues
- 30:35It wasn't a fact of people weren't buying. It was the fact that you just couldn't
- 30:39produce enough ahead of time to satisfy the demand. So
- 30:42you just need that little extra of investment to scale up. Is that what
- 30:47Yeah, 100%. And the frustrating thing is that The
- 30:52shipping time's very difficult, as you
- 30:56might well know. If you're bringing in a product
- 30:59from the other side of the world, there's been a lot of problems with the
- 31:07Yeah, it was terrible then. And then the Suez Canal is currently shut.
- 31:13Everything's going down the coast of Africa. And then you got the pirates. So
- 31:17it's been, it can be quite challenging. So just keeping up
- 31:20with, it's been Very, very
- 31:24exciting to be in a business where it's about keeping up with demand. I've
- 31:28never been in that situation before in my previous business, begging people
- 31:31to buy my product. Now it's, look, this
- 31:35thing is growing and it's growing quick. Can you supply? And, you know, we've
- 31:38got seven or eight quite substantial
- 31:42corporate contracts with big, well-known companies that we're now
- 31:46working with and selling to. And yeah, so I'm
- 31:54That's amazing. That's amazing. Yeah. You
- 31:58know, obviously, this is a show about how to protect the environment, how to protect the
- 32:01ocean. Um, so obviously, you
- 32:05know, this is, this is a at home soda, like you're, you're basically,
- 32:08these are, this is CO2 for soda machines, right?
- 32:12So people creating sparkling water or maybe their own soda through
- 32:16SodaStream or anything. It works with essentially all the different brands. Is that
- 32:22Yeah, of course. So we cover all the brands
- 32:27and the sparkling water taps. So we've actually got a, I mean, I'll
- 32:30tell you a crazy thing in a minute, but we've got a
- 32:34new larger cylinder that powers sparkling water taps in kind of
- 32:37offices and restaurants and that kind of thing. The
- 32:41sustainability thing is crazy. We must
- 32:44talk about it because it is not something that I, It
- 32:48wasn't my reason or my
- 32:52why for getting into this, but it's just a massive. You
- 32:55see, I see a lot of these businesses, I think there's a huge amount of talk about being
- 32:59green, but there's a lot of greenwashing that I
- 33:03see, a lot of companies trying to kind of say that they're
- 33:06doing something good. And you're like, well, I
- 33:09personally don't see that, or I question a lot of that. But
- 33:14I just knew as a byproduct of what we're doing that it was incredibly good for
- 33:17the planet. Our enemy, if we have to
- 33:20have one, is traveled water. So
- 33:24any water that is being moved from A to B, that doesn't need to
- 33:27go from A to B, because in the Western world, pretty
- 33:30much all over the world now, we have a tap, right? So
- 33:34we have water right there. We don't need to
- 33:37fill it into a vessel. and not only put
- 33:41it in a disposable plastic vessel, but
- 33:44then put it onto a truck, which then burns fuel to
- 33:47move it from here to here. It doesn't make any sense how
- 33:51this whole thing has happened at all. And the worst
- 33:55part being, of course, is that so much of this plastic ends up in the
- 33:58sea, which is just heartbreaking, right?
- 34:02Well, even the plastic that's made is a petroleum product in
- 34:05itself. So It's made from petroleum, and so making it
- 34:09is dirty. Drinking it is bad for you because of
- 34:12all the plastic material that comes in. And then disposing, as you mentioned, is
- 34:16not good as well. So all parts of it, from the creation all the way to
- 34:22Yeah, and I understand there's a need for single-use drinks
- 34:26and a huge demand. It's
- 34:30very interesting. Frustratingly, there's a business we're working
- 34:34with, very, very well-known business here in the UK that I can't
- 34:37talk about, but they're really trying
- 34:41to reduce the single-use plastics within their business, and
- 34:44they've got some great ideas. But it's
- 34:48just a really interesting byproduct of of what
- 34:51we're doing. And I always say that for my business, what
- 34:55we push is convenience. It's getting the gas to your door, collecting
- 35:00it, making it easy for you. So that's what we're all about. But we
- 35:03don't shout loud enough about what
- 35:06we're also doing for the environment. And I think I felt like,
- 35:10not that I couldn't, but like I said, I see so
- 35:13many people doing this. And it not being that
- 35:16genuine, I was kind of like, nah, I think I'm going to focus on something
- 35:20else and just be proud of the byproduct. But I must just quickly
- 35:23tell you about this incredible thing that's
- 35:26happening here. We have discovered that all of
- 35:30these sparkling water taps in these offices, all across London
- 35:33and the UK, and actually most of Europe, are being powered
- 35:37by a steel cylinder that's
- 35:40a disposable steel cylinder that cannot be
- 35:44recycled. So many of these steel cylinders, and
- 35:47I'm talking tens of thousands, are
- 35:51filled, bought once, used, and essentially thrown
- 35:55away. And that completely
- 35:59blew my mind. So we have created an aluminum refillable
- 36:03cylinder. And we're now bringing that to market this year. We've got
- 36:07it here. And we've just started selling it. And we're working with lots of
- 36:10brands. It's compatible with brands here like ZipTap, Billy Taps, Aqualibra,
- 36:14this kind of thing. And a lot
- 36:18of these companies are talking about sustainability. And we're like, well. Steel
- 36:23cylinders are not very sustainable. You might be helping
- 36:26people to make sparkling water from the tap, but you're
- 36:30now doing this. This sustainability thing
- 36:34is, yeah, like I said, it's a wonderful byproduct
- 36:38of everything that we're doing. And it's nice to be running a
- 36:41business that is doing really well, making
- 36:46money in itself and for me, but also
- 36:49feeling like I'm doing something good. Because there's lots of ways of
- 36:53making money that, you know, you could
- 36:56debate probably perhaps weren't that good. But I feel like I'm doing something
- 36:59with my life that I can look back on one day and
- 37:03say, you know what? I helped. I
- 37:08Well, and I think you mentioned something really interesting to
- 37:11me is the fact of convenience. A
- 37:14lot of the times, anything you do
- 37:18that's sustainable tends not to be convenient. You
- 37:21know what I mean? Like even just like you just talk about reusable diapers,
- 37:24not necessarily that convenient. You know, you have to wash them. You have to like, you
- 37:28know, you're basically literally getting your hands dirty more than you want
- 37:31to instead of just disposing of picking up a plastic
- 37:35water bottle or a an energy drink that's
- 37:38in a plastic water bottle or something that's that's, you
- 37:42know, you want as a convenience in a convenience store as we call them
- 37:45here, our corner stores. to just get up, pay for
- 37:48it, walk away, your thirst is quenched. Having
- 37:53something that you have built that is based on convenience, right?
- 37:57Where you don't need to go out and buy single use things. You
- 38:00can have something delivered to your home, the cylinders delivered to your home. So you know,
- 38:04and you're taking it from the tap. It just ends up being so much more convenient.
- 38:08And a lot of the times it goes against sort of the, it goes against
- 38:12the idea that Being
- 38:15in sustainable being more environmental think of
- 38:18the environment doesn't necessarily mean you're not being convenient It doesn't mean you're
- 38:22out convenience. You're you're actually being you can be convenient I think
- 38:25it just takes a little ingenuity a little thought to help
- 38:29in that respect And and I think your business model
- 38:32does that you know, so so that's awesome. Congratulations. That's that's
- 38:36really cool without even probably without even knowing it right like as you mentioned he's
- 38:39like I just wanted to get this business because it was it was helping you, you
- 38:43know, like in in your your want and need
- 38:46for this type of service and then seeing other people having that service
- 38:49and they loving it. And then so it grows like that and it's being
- 38:53convenient and it's helping people get away from single use
- 38:56plastics and it's helping people using tap water and just maybe augmenting
- 39:00that experience a little bit of tap water to include a little bit
- 39:03of carbonation. So I love that
- 39:07aspect. And I think it's, we don't always have to
- 39:11tell people all about sustainability. I think sometimes, as
- 39:15you mentioned with the greenwashing, but I think some people are getting tired of like, oh
- 39:18yeah, we need to have a sustainability. So maybe some people are just, they don't want to hear
- 39:21it all the time. They just want what they want. You know,
- 39:24if they want a soda stream and they want their carbonated water, they
- 39:29And then I, and they just get- But also just, just, just, just be authentic, man.
- 39:33You know, just don't jump on the bandwagon. Like, you
- 39:37know, if you're doing something that is sustainable or helpful and
- 39:40you've got a story and you've got a, a
- 39:44reason, then tell us and
- 39:48show us. But, you know, I'm
- 39:51not going to name businesses or names, but not just some big
- 39:55company then, you know, trying to like, I
- 39:58want to, I want to, I want to say some, but anyway. Yeah,
- 40:03just like, like, I think, I think we're
- 40:06all getting a bit tired of nonsense and
- 40:09everyone's desperate for authenticity. And
- 40:14when it comes to this, yeah, there's been, there has been a lot of,
- 40:18a lot of nonsense. So
- 40:22yeah, like I said, it's nice to have
- 40:26a business where I know we're genuinely making a difference without even
- 40:29trying, because what we're doing is stopping people from
- 40:32buying plastic bottled water, which
- 40:40Yeah, 100%. It's huge. The amount that you're selling all over the
- 40:49Well, we have warehouses in London,
- 40:53one in Dublin and also one in Hamburg in Germany. So we do have
- 40:56the ability to supply into the EU. We
- 41:00are just about to launch in the Netherlands. So,
- 41:09Yeah, yeah. We'll have to see. I kind of
- 41:12like to run before I can walk. And I think this year I've kind of just
- 41:18don't want to sort of trap myself, but I've
- 41:22got too many ideas, too many things that I want to do.
- 41:25So at the moment, we're just rebranding.
- 41:29We're about to relaunch our entire look
- 41:32and feel. We've been working with this incredible team a
- 41:36marketing design agency called Boundless Brand Design here in London. They
- 41:40kind of do a lot of the big drinks,
- 41:44brands, that kind of thing. So that's very, very
- 41:47exciting. And so that's been, well, that's the focus for January.
- 41:54I mean, I think it's the curse of an entrepreneur to have too many ideas, right?
- 41:58I think every entrepreneur has that. It's a matter of prioritizing and
- 42:02planning it out the certain way so you don't- I got to tell you as well, 99.9% of
- 42:09Absolutely terrible. I'm not going to embarrass myself and
- 42:12tell you some of the crazy, crazy, terrible
- 42:17business ideas that I've had that I genuinely thought were great at the time. And
- 42:20now I look back and I'm like, what was I thinking? We
- 42:26talked at the beginning about resilience and confidence. For
- 42:30me, it's about having not just the
- 42:33drive, but the confidence to have an idea and
- 42:37back yourself and go for it. Because you get a lot of people that
- 42:41will tell you it's not going to work, or you don't really know what you're doing.
- 42:44I had quite a few people questioning this idea, and they were like, Gasp?
- 42:48What do you know about Gasp? And I'm like, well, I'll find it out. I
- 42:51mean, we have built in the UK We have, so far as
- 42:54I know, the only major
- 42:59refilling plant that we have built here in Chelmsford in the UK,
- 43:02we can fill 7 million soda
- 43:06cylinders in a year. built,
- 43:10quote unquote, this thing myself. Not
- 43:13that I did anything, I stood there with a cup of coffee and watched. But what I mean is,
- 43:17I was able to pull
- 43:20together the teams of people and the equipment and everything,
- 43:24even though I didn't even fail everything to
- 43:27do with science when I was at school. I didn't understand a huge amount of what was going on.
- 43:30It's that it's just the kind of the sheer grit and determination. You're
- 43:34like, I'm going to do this. Yeah, no matter what, I'm going to make it work.
- 43:37I'm going to find a way and I think that is that is the essence
- 43:40of the entrepreneur is it's broken. Everyone
- 43:44goes, well, that's just the way it is. And that's
- 43:47it. And you go, no, I'm not having it. I'm not having that. I'm
- 43:51going to fix it. And I'm going to show you that I'm going to fix it. Even with people
- 43:54laughing at you and everything else. And you know what? Maybe you won't. And that's
- 43:58all good. But that's when you dust yourself off and go and try and fix something else.
- 44:02I love it and I and I think this goes back to our conversation on
- 44:06on the rejection. It's sometimes when people reject your idea You're
- 44:10almost just like I kind of want to prove you different, you know, maybe it
- 44:14won't work But I kind of want to see where this goes. I've done that before I've
- 44:17just been like somebody's like no, that's never gonna work That's a stupid idea like That
- 44:21makes me want to do it a little bit more, just because you don't think it's going to
- 44:24happen. You know, it's like, I mean, think about this a little longer. It
- 44:27seems to be triggering some of you and I'll be like, oh,
- 44:30okay, let's, let's, let's see how this can work out, whether it works out or not. It's just
- 44:34like, at least I followed through and see, I mean, entrepreneurs are
- 44:37problem solvers, right? There's a problem at hand usually. And they like, okay, this
- 44:41is the way to solve it. Is it profitable? Maybe it's not, but
- 44:44maybe it's a worthwhile service for a nonprofit. Whatever that may be,
- 44:48an entrepreneur is a problem solver. And I think that's an important part. Sometimes
- 44:51we're right, sometimes we're not. And some ideas are
- 44:55extreme and out there, and some ideas hit well when
- 44:58it hits. But you have to go through that resilience. You
- 45:01have to be resilient and to say, hey, some ideas are going to work and some ideas
- 45:05aren't. This idea seems to be exploding and working.
- 45:09When you realized about the sustainability, have
- 45:13you since then have you thought about okay how can we
- 45:18look at what we do and make it a little bit more
- 45:22environmentally friendly. Like, do you find you, you can identify things a
- 45:25little bit more in your, whether it be supply chain or business
- 45:28practices where you're like, you know what, maybe we can do this.
- 45:32It wouldn't cost like a terrible amount of money. It wouldn't affect our business that
- 45:35much, but it would be good. And it would kind of double down
- 45:39on not necessarily the messaging of sustainability, but we could say, Hey, we're even
- 45:45Yeah, sure. I thought about it a lot. Because
- 45:48I think that if you are going to make sustainability claims, then you have to be
- 45:51able to back them up. And like I said, we're not shouting about it, but we
- 45:54do claim this sustainability. I think one
- 45:58of the biggest things we didn't have to do, that we did do, was
- 46:02we actually removed, well, we've removed plastic from our
- 46:08entire, um, process, but also that's
- 46:13technically not true because we, we removed, uh,
- 46:17cardboard, uh, completely because I say we
- 46:21removed plastic. We actually, uh, have created a number
- 46:24of different custom made hard plastic reusable cases
- 46:28to transport our product in back and forth. So they're
- 46:31always being reused, reused, reused, reused until eventually if
- 46:34they do break, then we'll give them to recycling. But
- 46:38that was one thing that was very expensive, we
- 46:42didn't have to do, that we did, that has definitely made us more
- 46:45sustainable. Because cardboard, my original idea was, look, we'll
- 46:49keep reusing the cardboard boxes, but unfortunately it doesn't... It doesn't
- 46:52last as long. They don't last. So you maybe get two rounds
- 46:56out of them, but then people complain. And yes, people, this is the
- 46:59difficult thing about the sustainability journey. People want to be
- 47:02sustainable, but very few people want to be sustainable if it,
- 47:05if it affects them. They're like, no, no, you know, you should like, you
- 47:09know, when that thing, when you spill that thing over
- 47:12there, you should, you know, mop it up and not use a paper towel or whatever. And then it happens
- 47:15to them and they grab the paper towels and it's just, you
- 47:18see what I mean? Oh my God, yes. So
- 47:22you realize there's a value there that is as much
- 47:26as it is. I was talking to another entrepreneur, she has a a
- 47:40clothing brand, it's a woman's nightwear
- 47:46business. And she's built
- 47:49this incredibly sustainable business model, every last element
- 47:53of it, where they make their own cotton, all this kind
- 47:56of stuff. But in the end, what she's found
- 48:00is that you know, people want something sustainable, but,
- 48:04you know, are they willing to pay what she needs them
- 48:08to pay? So it's about trying to find that
- 48:13middle ground where you're not just sustainable, but business
- 48:17is sustainable too. You
- 48:22just got to do your bit. It's ultimately up to governments,
- 48:26really, if they want to crack these
- 48:29problems. It annoys me. I see so many easy
- 48:33wins that we just don't... where
- 48:38we just don't get things done. And that's where the
- 48:42change will have to come from eventually. But as I said, I
- 48:46feel like I'm contributing something positive with this business
- 48:52No, absolutely. I mean, when you have a successful business and it
- 48:55continues to grow and you know you're doing something right, just
- 49:00from an ethical and environmental standpoint, I think it's really great. I also think
- 49:04Experimentation is going to be needed by businesses. You know, like, like
- 49:07you said, you tried the cardboard. It didn't work. People didn't like
- 49:10it. It's you, you have to balance the demand and you have to
- 49:14balance what your consumer is willing to, to
- 49:17put into it as well as what you're willing to put into it. I,
- 49:21the question, you know, the question I have is like, when you, do
- 49:25you tell the consumer what you're trying to do? So say when the cardboard
- 49:28happened, do you tell that and then say, oh yeah, just by the way, as
- 49:32this didn't seem to work out in terms of durability, we went to this
- 49:36type of plastic mold, reusable plastic mold that we can use a lot more.
- 49:40It's a lot more permanent in
- 49:43terms of usage and stability, and it'll be a lot
- 49:47easier for you. Do you get feedback from customers being like, oh, this
- 49:53Well, yeah, we did. This is what's difficult
- 49:57in business is communication and
- 50:01messaging. You've got a very small window to get
- 50:04any piece of information about your company, your brand,
- 50:08across to your audience. So you've got to choose and
- 50:12you've got to choose smart because having 10 different things that you want them to
- 50:15know, they're not... Our website, you
- 50:18know, if you look at Microsoft Clarity, which is a
- 50:22software that allows you to watch people
- 50:26as they come onto your website and see where their cursor goes, you
- 50:29know, you've got maybe 15 to 25 seconds
- 50:33they're going to be on your website, and then they're gone. So you've
- 50:37got a very small window to do these things. So yes,
- 50:41we did do a little bit of consumer testing, and we got very, very positive feedback
- 50:44when we introduced these hard cases. But
- 50:48it was kind of common sense. And I've never really enjoyed
- 50:51that whole, like, creating lots and lots
- 50:55of packaging continually, cardboard. We
- 50:58did a lot of it in food, a lot of plastic packs
- 51:03for nuts and things like that. And it never made me feel great
- 51:07watching it on the production line. I kind
- 51:10of didn't really want to be a part of that anymore. I understand why
- 51:13it's necessary, but I didn't want
- 51:19Well, and again, that's why it's your business. You get to make those decisions and
- 51:22say, hey, look, we're going to go a different route. And I really like that. I'm
- 51:27someone who has never really had a SodaStream and not really familiar with
- 51:32the process as a consumer. So is
- 51:35it, you know, the person orders the
- 51:39amount of cylinders that they want. They get it within a
- 51:42couple of days, one or two days. They install it
- 51:46into whatever mechanism that they're using it for, because
- 51:50I assume there's a number of different ones. Once they're done with it,
- 51:53how long does each bottle on average last? I know it's based
- 52:03The cylinder lasts forever, but it depends on how regularly
- 52:07you use it. The industry says 60 litres
- 52:11of sparkling water. I say more like 40-45
- 52:15if you want proper sparkling water, I think is the reality.
- 52:22it works out as very good value, actually. But
- 52:25it's more about the ability to
- 52:28have sparkling water there right
- 52:32when you need it, as often as you need it. Because obviously, if you've purchased it
- 52:35in a bottle, as I said, once you take that
- 52:39lid off, then yeah, you've got a limited amount of time to drink it.
- 52:42So it's about having that sparkling water on tap. And
- 52:45if you love sparkling water as much as I do, then it's
- 52:50a game changer. I mean, I got into sparkling water mainly some
- 52:54time ago because I like my food. I was
- 52:57putting on weight and I thought, well, if I'm going to eat too much, It's
- 53:01probably not great if I'm drinking too much. So I was, what can I drink that's zero
- 53:04calorie that I enjoy? And it turns out I just love
- 53:07sparkling water. So I just, I drink it all the time. I'm
- 53:11actually drinking sparkling water now, but it does have a little bit of squashing. Okay,
- 53:18Yeah, no, hey, it works. It works well. And does sparkling
- 53:22water fill you up more than regular water just because of the carbonation? So
- 53:25you feel full, say if you don't want to eat a snack or something, you want to have that
- 53:28instead. Some people say drink a lot of water if
- 53:32you don't want to eat much because it'll fill you up. Because of
- 53:40I don't think so. I'd love to say that it does. I
- 53:43think that would be disingenuous. No, I'm not
- 53:46sure that's true. But I think, you know, look, what's
- 53:51great is things like getting children
- 53:55to drink water. Like at the moment, my daughter's five and you know how
- 53:58this is. It's pretty easy when they're younger. But as
- 54:01kids get older, they get more fussy and they want something with
- 54:05flavour in it. being able to put some theater
- 54:10into the process, then being able to use the machine,
- 54:14press the button, the gas goes in. There's
- 54:17bubbles and making it fun, it's
- 54:21really helpful to then get them to consume it because it's desperately important.
- 54:25We need two litres at least of water as
- 54:29adults a day and that's quite a lot of liquid
- 54:33to be consuming. So that's another
- 54:36really positive thing that we're a part of. And
- 54:40I've got some ideas here in the UK where I'd
- 54:43really like to try and encourage schools to get
- 54:47these machines and allow kids who can bring in their bottled
- 54:50water to be able to gas it up when they get into school, that
- 54:53kind of thing. We've got a lot of ideas like this. And like
- 55:01Nice and slow. I love it. I love it. Slowest pro. Slowest
- 55:05pro, exactly. This has been a wonderful conversation. People
- 55:09can go to co2u.com to find out more. obviously
- 55:16in and in around the UK people can get this and
- 55:20so I highly recommend that you do and for more information I'll
- 55:23put the link in the show notes and in the description so people can can get access
- 55:26to it. I really appreciate you know your transparency and
- 55:30going through a lot of the questions and answering a lot of the questions I
- 55:33have you know about the the sort of the journey of
- 55:37an entrepreneur, you know, I think is really important, especially
- 55:41in a very transparent way to just be like, look, this is fun
- 55:46and it can be really rewarding, but it could also be challenging and
- 55:49difficult at times. And I really appreciate that transparency because I don't think we
- 55:53see that enough, especially online. So we definitely appreciate that.
- 55:56And of course, we appreciate the work you do with making things more sustainable for
- 56:00our planet and for our oceans and for our water supply. And we all know
- 56:04how Wasteful that can be in some time. So being
- 56:07able to utilize tap water make a little bit more exciting I
- 56:11think is really great. So I do appreciate that. The last
- 56:14question I have for you is people out here, you know, in
- 56:18my audience are very creative. There's
- 56:22a lot of entrepreneurs out there or, you know, entrepreneurs that may
- 56:25not have that, they may not have that business idea right away. They
- 56:29may not have it right now that will really bring them over, put
- 56:32them over the edge. what would be the overall
- 56:36arching advice that you would give
- 56:40them to help them continue on
- 56:49Oh, what a question. Well, don't
- 56:53rush out to do something just because you want to start a
- 56:57business. If you... If
- 57:02you have an idea and it's in a space that you're not familiar with,
- 57:07it's worth going into industry and trying to find out a
- 57:11little bit more about it. But look,
- 57:16if you're anything like me or many of the other entrepreneurs out
- 57:19there and you're hungry and ambitious and you just
- 57:22want to do this, nothing I can say to you is going to stop you
- 57:26going out and doing your crazy idea, hopefully fantastic
- 57:30idea. But if it's anything like me, probably crazy and
- 57:33getting it on with that anyway. So look, I
- 57:37guess if I can give any kind of advice, just remember,
- 57:41it's all about the journey and nothing, nothing
- 57:45truly great is truly great if
- 57:49there isn't some some difficulty getting
- 57:53there, you know. It's never satisfying just to
- 57:56be handed everything onto a plate. You've got to earn it. And if
- 57:59you talk to a lot of people, particularly these big
- 58:03entrepreneurs who've made tons and tons of money, they always say they're
- 58:06like, oh man, the best bit was the journey. That
- 58:10was the best bit. So remember that, particularly when it's hard because Yeah,
- 58:15nine times out of 10. It gets really tricky. But
- 58:20I love it. Thank you so much, Marcus. We really appreciate you coming on
- 58:23the show. I know it's late in the UK for you,
- 58:26so I do appreciate your time here. Well,
- 58:30and with that, I'll let you go to bed. But honestly, thank
- 58:34you so much for doing this. Love to have you back on to find out what's happening with
- 58:37CO2 in a few months or a few years. And
- 58:41it'd be a lot of fun. So thank you so much for what you do. And thank you for coming on and sharing that
- 58:44with us. Thank you, Andrew. Thank you, Marcus, for
- 58:47joining me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. What
- 58:51a fantastic interview. What a fun time to
- 58:54get to know an entrepreneur who wants to start something to provide somebody
- 58:58with convenience that likes sparkling water, to provide somebody
- 59:02that does not want to have to go to the store, buy
- 59:06something that's unsustainable, or just buy something that when you open
- 59:09the bottle, all the carbonation goes away once you
- 59:13stop drinking it and you just put it down. You want something that's
- 59:16on demand, very convenient, comes to your house, and
- 59:19it works with a lot of different types of apparatuses or
- 59:23products. And so it really fits the perfect business
- 59:27model in this case. And obviously, it's not an easy thing to do to build
- 59:30a business. And we talked about that. We talked about how the
- 59:33ability to be rejected from a personal level in in TV
- 59:37and film as it gets personal they look at your looks and the way you act and
- 59:40if you're you don't like that they don't like you then they don't like you for
- 59:43the role but then going to a business and being like hey we made that product
- 59:47may not be for us and really understanding how to not
- 59:51only just get over rejection or deal with rejection but also overcome
- 59:55it so that you can continue to do sales you can continue to grow
- 59:58your business and and you can continue to come up with ideas and develop those ideas
- 1:00:02to have a successful one like CO2U. This interview
- 1:00:06really touches a lot, not a lot of what we normally touch upon
- 1:00:10when we talk about how to protect the ocean, but like I said, we
- 1:00:13have to rely on businesses now more than government because
- 1:00:16the government in the US, in Canada, other places may
- 1:00:20not be environmentally focused and so we need to make sure
- 1:00:24that our businesses are doing what they can to be sustainable and
- 1:00:27to fight and really it's just a matter of finding it out so if you are a UK listener
- 1:00:31and you love sparkling water I highly recommend that
- 1:00:34you go to see to you they're not sponsoring this podcast I
- 1:00:37invited them on because I thought that was a really cool thing so I highly recommend
- 1:00:41that you go there and just go to C2U, C02U.com. I'll
- 1:00:46put the link in the show notes and the description. That's it for today's episode.
- 1:00:50I wanna thank you for joining us. If you like this content, you
- 1:00:53wanna see more of it, if you're on YouTube, you can subscribe and
- 1:00:56you can hit the notification button so you don't miss any episodes in
- 1:00:59the future. You can also go on Spotify and see
- 1:01:03the video and you can subscribe. You can go to Apple
- 1:01:06Podcasts or Spotify to listen to the audio and other podcast apps
- 1:01:09to listen to the audio. and you can get the same information. You just don't get to see
- 1:01:12my beautiful face. But other than that, you get to hear my
- 1:01:16voice and you get to hear people like Marcus and others.
- 1:01:20And we talk about all things oceans and sustainability. So you can
- 1:01:23DM me on Instagram at HowToProtectTheOcean. That's at
- 1:01:27HowToProtectTheOcean, one word. And of course, you can always go to
- 1:01:30speakupforblue.com to find out more information on this
- 1:01:34podcast, the Beyond Jaws podcast, and all the other podcasts affiliated with
- 1:01:37us. And I want to thank you so much for joining us on today's episode of the
- 1:01:40How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time and