The Irish VC ep23: Making Waves, Tom Cotter on Building OceanR

Hi everyone and thanks for tuning in to the Irish VC. We have an inspiring episode lined up for you today. Joining us is Tom Cotter, the CEO and founder of Ocean Orr, a company redefining sustainable fashion for the ocean and beyond. Tom gives us an insight from how it all started and how the vision for ocean orr goes beyond just creating premium apparel is about making a positive impact on our planet. So without further ado, let's dive straight in. Hello and welcome to the Irish VC. My name is Marie Nolan and I work with Business Fender Partners and I am delighted to introduce our guest today. He is a core native CEO and founder of Ocean Orr, Tom Cotter. It's great to have you on the podcast Tom, how are you keeping? Very well, thanks Maria, thank you for having me. It's a windy day today, is it the same over in Luton, probably not? Yeah, so I was flying back to core class and I got stuck in Luton, fly cancelled, so I have now 16 hours to kill. If anybody knows what to do in Luton for 16 hours till 9 o'clock tonight. Oh, this stuff, I haven't, I haven't cleared but all I can tell you is you'll get loads of work done. For sure, for sure and podcasts. Exactly, yeah. So Tom, before we delve into the company which is Ocean Orr, I'd love if you could tell us a bit about yourself and maybe what it was like grown up in Cork. Yeah, so from Cork, very quiet upbringing went to school in Cork City, was lucky, I think it is ties in quite nicely to kind of the development of the company. So we were very fortunate to go to do our holidays, like our family holidays in Greece every year. So my mom and her best friend were traveling when she was when they were 20 and the friend ended up marrying a Greek guy and that became our family holiday for for our from my whole life really. And it was one of the biggest kind of water sports spots in Europe. So you go from football, soccer, hockey, whatever in Ireland and then be catapulted into into this water sport hub in the Ionian and the West Coast of Greece. So I got exposed to water sports quite young and kind of got better and better and better as I grew up and that's obviously become a huge part of the direction of the business. I think when we launched it in 2017. And did you only get into the water sports maybe once a year when you went away or was it something that you brought home and didn't early? Early on I think it was definitely just the thing that we did when we went when I was over. My dad would have been a big wind surfer, a lot of friends would have like tried to sail. Kind of like the summer camps that you know the majority of Irish kids think would have been thrown at whether it was this place is like oyster haven't done in in cork and you do a bit of everything and you're just getting wet. It's just for that black week really. But as I started to go into I'd say probably when you get stronger and as you start to go into secondary school and things of that, I would have started to probably boy more gear and and get into it a bit more in Ireland. But it was still even now I'm a fetidic on like people have to make a fair weather and participant so I like the sun and the sea and I still get a still job in kind of between May and November but the idea of jumping in November December. Let's go summer warm and do it. So you're not a Christmas day go in the sea and well. Yeah I am no definitely no idea this year I went in and it was quite mild compared to usual bush where yeah saunas and dips and that sort of stuff would be right up my alley but the idea of jumping in and going wind surfing when it's you know the water is seven degrees and it's wind chill of of kind of like minus four and your hands are blue and stuff like that and like those days those days those days have passed. Yeah I can imagine that it's even hard to just get out of the bed and the thoughts of actually getting a cold water. You could probably take this one then nicer to do maybe have a cup of tea or stay in bed. Yeah for sure walks and walks and those sort of things as you get older I think are definitely the more comfortable of the sports. Yeah so then the passion came from your parents and yourself just stabbing in the war sports and holidays and then you kind of brought it home and let's get into the company then. So the company is called Ocean or and it was known as called Ocean or and so do you want to tell us the origins and how it started. Yeah absolutely so when I think I maybe joined the two the two elements a bit better and when I was doing my leaving start a really close friend of mine passed away just like you know literally the day that you started your English paper one. I really close friend of mine passed away so I ended up messing up my leaving start or not getting what you what I had initially hoped to get and initially wanted to be an architect and I remember my mom saying like can you not just like glaze around the house and like waste a year of your life. So she found a course down in Kinseyle called Outer Recreation and leisure so I ended up applying for a catheter and it's windsurfing on a Monday kayaking on a Tuesday with rock claim on Wednesday. So I don't even on a Thursday and say so is all outdoors and again tight and perfectly to what I what I was kind of passionate about. So it took it took me kind of all over the world it was a two year course I used to go back to where I where I did the family holidays in Greece and I was a random kayaking center there for two years and took groups of people kind of kayaking all around the Mediterranean and staying on beaches and eating out under the stars and and then I ran that like several two years and then afterwards Ireland was still struggling to kind of come out of the crash and as everyone even nowadays is still emigrated to Australia. I went me and my wife no girlfriend at the time we left for Melbourne and landed as a sailing instructor and the difference being in Australia is like it's probably a minimum wage paid job here but you could earn kind of 30 for you to $50 an hour as a sailing instructor. Better again they they were really looking for people that had like managerial and I suppose potential so it's they'd really work with you and developing you I suppose developing their youth suppose the best way to put it so I quite quickly fell into a managerial role and was very fortunate to work with really good CEO really good and general manager of the national sale training and location on Alruppark Lake in Melbourne and it's the it's one the biggest and best in the Southern hemisphere so I became manager of that and we stayed for four and a half years and when I start when we said we'd come home we I really want to stay in the outdoor recreation space. But like sadly in Ireland we don't have an industry really there's well I suppose like a high paying industry and a lot of the people that would run your clubs around the country there's probably four or five that are that have paid general manager positions they tend to be guys that have had a really successful business career as an accountant or a slisser and they're passionate about sailing and that they're kind of looking to kind of step down from their day to day and kind of just maybe take over a bit of a kind of a stay active in it. Stay they paid but take a less stressed position and help the help the club so it's really difficult to get a position there so me and two of my friends at the this is back in 2017 we used to meet and have a pizza and a point and we talk about like what sort of businesses we could start and we wanted a couple of love of of water sports and environment with our love of starting businesses and running businesses so we ended up creating raster which was RAS HR which has a very small cult following around the country and I love but I love bumping into people and I'm like you're a raster and I'm like you're one of the three people that bought one of our products so we kicked off. Sorry I will say that when I heard about RASH OR so it's like OR as H or when I actually originally heard it I thought it was RAS HR as in you know only ours people would get it you know yeah for sure. Oh yeah for sure. So I was thinking a lot of RAS HR but that wasn't that it was RAS HR or as in a RAS HR it's kind of take. Yeah so yeah so some protective top the Google trends and all that stuff we're going in the right direction and we thought that it was there was a big opportunity genuine the big opportunity to be the the biggest RASH HR company in the world because it was seen as the secondary product to to a lot of other like product company so you'd have Wetsuit brands or like Patagonia's or Quick Silvers or Ripcrow's and it would just be this forgotten product that they wouldn't really focus on and the first URL we ever ever bought was the RASH FES company dot com and we then we create the brand actually rashes, we bought rasha.com and again we just we fell for the we fell for the YouTube videos that said as soon as you put a product online you'll be you'll be a millionaire in 48 hours so we we learned how to create a product we wanted to be eco friendly which was really hard so we found a fabric that was made from recycled fishing nets and again we had to find a factory and we had to go through all that process but we finally got a product we launched it online we sold a couple of thousand products we then moved into retail and again we managed to get into retail stores in the US Australia, South of France, England Ireland but the business plan said that we would sell kind of five thousand units per store in a year and realistically we were selling kind of like 50 so it didn't like it didn't have the capability of hiring three people not to mind one person and we were very fortunate just as we were kind of going you know this may just be a weekend, a hobby that we are like a business that we run on the side, we were very fortunate that we started to get inquiries through our social media being from businesses saying we really want to promote sustainability at our event, won't you partner with us and do like a custom or co-branded option and I think one of the first orders we got was for 800 rash vests for an event in Australia and I actually took it was cheaper for me to fly the order in a bag and give it to the person who ordered at their event yeah so I flew over and a year as Eve in 2018 and sat in the seahawk club in in in Queensland and all these eight to 12 old kids were like running around the place in these bright colourful rash vests that no one had ever seen before and everyone was inquiring like where did you get them and they just like oh there's an Irish guy saying having a coffee and everyone has come up and chat to me and I went home with like those business cards and that kind of pivoted on moment of kind of going right we just got a 30k order you know one order versus running around you know trying to build presents online and retail that was killing us so it took us about another year for that pivot to completely happen but slowly but surely we migrated to being like a partnerships business rather than a consumer brand okay amazing there's a few things there so like how did you feel when you got the first order of 800 units where you'd like oh are we gonna do this or yeah yeah so like I think the big the challenge with doing any business when you're young is like you really haven't caught your cloth as a business professional yet so it's you know fine you can be a kind of a generalist so like I would say like I was a generalist in business and running that running that sale training centre in the in Australia you know managed managed 25 plus people in the in the busy times and did marketing and sales and HR and like I said generalist of a bit of everything but then when you go into co-enticoing say you know we want to build a brand we need a product you have to figure out supply chain which had never worked in product development we've never worked in like the website development say things we could do that no problem that's fine but it was now all of a sudden there was a lady that needed an order in time for an event in three months time and where we going to be able to find the factory deliver it was it gonna fall fall apart when it when it did arrive how are we gonna get it to her so it was exciting but a bit like everybody will say to you like the the the highs are not celebrated and you remember all the lows so it was it was a great win to get but you quickly moved on to you know how do we get the ston and delivered and you know we haven't really done anything yet but the nice thing about that deal was it was it was it was a real milestone for us so banks investors edge price Ireland you whoever you were speaking to you know you know the week before you had that order they're kind of looking at you you know you've created something quite pleasantly branding-wise and it's you've got a great presence great well done but like is there any revenue is there any deal is there anything so usable behind it so as soon as you get like a 30k order again it's smaller for for for many companies but if you can just multiply that by whatever you can you can start to see the pathway to having a sustainably sustainable running business and then so with enterprise Ireland and and the other entities that you mentioned there did you try and funder is initially to get funding from any government grants in Ireland? I would say out of the kind of the general pathway from from general startup that enterprise Ireland and the local enterprise office want you to follow we would have we'd be a good case study for taking all the boxes so new frontiers I quit my job and joined a new frontiers phase two which gave you 15,000 euro at the time and an office space and mentoring for six months six month program so did that got the 15 grand then I think I played for feasibility grant from the local enterprise office again just to help us with those initial orders and a bit of it was to help us with supply chain if I'm if I'm not mistaken and that could have been another 15k so 30k we then would have applied for CSF which I think has a new name now but the competitive startup fund was 50k we'd have applied for that three times and again the business is developing all the time as you're as you're trying to apply for this so day one when we went in we probably had a website no product and they kind of went you know come back to us in six months time then would have done applied for six months leisure had the website had the product but no sales and they said you know come back to us when you have a bit of sales and then on third time I was able to go back with the website the product and say this we have a we've probably sold to five countries around the world albeit that it's small but we also have this big order now 30k from Australia which is exactly when enterprise Ireland went to here in terms of export and growing the company so we would have done in my mind we probably maximized a lot of the the the government grants and there's a smaller ones in there like the the trading online voucher would have helped us build a website early on and yeah so I think we would have we would have answered a lot of them and it really really is good support when you're trying to start out for short time intensive but again there's probably there's probably somewhere between 75 and 100k there from the government if you can if you can position yourself correctly yeah and it's fantastic to hear that just for you know a bit of inspiration for other startup companies that you know you don't have to bootstrap you know you can actually avail of these grants that Ireland are offering and you know hopefully they continue to do so but I would also love to get back into the apparel side of things okay so it's all eco-friendly recycled materials how did you find initially where you were going to source the materials from I wasn't hard to kind of quality control it and make sure that it was all recycled eco-friendly yeah because so when we were doing yeah when we were doing the the the product development side of it we were getting it horrendously run like so there's three guys no experience in product development I remember there's a there's a photo of the three of us in a in an office somewhere with my you know the sewing box that everybody has in their house like their mom sewing box I've got that like tape measure wrapped around my neck for some reason and where like draw we're drawing out what we're trying to create and we send it off and that these these rash festers are supposed to be like skin tight and the key thing with when you're developing a apparel is you need a thing called a tech pack so every factory that we'd ring would say like oh do you have a tech pack and like the three of us look at each other kind of what the hell is a tech pack no idea then we'd ring we'd ring other brands and people would be quite protective over their their information and one guy replied to us once they think it took me five years to figure out this out because it's best to look like I'm not telling you anything so it was very very secretive so you needed a tech pack that if you went out to a designer tech pack with a two and a half grand oh you felt we could do it ourselves so we we would have we tried to design it and draw it ourselves so it's basically like the it's probably like the architectural drawing of a house it's that kind of thing of a product and you send this out it's about six eight pages gives all the information that the factory needs to create it so we did it ourselves and sent it off and it came back and it was like a dress so it's as supposed to be skin tight so we're like okay this is really take and this is really taking much longer than it should and every time you're sending these things away it takes another two months to get something back factories know that you're start up so you know they're not they're not really putting out all the stops for you because there's not really the the security of a big order there at the end of the day so we then went from we then figured out okay how do we how do we fast track this so and I say this to people all the time go to your trade show like go to the trade show that is for your industry and you will learn more in that you know two or three days than you will in two or three years sitting in small car office. So we were able to meet him, I think it was and there was the product developer for Patagonia was on the stage and he's we're listening to him talk and he just basically threw down a the gauntlet to people in the room and said if there's a start up here, if there's a CEO of established businesses please try and be as sustainable as you possibly can. It's the future of our industry, it's the only way that our industry can last and he's like in this room right now there's fabrics, suppliers, there's subluchain specialists, everything that you need is in these 10 buildings that the trade show is on. So that we kind of made, I suppose the decision there and then that we're obviously very equal conscious anyway, but if we're going to do it let's do it the right way and again we ran around like headless chickens looking for fabrics from that trade show there was three fabrics that that came out that were one was from recycled plastic battles, one was fishing nets, I think one was ocean waste kind of, as ocean waste is really very difficult to recycle. So usually if you read that some of these made from ocean waste it's one percent ocean waste and the rest is recycled plastic battles and we aim to be quite transparent about that all the time. So we would have found three fabrics, picked one and then started that process but as we started our journey into sustainability it's such a broad term and we try to address as many of the issues that the typical subluchains have or typical companies have, we try to address as many of the sustainability goals that the European Union pushes are just as I suppose as decent human beings we know that should be done the right way so it's hard but I think you can sleep well at night knowing that you're trying to do it as best possible. 100 percent and all of the apparel so it goes from rash guards and you've expanded it into jackets. Yeah. It's a lot broader than just rash guards now isn't it? So yeah so the the leap the leapfrag there was we we I had a friend through my outdoor recreation kind of lifestyle was he had worked on Richard Branson's Island which is really into our sports the really into the environment and its neccer islands in the Caribbean it's his home which you can also rent the island for about 500k a year or sorry 500k a week for about 40 guests so we had heard that they were they were currently with underarmour and they were looking to move or they were exploring options to move so there was a tender release and it was they went to kind of four big brands and us and we still only had this like one product you know like we're going to we only have one product but we had found a factory that had many more products like shorts, polos, t-shirts and they had said if you ever need it the option is there to kind of draw on our previous products that we'd made and they had the fabrics for from a cycle to place the bottles and that's the thing so we put our name into the ring or into the hash to be considered for the for the job and the difference with us is that we make everything to order so yes it's great sustainably but typically if you go to a bigger brand you're buying from a catalog so you'll approach underarmour Patagonia, added-ass Nike whoever and they'll go yeah great like you know this is our catalog and they tend to be black white red blue and they've already ordered you know 100,000 units of each and they sit in a warehouse you know warehouses around the world and if you order and you want to order you know 50 t-shirts and put your logo on it you typically have to order from you know whatever they have in stock whereas we have we've set up a supply chain where we make it to order so we'll take their brand guidelines what they what colors what designs what patterns all that sort of that they have in their brand guidelines and then we'll apply it to the products and obviously make it coikohesive and and we have a number of designers now that that kind of do the the overall vision of the apparel for uniform or retail or or for guest giveaways those sort of things so NECKER would have been the first milestone again for us to have moved into a variety of different products and since then we've been drawn into different industries Arctic Expedition Jackets we've just done a large hospital group in Dublin where we've we've just created a healthcare range of all their scrubs which would be launched in probably the end of Q1 this year obviously our uniforms we do super yacht uniforms we do corporates so we've kind of been drawn into a variety of different products but the same thing is is kind of always there is we're just trying to do it the best possible way that we can and we're looking for more and more businesses that want to offer a kind of a tangible sustainable offering to their employees or to the to I suppose to their guests and we work now we think we're about 350 companies around the world well that's that's really cool and just sorry the Richard Branson thing with NECKER Ireland like that has to be one of like the highlights yeah yeah you're competing against these big multinationals and then you have this small company from Ireland you know head office is down to work and there you're doing this sustainable really cool branded personalized branded designed apart like I just think it's really cool it's really fun the best thing about the best thing about it for us is I think we're very fortunate is like because you're working with these like private islands and kind of exclusive resorts and they're all remote so they the chances that there's a sale you know a sales rep knocking on the door tomorrow morning to kind of compete with you is very very little so it's we've we've been like we've worked with NECKER now for like six years and they're we've an amazing relationship was out there 18 months ago and they're they're yeah they're brilliant they're one of our most high profile clients but if we have a list if you had a list of the top 20 private islands in the world we probably work with all of them some of them might be 400 no maybe maybe maybe maybe five thousand euro a year and then others are 120k a year so it's just different sizes and some people will do just their hats with us and then others will do their whole gift shop with us and we're very very fortunate but we still have a we have a very long way to go so it's it's still it's still a working progress yeah so there's room for expansion there sorry this is a random question but relevant to me so myself and my partner do Brazilian digit and rash cards are we do loads a must yeah do you do loads yeah yeah loads yeah so we'd I'm one one place in Canada two places in the UK one in France one in Switzerland but it's just the dojo what's the name of the what's the name of the gym dojo so again it's very very similar and obviously our brand doesn't kind of come across as that it's it aligns but every every every gym seems to kind of want a unique selling point so they're kind of like Jesus you guys are the you guys can be the sustainable bit that gives our rash cards that extra bit of value so you do a lot of custom gyms as well yeah yeah amazing because it is very untrained to have a really cool designed rash cards you know like just plain colors but like it kind of fits into your company because I feel like the designs are just very stand-out and you know they're they're eye catching yeah it's so we have so we we would have seen the trend in cycling initially so if everybody remembers that years ago you would have always seen like a black cyclist or like black kind of like a cyclist now the chance of just seeing someone in black is very very little and they're all wearing like multi-colored patterned you know designed and and and it all looks really cool so it's a technique called sublimation and it's where it's the same way that you're printer basically prints on on white paper we print on white fabric so you can you can basically design whatever you like so again when Richard Branson reaches out to us we had designed like Caribbean leave leaves kind of all on on their color palette and we did different colors for different departments and there was a really cool pattern through each each of their polos and shorts and remember them coming back going like you can do that for and versus the black one that has an echo island written on it you know it's completely different and further a guest experience it's it's probably one of the most um as opposed on brand products after the the architecture of a hotel or resort uniform tends to be the next part that can really sell your brand or your inspiration around the around the the location so it's a really focused area for a lot of the general managers okay yeah I think I saw the one with the leaves on it for necker islands yeah maybe on your website or somebody else yeah yeah yeah they look very on trend to it lots this the sea Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's what I was looking for. So, like there's a massive potential there. So you've gone away from the retail side of things and you're only dealing with companies and businesses and tailoring branding specifically for them at the moment. Correct. This year we're going to relaunch our consumer collection. So, on our side of the moment there's a consumer collection. It's never been a real focus I would say for the last, kind of definitely probably for the last 36 months. So this year we're going to look at our consumer side of things again because it's a no-brainer. A lot of people would do it the other way around. A lot of people would get the build the consumer side of it and then they would get the partnerships as a second because we have the partnerships first and I really think we could use the partnerships to create a really strong consumer brand at the same time. So this year is all about supposed building the partnerships more and more but in the back end we launched the consumer collection online. Okay, that's great to hear because when I was on the website I was like, I'd actually love to order this right now and I can't, you know, like just it's for you or like the jackets, the Arctic jackets are also open as well. So there you go, I'll be your first to consider for sure. For sure. And I just wanted to touch base on the fundraising as well because I think a congratulations is in order because you got a recent investment there. Yeah. And just in terms of your fundraising approach, did you go out there to get fundraising or how did that process work? We've raised a few times so my, I suppose because we were on the enterprise Ireland kind of pathway. From early on it was always in my mind that you know you have to reach a certain level of revenue do a raise, get the next level of proof of concept, there might be a couple of other milestones in there, do your next raise and so on. And my looking back at it, I probably could be a bit more strategic about it but my advice to anybody that's doing it is that it's all relationships, whatever you're doing, raising whether it's a bank, whether it's a private investor, whether it's a VC, it's all based on relationships. And if anybody thinks that like what we're doing, it looks cool. In terms of like trying to raise money, you get laughed out of rooms quite regularly because they're looking at a coin and going, you want to do eco-friendly swimwear based in Ireland, like are you mad? And it's just not it's not AI or it's not FinTech and it's not you know it's not all of these, these really impressive industries. So it's been a real slug but again people invest in people so when I used to go out and and see maybe high network individuals, I was never really, my view was that I think it was quite rude to expect to meet somebody for a coffee, speak to them for maybe an hour and follow up with a will you invest in me now, you know email. So and it's the same as anybody, you know if you met some friend for a coffee and they told you they're doing this and then they were to follow up with you the next couple of days chasing you for cash or something even if it's a couple of hundred euro or something. We'd all be a bit kind of taken back by it. So I took the approach of meeting people and saying could I could I keep them up to speed over the next three to six months and if we did go into a fundraise that I could run it by you them beforehand. So I took this very kind of maybe seeking mentorship from the high net worth people before actually asking them to to part with money and we've done I've done that twice and it's and it's worked both both times and I think the high net worth individual feels a lot safer getting to know you over a period of time. You giving them like a monthly email to kind of go listen and thanks so much for the catch up last month. I know we mentioned this, this, this, this, this just want to let you know you know these two things happened this one is paused and these people are like they're long in the tooth and business so they're they're well used to there being you know knockbacks and and not getting to where you think it is but if you're able to I suppose present yourself in a in a pretty professional way humble honest is probably is is very required. I think they feel very safe that if something if they were to give you money one you're not going to blow it to if something does go wrong you're going to actually put up your hand and say you know what we've messed up over here and so we've I've taken that approach it's not for everybody and that differed last year and maybe it's the size of the business we were up to up to like 80 staff now and we acquired a factory two years ago so we can go back to that one but we acquired a factory but that was done at one of the fundraisers but last year when we went out we we did a fund we did a crowdfunding campaign and my view has always been maybe to you looking into it as well it's it seems like it was perfectly positioned for crowdfunding the story is this like I'm not being biased but I think the story's quite good it's obviously the visuals look really good people understand it and it flew out of the blocks it got up we were looking for 500 it got up to about 250k and it then started to stall and I think it stalls from again it not being fintech it not being you know these really high growth or high return industries and then from my side I'm kind of like yeah okay like we're doing you know we're doing we're doing 3 million revenue growing to 5 million revenue we've got 80 staff we've got amazing customers so I make it's quite a safe bet but what did come from it was we had had interest from a lot of ECs over the years and I think the video that we would have launched to the crowd fund would have maybe reignited maybe their interest so a few people would have reached out and then I said what I might do is actually reach out to a few more VCs if we're having those conversations and that's a different that's a different conversation so you now go to meeting VC and then you again it's a relationship side so would have met three or four with that Whittledown quickly to two and then from that those two Whittledown to one that we've been to really strong relationship with they came across very similar to us honest you know one to the best interest for us and they would have gone through a really long and tedious due diligence process which is a great fund when you're in the middle of it and you're like I want the body no can you add so there's 300 questions and you're like yes no problem but but they worked with us they in fairness they worked with us really really hard and really they worked really long hours to help also answer the questions as well so it's a bit of a it's it's kind of a combination of efforts on both sides so yeah on the 19th of December we closed for a million with with BVP based in Dublin and like I said we we just felt like we got really really well with them so it'll be a good partnership I hope going forward yeah I'm sure it will and BVP I feel like in the industry there are no for sustainability and green investments so it kind of ties in the long term so yeah and I think what and I think they do a lot of as well as that they they seem to have done a lot of the brands that a lot of a lot of households in Ireland would would maybe recognize so it's hopefully we can hopefully we can become one of those brands for sure but it's yeah no it was a good partnership I was delighted with it in the end okay brilliant and there's something there that you said that we need to go back to when I think it was about the factory that you yeah we acquired a factory yeah yeah so we so the the kind of the stepping stone from I suppose NECKER to 80 staff was we we had started we worked with a number of companies are sorry factories we'd worked with a number of factories based in different countries around Europe so every time we in the nice way we burn a bridge because of our lack of experience so we'd come in and go hi you know can we make a rash fest and then they go do you know what a tech pack is and you're going going no we don't and then we know the next call that we go on to with the next factory when they say oh do you know what a tech pack is we know that we have to know what a tech pack is so we took all the small learnings so we eventually ended up in Latvia and we were working with an ex Adidas factory and it had been set up for Adidas sailing and they had grown a really reputable brand and sadly Adidas cancelled their license agreements so they cancelled the brand effectively and for for sailing and I heard this and contacted them and said like what are you doing and they said we're looking for startups to come in and work with us because we have a team of like 60 people here it's the first year we went in they helped us with the neck rail and order we managed again like you said back like what happens when you get the order you know five minutes of a high and then Oh, shit, how do we actually deliver this and make it and figure it out and all that stuff. So they help us make it and deliver it. And I think for us, they're like, these guys are really into sales and marketing. We're quite good at product development. So they held our hand a lot in those early days of, you know, we'd make a mess, we'd make a mess of a polo shirt in a tech pack. And then they'd point it out and go, you shouldn't have done this and this and this and this. And then they'd help us. So that relationship quite quickly grew. So we gave them, I think after three years, we were up to spend about a million a year with them, which was, which was really big for them. So we talked about why don't we merge. So we then got the legal guys involved and they were saying, okay, there's loads of different ways to do this. Put the most straight forward is time you go away and do a fundraise and basically acquire them. And that's what we did. So we went away and spoke to our network of high network individuals and they all agreed. They're like, this is a really unique opportunity for you to create kind of a centre of excellence for sustainable manufacturing. And what I really love about the factory is that in the 10 or 12 years that it had been set up as Adidas, they had no seamstress leave. So obviously seen as like a really good place to work. And that for me, that for me trumps everything else. So again, you know, it's great to make something from a cycloclastic battles or ocean waste or it's great to plant mangroves on a monthly basis or clean oceans and plastic from rivers. But like there's no point in doing any of that. If the people that are making the product and up and looked after. So that again, it's so so funny. Like everybody jumps to all those good things and I go back to going like, would someone just come and like visit the seamstresses and see how happy they are and they all have helped them insurance and they've kept well above minimum wage. And we have a waiting list of seamstresses to join the factory. If there's spaces, it's cool. That's just, yeah, that's better. A gold star, you know, it's incredible because when you look after people, people appreciate it and then look, you have a waiting list for people. For sure. For sure. It's not amazing. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, so again, too many people jump to the fabrics and the those things and it's I'm again, like I think a lot of people can see those photos of this of a seamstress sink and like, I made your garment. So we would we try to do something like similar with all of our our companies is that whoever made their garment, they kind of had a photo of it like this lady, major garment and you can see who she is and put a name to her and just join the dots. So we we entered into this into this discussion around acquiring them and in the start of 2023, we complete the acquisition. So we ended up acquiring the factory outright. So we have a team now of 20, we have a team of 22 in Ireland and we have a team of 64, I think it is the moment, 64 going to 70 in Riga. So I'm hoping probably by the end of this year or certainly in 18 months, we should have kind of north of a hundred people across the company. So it's been a it's been a roller coaster for sure, but it's hopefully the next I think with this investment from BBP, I think we can we can kick on and create quite a successful business hopefully. Yeah, it sounds like it's coming in the right direction and then just curious, where is the office based in Ireland? In Cork. So we're we're based on the KinCeleral roundabout just outside Cork City. So just as you come under the roundabout and it's funny that we're getting more and more customers actually visit, which is when you start like nobody visits, whereas now cup of terms here we definitely have people visit and then we run an open day in the factory once a year. So if people want to come and visit the factory and see the behind the scenes and the conditions and all that sort of stuff, it's it's actually quite impressive. So we invite our customers to come and visit us all the time. I think we'll have to make a trip down and absolutely. We'll do the part next. We'll do episode two in in Latvia. Okay, go over to Riga, is that all for that? Yeah. That's fantastic. I'm sorry, I know we said we would keep a short chat, but it's way too interesting not to delve into. So the environmental side of things as well, which we haven't really, I know we've kind of briefly you know mentioned it, but we haven't actually properly chat a little bit yet. But a lot of kind of things are you guys doing in Ocean or that are aligned with your goals on sustainability and just the other maybe adventures and stuff that you're doing. So there was so there was so much to sustainability. There is so much to sustainability that we've always really struggled to kind of articulate and answer to your question. So when we go in and when I go in to talk to companies about working with us, it's really interesting to hear what they're prioritizing. So there's a real push at the moment in the sustainability world for for people to concentrate on the other like there's six there's 17 ESG targets from the European Union, but everybody defaults to carbon reduction like everything. So every all the conversations of carbon and a lot of people are trying to pull the conversation away from carbon, you know keep it there as being slightly important, but there is other relevance to it that we that we need to address as well. So the way we try to, I suppose, give you an overview of this three pillars and it's people, product and planet and I am quite happy to discuss how it what order they should go in, but for me people should be at the front of it and there's no point in making stuff from plastic bottles if there is still really on ethical practices in place, which sadly tends to happen. There's a huge amount of businesses that are that now have you know access to recycled materials and organic materials, but their working conditions are still appalling. So that's that for me is number one priority is look after the people, we then go and focus on the product. So the two two key main areas in that are we do a full life cycle analysis on all of our on all of our products. So there's a QR code on each carament, you scan it, you're given carbon consumption, water consumption, miles travelled, how many people were involved in the manufacturing process. So there's a full traceability and transparency on the life cycle analysis. We then go into obviously our materials, so you have organic cartons, you have recycled plastic bottles, we've done a seaweed product, it's too expensive to sell, we've done a hemp collection and again we have a we have a fabric innovation lab so we're always looking at you know what's being released in the fabrics world that we can bestake kind of ahead of the game and then the last thing we we focus on is planet. So we'll we'll work with NGOs around the world to remove plastic from our oceans. The goal is here is to remove 50,000 kilos of ocean plastic through our partner plastic fisher and they have river barriers in Indonesian and in India and they employ about 100 people on the ground there to go down and collect the plastic once it builds up on these river barriers. So we will do 50,000 kilos of them and then we plan to have 400 mangroves on a monthly basis to contribute to offsetting our carbon. So there's a huge there's a huge amount there but it's just important to try and find out what relates to our partnership and like I said a lot of people will come in and be like carbon is number one so they're delighted to hear about the the life cycle analysis and then they can partner that with the the mangrove planting others love the story about removing 50,000 kilos of ocean plastic so they will talk about that with their staff or with their guests and then others are just delighted to hear that it's made in Europe with a really you know well looked after workforce and they'll have photographs of who made the product on their social media and all that sort of stuff. So there's a huge amount there but it's yeah they're all important. 100% and you've covered so many aspects there and like you said there's so many companies out there that will you know claim sustainability in their buzzwords and you know there's parts of the company that are uncovered and they'll still try to claim that there's the same company and it doesn't have a point. Yeah it is and I'm sure it's very hard. Yeah and it's great you know to see some parts of companies that are you know even in fast-fashion say and they have parts in store where it's sustainable or they're trying to use recycled materials instead of that's great and so at least it is you know being introduced and the more people see it I think the more it will hopefully click on to other companies and what you're doing. It's a very it's a very difficult conversation because on one hand and like I'm all I'm all up for rewarding people for doing something the right way rather than there's another way of doing it which is you know I think we love beating people when they're trying so it's I'd always lean on the you know reward them for trying to try to start because it's such a it's such a long journey and someone described it to me recently was it's like an Arctic bove. turning at sea. So it's one of these containerships. It takes, it's going to take a very long time and you might do something right and then you might do something wrong. So in packaging, for example, we've done cornstarch packaging and it's supposed to be the best that you can get as this cornstarch packaging. But we then started sending out our products or orders to some of our clients and they were coming back with like a white residue on the inside. So what I turned out was that this cornstarch packaging had been in storage for over six months. So it started to buy it at a grade before we'd even sent it to a client. So then we had to go back to recycled polyester packaging for a spell. So it's going to be this really long journey. So my biggest advice to everybody is just to try and start and try and be as open and transparent as you can. And again, working in say the super yacht space with us is like one of the least eco-friendly environments in the world. These massive floating kind of hotels that are being driven around. And a lot of them are coming back to you. There's no point in us using eco-friendly uniforms. And I'm gonna make it 100% correct, but it's only bad if you're shouting from the rooftops that like how amazing you are because you're using recycled polyester in your uniforms to try and take away from the fact that you've got a super yacht. But wouldn't it be nice if you're renting your super yacht that when people come on and they discover that you're using recycling. So just do what you can and don't be worried about not starting because I think if you look at trying to perfect it, it's never going to happen. So it's all going to be this baby steps. Yeah, I think that's great advice. Just one step at a time and just do what you can. Absolutely brilliant. So I think we're nearly finishing up with the podcast now. I could actually chat for days probably. It is company because it's so interesting. There's so many different aspects to it that are so cool. But I also love finishing with a quick fire end of brand new personal questions. Yes, yeah, no problem. They don't have to be elaborate. One word is if you want. Okay, this might be a silly question. But it might also be an unknown one. Okay, the biggest passion in life. Sounds corny. I think I would love to find a way to bring up my kid to the best possible way that they can with also growing a business. It's going to be hard. It's a very hard, it's a very hard combination to do both. Okay, next one. Favorite thing to do on the weekend or a day off? I think the sauna and the dip in the sauna. Yeah, the cold, plunge and the sowness. Do you have one that you really like on to? Yeah, there's the huge. They've just popped up everywhere. We go to one in Fountainstone in cork and we've started and we started on, we do Monday evenings, nine o'clock, like nine o'clock until half, nine quick half an hour. And there's just three of the lads. We just could only do it so nice. Yeah, there's one in Dundrum that we like over and two. And it's hidden. I don't know if you know Dundrum, but they have a main street. A lot of people know Dundrum, but the main street and Dundrum. And it's down a little lane and it looks like a coffee shop. Behind the coffee shop, they have this unreal plunge pill sauna setup and it's just, yeah, it's nice for you to go. Yeah, just to show. Tom, I think we're finished off there now. Thanks so much for the chat. Getting to know Oceanore a bit more and thanks so much for coming on. No problem. Thank you for having me. We'll speak again.