Ep. 41 Dean Leibbrandt, Co-Founder of Nakie– The Honest CEO Show

The Honest CEO Show, Episode 41: Dean Leibbrandt, Co-Founder of Nakie

Caroline Kennedy (00:01.867)
Welcome to the Honest CEO Show. I'm your host Caroline Kennedy and on this show we go beyond surface level success to uncover real raw stories of extraordinary business leaders. And today I'm joined with Dean Leibbrandt, and he's the co-founder of Nakie, the Australian startup turning ocean plastic into adventure gear. Sparked, I believe, by a scuba diving expedition, you were doing the expedition and you saw there was so much plastic out there and you were frustrated by how it was impacting the marine life, et cetera.

And so Dean, his brother, Jaryd and his wife, Tegan spent nine months perfecting a hammock woven by 37 plastic bottles, which is just amazing. And so from this weekend side hustle to now be a global purpose driven brand, Nakie's rise is a study in daring choices and a stubborn why.

So welcome to the show, Dean. Thanks so much for being here.

Dean Leibbrandt (01:29.922)
Thank you so much for having me.

Caroline Kennedy (01:32.119)
So take us back, paint the 15 year old Dean for us. What drove you back then?

Dean Leibbrandt (01:39.822)
So I think for us, we came over from South Africa and we sort of had two sort of pillars that were pulling us. So in South Africa, most people either have their own business or they work in the corporate sort of field. And my grandparents, so my grandpa, he owned one of the largest security businesses in South Africa. So dad's whole side of the family, one owned pharmacies, one was in security. My dad had a business in 40 Winx.

Then mom's whole side of the family, they were more in the corporate side. So my grandpa was the CEO for Toblerone for Southeast Asia, when tobacco was quite big, the Camel cigarettes, and then my uncles and stuff, they were all also one of them now, even in Australia, looking after Domino's Pizza, he was the CMO. So it was sort of getting pulled from a corporate piece and then also from an entrepreneurial piece. But definitely that entrepreneurial spirit from the get go, even while we were before we left school, we were bringing stuff in from China, trying to sell stuff. My brother and myself even imported boats from the US when the dollar was parity. So we always sort of had that entrepreneurial spirit, but then whatever, we probably saw the struggle and the challenges that you do face as an entrepreneur. And we saw, you know, our parents struggle and we sort of probably shifted more towards the corporate side.

So we both went to university, same with Tegan, we both studied, my brother and myself studied management and marketing and we sort of all went into the corporate side. But then there was on the odd occasion, we'd still have a bit of a dabble in the entrepreneurial side. We were doing bits and pieces-- bringing in, we love boats, so bringing in like boat trailers, cause people were having struggles when they were bringing boats in from the US. We sort of climbed the corporate ladder, so I worked with Cadbury and then Bega and Johnson & Johnson, like national account manager-- state manger sort of roles.

And then when I was working through the corporate game, my brother, he went overseas for five years and he went traveling all over the world. And every time he went traveling, Tegan and myself would try and pick a destination that he was in and we'd spend all our four week annual leave and we'd go land up wherever he was. So it might've been back in South Africa, over in Greece, I think there another trip we did in Asia. And I think every single time that we went, we'd always go scuba diving together. That was like a bit of a passion for us. We loved the outdoors and yeah, every time I think we sort of went, instead of seeing the amazing turtles and manta rays and stingrays and even we went to Fiji once with them and we swam with bull sharks. It always came back and we came back to the boat. It was always, instead of talking about these amazing creatures and animals and experiences we were seeing, it always was like "wow, how many plastic bottles, especially straws," And yeah, it was a bit of an eye-opener for us. And I think Tegan was probably the big one saying, yeah, it's like just getting worse and worse, especially when we were diving in Asia, it was terrible. And when we sort of got home, Tegan and myself, we sort of said, how do we try and create a business that's more just about something we love? How do we also try and give back at the same time?

And then Jaryd came back probably six months later. And we sort of had a chat to him as well. And he was a hundred percent on board. we, again, we all love the outdoors. We love boating, fishing, camping. Tegan's two parents were, well, worked in the teaching system. So she used to have every school holidays off. So she used to always go camping every school holidays and used to love setting up a hammock. And so it Tegan's idea, the hammock. And we thought, yeah, how do we try and not just create a product, but how do we try and make a difference?

It's sort of, we saw like a few brands over in the U S that started making stuff from recycled plastic. And we reached out to maybe five or six different manufacturers over in China and started the process saying, "hey, this is what we sort of want." We had like mock up drawings and then obviously the material that from like a drawing piece, that was the easy part, but then sourcing the recycled plastic bottles. That was a massive issue.

So back in 2019, sustainability probably wasn't on everyone's mind as much as it is now. So it was like a struggle. It's the world's first hammock made from recycled materials. So we went to the, well, a few of the manufacturers and they said, no, like we don't do it. Never done it before. We're not interested in doing it. And then eventually we found some guy that he was like, "oh, let me see if I can try and give it a crack." And as you said, it probably took nine months to eventually get the finished product. And that's when we launched.

Caroline Kennedy (06:03.013)
Yeah, and that must have been a big challenge, particularly when you're getting a lot of no's and it's an industry first as well. And so tell me about that time and the difficulties with that nine months with the R&D and the prototyping.

Dean Leibbrandt (06:49.678)
Yeah, it was pretty frustrating because we thought how hard can it be? It's like these people that are doing other products, like I think there was leggings and stuff that were made from recycled nylon, recycled polyesters. So we just thought how hard can it be? And I guess we just kept pushing and said that was like our number one non-negotiable had to be, how do we try and like the overarching business is how do we try and make a difference, not just a profit. And I think it would probably come maybe in later in the episode ,more around the amount of brands that are becoming, you saw ZeroCo just recently, I don't know if they went into administration, but they've closed doors. There's a lot of sustainable brands that are closing doors. Even now it's like, how do we try and make a difference? But we still need to be making a profit so we can still be making an impact. Yeah, which we'll touch on a bit later. But yeah, our number one non-negotiable was how do we try and make it out of recycled materials?

And eventually, after the back and forth. And I think that's probably the hard piece where people don't realise is you send through a design, they go create stuff and that might take two, three, four weeks. Then the manufacturer sends it back to you. Could take another two weeks in the post. You get it. You might be busy, like we were busy with work. And then by the time like Jaryd, me and Tegan were all there in the same room, it might be another week. And then we sent through the changes. So it's just, it's a long process back and forth, back and forth, but eventually we nailed it. Made from 37 recycled plastic bottles.

Caroline Kennedy (08:19.931)
Yeah and amazing and then at what point did you decide to leave corporate and just go all in too as well because you were doing this developing it all while you were still in corporate which is smart clearly.

Dean Leibbrandt (08:34.06)
Yeah, so we all had like pretty good paying full-time jobs. So I don't know, I think maybe because of like seeing our parents and seeing other entrepreneurs struggle, the number one thing was how do we try and, and I guess probably goes into, in a piece as well. Like, how do you try and, you're to create a business, how do you make it profitable from day dot? So I think that was the number one thing was how do we try and make it as profitable as we possibly can from early on? And then how do we just keep reinvesting back into the business?

So, we didn't quit our jobs for probably three years. We were doing, I don't know, three, four, $5 million a year. And we were still working full-time jobs, packing orders at nighttime. I remember there was a Black Friday early on, obviously Black Friday being the busiest period. I was getting up at 4.35 in the morning, printing and packing orders till 8.30, then doing my full-time job. And then when it got to five, Jaryd would come over and we'd pack orders from five till 11, 12, 1 o'clock in the morning. So we weren't getting too much sleep. But I think, yeah, we were just doing everything in the business. Tegan, she was, she does 12 hour shifts, well, she was doing 12 hour shifts then. So then she was doing like three or four 12 hour shifts a week. So she had, I guess, a bit more time, like three or four days spare a week that she was obviously helping with customer service and yeah, everything else that goes along the way.

Caroline Kennedy (09:32.169)
Yeah, think that's a true example of when you have a purpose, how it just drives you as well because a lot of people without that purpose, you just don't keep going to the same degree, right? And you're really invested in it. And what I love about what you said there was even though it's for purpose business, you know that profitability is what scales the impact as well. And the commercials of that are really critical and I do see sometimes that for purpose businesses forget about the commercial element which is so critical for that broad impact which you clearly, you guys got that earlier on.

Dean Leibbrandt (10:45.166)
I think being in like corporate game, especially for me, there was a lot of like financials that I was dealing with on a day to day basis. So we were running like a daily profit and loss on like an Excel spreadsheet down to the cent. So we knew exactly how the business was tracking. We could just obviously keep putting more and more money into the business and continue to grow it. And then also what I didn't touch on either is, so when Jaryd lived over in Canada, there was a company over there called Ten Trees and they had just jumped down onto Shark Tank and they were the first company that planted trees for products. They planted 10 trees for every t-shirt they sold. And they went on Shark Tank back in 2011 and 12. And we've watched the episode multiple times, even with David, the founder over there, like we talked to him pretty regularly and the Shark Tank guys said, that's bullshit. No one's ever gonna pay extra money to plant trees for a t-shirt. And like you look at the world now. But so Jaryd loved that and we sort of incorporated that into Nakie. So when we had just the hammock. It was like, do we plant two trees for someone now and then two trees for future generations? So we plant four trees for every single product that we have. And then I think tying into, we were born in South Africa. Obviously people don't have like the welfare programs and the DOL and everything else that we have in Australia. It's like, you don't have a job over there. You're living on the street, you're in poverty. So we saw, I guess the impact over there. we, like everyone says to us, why don't we plant trees in Australia? But the latest stats.

There's 320,000 jobs in Australia that are vacant. And if we go now, create more jobs to try and plant trees. It's like, yeah, we're doing obviously a good job, but how do we try and change it? now, so we've got our own reserve over in Kenya where we like taking locals that are like literally in poverty stricken areas and now we're giving them jobs. we sort of call it, we're planting people out of poverty, not just trees out of, like not just planting trees, we're planting people out of poverty and like we were over there last year and we're talking to some of the locals and they saying before we employed them, they couldn't send their kids to school, couldn't put food on the plate. and then, I think, the benefits it's like you're planting trees. plant, mangrove trees. take three times more carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere than normal trees. So there's like the first one we're planting people out of poverty. And then the third one we're building ecosystems in the, like the river beds that's then bringing more fish and now fishermen and stuff can catch fish. And it's like, it's building the whole community, not just planting a tree. But even like small things, it's like we're employing locals that then go back to their community. They get to spend that money. It's like driving their little community and their economy. So yeah, it's making a massive impact compared to let's say if we planted some trees here, we're probably not making as much of an impact.

Caroline Kennedy (13:56.843)
Yeah, yeah. And I also think too, so your impact is broad because it's also around the plastic as well. So you're not just looking at one area, looking at broadly, how can we have an impact and still running a commercially sustainable business, which is very difficult to do. And I'm sure at some point you would have had some challenges. And was there a time where even one of the co-founders thought, God, this is just too hard. You know, and they nearly walked. Was it ever a time that that happened?

Dean Leibbrandt (14:35.192)
I don't think any of us would ever walk because I think we just were so passionate about it. But challenges every day. there's challenges that get thrown about all the time. And then even from like using recycled materials, paying for trees, it does get expensive. Like you look at the amount of sustainable businesses that have said they'll plant trees and now they've cut the whole initiative or they've cut it down from 10 trees down to just one tree.

Dean Leibbrandt (15:03.758)
So I think it is always, we always talk about it saying, you know, and it does get expensive, but at the end of the day, like that is the vision of the business. How do we try and make as much of an impact as possible? So I think without that, the business is nothing. Um, but yeah, challenges, like even early on in the piece, there's just endless challenges where you think, Oh my goodness, this is going to end. I think, um, yeah, every time something that bad happens, we always say, like, we're just making memories.

So like these are the things that when we're 70 years old and we're sitting around the table, these are the memories we're look back at. Like there was a time that we ordered, so we have puffy blankets. So it's pretty much like a sleeping bag, except it's a big square rectangle blanket. And we ended up placing our first order. So we ended up placing our first order and it was probably two weeks before the ship was supposed to leave. And the guy called me and said, hey, instead of using like, a microfiber on the outside, can we use silk? And I said to him, oh no, like we saw the pre-production sample, it was perfect. And he said, we can't get it for another six weeks and we were gonna miss Black Friday. So I ended up pulling the trigger and said, yeah, send the stock.

And while the stock was in the water, he sent a few samples and I was at a friend's house and part of the corner rubbed on some concrete and it started fraying, we'd probably spent $80,000 on stock. And we said, well, we're not going to sell it. So we literally, it arrived, we put it in the warehouse and thought, why the hell, like, what do we do? But then that actually ended up turning into a positive. We ended up donating it to St Vincent de Paul's. Like we did a whole heap of stuff with like their CEO sleep out and, um, it worked, it worked out in the end for the better. Um, so yeah, I think it is always so many challenges, but I think overarching, they do always turn into a positive. And how do you try and look at them as you're making a good memory.

Caroline Kennedy (16:54.435)
I mean, there's always so many challenges that I think overrides you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's a really good example of how something negative you turned into a positive and still was able to have impact beyond, you know, what you're already doing. And was there ever a point where you thought Nakie might fail? And you know, what happened there? Like, was there a point?

Dean Leibbrandt (17:30.67)
Probably the closest we ever got was early on in the piece, we decided, how do we not like, let's just become a global brand. Let's start spending money internationally. So we started running ads internationally and the UK just started picking up traction. And we started sending every day, probably 70, 80 % of our orders went going to the UK. And I think we're quite seasonal. Obviously people are probably not buying how many for a beach towel in the middle of winter.

So during our winter, their summer's going strong. So this must've been maybe the first year, it must've been the first year, so like around 2020, started sending, obviously it wasn't a lot of stock now, but it was a lot of stock back then. And it was sending huge amounts of orders to the UK. We were going, yeah, good, it was profitable. We were like pat on the back, how good are we? Lucky we turned it on, otherwise we would be doing nothing here in Australia. And must've been maybe four to six weeks in, we got our first email came from a customer saying, hey, I've just been hit with, let's say the product was a hundred pound. I've just been here with 80 pound duties and taxes. And we went, what are duties and taxes? Like we hadn't even looked into what that was. And the emails off, the email off, the email came back and we ended up, we said to the customers, hey, we're happy to split it 50-50. We didn't know what to do. So those orders, instead of being profitable, they became like a loss and started turning off the ads and we just didn't know how bad it was going to be. hope like luckily there was maybe only 20 % of the orders that were getting stuck through customs. So it wasn't all of them. think it was all of them. were probably potentially we would have closed doors. But luckily a lot of them slipped through the cracks and well like customers maybe just they knew that they were buying from an international customer like company and they were paying it. But yeah, that was probably the closest we got.

Caroline Kennedy (19:01.891)
But isn't it really interesting how you also decided to pay it for them as well. Like a lot of organisations might not have done that. And that's really about being customer centric, right? And doing the right thing as well. So yeah, so a lot of organisations wouldn't have worn that cost. So good on you because it really is. It says a lot about the values and the approach they have as well. Yeah. When resources felt scarce, whether it be money, time or belief, which one do you think cracked first?

Dean Leibbrandt (20:40.632)
Probably time. I think eventually he got to the stage when we all had full-time jobs. Jaryd, was, my brother was the first one. He called it quits. was, actually had a lot going on. He was working full-time and his boss was out of control, just micromanaging. And he was probably working good 10 hour days at his normal job. And then obviously at Nakie, he'd just met a new girl, which is his wife now. And on top of it, he was training for a hundred K race up the blue mountains.

So I think he was probably working only sleeping maybe three, four, five hours a night. And he was the first one to tap out and say enough, enough with a full-time job. And he just went all in to Nakie. And then eventually for me, yeah, similar sort of happened. Not enough time to pick and pack orders and we couldn't afford to go and pay staff to pick and pack the orders. So yeah, had to resign and go full-time. But Tegan, she's still the last one left. She's still working nearly full time as a nurse. So she's a clinical nurse, well, know, actually nurse unit manager, like a NUM at Greenslopes hospital. And she's still, well, we just had a little one, so she's gone back. So it's a five day fortnight. So she can still help with a little Zara and yeah, still help in the business.

Caroline Kennedy (22:00.02)
Yeah, well she must love what she does as well, right? Yeah.

Dean Leibbrandt (22:02.446)
Also, it's like all about giving back. It's like, she feels like she's making a massive difference. She's helping. like we obviously said, a little like we said, Zara, so Tegan's gone to work. She's making sick people better. Yeah. So mean, all of it, it's just how do we try and make a difference?

Caroline Kennedy (22:21.121)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And what was the first unmistakable signal that Nakie had real traction?

Dean Leibbrandt (22:31.31)
Probably say the Inspired Unemployed. I don't know if you ended up seeing what we did with the Inspired Unemployed boys. So it was, I think it was the end of 2021 and it was like COVID lockdown and I was on my phone and Tegan was doing a night shift, like a late shift and I was on my phone, I was on Instagram and I was on stories and I saw the inspired unemployed that were in lockdown and I didn't know where they were, but there was one probably like literally, I don't know, we've looked at it a few times. It's like 0.3 of a second. They flipped this lid of a cake and on the lid of the cake, it said room 204 or whatever the room was. And I went, my goodness, like I think we're in here, like a bit of guerrilla marketing. And then they panned outside the window and they showed like the street that they were in. And I was like, where can you be locked down? I Googled, said either Melbourne or the Gold Coast, or like the two main places.

And there was like water, there was like canals and I was like, then I could be Melbourne with like the Yarra River. So was going through Melbourne, trying to look at this like pattern on the road. Couldn't find it. Went to the Gold Coast up and down, up and down. Eventually I found exactly where their hotel could have been. Like I was looking, bit of a stalker, looking from the angle that their phone could have been taking and went bang. So I called Jaryd and said, hey, tomorrow morning, let's go take them a hammock, hammock stand that they can lay in their hotel and maybe like a case of beers.

So first day, the next day that Jaryd rocked up, gave it to them, it arrived and obviously no one had sent them anything. No one knew where they were and they videoed it and we went, holy do we. And they literally zoomed in onto Nakie and we've ended up. So anyway, it went on, I don't know if you saw it was like the Hammock Man. So my brother, he ended up being the Hammock Man. We were walkie talking with them every day. We landed up on the news. We landed up on their podcast. We had some PR agency reach out to us and said, we probably got between 250 and $500,000 worth of media coverage. The boys, I don't know if they want us to tell them, but at that stage, on average, they were getting 350,000 views per story. And while that was happening, it was like eight, nine, a million views for average stories. So they, I guess, couldn't get enough of it. They ended up launching the beer brand early because they were, I guess, getting so much traction. So I think from there, that spiked. Like we were having 30,000 visitors on the website daily.

Just out of control. And then I think from there, was maybe September 2021. And then that November was a humongous November, obviously, we'd been like, targeting a lot of people indirectly, and people started finding out about the brand. And I feel like that was sort of the leapfrog into what Nakie sort of became.

Caroline Kennedy (25:18.328)
Yeah, and that's a really good example of thinking differently. And it seems like you guys do that continually, but you see something and you go, there's an opportunity. And we can support as well, but then it goes beyond that, right? And I always say to people, think differently about what you can do. And that could even mean just go and look at what somebody else is doing even internationally, cross industry innovation as well. And then just see how can we leverage this? How can we bring a component of that to what we do, which is a really good example that you've just shared.

Dean Leibbrandt (25:57.166)
Well, I'd say that's probably one of our biggest strengths is like a number one, of our biggest things is how do we think outside the box? How do we, like if you do the same thing over and over, you're get the same result. How do you do things differently? We take a lot of bets along the way and a lot of them don't come, like, yeah, don't come to anything, but yeah, every now and then we nail one that is huge. Like we've tried, I mean, TV multiple times. Anyway, the list is just endless. We sent a hammock to Chris Hemsworth, like we've obviously knew where his house was didn't end up being anything. But yeah, we obviously just always thinking outside the box trying to do things differently. And you just never know what could be around.

Caroline Kennedy (26:18.243)
Yeah, I love that. You now process tens of thousands of orders per month if not more What operational habit lets you sleep at night?

Dean Leibbrandt (26:49.07)
My wife thinks I'm the best sleeper on planet. I think because I'm, don't know, people think, people say that I've got ADHD. I haven't been diagnosed, but yeah, I just don't stop during the day. And then I think soon as my head hits the pillow, I'm lights out. doesn't really matter what drama is going on. That's me anyway. I just, as soon as I hit the pillow, I'm game over. But yeah, for the other guys, I think, yeah, probably the big ones just, we just can control the controllable. These things that are outside our control. It's just, yeah, we just got to keep going, doing everything we can possibly do and yeah, let the process sort of happen. Like we can't, yeah, we can't sweat the, even obviously the big stuff. We just don't sweat the small stuff. Don't sweat the big stuff. It's like, we just control what we can control. And yeah, like we just, how do we try and get better and better every day?

Caroline Kennedy (27:46.049)
Yeah, and I think that's really good advice for listeners as well, because I see a lot of business owners, CEOs who worry so much about things they can't control. And that worry can become addictive too, because it can feel as if you're self soothing when you worry. And so it's really important to be able to distinguish between the two. What can I control? What can't I control?

And what's whatever is in my control, how do I problem solve it? Which is exactly what you just described, you know, and being conscious of it as well, like operating consciously around it rather than just worrying, which can then ruminate and then it just spirals out of control.

Dean Leibbrandt (28:29.71)
And I think, yeah, obviously we definitely worry about the business. you know, if let's say sales are not performing, it's like you're going far out. What can we do? But I think it's always, what can we do? We wake up in the morning. I mean, probably another big strength of ours is there's obviously so many things going on in the business, but we just go, what's like the number one priority that's actually going to shift the dial in the business? So there's always a lot of things and probably I let people down. Like maybe if I'm supposed to be somewhere like I'm you know, obviously I'm apologising and saying, I can't get there, but we just got to prioritise the thing that's going to shift the dial the most. Um, so that's, yeah, I guess a strength, but a bit of weakness at the same time. But yeah, let's say sales are down. We'll try and brainstorm. We just keep trying to change stuff. We'll, you know, go shoot new ads. We'll go change the ad account. We'll just, whatever we're doing, we always just trying to tweak change. And then I think we try and document stuff as much as we possibly can as well. Like what changes are we making? Okay. So it's shifting and it's, um,

Caroline Kennedy (28:59.037)
Yeah. And I really like that because I always say what shifts the needle, what's going to shift the needle and are you focusing on what shifts the needle to right as opposed to because 20 % of your effort is going to give you 80 % of the results and as CEOs what the might like

The sales are a lifeblood of the business. So without it, the rest is irrelevant. So always focusing on what is gonna generate that revenue, because that's the sustainability. So I think everything you've just said is really spot on. Yeah. What belief about yourself did you have to change for Nakie to grow beyond a hobby?

Dean Leibbrandt (30:14.894)
Probably early on in the piece. We probably had limits in terms of like revenue how we were like how the business was going to grow. I think when you first die, you just think, this could be like a good little side hustle. but then, I guess probably the biggest one we, we joined a few communities like the J right, the e-commerce equation. And we were, think maybe as 10th or 11th clients. And we used to jump on calls and we used to see LSKD's ad account. And I think that was probably a massive, like we thought we were spending the most money you could possibly spend in Australia in a day. And I guess we saw theirs and went, wow, this is penny drop moment that the sky's the limit. So I think that was probably the biggest one. Like just, I guess when you first start, you don't know what it potentially could become.

Caroline Kennedy (30:43.565)
Yeah. I think also to what you're saying is you didn't realise perhaps just how big it could be and that belief. Sometimes we don't know even though you come from corporate when I work with a lot of businesses, I always find their goals when we do strategy sessions, they always aim too low for what is actually possible. And I say to them, it has to be and I call it an OMG--outrageous massive goal, you don't believe it's possible. And then we know we've hit the mark and they always surpass it. It's so amazing. I don't think I've ever worked with anyone that doesn't, but it's that fear of what they believe is possible and then breaking that barrier, which is what you've just described, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Caroline Kennedy (32:03.489)
What metric do you believe founders ignore at their peril?

Dean Leibbrandt (32:23.246)
Yeah, maybe just belief in themselves. I think a lot of people, like, don't know, maybe even, yeah, I don't know. We see a lot of brands and we talked to lot of brands that they've got an amazing product. They've got an amazing community. They've got an amazing business, but I think maybe it's their limiting beliefs that they don't think they even were the other. I mean, that's probably a big one that they, yeah, it's like they are, I their own beliefs, similar to what mine was, but they just don't believe in themselves.

Like we probably believed in ourselves, but we didn't believe in the business. But I think these guys, they've got an amazing business. It's like the business tick, tick, tick, tick, tick in every metric, but then it's more of them personally don't believe in themselves. And they don't believe that maybe they're even worthy of having the business that they've built.

Caroline Kennedy (33:13.059)
And we've all got limiting beliefs and it's been conscious of them and working through them. And I think when we're unconscious of them, that's where they're blind spots and they hold us back to. Yeah. All right. And so as we wrap up, because I'm mindful of time, complete this sentence for me. If you were starting an e-commerce business in 2025, I would...?

Dean Leibbrandt (33:40.686)
100% do create a business that's sustainable and not just sustainable mind that is in recycled materials and planting trees and all that sort of stuff, but also sustainable from a profit perspective. I think as we sort of touched on before, a lot of people maybe even think like when we talk about like say, oh, we're a sustainable outdoor business people, the first thing that sort of says, oh, you're probably not that profitable.

So I think, yeah, how do try and create a business that's got sustainable as front of mind, but then they also sustainable back of house. And as we sort of touched on before, if we want to like our goals every year, like this year, we want to try and plant 2 million trees. Like last year we planted 1.2 million trees. If we want to make a huge impact, we need to be staying profitable so we can continue to invest in R &D and create amazing new products that our customers and community can use. But then as a by-product, we are pulling so many plastic bottles out of landfill and the oceans, we're planting trees, like we're making a huge difference. Like you listen to Mike from ZeroCo, his goal was to pull a billion plastic bottles out of the ocean. I they ended up pulling 40 million out of the ocean. And it's like, yeah, he's obviously done an amazing job, but how do you try and do it sustainably, like more from a financial piece that then you can actually achieve his goal. Like us, we don't pay ourselves a hell of a lot of money. Like we invest everything back into the business, creating new products, building the team, building the infrastructure out. I think, yeah, how do you try and stay profitable all the way along the journey so we can try and have a big impact? So if I was someone in 2025, I definitely have both of those forefront of mind. And how do you become profitable from day one? Like I think you look at maybe Zeroco, maybe they raised too much money early on and they were maybe not profitable at all.

So it's like, yeah, I think from the foundations, if you're profitable, you've got good visions, values in place. I think then you can go on and achieve them.

Caroline Kennedy (35:43.109)
Yeah, and also think if you bootstrap, you have to be profitable right from the very beginning because it it foundationally if you're not, whereas when you start to raise money, it can be a bit safer to a certain degree. That's in my experience, I see that too. Whereas when you're bootstrapping, you're always reinvesting, always reinvesting and it has to be lean, you've got no choice otherwise you're not going to be sustainable. And the other thing I would say to that is what I've noticed longer term is remaining relevant, ensuring that you remain relevant to consumer changing buying patterns. And what you said at the beginning of our conversation around profitability and brand is even the most iconic brands right now are finding it quite difficult brands that have been around for 50 years. You know, like Domino's, yeah, I think you mentioned them earlier, you know, they're struggling too, because consumer buying patterns have changed and it's you have to remain relevant. And I think that's a lesson from the ages that businesses have to keep on top of too.

Dean Leibbrandt (36:55.33)
And you do every second week, you read the news and there's someone that's going bankrupt. Yeah. And it's, yeah, it's a hard environment.

Caroline Kennedy (36:57.207)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's constant at the moment, to be honest. So great that you guys are doing so well. Last question. When Nakie is mentioned in 20 years, what headline do you hope people will read?

Dean Leibbrandt (37:19.79)
Nakie's planted 500 million trees.

Caroline Kennedy (37:23.927)
Yeah, I love it.

Dean Leibbrandt (37:26.156)
And yeah, I love the article, goes into detail about everything that we've done from an impact piece and how we've made a huge difference. I guess you look at the guys at Patagonia and the shift that they've made, like it gives me goosebumps. Like if we could be a tenth of what they've achieved, it'd be amazing.

Caroline Kennedy (37:44.213)
Yeah, yeah. And you mentioned your daughter Zara before. And so if we were to think beyond Zara to your grandchildren, if they were listening or watching even this episode or any one where you've been involved in, what single lesson do you want them to take from your journey?

Dean Leibbrandt (38:06.744)
I think just be kind. Just everything we try and do is, as I said, like how do we actually genuinely try and make a difference? It's like even in our personal lives, always be friendly. It's like you always greet everyone even in the warehouse. It's like you go and talk to every single person. I think just overarching, it's just how do you be a genuinely nice, kind person? And I think it's gonna pay dividends.

Caroline Kennedy (38:32.119)
Yeah, yeah, I love that and you can. Yeah.

Dean Leibbrandt (38:34.126)
I think, if it's from business or it's personal, it's like, how do you just be kind? And I think, yeah, as you sort of said, a lot of the things I probably didn't even realise, like you were saying, how we gave 50, like 50 % back to consumers. Like we probably didn't even think anything else. Like we wouldn't, we didn't even question, do we just say, catch you later? Yeah. So I think the root of us is we just.

Caroline Kennedy (39:00.215)
Yeah, doing the right thing and being kind. And one of the things I'd say to that is, and I heard this years ago and it's always stayed with me, don't mistake kindness for weakness. It's actually a strength. Yeah. All right. Well, Dean, your story reminds us that building something meaningful isn't about getting it perfect. It's about staying true to the vision, even when the road is unclear.

Thanks for showing us what it looks like to lead with conviction and kindness, I will add as well. And to all the listeners out there, if today's episode landed with you, subscribe to the Honest CEO Show and share it with anybody that can get some great insights out of Dean's story. And thank you so much for being with us today, Dean. I've truly enjoyed it.

Dean Leibbrandt (39:55.8)
Thank you so much.