Sparkling Water Without Plastic Bottles (from your taps)

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We are in a time where we can't rely just

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on government to get conservation priorities past a certain

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line and to help protect the ocean or to protect the

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environment or make sure that we are doing things sustainably. There

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are some times when there's a government in power that may not help us and

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that may go sometimes the opposite way. It sucks, nobody

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likes it, but there are times where we have to rely on businesses to

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do what they need to do not only to make a profit, but

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make an impact. And that's today's topic. We are going to be talking

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to Marcus O'Donovan. He is the founder of CO2U,

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which provides carbon dioxide cylinders for

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your sparkling water. It's a fantastic model

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and you're probably like, how is this sustainable, Andrew?

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Well, it's sustainable in that you are using your tap water. You're making your

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tap water more exciting. You're not buying sparkling water out

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of a plastic bottle. You are actually enjoying your water and

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you get it on demand. And it's sustainable. And

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that's how it's sustainable. Does he go on and on about talking

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about how sustainable this product is, no. He

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just enjoys providing sparkling water on demand

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for people in and around the UK and parts of Europe.

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And I think it's just amazing. And I wanted you to get to know him and

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his business practice and all the other things that he's done over time that

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has prepared him for CO2U. So let's start

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the show. Hey

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everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm

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your host, Andrew Lewin, and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the

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ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean, and what you can do to live for a

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better ocean by taking action. And today we're gonna be talking

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about how to... have a business that's

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sustainable and not necessarily build it based on

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that sustainability. I think that's what's really important here. I

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think a lot of people, and I included, when I first started

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getting into the sustainability practice and looking at businesses and talking about

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the selling points of a business, I was like, let's talk about how sustainable this

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business is. Well, it doesn't always have to be that way. And I think a lot

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of people, a lot of consumers are getting tired of hearing about

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sustainability and tired of hearing, hey, you know what, you should buy this because it's good for

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the planet. People want to buy things because it's good for them. They

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can use it, it's convenient, and they want to do that. And that's what Marcus

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O'Donovan has really done with CO2U. It's

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a very interesting business model with a

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product that you probably never would have thought of as counting as sustainable. I

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didn't really think so when I first started this interview. And then as I went through the interview, I'm

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like, oh, I see what it is. This is sparkling water on demand. Instead

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of going out to the store and buying it in a plastic bottle or

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buying it in a single use plastic, you can actually get sparkling water

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on demand right from tap water. So you're not using extra water,

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you're not supporting companies who are not sustainable, bringing

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plastic into the supply chain and it being single use

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and it's not getting recycling, you're having at home, it's convenient to

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you and you get to excite your water a little bit and

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have a good time at home. I think this is something

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that becomes really important in terms of the messaging. And

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Marcus talks a lot about his entrepreneurial journey, which I think is

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really important. When we look at problem solving,

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which is basically business and entrepreneurs, they are problem solvers.

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We look at how can we create businesses that solve

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the problems that we're facing like in the ocean or in the

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environment and make things more sustainable. That's the

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problem that we have to solve. A lot of you in the audience wanna solve the

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very same problem in different ways. And Marcus talks about what

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he went through that built them to be resilient

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and start a business that some of the people in his circle said,

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I don't think this is actually going to work. But he proved him wrong just

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by saying, hey, I actually think this is going to work. I don't know a lot about the industry, but

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I'm going to find out a lot about it. It took a year and a half and I'm going to create something.

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and now it's blossoming. And I think it's really important to go back

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to his history to talk about how he built the resilience to

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do that. He worked in the TV and film industry as a kid, as a teenager and

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a young man, and then he started his own business, COVID kind

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of kiboshed that, and now he's got a new business and it's

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absolutely amazing. So we're gonna talk to him, and here's the interview with

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Marcus O'Donovan, the founder of CO2U, which

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you can find at co2u.com. Here's the interview, and I will talk

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to you after. Hey, Marcus, welcome to the How to Protect the Ocean podcast.

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Oh, I love it. I love it. I'm pumped. I'm pumped as well. This is

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going to be a lot of fun because today we're going to be talking to you

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about sort of your lifestyle in a second, in a second, like your life

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and how you become an entrepreneur from a TV

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career and a TV and film career and what

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that was like, why you made those decisions. And we're gonna cover

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a lot of things about, you know, sustainability in business, the

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challenges, the successes that you've seen and

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the challenges that you faced. We're gonna get into all of that stuff. It's gonna

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be a lot of fun. Before we do though, Marcus, why don't you just let people know who you

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So my name is Marcus O'Donovan. I am based in

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London in the UK, and I founded a business called CO2U.

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We'll get into it more, but what CO2U essentially does is it provides

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gas refills for home carbonators. So if

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you have, for example, a SodaStream or an Arky or any

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kind of device that makes sparkling water at home, we

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send the gas to you. You use it, once you're done,

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we send more and we collect the empty cylinders at the end. And

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there's a whole host of stuff we can

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talk about where that kind of fits in within this

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Yeah, absolutely. I think it's a really ingenious idea. You know,

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this seems to be a market that has really exploded

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over the last, I would say like five years I've seen it here in Canada anyway.

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Um, and, and so it's, I'm really interested in just seeing how you got into

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this, where, you know, and, and, and what made you decide to

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go into this. We're going to get into all that. It's going to be a lot of fun. I

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have to ask, you weren't always this type of entrepreneur. You

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were a little bit of a different type of entrepreneur in terms of you were

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TV shows and film, kids' TV shows as well. How

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Well, I think for me, I was always someone that wanted attention. Maybe

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that's slightly winged as I've got a little bit older. But certainly

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when I was younger, I desperately wanted to be in a boy band,

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actually. That was my kind of dream. And

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incredibly, I was kind of on that journey. And very long

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story, but I ended up doing this huge casting call

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for a guy called Simon Fuller, huge music

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mogul entrepreneur, and got

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signed into this kind of band TV show type thing

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here in the UK when I was very young, about 16, 17. And so I had this very

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exciting time, lots of money, sort

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of just a very slight taste of fame but not really.

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And I kind

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of remained in that whole world trying to kind of make it

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in kind of television presenting, acting, that kind of

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thing, did a lot of TV shows. I guess that

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was the kind of I did a lot of big shows, but I was the

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actor that kind of, you know, if it was Doctor Who, you know, I'm coming

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around the corner and saying, Doctor, your tea's ready. It was like,

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not extra, but not exactly the star of the show either. So

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it got to about 10 years in and

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I thought, hey, you know what? I think what I really want to

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do is sell. I

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think I was very interested in economics. I just didn't really understand what

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that was. I actually ended up in the food business. I

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started a business called Husk. This

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was a business that sold dry goods into hotels,

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pubs, and bars, so nuts, snacks, that kind of thing. And

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that was a rollercoaster of a business. Again,

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it was about a 10-year journey. Business

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went bust in COVID and then kind of rebuilt

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itself. And somehow, eventually, I actually

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sold it last year to a business here called Canbrook

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Foods. So it was not a massive business and not some kind

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of huge tech exit, but a lot

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of experience selling physical products and just kind of making Huge

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mistakes, lots and lots of times. And that really

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set me up for my next business. I'm really

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fortunate that I had that journey to

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get so much wrong. I'm not saying I don't get things wrong now, because we

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do, we all do. But it just gave me a

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wealth of knowledge and opportunity, which I didn't realize I

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had until I started CO2U. And I was like, oh, I

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already know how to do this and this and this. gotcha. So that's

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Let's go back that career shift between the TV

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and film to to the entrepreneurial sort

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of career path. In

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Korean film, you're putting a lot of I guess uncomfortable situations in

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terms of from what I've heard anyway, I've never had experience it but auditioning is

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very uncomfortable where you're being judged right away and you have to think

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on your feet and acting you have to think on your feet, not sure how much

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improv you get to do in some of these shows but you do have to

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like, make sure that you're ready for anything. Do

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you find that aspect of this type of

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industry, when you look at, you know, TV and film, compared to

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entrepreneurship, do you find that helped you prepare for the

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Yeah, I think what was incredibly helpful was

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all the rejection. Uh, and, and, um, as

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you say, being put in very difficult, uh, scenarios, being

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asked to do difficult things. Um, you did a lot of casting

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calls, things like commercials where you just walk in, you don't really know what they

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want you to do. There's lots of people sitting there watching you.

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You got to perform. Um, you know, you're being told for

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this reason or that reason that you're not getting the role, not good looking enough, not tall enough,

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Um, and so personal sometimes too,

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Like it feels pretty personal. Yeah. Yeah, pick up a very thick

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skin. And I think the real advantage that it

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gave me is the

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ability to confidently, to

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be outwardly confident when I'm speaking, or when I'm

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public speaking, or to walk into a room and feel, I

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don't know that it's, you know, my partner, she calls, she always tells me, I'm an

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extrovert, you're an extrovert. But for me, I just, I

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just love people. And I love, being

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present. And I think, you

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know, I'm in my early 40s now, but

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I think as I sort of get older, I

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really look back and value a lot of these things that

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I was fortunate enough to be a part of. You know, even

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if I didn't become Tom Cruise, I had some

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experience and some kind of journey within it. So to

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answer your question, yeah, that whole

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world of entertainment has been very valuable when

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it's come to pitching, selling, selling yourself, it's

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Yeah, and like you mentioned, rejection, and to

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be able to get over that rejection, it's experience, obviously,

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it can be tough sometimes, as we mentioned, What helps

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you get over that rejection, whether it be in a sale

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or whether it be at an audition, what helped you get

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over that so that now in business, if something does happen,

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God forbid you do get rejected or you don't get a particular sale or

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something doesn't work out. How did you,

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how do you get over that? Because it happens a lot in the marine conservation

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industry. We don't get a grant or something we want, you

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know, say a bill gets through, it doesn't get through. We deal

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with it, but we deal with, it can be very personal to us. And

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so a lot of people have problems with mental health throughout their careers

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because some of the things that, like the impact of the rejection could

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be a loss of a habitat or things like that. How

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does that work? I mean, for you, sometimes, well, a lot of times,

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the stakes were hard. You lose a job for TV

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and film or you lose a sale that's impacting on your business.

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Not easily. Look,

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you're asking me these questions now in hindsight, having been through everything

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that I've been through. I think at the time I found these things extremely challenging.

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It doesn't surprise me that you mention people struggling with

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their mental health over these kinds of things. I

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get it. I think where I'm at now is that I

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don't approach things negatively. I'm very positive, very ambitious, but

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I'm certainly a bit of a realist. I understand

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sometimes things can appear a little bit

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too good to be true, probably means they might be a bit too good

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to be true. And we're pitching to these big buyers at

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these restaurant chains or supermarkets, whatever they

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are, and they're giving us all these signals. But until the

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money's in the bank, as they say, you know, nothing's kind of

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guaranteed. So now I find

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all this stuff a lot easier and I've learned as well that I

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think when I was an actor, being honest, I was

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desperate. I was very, very desperate. It was very, very hard. It was a

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lot of competition. We were all desperate and it was a desperate sense

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when you walked into the casting rooms

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and you sat outside and everybody, you

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could smell it in the air. And desperation is

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not attractive. Nobody wants to be around or be

231
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pitched to by somebody that's desperately trying to sell them their product.

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So when it comes to selling something now, I just pull it

233
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right back. And it's kind of like, look, I've

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got this great thing. And it is a great thing. And

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we'll talk about CO2 and what it's doing and the

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growth and everything else. But it's like, if you want it, great. If

237
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Yeah. Yeah. No,

238
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but I mean, I think you're right. We're around the same age and, and

239
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I think you're right. I think when you're young, it really, it really hits

240
00:14:46,627 --> 00:14:49,789
hard and, and you take it almost personally and you don't

241
00:14:49,809 --> 00:14:53,231
know how you're going to get over it as you grow older, you come like

242
00:14:53,271 --> 00:14:56,553
cautious, you see the signs ahead and you kind of like, okay, hold on.

243
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I got it. I got to tread lightly here. And I know. what to expect, what

244
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not to expect, the signs are all there, and you tend to get over a little

245
00:15:03,178 --> 00:15:06,479
bit more, your emotions aren't as in it a little bit. Mind

246
00:15:06,499 --> 00:15:09,940
you, it could be a little bit different in terms of TV and

247
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film, because they're going after, like you mentioned, looks and personality, and

248
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Yeah, listen, there's a big difference between

249
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selling yourself and selling a product. Even if it's a product that you've

250
00:15:23,989 --> 00:15:27,112
created and you've designed, you can still pick it up and move it out

251
00:15:27,152 --> 00:15:30,915
the way, but you can't do the same with yourself. So if

252
00:15:30,955 --> 00:15:34,298
you aren't what they want, you aren't what they want, and there's nothing you can

253
00:15:34,318 --> 00:15:37,561
do You know? Yeah. No, a hundred percent. Very,

254
00:15:37,601 --> 00:15:40,944
very personal. It's a tough, it's a tough business. And I, I still have

255
00:15:41,545 --> 00:15:45,469
many, many, many friends, um, you know, still, still

256
00:15:45,509 --> 00:15:48,853
in that business plugging away and, well,

257
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Unbelievable. Yeah. I can imagine. I can, I can only imagine. But

258
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speaking of tough, you mentioned Husk closed

259
00:15:59,966 --> 00:16:03,507
down or really got affected during COVID, which

260
00:16:03,547 --> 00:16:06,888
was tough for a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of people out there, either

261
00:16:06,908 --> 00:16:10,329
lost their jobs or lost their businesses or their businesses were severely

262
00:16:10,389 --> 00:16:14,850
impacted. Another uncontrollable sort

263
00:16:14,870 --> 00:16:19,111
of challenge that hits you. Did

264
00:16:19,151 --> 00:16:22,452
you realize at that time, it's like, okay, we don't know how long this is gonna last,

265
00:16:22,492 --> 00:16:25,954
but I need to, I need to sell, or I need to shift?

266
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I remember my accountant said to me, he said, oh, it's two weeks. It's two weeks.

267
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And because it was my accountant, I was like, oh, great. OK, that's fine.

268
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And I just went to bed that night. And I thought, well, it's going to be great,

269
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because the whole of London's locked down. And it'd be

270
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fun for two weeks. It's something completely rare. Yeah,

271
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as it kind of snowboard on, I

272
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realized, oh, OK, this is going to

273
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change the world. And it has completely changed. It's changed

274
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everything. It

275
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was an extremely hard time for me. I know a lot of people did very,

276
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very well at that time. We did not. But

277
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what it did do for me was it it

278
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kind of forced my hand to start something new. And

279
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I'd had this idea for CO2, you kind of, I didn't really

280
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have the idea, but I kind of, I thought about it briefly once, but it was kind

281
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of floating around. And I realized, you

282
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know, I just had, we

283
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just had a baby with my partner. So she and

284
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I were kind of like, you know, what

285
00:17:39,033 --> 00:17:42,476
are you going to do? Or what am I going to do? And

286
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so it devastated the business I had at the time. But

287
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actually, eventually in came some of these government grants and

288
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things and I ended up being able to launch CO2

289
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kind of around that time using some

290
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of my own money, but also a bit of the money that I got there. And so A

291
00:18:03,506 --> 00:18:06,589
blessing and a curse. It

292
00:18:08,871 --> 00:18:12,113
Well, yeah, which we're going to get into in just seconds. I can't wait to talk

293
00:18:12,153 --> 00:18:15,556
about this, because I'm not familiar with this industry at all. And

294
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I think it's a really interesting one, especially from the

295
00:18:18,898 --> 00:18:22,261
sustainability aspect. But it seems

296
00:18:22,281 --> 00:18:26,033
like you've always had that entrepreneurial Spirit

297
00:18:26,213 --> 00:18:30,777
in you even like as a TV and film artist you still You're

298
00:18:31,198 --> 00:18:34,301
you're advocating for yourself You're you're a little on your own you have a team and

299
00:18:34,361 --> 00:18:38,885
stuff and then you get into husk and now you're in co2 you What

300
00:18:38,986 --> 00:18:42,269
made you like during those times some of the hard times not

301
00:18:42,489 --> 00:18:45,872
go get a job and decide to start another

302
00:18:48,160 --> 00:18:51,303
That's a good question. I've always had a sort of

303
00:18:51,443 --> 00:18:54,645
a huge fear of, I mean, I was

304
00:18:54,705 --> 00:18:58,128
naughty at school. I don't like being told what to

305
00:18:58,288 --> 00:19:01,551
do. So the idea that I would have to go and be

306
00:19:01,591 --> 00:19:04,713
a good boy and do what I was told, I just

307
00:19:04,753 --> 00:19:07,996
think I always that was never going

308
00:19:08,036 --> 00:19:11,359
to be for me. And it's been incredibly hard. I am

309
00:19:11,399 --> 00:19:14,621
not one of these entrepreneurs that hit big in their early 20s

310
00:19:14,681 --> 00:19:17,904
and made his millions and, you know, has since kind of built. That is

311
00:19:18,064 --> 00:19:21,648
not my journey whatsoever. And for anybody listening

312
00:19:21,668 --> 00:19:25,451
who is young and does want to become an entrepreneur, I'm

313
00:19:25,571 --> 00:19:28,774
so passionate about it. I think when

314
00:19:28,814 --> 00:19:32,297
it works out for you, it will change your life in ways that I don't believe

315
00:19:32,497 --> 00:19:36,580
any job could ever. change

316
00:19:36,600 --> 00:19:39,822
your life, but make no mistakes about it. It's

317
00:19:39,942 --> 00:19:44,004
really hard. You see all this stuff on social media, whatever, these guys flashing

318
00:19:44,024 --> 00:19:47,626
the cash, whatever. If that even does exist, it's

319
00:19:47,646 --> 00:19:50,928
a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of people that

320
00:19:50,968 --> 00:19:55,231
are successful. And that's why you hear about it. You don't hear about the 99.8% of

321
00:19:55,251 --> 00:19:58,452
the people that are really struggling. Me being, I haven't

322
00:20:01,774 --> 00:20:05,656
And I think that's the problem too, is we get distracted by

323
00:20:05,696 --> 00:20:09,118
the people who are doing this, sometimes not even, you

324
00:20:09,158 --> 00:20:12,459
know, not even succeeding, but they're kind of flashing this money when they probably

325
00:20:12,499 --> 00:20:15,561
should be. But we have to, I

326
00:20:15,601 --> 00:20:19,343
don't think a lot of people realize how challenging entrepreneurial

327
00:20:19,403 --> 00:20:22,864
life is, which is why I'm going a little down this road, because

328
00:20:22,904 --> 00:20:26,161
I wanted to get the idea of what

329
00:20:26,201 --> 00:20:29,622
you've been through to get a company that is

330
00:20:30,163 --> 00:20:33,564
doing well with Husk, and then all of a sudden, due

331
00:20:33,644 --> 00:20:37,386
to things out of your control for a lot of people, it gets affected a

332
00:20:37,986 --> 00:20:41,908
huge deal. And then to have the courage

333
00:20:41,968 --> 00:20:45,270
to start something else is amazing, because

334
00:20:45,290 --> 00:20:48,712
to get over one thing, and then to go to another, and

335
00:20:48,752 --> 00:20:52,416
to put all your heart and soul into another, It's

336
00:20:52,497 --> 00:20:55,800
risky. It is. And although sometimes a

337
00:20:55,840 --> 00:20:58,964
job is comfortable, which many of us have, and there's nothing wrong with it,

338
00:20:59,525 --> 00:21:02,628
entrepreneurism is that challenge. But like you said, when you get to it,

339
00:21:02,809 --> 00:21:06,052
and you start to see that success, it's

340
00:21:06,092 --> 00:21:09,436
almost success in multiple ways, not just the purpose

341
00:21:09,476 --> 00:21:13,195
of your business, the bottom line, like the profit, but also your

342
00:21:13,315 --> 00:21:17,038
own, like the fact that you succeeded in something, the independence, the

343
00:21:17,059 --> 00:21:20,321
decision-making that you get to do and not control that. I've worked in

344
00:21:20,401 --> 00:21:23,744
both aspects and I think there's a big difference

345
00:21:23,784 --> 00:21:27,487
in that. I can completely get where you're coming from when you finally

346
00:21:27,507 --> 00:21:30,990
get that taste of success, even if it's not a huge success

347
00:21:32,351 --> 00:21:36,253
And it's not by any means to knock regular

348
00:21:36,333 --> 00:21:39,794
employment. For sure. If it wasn't for regular

349
00:21:39,834 --> 00:21:43,576
employment, I wouldn't have been able to have done what I've done. My partner works

350
00:21:43,676 --> 00:21:47,337
in corporate, in finance. And for

351
00:21:47,377 --> 00:21:50,939
a lot of this journey, she's been the breadwinner. She's

352
00:21:50,979 --> 00:21:54,240
supported me and she's believed in me and believed in

353
00:21:54,260 --> 00:21:57,621
the process. And had I not had her and had that, it

354
00:21:57,681 --> 00:22:01,023
might not have been possible. So I'm by no means kind

355
00:22:01,063 --> 00:22:04,587
of belittling or suggesting,

356
00:22:04,607 --> 00:22:08,612
like you say, that there's anything wrong with having a quote-unquote

357
00:22:08,652 --> 00:22:11,997
normal job. I'm just saying for me, never gonna

358
00:22:14,065 --> 00:22:17,846
Never gonna happen, baby. Never gonna happen. Yeah, it definitely goes by personality

359
00:22:17,886 --> 00:22:22,308
a lot, right? And I think that's wonderful. Let's

360
00:22:22,328 --> 00:22:25,789
get into CO2U. This is a really interesting

361
00:22:25,849 --> 00:22:29,591
concept. It's a great business model. Can

362
00:22:29,611 --> 00:22:33,032
you give us a description of what the business is?

363
00:22:36,718 --> 00:22:39,820
Yeah, sure. Very, very simply, I think I said at the

364
00:22:39,840 --> 00:22:43,443
start of the podcast, if you're making sparkling water

365
00:22:43,743 --> 00:22:47,045
in your home, which a lot of people are now, and we'll talk about why, because

366
00:22:47,086 --> 00:22:50,368
a lot of it is to do with sustainability, of course, then you're going to

367
00:22:50,408 --> 00:22:53,610
need CO2. And here in the UK, there's one

368
00:22:54,251 --> 00:22:57,473
major supplier of this product called SodaStream, owned

369
00:22:57,493 --> 00:23:00,695
by PepsiCo. And I was a big fan of

370
00:23:00,735 --> 00:23:04,218
that business, and my partner bought me a SodaStream when

371
00:23:04,238 --> 00:23:07,533
I was using it. I loved it.

372
00:23:07,954 --> 00:23:11,571
And it kind of, the thing that was kind

373
00:23:11,611 --> 00:23:14,973
of eye-opening for me about the whole thing

374
00:23:15,013 --> 00:23:18,314
about making sparkling water in your home was that I drink a lot of sparkling water.

375
00:23:18,354 --> 00:23:23,036
So I used to carry, we're in central London, I used to carry these big two-liter

376
00:23:24,597 --> 00:23:28,698
bottles, like six of them, back from the supermarket. And

377
00:23:29,559 --> 00:23:32,880
I'd open them up. And once you open them, of course, they start

378
00:23:32,900 --> 00:23:36,121
going flat. You sort of drink a lot. They take up a lot of room. And

379
00:23:36,141 --> 00:23:39,323
suddenly, here I am with this kind of sparkling water on

380
00:23:39,403 --> 00:23:43,405
tap. So, look,

381
00:23:43,445 --> 00:23:47,007
how the business started, because you're going to ask me that question, I will tell you, was

382
00:23:47,027 --> 00:23:50,429
Sodastream had an offer

383
00:23:50,489 --> 00:23:54,191
where you could get the gas delivered to your house. But incredibly,

384
00:23:54,211 --> 00:23:57,393
when you finished using it, you had to box it back

385
00:23:57,473 --> 00:24:00,915
up and you had to take it down and carry it down to like

386
00:24:00,935 --> 00:24:04,157
a click and collect location to get back to them and get

387
00:24:04,197 --> 00:24:07,378
your money refunded, this, that, and the other. there must be a

388
00:24:07,418 --> 00:24:10,579
way in which this could all be done in your doorstep. And

389
00:24:10,679 --> 00:24:14,281
so that's what I said about building with CO2.

390
00:24:14,461 --> 00:24:17,722
And I'm so glad that I did it, but I have to say it wasn't

391
00:24:17,762 --> 00:24:21,183
straightforward. There was a very, very good reason why that wasn't

392
00:24:21,263 --> 00:24:24,704
possible. And it was simply that the Korea

393
00:24:24,744 --> 00:24:28,225
companies won't collect empty cylinders

394
00:24:28,645 --> 00:24:32,123
or use cylinders from people because

395
00:24:32,163 --> 00:24:35,867
they believe in some way that they might be dangerous. So there was

396
00:24:35,887 --> 00:24:39,230
a good year, year and a half where I thought the thing isn't

397
00:24:39,250 --> 00:24:44,396
going to work and I'm never going to be able to convince these career companies to work

398
00:24:44,436 --> 00:24:48,140
with me on this. But man,

399
00:24:48,200 --> 00:24:51,684
it was a crazy, crazy journey. It just started

400
00:24:51,704 --> 00:24:55,082
with me buying some cylinders and I sold

401
00:24:55,142 --> 00:24:58,866
on Amazon before and I looked, I thought, well, if I buy a thousand cylinders

402
00:24:58,887 --> 00:25:03,232
and I put them on Amazon and see if they sell and

403
00:25:04,333 --> 00:25:07,797
gone. Just like that? Very,

404
00:25:07,837 --> 00:25:10,960
very quickly. I sold these things. I thought, okay, If I

405
00:25:11,000 --> 00:25:15,585
can sell a thousand and sell them quick, there's

406
00:25:16,006 --> 00:25:19,249
something in this. This has got to be a thing.

407
00:25:21,472 --> 00:25:24,535
So I did two things. I'll tell you about some of the disaster, and then we

408
00:25:24,555 --> 00:25:27,799
can talk about some of the success. But I decided, I

409
00:25:27,839 --> 00:25:31,039
thought, hey, look, I'm going to need my own machine, I think

410
00:25:31,079 --> 00:25:34,260
like almost out of vanity more than anything else. So I

411
00:25:34,300 --> 00:25:37,840
had some stupid names for the company, for the idea.

412
00:25:37,960 --> 00:25:41,301
One of them was Fizzy Banter, terrible name. And my friends in

413
00:25:41,341 --> 00:25:44,502
marketing and I met up with him one evening and he said, oh,

414
00:25:44,522 --> 00:25:48,603
what are you up to? I explained, I said, I'm going to call it Fizzy Banter. He

415
00:25:48,663 --> 00:25:52,263
texted me that evening, he said, look, I cannot in good faith allow

416
00:25:52,323 --> 00:25:56,344
you to start a new business and call it this. meet

417
00:25:56,364 --> 00:25:59,466
me tomorrow and I'll give you your name and I'll give you

418
00:25:59,506 --> 00:26:03,187
your logo, free of charge." Lovely guy called Ardy. Anyway,

419
00:26:03,207 --> 00:26:06,329
he went to me and the next day he said, listen, this is your business. It's

420
00:26:06,349 --> 00:26:09,630
called CO2U. And I was like, of course it is, because it's

421
00:26:09,670 --> 00:26:13,052
exactly what this is all about. CO2U, yeah, makes total

422
00:26:13,072 --> 00:26:16,233
sense. And, you

423
00:26:16,273 --> 00:26:20,195
know, the whole thing was born. So, originally I

424
00:26:20,235 --> 00:26:23,477
had these machines to make sparkling water at home, so I ordered

425
00:26:23,497 --> 00:26:26,639
those and I ordered some test cylinders from this

426
00:26:26,679 --> 00:26:29,940
manufacturer in China and brought them

427
00:26:30,000 --> 00:26:33,702
all back to the UK, tried everything out, it was brilliant. So

428
00:26:33,802 --> 00:26:37,223
ordered the machines and ordered the cylinders. And this was

429
00:26:37,243 --> 00:26:40,845
around the time of COVID. So the first cylinders

430
00:26:40,885 --> 00:26:44,366
turned up and I was so excited and I shot this video and I told all my friends

431
00:26:44,426 --> 00:26:48,328
and I sent out machines to all these different friends. I

432
00:26:48,348 --> 00:26:51,893
didn't really get much of a response from anybody. I thought,

433
00:26:51,913 --> 00:26:55,537
well, it's kind of odd. I put the machines on Amazon. They started selling.

434
00:26:55,557 --> 00:26:59,142
I was like, okay, awesome. And they were selling well. I started

435
00:26:59,162 --> 00:27:02,746
getting people returning the machines. I

436
00:27:02,786 --> 00:27:06,710
thought, What's going on here? So I

437
00:27:06,770 --> 00:27:10,153
rang my friend Paul. I said, hey, how are you getting on with that machine?

438
00:27:10,193 --> 00:27:13,696
And he said, oh, well, actually,

439
00:27:14,017 --> 00:27:17,220
I couldn't get it to work. I said, what

440
00:27:17,240 --> 00:27:20,382
do you mean? Did you just screw the cylinder in? And he said, yeah, I know how it

441
00:27:20,422 --> 00:27:25,355
works, but I cannot get it to work. Anyway. After

442
00:27:25,395 --> 00:27:28,816
speaking to a number of other different people, lots of people had problems working

443
00:27:28,836 --> 00:27:32,197
the machine. I thought, I don't believe this. These guys who've

444
00:27:32,217 --> 00:27:35,818
made the machine, they've given me a faulty product.

445
00:27:35,958 --> 00:27:39,679
It's over before it even started. Because I'd invested about

446
00:27:39,819 --> 00:27:43,340
£70,000, all the money that I could put into this thing I put in. I was like, it's dead. And

447
00:27:43,541 --> 00:27:46,781
it was terrible. I went to the warehouse the next day, started trying out

448
00:27:46,822 --> 00:27:50,283
all these machines, and they weren't working properly. Some were

449
00:27:50,323 --> 00:27:53,664
working a bit, some weren't. So I was tearing my

450
00:27:53,704 --> 00:27:57,185
hair out for a couple of weeks, arguing

451
00:27:57,205 --> 00:28:00,306
with this machine manufacturer. Look, what's going on?

452
00:28:00,346 --> 00:28:03,928
These machines don't work. They said, Marcus, we're the largest producer of

453
00:28:03,988 --> 00:28:07,349
these machines globally. Here is the video of your product going

454
00:28:07,369 --> 00:28:10,731
down the production line, being tested. They always work. We don't ever

455
00:28:10,771 --> 00:28:15,439
have these problems. So I was going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And

456
00:28:15,639 --> 00:28:19,181
in the end, after having been assured by

457
00:28:19,241 --> 00:28:23,383
my cylinder supplier that they'd given me the exact same cylinder that

458
00:28:23,403 --> 00:28:27,044
we'd used during testing, turns out that because it was COVID, they'd

459
00:28:27,145 --> 00:28:30,666
sourced an identical part for the cylinder,

460
00:28:30,686 --> 00:28:34,048
the valve, that's exactly the same. There's nothing

461
00:28:34,068 --> 00:28:37,474
different about it. But actually, when we measured it, it was about a

462
00:28:37,534 --> 00:28:41,320
third of a millimeter out in its design

463
00:28:41,340 --> 00:28:45,006
or whatever, and it affected these machines. And the worst part about it was I

464
00:28:45,506 --> 00:28:48,992
had 7,000 cylinders on the water coming from

465
00:28:49,032 --> 00:28:52,353
this same manufacturer. And I thought, well, that's it. it's over.

466
00:28:52,993 --> 00:28:57,238
Anyway, long story short, the cylinders arrived, and

467
00:28:57,498 --> 00:29:00,722
they'd used the correct part on these other

468
00:29:00,782 --> 00:29:04,426
ones. It had just been this brief little thing that

469
00:29:04,446 --> 00:29:08,191
they'd done, and they hadn't been honest about it, and

470
00:29:08,872 --> 00:29:13,216
everything worked. And then from that moment onwards, It

471
00:29:13,256 --> 00:29:18,860
has been for the most part an extremely exciting, enjoyable

472
00:29:18,920 --> 00:29:22,302
journey where we then grew 500% in year two

473
00:29:22,322 --> 00:29:26,464
and we've doubled in size ever since. I've

474
00:29:26,504 --> 00:29:30,306
gone through a few rounds of investment.

475
00:29:30,406 --> 00:29:33,668
I've been very, very lucky. First investor I was put in front

476
00:29:33,808 --> 00:29:38,594
of, Anthony Bolton. And he

477
00:29:38,654 --> 00:29:42,040
said, all right, I'll invest. And then the second investor I

478
00:29:42,060 --> 00:29:45,666
got in front of, a year and a half later, Louis, he

479
00:29:45,706 --> 00:29:50,082
said, yeah, I want to bank you. I want to invest. And then Recently,

480
00:29:50,102 --> 00:29:53,325
at the end of last year, the business is growing and

481
00:29:53,345 --> 00:29:56,927
growing and growing and I can't finance the growth. So I

482
00:29:56,967 --> 00:30:00,050
said to my manufacturer, oh, you know, the problem is

483
00:30:00,070 --> 00:30:03,212
I just can't afford to buy the amount of cylinders I need to

484
00:30:03,252 --> 00:30:06,454
buy from you. And he said, all right, well, you

485
00:30:06,494 --> 00:30:09,676
know, we'll have a think about payment terms, whatever. Anyway, they came

486
00:30:09,716 --> 00:30:13,599
back the next day and within about A

487
00:30:13,639 --> 00:30:16,762
week and a half, I'd sold a

488
00:30:16,822 --> 00:30:20,244
small amount of the company to Victory, which

489
00:30:20,264 --> 00:30:24,408
is one of the largest gas cylinder suppliers globally, firefighting

490
00:30:24,448 --> 00:30:28,685
equipment suppliers. So yeah,

491
00:30:28,825 --> 00:30:33,647
that's where we're at today. It continues

492
00:30:35,808 --> 00:30:39,090
It wasn't a fact of people weren't buying. It was the fact that you just couldn't

493
00:30:39,110 --> 00:30:42,372
produce enough ahead of time to satisfy the demand. So

494
00:30:42,392 --> 00:30:45,954
you just need that little extra of investment to scale up. Is that what

495
00:30:47,134 --> 00:30:52,024
Yeah, 100%. And the frustrating thing is that The

496
00:30:52,064 --> 00:30:55,687
shipping time's very difficult, as you

497
00:30:56,027 --> 00:30:59,490
might well know. If you're bringing in a product

498
00:30:59,530 --> 00:31:02,772
from the other side of the world, there's been a lot of problems with the

499
00:31:07,896 --> 00:31:12,799
Yeah, it was terrible then. And then the Suez Canal is currently shut.

500
00:31:13,299 --> 00:31:17,321
Everything's going down the coast of Africa. And then you got the pirates. So

501
00:31:17,401 --> 00:31:20,823
it's been, it can be quite challenging. So just keeping up

502
00:31:20,883 --> 00:31:24,470
with, it's been Very, very

503
00:31:24,830 --> 00:31:28,414
exciting to be in a business where it's about keeping up with demand. I've

504
00:31:28,454 --> 00:31:31,837
never been in that situation before in my previous business, begging people

505
00:31:31,877 --> 00:31:35,040
to buy my product. Now it's, look, this

506
00:31:35,100 --> 00:31:38,304
thing is growing and it's growing quick. Can you supply? And, you know, we've

507
00:31:38,324 --> 00:31:42,047
got seven or eight quite substantial

508
00:31:42,147 --> 00:31:45,350
corporate contracts with big, well-known companies that we're now

509
00:31:46,331 --> 00:31:51,016
working with and selling to. And yeah, so I'm

510
00:31:54,038 --> 00:31:57,662
That's amazing. That's amazing. Yeah. You

511
00:31:58,482 --> 00:32:01,705
know, obviously, this is a show about how to protect the environment, how to protect the

512
00:32:01,805 --> 00:32:05,208
ocean. Um, so obviously, you

513
00:32:05,248 --> 00:32:08,730
know, this is, this is a at home soda, like you're, you're basically,

514
00:32:08,870 --> 00:32:12,533
these are, this is CO2 for soda machines, right?

515
00:32:12,593 --> 00:32:16,115
So people creating sparkling water or maybe their own soda through

516
00:32:16,155 --> 00:32:19,377
SodaStream or anything. It works with essentially all the different brands. Is that

517
00:32:22,059 --> 00:32:26,782
Yeah, of course. So we cover all the brands

518
00:32:27,102 --> 00:32:30,805
and the sparkling water taps. So we've actually got a, I mean, I'll

519
00:32:30,825 --> 00:32:33,987
tell you a crazy thing in a minute, but we've got a

520
00:32:34,027 --> 00:32:37,189
new larger cylinder that powers sparkling water taps in kind of

521
00:32:37,330 --> 00:32:41,072
offices and restaurants and that kind of thing. The

522
00:32:41,092 --> 00:32:44,254
sustainability thing is crazy. We must

523
00:32:44,314 --> 00:32:48,738
talk about it because it is not something that I, It

524
00:32:48,798 --> 00:32:51,981
wasn't my reason or my

525
00:32:52,041 --> 00:32:55,945
why for getting into this, but it's just a massive. You

526
00:32:55,965 --> 00:32:59,866
see, I see a lot of these businesses, I think there's a huge amount of talk about being

527
00:32:59,906 --> 00:33:03,187
green, but there's a lot of greenwashing that I

528
00:33:03,207 --> 00:33:06,368
see, a lot of companies trying to kind of say that they're

529
00:33:06,388 --> 00:33:09,889
doing something good. And you're like, well, I

530
00:33:09,949 --> 00:33:14,130
personally don't see that, or I question a lot of that. But

531
00:33:14,611 --> 00:33:17,772
I just knew as a byproduct of what we're doing that it was incredibly good for

532
00:33:17,792 --> 00:33:20,877
the planet. Our enemy, if we have to

533
00:33:20,917 --> 00:33:24,158
have one, is traveled water. So

534
00:33:24,298 --> 00:33:27,419
any water that is being moved from A to B, that doesn't need to

535
00:33:27,459 --> 00:33:30,860
go from A to B, because in the Western world, pretty

536
00:33:30,880 --> 00:33:34,362
much all over the world now, we have a tap, right? So

537
00:33:34,402 --> 00:33:37,543
we have water right there. We don't need to

538
00:33:37,783 --> 00:33:40,985
fill it into a vessel. and not only put

539
00:33:41,025 --> 00:33:44,468
it in a disposable plastic vessel, but

540
00:33:44,488 --> 00:33:47,591
then put it onto a truck, which then burns fuel to

541
00:33:47,631 --> 00:33:51,874
move it from here to here. It doesn't make any sense how

542
00:33:51,894 --> 00:33:55,157
this whole thing has happened at all. And the worst

543
00:33:55,217 --> 00:33:58,300
part being, of course, is that so much of this plastic ends up in the

544
00:33:58,380 --> 00:34:02,163
sea, which is just heartbreaking, right?

545
00:34:02,684 --> 00:34:05,786
Well, even the plastic that's made is a petroleum product in

546
00:34:05,826 --> 00:34:09,173
itself. So It's made from petroleum, and so making it

547
00:34:09,814 --> 00:34:12,955
is dirty. Drinking it is bad for you because of

548
00:34:12,995 --> 00:34:16,938
all the plastic material that comes in. And then disposing, as you mentioned, is

549
00:34:16,978 --> 00:34:20,059
not good as well. So all parts of it, from the creation all the way to

550
00:34:22,861 --> 00:34:26,283
Yeah, and I understand there's a need for single-use drinks

551
00:34:26,843 --> 00:34:30,840
and a huge demand. It's

552
00:34:30,880 --> 00:34:34,264
very interesting. Frustratingly, there's a business we're working

553
00:34:34,284 --> 00:34:37,807
with, very, very well-known business here in the UK that I can't

554
00:34:37,847 --> 00:34:41,391
talk about, but they're really trying

555
00:34:41,471 --> 00:34:44,814
to reduce the single-use plastics within their business, and

556
00:34:44,834 --> 00:34:48,378
they've got some great ideas. But it's

557
00:34:48,418 --> 00:34:51,941
just a really interesting byproduct of of what

558
00:34:51,981 --> 00:34:55,904
we're doing. And I always say that for my business, what

559
00:34:55,964 --> 00:34:59,947
we push is convenience. It's getting the gas to your door, collecting

560
00:35:00,007 --> 00:35:03,249
it, making it easy for you. So that's what we're all about. But we

561
00:35:03,289 --> 00:35:06,512
don't shout loud enough about what

562
00:35:06,552 --> 00:35:09,894
we're also doing for the environment. And I think I felt like,

563
00:35:10,014 --> 00:35:13,236
not that I couldn't, but like I said, I see so

564
00:35:13,256 --> 00:35:16,559
many people doing this. And it not being that

565
00:35:16,619 --> 00:35:20,000
genuine, I was kind of like, nah, I think I'm going to focus on something

566
00:35:20,060 --> 00:35:23,462
else and just be proud of the byproduct. But I must just quickly

567
00:35:23,502 --> 00:35:26,724
tell you about this incredible thing that's

568
00:35:26,744 --> 00:35:29,965
happening here. We have discovered that all of

569
00:35:30,045 --> 00:35:33,467
these sparkling water taps in these offices, all across London

570
00:35:33,507 --> 00:35:36,989
and the UK, and actually most of Europe, are being powered

571
00:35:37,049 --> 00:35:40,631
by a steel cylinder that's

572
00:35:40,711 --> 00:35:44,112
a disposable steel cylinder that cannot be

573
00:35:44,192 --> 00:35:47,594
recycled. So many of these steel cylinders, and

574
00:35:47,674 --> 00:35:51,477
I'm talking tens of thousands, are

575
00:35:51,557 --> 00:35:55,239
filled, bought once, used, and essentially thrown

576
00:35:55,279 --> 00:35:59,631
away. And that completely

577
00:35:59,671 --> 00:36:03,571
blew my mind. So we have created an aluminum refillable

578
00:36:03,631 --> 00:36:07,632
cylinder. And we're now bringing that to market this year. We've got

579
00:36:07,652 --> 00:36:10,713
it here. And we've just started selling it. And we're working with lots of

580
00:36:10,753 --> 00:36:14,894
brands. It's compatible with brands here like ZipTap, Billy Taps, Aqualibra,

581
00:36:14,934 --> 00:36:18,294
this kind of thing. And a lot

582
00:36:18,314 --> 00:36:23,036
of these companies are talking about sustainability. And we're like, well. Steel

583
00:36:23,076 --> 00:36:26,842
cylinders are not very sustainable. You might be helping

584
00:36:26,862 --> 00:36:30,548
people to make sparkling water from the tap, but you're

585
00:36:30,568 --> 00:36:34,172
now doing this. This sustainability thing

586
00:36:34,212 --> 00:36:38,094
is, yeah, like I said, it's a wonderful byproduct

587
00:36:38,134 --> 00:36:41,376
of everything that we're doing. And it's nice to be running a

588
00:36:41,416 --> 00:36:46,299
business that is doing really well, making

589
00:36:46,359 --> 00:36:49,702
money in itself and for me, but also

590
00:36:49,762 --> 00:36:53,024
feeling like I'm doing something good. Because there's lots of ways of

591
00:36:53,064 --> 00:36:56,206
making money that, you know, you could

592
00:36:56,246 --> 00:36:59,908
debate probably perhaps weren't that good. But I feel like I'm doing something

593
00:36:59,948 --> 00:37:03,036
with my life that I can look back on one day and

594
00:37:03,116 --> 00:37:06,739
say, you know what? I helped. I

595
00:37:08,420 --> 00:37:11,563
Well, and I think you mentioned something really interesting to

596
00:37:11,603 --> 00:37:14,745
me is the fact of convenience. A

597
00:37:14,805 --> 00:37:17,968
lot of the times, anything you do

598
00:37:18,008 --> 00:37:21,090
that's sustainable tends not to be convenient. You

599
00:37:21,110 --> 00:37:24,611
know what I mean? Like even just like you just talk about reusable diapers,

600
00:37:24,952 --> 00:37:28,173
not necessarily that convenient. You know, you have to wash them. You have to like, you

601
00:37:28,193 --> 00:37:31,554
know, you're basically literally getting your hands dirty more than you want

602
00:37:31,574 --> 00:37:35,256
to instead of just disposing of picking up a plastic

603
00:37:35,276 --> 00:37:38,597
water bottle or a an energy drink that's

604
00:37:38,657 --> 00:37:42,158
in a plastic water bottle or something that's that's, you

605
00:37:42,178 --> 00:37:45,359
know, you want as a convenience in a convenience store as we call them

606
00:37:45,399 --> 00:37:48,560
here, our corner stores. to just get up, pay for

607
00:37:48,580 --> 00:37:53,081
it, walk away, your thirst is quenched. Having

608
00:37:53,141 --> 00:37:57,143
something that you have built that is based on convenience, right?

609
00:37:57,223 --> 00:38:00,603
Where you don't need to go out and buy single use things. You

610
00:38:00,643 --> 00:38:04,004
can have something delivered to your home, the cylinders delivered to your home. So you know,

611
00:38:04,024 --> 00:38:07,825
and you're taking it from the tap. It just ends up being so much more convenient.

612
00:38:08,426 --> 00:38:11,966
And a lot of the times it goes against sort of the, it goes against

613
00:38:12,086 --> 00:38:15,787
the idea that Being

614
00:38:15,827 --> 00:38:18,968
in sustainable being more environmental think of

615
00:38:18,988 --> 00:38:22,208
the environment doesn't necessarily mean you're not being convenient It doesn't mean you're

616
00:38:22,228 --> 00:38:25,409
out convenience. You're you're actually being you can be convenient I think

617
00:38:25,449 --> 00:38:29,069
it just takes a little ingenuity a little thought to help

618
00:38:29,469 --> 00:38:32,830
in that respect And and I think your business model

619
00:38:32,850 --> 00:38:36,171
does that you know, so so that's awesome. Congratulations. That's that's

620
00:38:36,211 --> 00:38:39,591
really cool without even probably without even knowing it right like as you mentioned he's

621
00:38:39,631 --> 00:38:43,072
like I just wanted to get this business because it was it was helping you, you

622
00:38:43,112 --> 00:38:46,470
know, like in in your your want and need

623
00:38:46,510 --> 00:38:49,773
for this type of service and then seeing other people having that service

624
00:38:49,853 --> 00:38:53,055
and they loving it. And then so it grows like that and it's being

625
00:38:53,115 --> 00:38:56,498
convenient and it's helping people get away from single use

626
00:38:56,518 --> 00:39:00,562
plastics and it's helping people using tap water and just maybe augmenting

627
00:39:00,582 --> 00:39:03,765
that experience a little bit of tap water to include a little bit

628
00:39:03,785 --> 00:39:07,628
of carbonation. So I love that

629
00:39:07,768 --> 00:39:10,951
aspect. And I think it's, we don't always have to

630
00:39:11,011 --> 00:39:15,060
tell people all about sustainability. I think sometimes, as

631
00:39:15,100 --> 00:39:18,202
you mentioned with the greenwashing, but I think some people are getting tired of like, oh

632
00:39:18,222 --> 00:39:21,404
yeah, we need to have a sustainability. So maybe some people are just, they don't want to hear

633
00:39:21,424 --> 00:39:24,566
it all the time. They just want what they want. You know,

634
00:39:24,726 --> 00:39:28,309
if they want a soda stream and they want their carbonated water, they

635
00:39:29,930 --> 00:39:33,772
And then I, and they just get- But also just, just, just, just be authentic, man.

636
00:39:33,792 --> 00:39:36,934
You know, just don't jump on the bandwagon. Like, you

637
00:39:37,114 --> 00:39:40,537
know, if you're doing something that is sustainable or helpful and

638
00:39:40,557 --> 00:39:44,260
you've got a story and you've got a, a

639
00:39:44,380 --> 00:39:47,884
reason, then tell us and

640
00:39:48,365 --> 00:39:51,769
show us. But, you know, I'm

641
00:39:51,809 --> 00:39:55,012
not going to name businesses or names, but not just some big

642
00:39:55,072 --> 00:39:58,448
company then, you know, trying to like, I

643
00:39:58,468 --> 00:40:02,270
want to, I want to, I want to say some, but anyway. Yeah,

644
00:40:03,190 --> 00:40:06,532
just like, like, I think, I think we're

645
00:40:06,552 --> 00:40:09,894
all getting a bit tired of nonsense and

646
00:40:09,954 --> 00:40:14,656
everyone's desperate for authenticity. And

647
00:40:14,696 --> 00:40:17,838
when it comes to this, yeah, there's been, there has been a lot of,

648
00:40:18,058 --> 00:40:21,853
a lot of nonsense. So

649
00:40:22,573 --> 00:40:26,115
yeah, like I said, it's nice to have

650
00:40:26,155 --> 00:40:29,356
a business where I know we're genuinely making a difference without even

651
00:40:29,436 --> 00:40:32,878
trying, because what we're doing is stopping people from

652
00:40:32,918 --> 00:40:37,200
buying plastic bottled water, which

653
00:40:40,741 --> 00:40:43,822
Yeah, 100%. It's huge. The amount that you're selling all over the

654
00:40:49,349 --> 00:40:52,891
Well, we have warehouses in London,

655
00:40:53,531 --> 00:40:56,873
one in Dublin and also one in Hamburg in Germany. So we do have

656
00:40:56,893 --> 00:41:00,895
the ability to supply into the EU. We

657
00:41:00,935 --> 00:41:04,577
are just about to launch in the Netherlands. So,

658
00:41:09,099 --> 00:41:12,900
Yeah, yeah. We'll have to see. I kind of

659
00:41:12,920 --> 00:41:17,402
like to run before I can walk. And I think this year I've kind of just

660
00:41:18,983 --> 00:41:22,584
don't want to sort of trap myself, but I've

661
00:41:22,724 --> 00:41:25,885
got too many ideas, too many things that I want to do.

662
00:41:25,985 --> 00:41:29,647
So at the moment, we're just rebranding.

663
00:41:29,667 --> 00:41:32,928
We're about to relaunch our entire look

664
00:41:32,988 --> 00:41:36,770
and feel. We've been working with this incredible team a

665
00:41:36,970 --> 00:41:40,453
marketing design agency called Boundless Brand Design here in London. They

666
00:41:40,473 --> 00:41:44,036
kind of do a lot of the big drinks,

667
00:41:44,456 --> 00:41:47,799
brands, that kind of thing. So that's very, very

668
00:41:47,859 --> 00:41:51,322
exciting. And so that's been, well, that's the focus for January.

669
00:41:54,727 --> 00:41:58,468
I mean, I think it's the curse of an entrepreneur to have too many ideas, right?

670
00:41:58,488 --> 00:42:02,409
I think every entrepreneur has that. It's a matter of prioritizing and

671
00:42:02,649 --> 00:42:07,631
planning it out the certain way so you don't- I got to tell you as well, 99.9% of

672
00:42:09,531 --> 00:42:12,632
Absolutely terrible. I'm not going to embarrass myself and

673
00:42:12,692 --> 00:42:16,753
tell you some of the crazy, crazy, terrible

674
00:42:17,093 --> 00:42:20,234
business ideas that I've had that I genuinely thought were great at the time. And

675
00:42:20,274 --> 00:42:26,038
now I look back and I'm like, what was I thinking? We

676
00:42:26,078 --> 00:42:30,580
talked at the beginning about resilience and confidence. For

677
00:42:30,620 --> 00:42:33,841
me, it's about having not just the

678
00:42:33,861 --> 00:42:37,542
drive, but the confidence to have an idea and

679
00:42:37,902 --> 00:42:41,003
back yourself and go for it. Because you get a lot of people that

680
00:42:41,023 --> 00:42:44,425
will tell you it's not going to work, or you don't really know what you're doing.

681
00:42:44,545 --> 00:42:48,066
I had quite a few people questioning this idea, and they were like, Gasp?

682
00:42:48,146 --> 00:42:51,627
What do you know about Gasp? And I'm like, well, I'll find it out. I

683
00:42:51,667 --> 00:42:54,909
mean, we have built in the UK We have, so far as

684
00:42:54,969 --> 00:42:59,255
I know, the only major

685
00:42:59,315 --> 00:43:02,679
refilling plant that we have built here in Chelmsford in the UK,

686
00:43:02,980 --> 00:43:06,244
we can fill 7 million soda

687
00:43:06,264 --> 00:43:10,021
cylinders in a year. built,

688
00:43:10,481 --> 00:43:13,784
quote unquote, this thing myself. Not

689
00:43:13,804 --> 00:43:17,147
that I did anything, I stood there with a cup of coffee and watched. But what I mean is,

690
00:43:17,167 --> 00:43:20,690
I was able to pull

691
00:43:20,730 --> 00:43:24,153
together the teams of people and the equipment and everything,

692
00:43:24,213 --> 00:43:27,380
even though I didn't even fail everything to

693
00:43:27,400 --> 00:43:30,582
do with science when I was at school. I didn't understand a huge amount of what was going on.

694
00:43:30,602 --> 00:43:34,183
It's that it's just the kind of the sheer grit and determination. You're

695
00:43:34,203 --> 00:43:37,424
like, I'm going to do this. Yeah, no matter what, I'm going to make it work.

696
00:43:37,464 --> 00:43:40,925
I'm going to find a way and I think that is that is the essence

697
00:43:40,985 --> 00:43:44,469
of the entrepreneur is it's broken. Everyone

698
00:43:44,509 --> 00:43:47,813
goes, well, that's just the way it is. And that's

699
00:43:47,913 --> 00:43:51,477
it. And you go, no, I'm not having it. I'm not having that. I'm

700
00:43:51,497 --> 00:43:54,760
going to fix it. And I'm going to show you that I'm going to fix it. Even with people

701
00:43:54,820 --> 00:43:58,124
laughing at you and everything else. And you know what? Maybe you won't. And that's

702
00:43:58,184 --> 00:44:01,487
all good. But that's when you dust yourself off and go and try and fix something else.

703
00:44:02,568 --> 00:44:06,250
I love it and I and I think this goes back to our conversation on

704
00:44:06,590 --> 00:44:10,811
on the rejection. It's sometimes when people reject your idea You're

705
00:44:10,831 --> 00:44:13,992
almost just like I kind of want to prove you different, you know, maybe it

706
00:44:14,032 --> 00:44:17,514
won't work But I kind of want to see where this goes. I've done that before I've

707
00:44:17,554 --> 00:44:21,255
just been like somebody's like no, that's never gonna work That's a stupid idea like That

708
00:44:21,295 --> 00:44:24,537
makes me want to do it a little bit more, just because you don't think it's going to

709
00:44:24,557 --> 00:44:27,639
happen. You know, it's like, I mean, think about this a little longer. It

710
00:44:27,679 --> 00:44:30,821
seems to be triggering some of you and I'll be like, oh,

711
00:44:30,841 --> 00:44:34,084
okay, let's, let's, let's see how this can work out, whether it works out or not. It's just

712
00:44:34,104 --> 00:44:37,746
like, at least I followed through and see, I mean, entrepreneurs are

713
00:44:37,806 --> 00:44:41,148
problem solvers, right? There's a problem at hand usually. And they like, okay, this

714
00:44:41,208 --> 00:44:44,511
is the way to solve it. Is it profitable? Maybe it's not, but

715
00:44:44,571 --> 00:44:47,792
maybe it's a worthwhile service for a nonprofit. Whatever that may be,

716
00:44:48,072 --> 00:44:51,673
an entrepreneur is a problem solver. And I think that's an important part. Sometimes

717
00:44:51,693 --> 00:44:54,834
we're right, sometimes we're not. And some ideas are

718
00:44:55,314 --> 00:44:58,475
extreme and out there, and some ideas hit well when

719
00:44:58,495 --> 00:45:01,776
it hits. But you have to go through that resilience. You

720
00:45:01,816 --> 00:45:05,256
have to be resilient and to say, hey, some ideas are going to work and some ideas

721
00:45:05,316 --> 00:45:08,877
aren't. This idea seems to be exploding and working.

722
00:45:09,577 --> 00:45:13,730
When you realized about the sustainability, have

723
00:45:13,750 --> 00:45:17,115
you since then have you thought about okay how can we

724
00:45:18,157 --> 00:45:21,919
look at what we do and make it a little bit more

725
00:45:22,299 --> 00:45:25,360
environmentally friendly. Like, do you find you, you can identify things a

726
00:45:25,400 --> 00:45:28,861
little bit more in your, whether it be supply chain or business

727
00:45:28,901 --> 00:45:32,123
practices where you're like, you know what, maybe we can do this.

728
00:45:32,323 --> 00:45:35,584
It wouldn't cost like a terrible amount of money. It wouldn't affect our business that

729
00:45:35,624 --> 00:45:39,125
much, but it would be good. And it would kind of double down

730
00:45:39,265 --> 00:45:42,467
on not necessarily the messaging of sustainability, but we could say, Hey, we're even

731
00:45:45,185 --> 00:45:48,528
Yeah, sure. I thought about it a lot. Because

732
00:45:48,548 --> 00:45:51,652
I think that if you are going to make sustainability claims, then you have to be

733
00:45:51,752 --> 00:45:54,955
able to back them up. And like I said, we're not shouting about it, but we

734
00:45:54,995 --> 00:45:58,338
do claim this sustainability. I think one

735
00:45:58,358 --> 00:46:02,202
of the biggest things we didn't have to do, that we did do, was

736
00:46:02,983 --> 00:46:08,870
we actually removed, well, we've removed plastic from our

737
00:46:08,930 --> 00:46:12,791
entire, um, process, but also that's

738
00:46:13,491 --> 00:46:17,372
technically not true because we, we removed, uh,

739
00:46:17,632 --> 00:46:20,933
cardboard, uh, completely because I say we

740
00:46:21,073 --> 00:46:24,334
removed plastic. We actually, uh, have created a number

741
00:46:24,374 --> 00:46:28,055
of different custom made hard plastic reusable cases

742
00:46:28,095 --> 00:46:31,276
to transport our product in back and forth. So they're

743
00:46:31,376 --> 00:46:34,518
always being reused, reused, reused, reused until eventually if

744
00:46:34,578 --> 00:46:38,561
they do break, then we'll give them to recycling. But

745
00:46:38,581 --> 00:46:42,303
that was one thing that was very expensive, we

746
00:46:42,323 --> 00:46:45,925
didn't have to do, that we did, that has definitely made us more

747
00:46:45,965 --> 00:46:49,147
sustainable. Because cardboard, my original idea was, look, we'll

748
00:46:49,167 --> 00:46:52,810
keep reusing the cardboard boxes, but unfortunately it doesn't... It doesn't

749
00:46:52,850 --> 00:46:56,172
last as long. They don't last. So you maybe get two rounds

750
00:46:56,232 --> 00:46:59,314
out of them, but then people complain. And yes, people, this is the

751
00:46:59,334 --> 00:47:02,416
difficult thing about the sustainability journey. People want to be

752
00:47:02,456 --> 00:47:05,598
sustainable, but very few people want to be sustainable if it,

753
00:47:05,938 --> 00:47:09,180
if it affects them. They're like, no, no, you know, you should like, you

754
00:47:09,220 --> 00:47:12,402
know, when that thing, when you spill that thing over

755
00:47:12,442 --> 00:47:15,704
there, you should, you know, mop it up and not use a paper towel or whatever. And then it happens

756
00:47:15,724 --> 00:47:18,946
to them and they grab the paper towels and it's just, you

757
00:47:18,966 --> 00:47:22,529
see what I mean? Oh my God, yes. So

758
00:47:22,549 --> 00:47:26,794
you realize there's a value there that is as much

759
00:47:26,814 --> 00:47:40,869
as it is. I was talking to another entrepreneur, she has a a

760
00:47:40,889 --> 00:47:45,634
clothing brand, it's a woman's nightwear

761
00:47:46,074 --> 00:47:49,538
business. And she's built

762
00:47:49,558 --> 00:47:53,442
this incredibly sustainable business model, every last element

763
00:47:53,502 --> 00:47:56,645
of it, where they make their own cotton, all this kind

764
00:47:56,685 --> 00:48:00,549
of stuff. But in the end, what she's found

765
00:48:00,589 --> 00:48:04,092
is that you know, people want something sustainable, but,

766
00:48:04,533 --> 00:48:07,695
you know, are they willing to pay what she needs them

767
00:48:08,056 --> 00:48:13,040
to pay? So it's about trying to find that

768
00:48:13,140 --> 00:48:16,943
middle ground where you're not just sustainable, but business

769
00:48:17,123 --> 00:48:22,504
is sustainable too. You

770
00:48:22,524 --> 00:48:25,989
just got to do your bit. It's ultimately up to governments,

771
00:48:26,530 --> 00:48:29,775
really, if they want to crack these

772
00:48:29,835 --> 00:48:33,180
problems. It annoys me. I see so many easy

773
00:48:33,220 --> 00:48:38,853
wins that we just don't... where

774
00:48:38,873 --> 00:48:42,256
we just don't get things done. And that's where the

775
00:48:42,296 --> 00:48:45,318
change will have to come from eventually. But as I said, I

776
00:48:46,439 --> 00:48:49,881
feel like I'm contributing something positive with this business

777
00:48:52,543 --> 00:48:55,765
No, absolutely. I mean, when you have a successful business and it

778
00:48:55,805 --> 00:49:00,409
continues to grow and you know you're doing something right, just

779
00:49:00,429 --> 00:49:03,771
from an ethical and environmental standpoint, I think it's really great. I also think

780
00:49:04,150 --> 00:49:07,453
Experimentation is going to be needed by businesses. You know, like, like

781
00:49:07,473 --> 00:49:10,776
you said, you tried the cardboard. It didn't work. People didn't like

782
00:49:10,836 --> 00:49:13,979
it. It's you, you have to balance the demand and you have to

783
00:49:14,039 --> 00:49:17,482
balance what your consumer is willing to, to

784
00:49:17,542 --> 00:49:20,806
put into it as well as what you're willing to put into it. I,

785
00:49:21,026 --> 00:49:25,049
the question, you know, the question I have is like, when you, do

786
00:49:25,069 --> 00:49:28,633
you tell the consumer what you're trying to do? So say when the cardboard

787
00:49:28,673 --> 00:49:32,753
happened, do you tell that and then say, oh yeah, just by the way, as

788
00:49:32,813 --> 00:49:36,616
this didn't seem to work out in terms of durability, we went to this

789
00:49:36,676 --> 00:49:40,058
type of plastic mold, reusable plastic mold that we can use a lot more.

790
00:49:40,439 --> 00:49:43,661
It's a lot more permanent in

791
00:49:43,701 --> 00:49:46,884
terms of usage and stability, and it'll be a lot

792
00:49:47,004 --> 00:49:50,226
easier for you. Do you get feedback from customers being like, oh, this

793
00:49:53,737 --> 00:49:57,380
Well, yeah, we did. This is what's difficult

794
00:49:57,700 --> 00:50:01,263
in business is communication and

795
00:50:01,303 --> 00:50:04,446
messaging. You've got a very small window to get

796
00:50:04,506 --> 00:50:07,909
any piece of information about your company, your brand,

797
00:50:08,409 --> 00:50:12,152
across to your audience. So you've got to choose and

798
00:50:12,172 --> 00:50:15,355
you've got to choose smart because having 10 different things that you want them to

799
00:50:15,395 --> 00:50:18,918
know, they're not... Our website, you

800
00:50:18,958 --> 00:50:22,062
know, if you look at Microsoft Clarity, which is a

801
00:50:22,923 --> 00:50:26,487
software that allows you to watch people

802
00:50:26,567 --> 00:50:29,711
as they come onto your website and see where their cursor goes, you

803
00:50:29,751 --> 00:50:33,255
know, you've got maybe 15 to 25 seconds

804
00:50:33,295 --> 00:50:37,039
they're going to be on your website, and then they're gone. So you've

805
00:50:37,059 --> 00:50:40,742
got a very small window to do these things. So yes,

806
00:50:41,042 --> 00:50:44,586
we did do a little bit of consumer testing, and we got very, very positive feedback

807
00:50:44,946 --> 00:50:48,289
when we introduced these hard cases. But

808
00:50:48,309 --> 00:50:51,792
it was kind of common sense. And I've never really enjoyed

809
00:50:51,852 --> 00:50:55,057
that whole, like, creating lots and lots

810
00:50:55,097 --> 00:50:58,779
of packaging continually, cardboard. We

811
00:50:58,799 --> 00:51:03,341
did a lot of it in food, a lot of plastic packs

812
00:51:03,421 --> 00:51:07,003
for nuts and things like that. And it never made me feel great

813
00:51:07,183 --> 00:51:10,665
watching it on the production line. I kind

814
00:51:10,705 --> 00:51:13,827
of didn't really want to be a part of that anymore. I understand why

815
00:51:13,847 --> 00:51:17,829
it's necessary, but I didn't want

816
00:51:19,380 --> 00:51:22,783
Well, and again, that's why it's your business. You get to make those decisions and

817
00:51:22,823 --> 00:51:27,607
say, hey, look, we're going to go a different route. And I really like that. I'm

818
00:51:27,647 --> 00:51:31,089
someone who has never really had a SodaStream and not really familiar with

819
00:51:32,591 --> 00:51:35,813
the process as a consumer. So is

820
00:51:35,913 --> 00:51:39,616
it, you know, the person orders the

821
00:51:39,656 --> 00:51:42,679
amount of cylinders that they want. They get it within a

822
00:51:42,719 --> 00:51:46,056
couple of days, one or two days. They install it

823
00:51:46,196 --> 00:51:50,219
into whatever mechanism that they're using it for, because

824
00:51:50,259 --> 00:51:53,501
I assume there's a number of different ones. Once they're done with it,

825
00:51:53,781 --> 00:51:57,904
how long does each bottle on average last? I know it's based

826
00:52:03,254 --> 00:52:07,036
The cylinder lasts forever, but it depends on how regularly

827
00:52:07,136 --> 00:52:11,658
you use it. The industry says 60 litres

828
00:52:11,738 --> 00:52:15,600
of sparkling water. I say more like 40-45

829
00:52:15,640 --> 00:52:19,582
if you want proper sparkling water, I think is the reality.

830
00:52:22,043 --> 00:52:25,347
it works out as very good value, actually. But

831
00:52:25,367 --> 00:52:28,871
it's more about the ability to

832
00:52:28,991 --> 00:52:32,436
have sparkling water there right

833
00:52:32,456 --> 00:52:35,920
when you need it, as often as you need it. Because obviously, if you've purchased it

834
00:52:35,980 --> 00:52:39,144
in a bottle, as I said, once you take that

835
00:52:39,204 --> 00:52:42,566
lid off, then yeah, you've got a limited amount of time to drink it.

836
00:52:42,666 --> 00:52:45,847
So it's about having that sparkling water on tap. And

837
00:52:45,867 --> 00:52:49,668
if you love sparkling water as much as I do, then it's

838
00:52:50,008 --> 00:52:53,970
a game changer. I mean, I got into sparkling water mainly some

839
00:52:54,010 --> 00:52:57,171
time ago because I like my food. I was

840
00:52:57,211 --> 00:53:00,992
putting on weight and I thought, well, if I'm going to eat too much, It's

841
00:53:01,032 --> 00:53:04,555
probably not great if I'm drinking too much. So I was, what can I drink that's zero

842
00:53:04,595 --> 00:53:07,937
calorie that I enjoy? And it turns out I just love

843
00:53:07,977 --> 00:53:11,804
sparkling water. So I just, I drink it all the time. I'm

844
00:53:11,824 --> 00:53:16,167
actually drinking sparkling water now, but it does have a little bit of squashing. Okay,

845
00:53:18,649 --> 00:53:22,272
Yeah, no, hey, it works. It works well. And does sparkling

846
00:53:22,292 --> 00:53:25,634
water fill you up more than regular water just because of the carbonation? So

847
00:53:25,654 --> 00:53:28,877
you feel full, say if you don't want to eat a snack or something, you want to have that

848
00:53:28,917 --> 00:53:32,259
instead. Some people say drink a lot of water if

849
00:53:32,960 --> 00:53:36,062
you don't want to eat much because it'll fill you up. Because of

850
00:53:40,357 --> 00:53:43,518
I don't think so. I'd love to say that it does. I

851
00:53:43,558 --> 00:53:46,758
think that would be disingenuous. No, I'm not

852
00:53:46,838 --> 00:53:51,099
sure that's true. But I think, you know, look, what's

853
00:53:51,179 --> 00:53:54,960
great is things like getting children

854
00:53:55,040 --> 00:53:58,240
to drink water. Like at the moment, my daughter's five and you know how

855
00:53:58,280 --> 00:54:01,461
this is. It's pretty easy when they're younger. But as

856
00:54:01,561 --> 00:54:04,982
kids get older, they get more fussy and they want something with

857
00:54:05,502 --> 00:54:09,385
flavour in it. being able to put some theater

858
00:54:10,146 --> 00:54:13,791
into the process, then being able to use the machine,

859
00:54:14,131 --> 00:54:17,337
press the button, the gas goes in. There's

860
00:54:17,478 --> 00:54:21,462
bubbles and making it fun, it's

861
00:54:21,762 --> 00:54:25,566
really helpful to then get them to consume it because it's desperately important.

862
00:54:25,846 --> 00:54:29,070
We need two litres at least of water as

863
00:54:29,170 --> 00:54:32,934
adults a day and that's quite a lot of liquid

864
00:54:33,314 --> 00:54:36,558
to be consuming. So that's another

865
00:54:36,598 --> 00:54:40,522
really positive thing that we're a part of. And

866
00:54:40,542 --> 00:54:43,804
I've got some ideas here in the UK where I'd

867
00:54:43,864 --> 00:54:47,186
really like to try and encourage schools to get

868
00:54:47,246 --> 00:54:50,688
these machines and allow kids who can bring in their bottled

869
00:54:50,728 --> 00:54:53,870
water to be able to gas it up when they get into school, that

870
00:54:53,910 --> 00:54:57,172
kind of thing. We've got a lot of ideas like this. And like

871
00:55:01,895 --> 00:55:05,938
Nice and slow. I love it. I love it. Slowest pro. Slowest

872
00:55:05,958 --> 00:55:09,921
pro, exactly. This has been a wonderful conversation. People

873
00:55:09,961 --> 00:55:16,885
can go to co2u.com to find out more. obviously

874
00:55:16,905 --> 00:55:20,289
in and in around the UK people can get this and

875
00:55:20,329 --> 00:55:23,492
so I highly recommend that you do and for more information I'll

876
00:55:23,512 --> 00:55:26,915
put the link in the show notes and in the description so people can can get access

877
00:55:26,955 --> 00:55:30,298
to it. I really appreciate you know your transparency and

878
00:55:30,538 --> 00:55:33,721
going through a lot of the questions and answering a lot of the questions I

879
00:55:33,761 --> 00:55:37,417
have you know about the the sort of the journey of

880
00:55:37,817 --> 00:55:41,298
an entrepreneur, you know, I think is really important, especially

881
00:55:41,798 --> 00:55:45,720
in a very transparent way to just be like, look, this is fun

882
00:55:46,060 --> 00:55:49,582
and it can be really rewarding, but it could also be challenging and

883
00:55:49,862 --> 00:55:52,963
difficult at times. And I really appreciate that transparency because I don't think we

884
00:55:53,023 --> 00:55:56,625
see that enough, especially online. So we definitely appreciate that.

885
00:55:56,645 --> 00:56:00,206
And of course, we appreciate the work you do with making things more sustainable for

886
00:56:00,646 --> 00:56:04,148
our planet and for our oceans and for our water supply. And we all know

887
00:56:04,168 --> 00:56:07,408
how Wasteful that can be in some time. So being

888
00:56:07,448 --> 00:56:10,989
able to utilize tap water make a little bit more exciting I

889
00:56:11,029 --> 00:56:14,250
think is really great. So I do appreciate that. The last

890
00:56:14,290 --> 00:56:17,970
question I have for you is people out here, you know, in

891
00:56:18,010 --> 00:56:22,071
my audience are very creative. There's

892
00:56:22,091 --> 00:56:25,572
a lot of entrepreneurs out there or, you know, entrepreneurs that may

893
00:56:25,872 --> 00:56:29,292
not have that, they may not have that business idea right away. They

894
00:56:29,312 --> 00:56:32,513
may not have it right now that will really bring them over, put

895
00:56:32,533 --> 00:56:36,394
them over the edge. what would be the overall

896
00:56:36,534 --> 00:56:40,056
arching advice that you would give

897
00:56:40,156 --> 00:56:43,358
them to help them continue on

898
00:56:49,141 --> 00:56:53,103
Oh, what a question. Well, don't

899
00:56:53,903 --> 00:56:57,325
rush out to do something just because you want to start a

900
00:56:57,365 --> 00:57:02,782
business. If you... If

901
00:57:02,842 --> 00:57:06,285
you have an idea and it's in a space that you're not familiar with,

902
00:57:07,486 --> 00:57:10,989
it's worth going into industry and trying to find out a

903
00:57:11,029 --> 00:57:15,093
little bit more about it. But look,

904
00:57:16,154 --> 00:57:19,496
if you're anything like me or many of the other entrepreneurs out

905
00:57:19,516 --> 00:57:22,739
there and you're hungry and ambitious and you just

906
00:57:22,779 --> 00:57:26,087
want to do this, nothing I can say to you is going to stop you

907
00:57:26,607 --> 00:57:30,188
going out and doing your crazy idea, hopefully fantastic

908
00:57:30,268 --> 00:57:33,429
idea. But if it's anything like me, probably crazy and

909
00:57:33,469 --> 00:57:37,850
getting it on with that anyway. So look, I

910
00:57:37,870 --> 00:57:41,351
guess if I can give any kind of advice, just remember,

911
00:57:41,951 --> 00:57:45,853
it's all about the journey and nothing, nothing

912
00:57:45,973 --> 00:57:49,654
truly great is truly great if

913
00:57:49,694 --> 00:57:53,351
there isn't some some difficulty getting

914
00:57:53,391 --> 00:57:56,514
there, you know. It's never satisfying just to

915
00:57:56,554 --> 00:57:59,617
be handed everything onto a plate. You've got to earn it. And if

916
00:57:59,637 --> 00:58:03,160
you talk to a lot of people, particularly these big

917
00:58:03,200 --> 00:58:06,583
entrepreneurs who've made tons and tons of money, they always say they're

918
00:58:06,623 --> 00:58:09,866
like, oh man, the best bit was the journey. That

919
00:58:10,447 --> 00:58:14,391
was the best bit. So remember that, particularly when it's hard because Yeah,

920
00:58:15,092 --> 00:58:18,580
nine times out of 10. It gets really tricky. But

921
00:58:20,163 --> 00:58:23,350
I love it. Thank you so much, Marcus. We really appreciate you coming on

922
00:58:23,370 --> 00:58:26,567
the show. I know it's late in the UK for you,

923
00:58:26,607 --> 00:58:30,792
so I do appreciate your time here. Well,

924
00:58:30,872 --> 00:58:34,135
and with that, I'll let you go to bed. But honestly, thank

925
00:58:34,155 --> 00:58:37,379
you so much for doing this. Love to have you back on to find out what's happening with

926
00:58:37,399 --> 00:58:41,384
CO2 in a few months or a few years. And

927
00:58:41,464 --> 00:58:44,627
it'd be a lot of fun. So thank you so much for what you do. And thank you for coming on and sharing that

928
00:58:44,667 --> 00:58:47,821
with us. Thank you, Andrew. Thank you, Marcus, for

929
00:58:47,881 --> 00:58:51,163
joining me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. What

930
00:58:51,203 --> 00:58:54,386
a fantastic interview. What a fun time to

931
00:58:54,426 --> 00:58:58,329
get to know an entrepreneur who wants to start something to provide somebody

932
00:58:58,669 --> 00:59:02,272
with convenience that likes sparkling water, to provide somebody

933
00:59:02,513 --> 00:59:06,316
that does not want to have to go to the store, buy

934
00:59:06,376 --> 00:59:09,719
something that's unsustainable, or just buy something that when you open

935
00:59:09,759 --> 00:59:13,233
the bottle, all the carbonation goes away once you

936
00:59:13,293 --> 00:59:16,615
stop drinking it and you just put it down. You want something that's

937
00:59:16,816 --> 00:59:19,938
on demand, very convenient, comes to your house, and

938
00:59:19,978 --> 00:59:23,381
it works with a lot of different types of apparatuses or

939
00:59:23,501 --> 00:59:27,083
products. And so it really fits the perfect business

940
00:59:27,143 --> 00:59:30,346
model in this case. And obviously, it's not an easy thing to do to build

941
00:59:30,386 --> 00:59:33,628
a business. And we talked about that. We talked about how the

942
00:59:33,688 --> 00:59:37,469
ability to be rejected from a personal level in in TV

943
00:59:37,509 --> 00:59:40,770
and film as it gets personal they look at your looks and the way you act and

944
00:59:40,790 --> 00:59:43,951
if you're you don't like that they don't like you then they don't like you for

945
00:59:43,991 --> 00:59:47,292
the role but then going to a business and being like hey we made that product

946
00:59:47,312 --> 00:59:51,094
may not be for us and really understanding how to not

947
00:59:51,134 --> 00:59:54,975
only just get over rejection or deal with rejection but also overcome

948
00:59:55,035 --> 00:59:58,276
it so that you can continue to do sales you can continue to grow

949
00:59:58,316 --> 01:00:01,798
your business and and you can continue to come up with ideas and develop those ideas

950
01:00:02,118 --> 01:00:06,260
to have a successful one like CO2U. This interview

951
01:00:06,340 --> 01:00:09,662
really touches a lot, not a lot of what we normally touch upon

952
01:00:10,022 --> 01:00:13,284
when we talk about how to protect the ocean, but like I said, we

953
01:00:13,384 --> 01:00:16,846
have to rely on businesses now more than government because

954
01:00:16,866 --> 01:00:20,709
the government in the US, in Canada, other places may

955
01:00:20,769 --> 01:00:24,011
not be environmentally focused and so we need to make sure

956
01:00:24,071 --> 01:00:27,633
that our businesses are doing what they can to be sustainable and

957
01:00:27,653 --> 01:00:30,995
to fight and really it's just a matter of finding it out so if you are a UK listener

958
01:00:31,355 --> 01:00:34,477
and you love sparkling water I highly recommend that

959
01:00:34,497 --> 01:00:37,699
you go to see to you they're not sponsoring this podcast I

960
01:00:37,739 --> 01:00:41,229
invited them on because I thought that was a really cool thing so I highly recommend

961
01:00:41,249 --> 01:00:46,433
that you go there and just go to C2U, C02U.com. I'll

962
01:00:46,453 --> 01:00:50,115
put the link in the show notes and the description. That's it for today's episode.

963
01:00:50,135 --> 01:00:53,317
I wanna thank you for joining us. If you like this content, you

964
01:00:53,337 --> 01:00:56,720
wanna see more of it, if you're on YouTube, you can subscribe and

965
01:00:56,740 --> 01:00:59,962
you can hit the notification button so you don't miss any episodes in

966
01:00:59,982 --> 01:01:03,184
the future. You can also go on Spotify and see

967
01:01:03,204 --> 01:01:06,506
the video and you can subscribe. You can go to Apple

968
01:01:06,526 --> 01:01:09,648
Podcasts or Spotify to listen to the audio and other podcast apps

969
01:01:09,668 --> 01:01:12,869
to listen to the audio. and you can get the same information. You just don't get to see

970
01:01:12,890 --> 01:01:16,590
my beautiful face. But other than that, you get to hear my

971
01:01:16,650 --> 01:01:19,991
voice and you get to hear people like Marcus and others.

972
01:01:20,751 --> 01:01:23,912
And we talk about all things oceans and sustainability. So you can

973
01:01:23,932 --> 01:01:27,293
DM me on Instagram at HowToProtectTheOcean. That's at

974
01:01:27,493 --> 01:01:30,693
HowToProtectTheOcean, one word. And of course, you can always go to

975
01:01:30,773 --> 01:01:34,194
speakupforblue.com to find out more information on this

976
01:01:34,254 --> 01:01:37,575
podcast, the Beyond Jaws podcast, and all the other podcasts affiliated with

977
01:01:37,655 --> 01:01:40,777
us. And I want to thank you so much for joining us on today's episode of the

978
01:01:40,797 --> 01:01:43,907
How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time and