Thankyou takes novel approach to cracking lucrative nappy market
SOCIAL enterprise Thankyou is set to sell baby care and nappy products to help fund infant and maternal health programs - but first you have to buy the co-founder’s motivational book.
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THANKYOU co-founder and managing director Daniel Flynn, 27, likes to think outside the square, the sphere and the stratosphere.
The Melbourne social entrepreneur not only runs with a good idea — such as selling bottled water to fund water projects in developing countries — he overcomes the barriers that would stop most people in their tracks.
The young father’s latest big-picture scheme is cracking the multi-million dollar nappy market to fund maternal and infant health programs in countries experiencing high mortality rates.
“The nappy market is dominated by one player, who does a good job, but when we went into this research, were like, hang on, there’s not a lot of innovation here,” he said.
“We worked hard with some great people and made a better nappy. This thing is pretty much instagrammable.”
But first there’s the motivational book, Chapter One — yet another example of how Flynn achieves the near-impossible by challenging convention.
“Here’s how it works. The book launches to raise funds — as a crowd-funding tool — for us to launch the Thankyou baby products. We need to raise $600,000,” Flynn says.
“The book has no RRP (recommended retail price). It is pay-what-you-want. You can pay a dollar, you could pay $10,000 for the book, and the tagline is, ‘It’s not about how much you want to pay for Chapter One, it’s about how much do you want to invest into Chapter Two — or the future of the organisation — and an idea that could impact millions of people.”
The book details his seven-year personal and professional journey, from co-founding Thankyou at the age of 19 with his girlfriend and now wife, Justine, and his best friend, Jarryd Burns, to heading a social enterprise that has raised $3.7 million for water, food and health projects in South-East Asia and Africa.
Even the format of Chapter One challenges the status quo.
“The spine is at the top and when you open the book the text is written in landscape format,” Flynn says.
“The book is a metaphor for your idea and your dream, because when you do things differently, people around you go, ‘What are you doing?’ And that is how I felt for years. This is crazy, I don’t know if it’s going to work.”
But despite knock-back after knock-back, all detailed in the book, Thankyou now has more than 30 products distributed through more 4000 outlets across Australia including Coles, Woolworths, IGA and 7-Eleven.
“We don’t ask for people’s money, which flips most people out. We don’t want your money, we want your choice,” Flynn says.
“Because you are going to buy hand wash anyway, or body wash or a sanitiser or a muesli bar or water anyway.”
Using a social enterprise model, 100 per cent of profits go to aid projects through the Thankyou Charitable Trust. There are no directors or shareholders.
“We have 36 staff in our office, our converted little warehouse in Collingwood, and we are up against 10 to15 multinationals that have all got a couple of thousand staff each,” Flynn said.
“It’s a bit of a David and Goliath battle, which you’ll pick up that trend in the book a little bit.”
He said any NGO, big or small, can submit for funding.
“If it meets our criteria, we fund it, they report, and then we visit,” Flynn said.
“If that process goes well then we’ll go again, and if it doesn’t we won’t. So we don’t partner with any one organisation, it’s project by project, essentially like a contract.”
Red Cross, World Vision, Oxfam, the Salvation Army and UNHCR are among those who have accessed funds for projects in 16 countries.
Thankyou has set up a software system allowing consumers to “track their impact”.
“Every product has its own unique tracker code, and when you type the code into our website it will zoom into the GPS co-ordinates of the exact well or filter or food program you are funding,” Flynn says.
The Victorian Young Australian of the Year in 2014, Flynn is much in demand as a motivational speaker, doing about 60-70 corporate and school talks a year.
But his greatest achievement, seven months ago, was the birth of his son, Jedediah.
“Going on the parent journey has changed our perspective completely,” said Flynn, who grew up in the Melbourne suburb of Donvale.
“It’s the focus of the business.”
He reels off statistics of maternal and child mortality rates in developing countries, horrified that about 300,000 mothers die in childbirth each year and 2.9 million babies die within their first month.
He said 1.5 million of those babies could be alive today if they had one vaccination that costs around 81 cents.
“I think getting though the whole birth thing was insane, but holding Jed, the best thing ever, and then going, ‘Hang on, how could you process that, a month later losing your kid?’ ” he said.
Flynn believes Thankyou can revolutionise the way people think and shop and the baby body care and nappy products are a key part of his strategy, as is his expansion into New Zealand.
“If it goes very average in the next three years, we will make around $3 million profit from the nappies; if it goes well it could clear over $20 million, which will impact not just hundreds of thousands, but millions of kids and parents.”
blanche.clark@news.com.au
Chapter One, by Daniel Flynn, RRP “whatever you like”. Available online at thankyou.co and Relay, Newslink and Watermark airport stores from February 26.
Originally published as Thankyou takes novel approach to cracking lucrative nappy market