Afends | Jono Salfield + Declan Wise
Conversation with Jono and Deco
Afends are an Australian apparel company that began in Byron Bay in 2006 when two mates started selling samples from the back of their van. Since then they’ve grown to be an internationally recognised brand, organically built from the ground up. Pioneering the hemp revolution in Australia, they’re committed to sustainable practices across their whole supply chain and champion gender equality. We chat to Founders Jono Salfield and Declan Wise about their beginnings and staying true to their roots.
“Yeah, so it’s very, I guess organically grown, Afends. And since that point of jumping into a van with a bunch of mates and door knocking on surf stores and little fashion stores and stuff, we’ve turned into what we are right now.”
In this episode we hear all about how Jono and Deco began designing graphics, slapping them on a few t-shirs, hats and jumpers, then hitting the east coast visiting the top street and surf retailers who would be the right fit for the brand.
They take us through their journey - trials and errors, growth stories, staffing and distribution strategies. One thing that has remained constant is their grassroots approach to all facets of their Byron Bay based business. They are totally committed to a transparent supply chain and overall good business practices. I mean they are pretty clear on what they stand for - ‘Fuck Plastic, Afends for Equality, Hemp Revolution’.
These guys are really pioneering the hemp space in Australia with some very cool products. Hemp is a much more sustainable resource when compared to cotton. Hemp takes as little as 90 days to cultivate, it requires significantly less water than cotton and even produces significantly more fibre per acre. Win win.
So grab a cuppa and sit back - we hope you enjoy this tale of humble beginnings, how they got it right from the start and continue to soar with their impressive approach to good business practices.
Mentioned in conversation…
How two these two home-grown Byron Bay surfers brought a global brand to life
The early years of Afends and the key points of growth for their counter-culture
One of the biggest challenges they faced (think $1million of stock with nowhere to go)
Why and how they doubled down on sustainability across the whole business
The Hemp Revolution. What. Why. How.
Follow Afends here:
Afends Website
Afends Instagram
Afends Facebook
Afends YouTube
Full Podcast Transcript - Jono and deco, Afends
Pru:
Jono and Deco welcome to the show.
Jono:
Thank you.
Deco:
Hi, how are you?
Pru:
Yeah, really good. Super excited for our chat today. I mean, Afends is an institution around Byron and I dare say the rest of the world. So I'm super excited just to find out where it all kicked off and how you guys have brought what is Afends to life. So maybe that's where we can start.
Jono:
Okay.
Deco:
For sure.
Pru:
How did it come about?
Jono:
Deco, you want to start?
Deco:
Yeah sure. Yeah, pretty much I grew up in Byron, we both grew up in Byron. Grew up on Kingsley Street and Jono was on Cowper Street. So we became pretty good friends pretty young I think. I remember Jono in primary school, but once I got into Year 7, so I would have been like 13 and he was 15, then we started probably hanging out at that point. And then I remember Jono got a car pretty early on, and that was pretty good for me, because I was around the corner and I could go surfing, in his car, rather than ride-
Jono:
That little red Pulsar, I think it was.
Pru:
Yes, with the red Pulsar.
Deco:
Little Nissan Pulsar, hatchback.
Jono:
And this is the days of Byron Bay being like a quiet, little town, not what it is now.
Pru:
Yeah, there probably was only two streets.
Deco:
So Jono, he was into multimedia, anything sort of graphics, anything like that, and I always had a passion for clothing and branding. We were really into surf brands and stuff like that back then, and surfed a lot.
Deco:
And so I, in high school, I had this little brand called Athens, which was like a Greek, like the city, and Jono had this one called No Vacancy. So we used to talk about that. I remember I used to get him to help me with graphic design because he knew programs better than I did. He was self-taught and taught me a few things about that.
Deco:
So yeah, we met each other there and talked about it over the years. At that time, I was working for PMD Screen Prints in the industrial estate. Well, not at that time, but once we grew up a little bit, got out of high school. And yeah, I worked out there for a while. And I remember going up to Brisbane because I had to do TAFE up there, and Jono was there and he was going to a college. He was doing graphic design, multimedia, is that right?
Jono:
I was doing a year course in multimedia, which was at the time it was a lot more focused on CD-ROMs and the Internet was still at dial-up at that point. So a little bit of graphic design and stuff like that, but it spiked my interest into being able to spear off into more of creating graphics and logos, and that's where my interest was at the time.
Jono:
And then I remember, Deco and I were like, "Let's go to Indo for a couple of months and we'll go on a surf trip, we'll talk more about it." I was actually going over to London for a little bit of a work-holiday after. I spent probably six months there after the Indo trip. And that's when Deco started his own screen printing business in the industrial estate.
Deco:
I left Paul Munn's business, his nickname was Munga. So I left his business and bought my own equipment and I started printing local hardcore band's merch, because the hardcore scene was pretty big in the area at the time, and all my friends were in bands. So that was sort of like, "Yeah, this would be great." They were getting all their merch printed down in Adelaide from a place called Fat Tony's Merch.
Deco:
So when Jono got back from overseas I was like, "Dude, let's do this kind of thing. Let's get it going." And I was in a shed at Ewingsdale because my dad had a property out there. And then we decided to move into an industrial unit and it was next door to Electric Eyewear, they were set up. So we lived up stairs and then just started working on the brand together at that point.
Deco:
And Jono, I brought Jono into the screen printing business, and that allowed us to get a wage out of printing merch. So we were getting enough money to pay the rent and just needed a little bit of food, probably eating mie gorengs and things like that back then, or whatever.
Jono:
It's quite funny because we were both living upstairs and Electric, at the time, they were popping off. They were probably the number one sunglass brand.
Deco:
Yeah, the new cool-
Jono:
For surf.
Deco:
Yeah, new cool surf brand.
Jono:
And so we're just cruising around, had buddies coming in and just getting up to-
Deco:
Yeah, things were going on in there.
Jono:
Yeah.
Deco:
I was 21 or 22, 21, and Jono was two years older.
Jono:
Yeah, so a few dandies went down in there and those guys were hard at work in the office, and we were screen printing.
Deco:
Lots of smells wafting out [crosstalk 00:05:15].
Jono:
But then we decided after we'd put together really quite a basic catalog and we'd screen printed our own samples ... So we decided, you know, let's jump in Deco's HiAce van, chuck a couple of [crosstalk 00:05:32] in-
Pru:
I just have to interrupt. I feel like this is the most quintessential Byron Bay story I've ever heard.
Deco:
Yeah, it's kind of.
Pru:
Okay, back to the HiAce.
Deco:
So we just said to Electric, because they were next door, we're like, "What do we do?"
Jono:
"What do we do?"
Deco:
And they were like, "Oh, you got to sell your products." There was a few sales reps floating around and we hounded those guys for ideas and then put it all together ourself. And then we created a catalog. I remember putting all our trading terms in the back of the catalog and we're rocking up-
Jono:
We cut and paste it out of another one.
Deco:
Out of another catalog, another brand's catalog. And we're going to a showing or whatever, and we're in the car and we're looking at the trading terms, we're arguing about what they meant.
Jono:
We didn't even know what indent meant, we're like, "What the hell's indent?"
Deco:
Yeah, or like pre-book or anything like that. So just young and unexperienced and no education.
Pru:
Which is kind of half the joy of it, as well?
Deco:
Yeah, exactly.
Jono:
Yeah, so it's very, I guess organically grown, Afends. And since that point of jumping into a van with a bunch of mates and door knocking on surf stores and little fashion stores and stuff, we've turned into what we are right now.
Pru:
Yeah. And so, when you're in that HiAce, did you just kind of hit the East Coast?
Deco:
Yeah, we didn't really.
Pru:
You just chased the surf?
Deco:
We just went from here to Melbourne. We didn't do that much surfing. I can't remember doing that much surfing on that trip. I mean, we tried to, it was just kind of cold and flat the whole time.
Jono:
Yeah, it was cold.
Deco:
Flat. Cold and flat. But we hung in Melbourne for a couple of weeks. We hung in Sydney for at least a week. We went to-
Jono:
Snowboarding for a week.
Deco:
Yeah, we went-
Jono:
Our buddies were living in [crosstalk 00:07:21]-
Deco:
A whole bunch of our mates were at Jindabyne and we went there and just stayed on their floor for a good week, and slept in the van, and went snowboarding. Just had fun while we were doing it all and put something together. I think we got back from that trip and we had about 16 accounts or something like that, 20 accounts.
Pru:
Which is pretty awesome.
Jono:
I kind of remember it being about close to 30 grand worth of orders or something.
Deco:
Yeah, it was. It was about that much. But we also got a call from Off Your Tree.
Pru:
Who are still around.
Deco:
Which is still around, which is really kind of funny at the time. We were sort of like, didn't really know what to think of it. But we just sort of knew that we had to-
Jono:
Do anything we could.
Deco:
Do anything we could. So anyway, that was quite funny that we got a call from those guys, because it was knowing it's just a bong shop at the time, or whatever.
Jono:
It still is.
Pru:
Did Afends stuff end up in there?
Deco:
We ended up putting a range in there. Yeah, it was cool. We started to learn about branding and things like that after that and started to choose what retailers we were going to go in.
Pru:
Yeah, awesome. So you've done this trip, you're in the HiAce, you got about 30 grand worth of orders, which is a pretty sweet haul.
Deco:
Yeah.
Jono:
We were pretty stoked.
Deco:
It was a lot of money to us back then, for sure.
Jono:
And the fact that we were able to screen print all our own shirts, so the margins weren't too bad. And I think in the collection at the time, we'd done some flat brim hats, or something was happening there, remember that? So it was just T-shirts, hoods, flat brim hats-
Deco:
Yeah, some sort of New Era style hats, that was what was on trend at the time. And we made them through a company on the Gold Coast. What was that company?
Jono:
Mitchell's, wasn't it?
Deco:
No, not Mitchell's.
Jono:
Oh that was before Mitchell's.
Deco:
The other one, the one before Mitchell's. They'll probably off us for not remembering that.
Jono:
Oh yeah, dammit.
Pru:
If you're listening, write in.
Deco:
So yeah, we just had some head wear and some hoodies and tees and we could print it all ourselves. So yeah, that was pretty easy.
Pru:
Yeah cool. And so did it take off pretty quickly, or was it a bit of a hard slog? Was there multiple HiAce van trips?
Deco:
That was kind of it. From then on, I'd done it by myself, and Jono ... I sort of went more sales and operations and finance side, and Jono went more design and marketing side. And yeah, I was getting on the road. Because Jono was designing everything at that point, and we sort of realized that we were very limited with what we could do with our own business, and we explored with China. So we started to produce in China. We used an agent in Australia. Her name was Rebecca Chalmers, I think. I think it was-
Jono:
Yeah.
Deco:
Yeah. And she was based in Victoria. So she helped us out a lot. We had a lot of challenges with that because of minimum order quantity, so having the factories over there. So we dived into that, done that, realized that we needed money, because prior to that, we were getting a local 30 day account from Gildan or something like that, while printing, sending. So our whole expense cash flow structure was pretty easy.
Deco:
And it was once we went to China then it became challenging, because we had to outlay all this money months in advance before we could receive it. And then we were stuck with product at the end of it, which we didn't really have anywhere to flush it because we were a small brand at that time. So then we worked out that we should be producing in Indo basically.
Jono:
In more so Bali, really.
Deco:
Yeah, it was all out of Bali.
Pru:
And was that because you could do smaller amounts there?
Deco:
Exactly.
Pru:
It's just a closer trip?
Deco:
There was no minimum. You could do 30 units. So it meant we could have better manufactured product created over there.
Jono:
Or, we could have a wider range of products too.
Deco:
That's right.
Jono:
We started to put together a small range of board shorts. I remember we even did some denim over there. And being able to go to Bali and produce, we then decided let's open up a concept store there.
Pru:
It kind of feels a bit easier, as well, doesn't it, because Bali's ... It feels closer to Australia just in culture and all the things, rather than China. It feels like there's just not that kind of transparency when you're going into China, especially back in the day, like we're talking about a few years ago now.
Deco:
Yeah, it was a while ago.
Jono:
That was 2000 and probably about '8 by then?
Deco:
Probably 2008. And so what the other thing that was good with that is when we realized that we needed to manufacture either in China or Indo or whatever, and that we wouldn't be manufacturing our goods anymore, then we went on a trip to Japan. Austrade actually paid for us to go over there. So they approached us and said, "Do you want to do this trip to Japan? There's like a trade show over there." Paid for us, we went over there and we'd done it.
Deco:
And so, we fell in love with the retail in Japan and all the concept stores. So that was the point when we went, "Right, let's sell our screen printing business and start a store in Byron." Like use that money to start a store and that would push our focus sort of in the right direction. So, I mean, that's what we'd done, we ended up selling it.
Pru:
So instead of being behind the tools, you're all of a sudden at the front end of the business?
Deco:
That's right, yeah.
Jono:
Yeah. Obviously it opened up another sales channel, so rather than just a wholesale division, we now had direct to consumer. And the first store's actually in Bali. And like Deco said, that inspiration from the trip to Japan and seeing, I think it was Bathing Ape at the time, that neighborhood brand, they were doing some really cool stores. More of the hip-hoppy style brands. So our concept stores then looked really quite tripped out. We had a big octopus in the middle of our Byron store, which people were just like, "What the hell is that?"
Deco:
"What the fuck is this?"
Pru:
That's sounds like quite an influential trip to Japan.
Deco:
Yeah, it was. It was really influential.
Jono:
It was fun, yeah.
Pru:
Especially coming from Byron, a small town, it's still now and definitely back then, but to go and see like that big retail play over there, with that huge amount of creativity injected into it.
Jono:
And being young and starting a brand, you've got all these high expectations thinking that you can take over and you can start distribution over there and actually do proper business, but then when reality hits and there's ...
Deco:
So I guess it was, like in those first few years, it was really like trial and error, everything was trial and error, like where we're sold, what retailers we're in. We started to learn, okay, in those retail stores it looks like we're part of the brands that are sold in those stores. So we started to diversify where we were sold, and started to be picky about where we were sold, and then started to be picky about our manufacturing, pretty much.
Pru:
Yeah cool. And so you had then the store in Bali, and then was the second store in Byron?
Jono:
Yeah.
Deco:
Yeah. Did we open that store in Bali first?
Jono:
We did the Bali one first.
Deco:
Yeah right.
Jono:
Remember we were like kind of-
Deco:
Yeah, I do remember that now.
Jono:
It's obviously been a long time since-
Deco:
So that Byron store's been there like more than 10 years now.
Jono:
Yeah. It's probably 11 years open.
Pru:
Institutions.
Deco:
Time gets on, doesn't it?
Jono:
Yeah.
Deco:
It's 2020, it's crazy.
Pru:
When you reflect back, what was some of the major challenges in those first few years? Was cash the big one?
Jono:
Cash was a big one, it always has been.
Deco:
For sure. Yeah. So definitely that manufacturing component of going to China and realizing that we need a lot of cash for that, not being probably experienced enough to just know how to model out that sort of cash flow stuff. And then going to Indo and then Bali had its challenges as well. So we manufactured there for a couple of years and then we went back to China basically at that point. And yeah, through that whole period it was super challenging with cash flow. And because we were growing so much, it was kind of impossible to create enough profit for it to fund the growth, basically.
Jono:
Especially-
Pru:
Yeah, because I imagine you guys are building your team here at the same time as well?
Deco:
Yeah, and that was the other thing that was really challenging was trying to be able to get people that were professional enough to work for us, that could grow the business. But we couldn't afford to pay them, so-
Pru:
Problem.
Deco:
Just properly. So probably the first really professional person we put on that grew our business was a guy called Ryan Grey. He actually founded Rhythm. He still works for us now. He's been working for us for about eight years, but I remember we really just went, "Hey, this is a lot of money, but let's just pay him it and see what happens for a while." And he just grew our business really, really quickly through wholesale, because he had the contacts, he knew everyone, he'd done it before, and he'd-
Pru:
A bit of experience to come in?
Deco:
A bit of experience. And we were just like, "How good's this?"
Jono:
He was definitely the first professional employee we put on. The other employees were mates and friends of mates, and basically anyone that would work for next to nothing.
Pru:
Shirts?
Jono:
T-shirts, product.
Deco:
We also had, when we were in those initial stages and we were living at Electric, a really good friend of ours Kent, it's a guy that worked for us for ages as well, he was probably our third employee. He was actually driving a juice truck and he used to come and drop off juices to us. We stayed with him down when we were at the snow and he was really enthusiastic about everything, and he really wanted to help. So yeah, we got him involved really early on as well, and he worked for us for ages. He was really involved in those initial startup years. Kent, for sure.
Jono:
He was the kind of guy that knew everyone and really likable. He really as far as the marketing side, and that's what he came on doing, he-
Deco:
He really lived and breathed that-
Jono:
Lived and breathed it.
Deco:
... hardcore scene and so he was out networking and mixing. And yeah, he'd done a great job of connecting lot's different people.
Jono:
Really the key that started the brand in front of the right people, a lot of quite famous punk bands at the time, and skateboarders. We had a pretty impressive skate team at the time, a lot of young, up and coming skaters.
Deco:
Everyone was young that was involved.
Jono:
Yeah, very, very young.
Deco:
There's no one really over 25 at this point.
Jono:
And we didn't have women's at that point of the brand. We might have had, what, a couple of T-shirts. But as far as the women's-
Deco:
We had few women's tops that we put some men's prints on and stuff, but it wasn't like a women's brand by any means, at all.
Jono:
So it was a little bit of a boys club back then.
Pru:
Yeah, which I'm going to actually loop back to later, because you guys are doing some really cool stuff around women. And so that sounds like they were some pretty key growth points is bringing in the right people [crosstalk 00:19:46]-
Deco:
For sure, yeah. I'd know exactly what to do if we'd done it again.
Jono:
Yeah. Only took 14 years to learn.
Deco:
So I guess it's part of a really organic process is that trial and error, and just learning everything, doing it really young.
Pru:
And kind of giving it all a shot, isn't it?
Deco:
That's it.
Pru:
I interview lots of businesses here, and it's like some have it figured out, to be honest most of them don't. But there's something in that naivety where it's like, "Yeah, we're going to go snowboarding for a week and see who we meet." And then you meet one person that kind of shifts the trajectory a little bit. And then, "We're going to do this thing and this bit." And that naivety and I don't know, gung-ho-ness really, just also drives something super unique into the market, because you're not conforming to any pattern out there.
Deco:
Exactly.
Jono:
I think looking back on it, and if you were to do it again and you had the experience we had, which was nothing, and you knew the road that it was going to take, it'd be quite a daunting exercise if you were going, "I'm doing this for money," because at any point, we were never doing this for money. This was a lifestyle and it just got really serious.
Deco:
It did. It really got serious, because we-
Pru:
When did it get serious?
Deco:
Probably when we borrowed money from the bank.
Jono:
To buy a big warehouse.
Deco:
Yeah, it just got serious.
Pru:
What stage? How big was the company when it started to feel more serious to you guys?
Deco:
We had a few investment, sort of raised capital a couple of times. And once shareholders came in, it was serious because we had their money in the business and there was no opportunity to fail, basically, because I really wanted to impress these guys and do really well for these guys. So yeah, that definitely made it really serious.
Pru:
And did they bring smarts into the business as well, or was it just an injection of capital?
Deco:
Yeah, it was just capital injection. It was friends and family. So yeah, it was just family and family of friends. So it's very much a family owned business still, which is really nice. We haven't had any investment come from any really super powerful serious money guys or anything like that. And they've all been amazing, they've all been so supportive. So it's been really, really good.
Pru:
There is something in the responsibility of holding that though, isn't there?
Jono:
There is.
Pru:
Particularly if it's family and friends.
Deco:
That's right.
Pru:
If it was one of those big school investors you'd be like, "Ah, they got plenty of cash." But when it's people that you have lunch with or Christmas lunch with, it means a whole lot more.
Deco:
Yeah, that's it.
Jono:
Yeah, it'd be almost impossible though for us to get to where we were without that investment. Banks don't want to touch you, at all, at that level.
Deco:
The only way to do it would be to get security from our family and our parents both agreed and went, "Hey, we'll lend you this little bit of money." Well, they didn't lend it to us, the banks did, but they secured it against the house and they were just like, "That's it. There's no more. You can lose that and we'll survive, but any more than that it's done."
Jono:
And Deco's dad, he's been a huge part of our success, and mentor, and helping us along the way. He can't believe where we're at right now, he's like, "I thought you would have lost that money years ago."
Deco:
Yeah, he's just mentored us with finance really and lots of strategy. He doesn't have any idea about fashion or clothing, or-
Pru:
But sometimes that's great, because he's not caught up in the romance of it.
Deco:
Yeah, he doesn't have any emotional attachment, he's just like, "Hey, this is how it is. If the business doesn't make a profit you're done."
Jono:
Yeah, and he always makes it so it's like ... He'll obviously be pushing us to want to succeed, but then always, kind of in the back of our minds, telling us, "This is really hard and you might fail, and you probably will fail."
Deco:
Tough love. Tough love.
Jono:
Tough love, which has been great because you don't want it too far the other way where you're getting too much encouragement, you want to go ... You want that challenge and it's hard.
Pru:
And it keeps you on your edge as well, doesn't it? It keeps you looking for the opportunities.
Jono:
It does, yeah.
Pru:
So for our listeners, how big is Afends now? How many employees? How many countries are you in?
Deco:
So over 40 employees.
Jono:
That's full-time.
Deco:
Full-time. We had to cut it back a little bit when COVID hit because we had the closure of our stores. So we'll probably see that push back over 50 in the next ... Well, what's the economy going to do sort of thing. I'd say by Christmas we'll be back up over 50 employees again. And we have a European company and a US company. So the European company holds ... Either of the companies have any staff, or we don't have an office, so everything's ran through Byron Bay, from here basically. But we do have sales reps on the ground, both in the US and in Europe and they manage the wholesale businesses that we run over there. And then we manage all the direct to consumer business from here, basically, which is ecommerce.
Pru:
And I imagine your ecommerce is pretty big?
Deco:
Yeah, it's quite big now.
Jono:
So we've just recently launched the EU site, and we use Shopify as our back end, which most fashion brands, and a lot of different companies ... And Shopify's just an amazing platform. I guess the difference between that and say like Magento is that you have to have three different actual log-in stores, so as far as sites go. So we've got our Australian one, our EU one we just launched, and the US one. And along with that we've got five concept stores, so far.
Deco:
Yeah. So what's been really, really interesting through this COVID thing is we've used it as a situation, because it's something that we've wanted to change for a while, but just to try and make our business much easier to run. So our wholesale business was run on trading terms, 30 day accounts, et cetera. Our direct to consumer business is growing so quickly and we really want our direct to consumer business to be 70% of our business. So we've used this period to pull back on wholesale and we've seen our direct to consumer business pretty much double through the period.
Pru:
That's really interesting because I was interviewing the managing director Xero this morning and they're putting out some really cool insights, and they were talking about how underutilized systems and technology are in smaller businesses. So it's only one percent of revenue and it's tiny compared to corporations. But the businesses that do polish up their tech and their back end systems then have huge scalability.
Deco:
That's right, yeah.
Pru:
So it's like a direct comparison to growth.
Jono:
Ah, definitely.
Deco:
Our company's got really good systems, really good ERP systems that we could probably grow five, six times as big as we are now with the current systems we have. So that was a decision we made a few years ago, which cost a bit of money, but we're so happy we'd done it now.
Jono:
Systems are just such an important part.
Deco:
Yeah, we don't spend time on fixing these errors that consistently happen every week, and month, and all the time.
Jono:
It's also about the visibility you get as far as the financials go. If you've got a system that's giving you false information, then you can't make those right decisions, and that was happening to us a lot before we launched our ERP system we've been running for a couple of years. How long now? Three?
Deco:
Yeah, four years now.
Jono:
Four years.
Pru:
So I got to ask because it's such an organic story really, you guys didn't go and do business degrees and then launch companies by any stretch of the imagination. You're kind of following your gut by the sounds of things, getting some good advice along the way. Did it look like the whole thing was ever going to go pear-shaped?
Jono:
We've never really had that moment where we're like everything's going to fall apart. We've had moments where I guess there's been some serious challenges. Probably one of the funniest stories was when we, being young, living in Byron and wanting to go live in other areas and stuff. So me and Deco, we decided we really wanted to launch the US and we really wanted to have a presence over there and we wanted to spend some time over there. So we were kind of tag-teaming it. So I'd go live over there for three months.
Deco:
Prior to that we got approached by a license company and they said, "Hey, we love your brand, we want to sell it here." And so we flew over there and saw them, and we liked them. We thought it was a good idea, we went with them. And they'd done a great job for about six months. They opened all the right retailers that we want, like Urban Outfitters and lots of influential stores in California and New York, and yeah, it was going really well. About six months in, they went into administration. So we were challenged because-
Jono:
We're living over there. We had just got a little lease on a house. We didn't have much. [crosstalk 00:30:15] quite small.
Deco:
Part of the license deal-
Pru:
But you'd set up camp?
Jono:
Yeah, we'd set up camp.
Deco:
Yeah, part of the license deal is that Jono moved over there with his wife and they lived in Encinitas. And so when these guys went into administration, we were in trouble because we had about a quarter of a million dollars worth of inventory in China that was in a container about to ship to America, which was like a million dollars at wholesale or something like that. And we're at the point where, well-
Jono:
We got to do it.
Deco:
... we got to pay for it, basically. The factories want us to pay for it. It's got our name on it. There's no way around it, even though the license company's responsible for it, they have gone into administration. So we had two options. One, ship it to America and try and run the business on our own, or ship it here.
Jono:
[crosstalk 00:31:05].
Deco:
So we chose the hard way and shipped it to America, didn't have the money to pay for it, wheeled and dealed and just worked our way round it. Ended up running that business over there for like two years maybe, and opened up a little concept store in Encinitas, and just went ... But it was super challenging because we were way over exposed. We had no extra investment. We just were-
Pru:
And you're in the US.
Jono:
We're in the US.
Pru:
You're not in Byron Bay anymore.
Deco:
Yeah.
Jono:
The big positive from it, what actually really accelerated the brand and the company was that we realized that if we don't put our focus into Australia that we're not going to have that one hub that can support the whole business, the company, and actually keep us going. We had to make that hard decision, we were like, "Look, we're just going to not do America."
Deco:
We just wrapped it up.
Jono:
We're going to wrap it up.
Deco:
Yeah, pulled it all in.
Jono:
And we both moved back to Aus and we just put our heads down and just focused on Australia and business started going really well.
Deco:
As soon as we hit that point of ... Because we had so much width, we had distributors sort of everywhere, all through Europe, we had America, and we just cut out all those international partnerships. We kept Japan and that was it, I think. Yeah.
Pru:
Just consolidated things here.
Deco:
Yeah.
Pru:
Including your own focus.
Jono:
Our own focus.
Deco:
That was it, that was the big deal.
Jono:
Because our back yard, we kind of ... It was exciting to go sell to America and these are big retailers, like we're getting big orders from Urban Outfitters, we're getting big orders from PacSun. We're in like these really cool little stores, like Thalia and stuff, that we'd always been like, "Wow, it would be so cool to be stocked in them." So the excitement of having your product in those stores was something that took our eye away from the real prize, which is establishing ourselves as one of Australia's main emerging lifestyle, fashion brands.
Deco:
So when you look back on it, when I look back on it anyway, it's just like madness that we tried to do something like that.
Jono:
Complete madness, but it was fun.
Deco:
Going into-
Pru:
But you guys got through it as well. I think has to be acknowledged.
Deco:
Well, we pulled the pin at the right time. I think if we didn't, we would have been very exposed and who knows what could've happened. But looking back on it, going into trying to grow with no systems, no money, not the right staff, you're just setting up for a disaster, basically. So it took us two years to work that out and then we kind of pulled it all out, got out all our money out of it, didn't lose any money, and just got back to Byron.
Pru:
Back to business.
Jono:
Back to Byron.
Deco:
Back to business, yeah
Jono:
The bubble.
Pru:
Yeah wow, what a ride, hey?
Deco:
Yeah, that was.
Pru:
All right. One thing that I really wanted to talk about was you guys have got ... Your focus on sustainability is awesome. I sit here, I podcast with a lot of people, I interview a lot of brands. I go on, I do my due diligence, I check out their websites, check out their credentials. I used to work in sustainability myself, so I have a good look about things, and God, what you guys are doing is like next level.
Deco:
Yeah, no, it's great. It's been a journey.
Pru:
Yeah, well that was my question. Did you start off focusing on sustainability, or is it something that kind of came with growing the brand?
Deco:
Well, I guess we both come from a pretty alternative background, like parents. So we've always had that sustainability thing built into us.
Pru:
Before it was cool?
Deco:
Yeah. And we wanted to get into it and we thought like, "What can we do?" And we started talking about organic cotton and things like that. And Jono, it was Jono's idea, he said, "Hey, let's do hemp." And I was like, "Well, have you ever gotten any hemp stuff? It's so coarse." I just had trouble imagining what we could do with it. And then we started ... We were like, "Let's do some hemp board shorts." So we made these 100% hemp board shorts, woven fabric.
Pru:
Did they stand up by themselves?
Jono:
They were very interesting, because-
Deco:
They were pretty good.
Jono:
They were pretty good.
Deco:
Like when you look back on it.
Pru:
Because what I'm thinking is like those early days of hemp, it was pretty alternative back then, you know?
Jono:
Yeah, it's definitely not what we're experiencing with now. So that first pair of board shorts being 100% hemp, it's going to be very heavy. You had sand kind of get stuck in them, and they'll never dry.
Deco:
Not quickly anyway.
Jono:
But a 100% hemp boardies is as far as sustainability goes, it's a very sustainable way to make a piece of clothing.
Deco:
It was sort of that point then we started to go like, "Hey, let's learn more about hemp and try and work out what's going on here," because personally, I was impressed how they were and we were all stoked on it. And everyone that we knew was like, "I want some of those hemp boardies." Because it just there's that sort of ... It goes with that weed culture, surf culture, skate culture.
Pru:
Counter culture.
Deco:
So it really fit, it was a good fit for us.
Jono:
And the time that we launched them in the surf industry, I remember it was at the time when stretch board shorts were just coming out, pretty much. They were probably out before that a little bit, but it was just starting to get big, and those bigger brands were promoting these toxic stretch boardies, which are just so bad for the planet.
Deco:
Bad for the planet.
Jono:
And being surfers and being nature lovers, and rather than just thinking about performance for surfing, which, how a pair of board shorts make you perform better, I questioned that, rather than thinking of that side of it, we were thinking, "Well, what effect does this have on the environment?" The raw material stage of fiber to create fabric, it can be very, very damaging. And that's when we started researching hemp, and looking into it and seeing, and questioning it going, "Why the hell isn't this fabric being used?" It's still not being used.
Deco:
And then it became interesting, because we started to find all this propaganda and everything that happened years and years ago when it was being banned.
Jono:
It's a crazy story for hemp. Like hemp, it's so underused by humans and it was so ... 80% of all textiles in the 1800s were made out of hemp.
Pru:
Really?
Jono:
80%.
Pru:
Wow.
Jono:
That might be just the US, but it's a lot.
Pru:
Huge. And then our culture decided that we didn't like it or someone in our culture decided-
Jono:
The industrial revolution came along and they squashed it. They tied it to marijuana, and from there it's been a quite a difficult ride for hemp. Hemp's had a hard time. It's been getting squashed. The equipment to farm hemp, it's been set back in the dark ages.
Deco:
So now it's kind of ... I think it's pretty positive and the industry's positive, people like it, people want to use it, people want to wear it. It's sort of lost that dark, you only wear hemp if you smoke weed or whatever. Some people like weed, some people don't. But yeah, so I think it's all positive. The thing that's slowing it down now is the equipment and just how much money people are pouring into it. So the more it's used the better the equipment's going to get.
Jono:
The more widely it'll be used.
Deco:
And I think we should see a fair bit of change over the next 10, 15 years for sure, especially with like all the brands. All big brands out there, like Cotton On and brands like that, they've all got these big sort of 2030, 2040, 2050 goals to reduce their waste. So I mean, once hemp can be manufactured really widely and support all those huge companies, I think we're going to see much more of it.
Pru:
Yeah, and I think we're losing a lot of the stigma as well, particularly with decriminalization and legalization in some countries.
Deco:
Exactly, yeah.
Pru:
And then you've got the big corporations who are making money off it as well. They're actively changing the stigma that was associated with it. So it's like, I don't know, these medico companies, it's like they're doing the good and the bad all at once. But I mean for hemp right now, I think what they're doing is positive.
Jono:
I think it's positive. I think it's still a pretty long road for it.
Deco:
It's not easy to work with.
Jono:
No.
Deco:
It's really difficult.
Jono:
Yeah, we've had heaps of [crosstalk 00:40:43]-
Deco:
It's expensive. It's trying to hit price points, so it struggles down our wholesale business for sure because retailers are like, "Hey, it's too expensive. I'm not going to pay that when I get something that looks similar for $30 cheaper." But that's why our direct to consumer business is so good, because we know our customers want it.
Pru:
And it resonates with your customers, doesn't it?
Jono:
It does, yeah.
Deco:
They're happy to pay for it, it's sustainable. Well, it's got so many good qualities, so much better qualities than cotton. I mean, cotton's a great, great fabric as well, it's just-
Jono:
Both are super important, and they both complement each other. If you look at most of our new fabrics that we're experimenting with, generally they're a very interesting blend and generally we blend with organic cotton because they go so well together.
Deco:
And it's probably just part of the machinery that we've got and the way that it treats the fiber. So by mixing it with cotton, we can get a really nice soft hand feel, and get the weights right.
Jono:
But I guess a long way around your question, that's why we got into sustainability, because of the interest behind that. It was definitely-
Pru:
Yeah, hemp was the interesting [crosstalk 00:42:04].
Deco:
We went a bit sort of sustainability crazy once we really started digging into it and we went, "Right, what can we do?" So we put our warehouse on solar. We turned all our plastic bags into corn starch, and just tried to get rid of everything out of our business that is toxic.
Jono:
Was toxic.
Deco:
All our shipments out of China now all are carbon neutral. So just touching every touchpoint that we possibly can across everything. Probably the biggest thing that we haven't been doing is communicating it. And it's not easy because then you start getting into certifications. All our fabrics are certified, and half of our factories are certified. So you can put certifications on products in certain ways. If fabric and factory is certified you have a higher certification, if it's just the fabric then it's a slightly lower step. It sort of runs in steps like that. So, if you can get the whole supply chain from ...
Jono:
From start to finish.
Deco:
Yeah, from start to finish, they're all certified, then we have an end to end certification. And that's probably our goal across every product that we make.
Pru:
Yeah, and I just encourage all of our listeners right now to jump onto the Afends website and go and check it out. It's one of your main menu items there, which is something about the environment.
Jono:
Yeah, for the planet.
Pru:
For the planet. Thank you. But drop down into there and particularly that's something that stood out to me. Like I said, I look at a lot of brands, but just the transparency that you guys have through your supply chain, you're not bigging it up, but not smalling it down now, either. And just some of the things that you go into, not to spoil the ride for you guys, listeners, but to introduce the factory, to look at what certifications that they do have, to look at the percentage of male and female staff that they have within them, to look at what the factories are actually doing outside of just making the clothes or the accessories or whatever it might be, are they investing into the local hospital. There's a lot of things that you can tell that you guys have gone really deep in it. And then, also identifying the actual garments that are coming out of those factories as well.
Deco:
Yeah, that's it.
Jono:
It's a big process, sustainability, there's just so many different angles. And once you start diving in, you get a lot of people that start questioning you, which is really good. But then you get those keyboard warriors, which try and say, "Oh, you're not doing the right thing here or there," and you're like, "Well, we're trying."
Jono:
And that's the one thing that kind of gets on my nerves a little bit, is when people try and attack you for trying. And so my advice to anyone out there that wants to be more sustainable, give it a go, don't listen to those keyboard warriors that actually try and go, "Well, this item was organic cotton, but then you're using a non-sustainable item here." It takes a long time to be able change your whole line from where it is, to where it should be.
Deco:
It takes years.
Jono:
Years. Like if I was to go to Deco-
Deco:
You got to educate too. It's not something you can just learn all overnight.
Pru:
And it's not all in your control either.
Deco:
No.
Jono:
No.
Pru:
You don't own the factories.
Deco:
I walk around the business all the time and I'm like, "Why the fuck are we still doing this in plastic?" And it might be just some tiny, little, tiny thing-
Jono:
Tiny trim.
Deco:
... that no one's ever picked up on. And they're like, "Oh I didn't even realize. I thought it was metal." And you're like, "Feel it." And they're like, "Wow."
Pru:
But this is what sustainability is as well. I used to be involved in sustainability certification, and what you certify against also is the commitment to continual improvement. Humanity isn't sustainable, no business is sustainable.
Jono:
No.
Deco:
No.
Pru:
While humanity isn't sustainable, no business can be sustainable.
Jono:
Exactly.
Pru:
But if you make the commitment to continuously-
Jono:
Do things better.
Pru:
... refine, review, improve, which is what you guys I think are doing exceptionally.
Deco:
Because it costs. It costs more money to be sustainable, so you have to increase your price point and you've got to do it gradually. Like all the hemp products we made, initially we were making next to no margin on it. So it was just a very small part of our business, because we were trying to work out how to sell it for more. And yeah, we had to change our whole model.
Pru:
And that involves educating your consumers as well, your customers as well about all the benefits to hemp and then why it costs more as well.
Jono:
It's not only educating our customers, it's educating our wholesale partners as well. So I'm not going to mention any, but major retailers out there, we'll present a range and it'll be, majority of it's sustainable products, and then they'll come to us and there'll be a hemp T-shirt which is $65 and they go, "Hey, we want that for 49."
Deco:
And 50 bucks, yeah.
Jono:
Yeah, or 50 bucks. And we'll be like, "Well, we can't do it for that cheap." And they go, "Okay, cool, give it to us in cotton." We're going, "Hey, that's not really the point. We're trying to be a better company. We wanted to do [crosstalk 00:47:26]-"
Deco:
So you're getting that between guy, the actual wholesaler, they're cutting us off from getting to the consumer, because they're worried that it's not going to ... I understand, they're running a business, they got to make money to stay alive. But yeah, they're stopping us from getting to that consumer. And that's why our direct to consumer business has gone so well, because we increase the price point, we're marketing it. The wholesalers aren't buying it either. So the only place they're sort of know that it's there and they can buy it is our own direct to consumer, online.
Jono:
Yeah, so it's challenging in all angles. And as a human race we have to ... Like you said with sustainability, it's a trial an error thing and it's about bettering a process or a way of doing something, and looking at that whole process from the very starting point where you put a seed in the ground, if it's cotton or hemp, and seeing that flourish into a plant. And then, okay cool, now how is that cultivated? And then where is that fiber then getting shipped to? Is getting shipped from ... A lot of cotton's obviously grown in America, then shipped over to China, then shipped back as a T-shirt, back to America.
Jono:
So every single step along that journey, from seed to finished product has some sort of impact on the environment. So like you said, sustainability, well, nothing's sustainable because you are producing something and there's effects in every area. So that's our challenge is, how do we better ourselves in every angle? What's the best choices we can make, for the world, for the Earth? Every little decision can help in some sort of way.
Deco:
And doing it in the balance of not destroying, not ... Your business still needs to be able to pay wages. It's a balance.
Pru:
Yeah, and that's what sustainability is. Sustainability, those three pillars being environment, social, and economy as well.
Deco:
Yeah, that's right.
Jono:
And its not just about the product, it's about the people too, obviously.
Pru:
Yeah, and keeping the business alive at the same time.
Jono:
Yes.
Deco:
For sure.
Pru:
And I do hope that coming out of COVID, and I've said it a few times actually on the podcast, but I think we've learned to live with less, just in generally.
Deco:
100%.
Pru:
Like people aren't going to the mall and just mindlessly spending money or shopping. So I think we've learned to live with less and I really hope, I don't know if we've been in lock-down for long enough, but I really hope that people make more considered purchasing decisions. Because them paying $70 for a T-shirt, you only need a handful of T-shirts.
Deco:
You don't need that many.
Pru:
You don't need that money. Buy well.
Jono:
Buy well and you'll like those things more.
Pru:
And I think also, invest into businesses that you believe in, not just nameless, faceless corporations that are probably making massive margins because they're producing really crappy things, but actually into businesses that care, that care about what they're doing and continually improving it.
Jono:
Yeah, that's important I think, for sure. We only have one world.
Pru:
All right. Another thing that pops out for me that you guys do, is you have a real focus on equality, and that was something again that just strikes me in your communication around sustainability and things that you're paying attention to at the moment, is displaying what percentage of women you have working for the company, working in the factories. And you also, I hope to get this right, you also produce items every single year for International Women's Day.
Jono:
Yeah, look, when we first decided that we really want to make some noise about International Women's Day, I think it was ... Was it three years ago now, the first time? I think it was just after a lot of those rallies through LA. It was probably the start when Donald Trump actually got in and people were like, "Wow, the leader of the free world's actually a sexist," kind of what he is.
Jono:
And to me and Deco, we've got a lot of females in our business and we just really thought that it was important that we can try and make some noise and educate more of our current customers, which might be more male. At that point when we started doing more of the equality marketing we actually did have, I reckon we were probably about 60% male to 40% female. Who knows?
Deco:
Maybe.
Jono:
At the start I guess.
Deco:
Probably 50-50. I don't know what we're at right now, but it's like 65% women-
Jono:
It probably flipped. Flipped a bit.
Deco:
... 40, 35% men, pretty much.
Jono:
But I think-
Deco:
We have a big women's culture at work.
Jono:
Big women's culture.
Deco:
So we're sort of like ... I don't know, they're really fun when these events come around, everyone's really excited. And the equality thing, it goes across lots of ... It goes across everything, everything we do.
Jono:
No, for us it's important I think to not only try and educate, but also just to have it as a conversational piece and for people to just constantly come back to it and just think how lucky we are in Australia. There still is a lot of stuff happening out there that can be better. We need to just constantly come back to it and educate-
Pru:
And model a better way.
Jono:
Model a better way. So it's something that's important to us to continue on an annual basis. And all the women in the business, they love it, and it's a really good chance for everyone to get together-
Pru:
Because you have events around it too, right?
Jono:
We do, yeah.
Deco:
Yeah.
Jono:
Yeah, we just did the last one at Brewery and that was just before COVID hit, so it was probably the last time you were allowed more than 50 people in a room [crosstalk 00:53:46]-
Deco:
Yeah, it was really good, it was a really good day.
Pru:
And you got female artists performing.
Jono:
Yeah, everyone was stoked, it was a great vibe.
Deco:
And the girls at work just run the whole thing, like just have a ball.
Jono:
Yeah, they love it. They all ...
Pru:
Very cool. Very cool. And you guys also, another thing that jumped out at me was your Fuck Plastic campaign, which is part of Plastic Free July.
Jono:
Well, for me it came about when it was just like realizing that you go shopping or you go anywhere and just everything's wrapped in plastic, and it's just like, "Fuck plastic." Do you know what I mean?
Deco:
And that's all it is. It's like if you dig into the idea too much or they're saying too much it's like, "Yeah, but you've still got a bit of plastic here, or a bit of plastic here."
Jono:
A bit of plastic in the car.
Deco:
It's not about that, it's just like, "Fuck plastic. It's fucked."
Jono:
And it's about how do we reduce it. Plastic is a great commodity for a lot of things and there's obviously places where we need it, but the amount of that single use plastic, we got to reduce it. It's getting into the waterways.
Pru:
It's everywhere.
Jono:
It's destroying a lot of sea creatures and it's horrible to see.
Pru:
And the birds.
Jono:
The birds.
Pru:
I mean, to all sea creatures. I was chatting here on the podcast with Pete from the Seabin Project a little while ago. And he just made a really good point, he's like, "There's nothing wrong with plastic, the problem is how we use it."
Jono:
Yeah exactly.
Deco:
Of course.
Jono:
And that's it.
Pru:
As this tool of convenience to ourselves. A single use plastic, is there anything worse on the planet than single use plastic?
Jono:
There's not.
Deco:
Nah. I think if you've got options, don't use it. And I think that's what comes back to that Fuck Plastic campaign we've got, it's sort of like you've got two options in front of you, one's plastic, one's not, it's like, "Fuck the plastic."
Pru:
Yeah, it's coffee with a lid or without a lid, like simple things like that.
Deco:
Exactly, yeah. It's just to create a bit of awareness.
Jono:
And you can be a little bit more organized. You can bring a tote bag and water bottle and a keep cup, and that'll reduce huge amounts of your plastic.
Deco:
Have you tried to go on a plane and not use plastic?
Pru:
Not recently.
Deco:
You can't do it. It's not possible.
Jono:
Well, it's possible, but you'll probably go hungry along the way, unless you pack your own lunch.
Deco:
Well, if you want to eat. You can take your own food. It's possible, but even like ... I don't know, it's not easy.
Jono:
Again, for us with Fuck Plastic, it's about bringing that awareness and thinking about your actions. Hopefully, we can make that little bit of change where someone's like, "Oh yeah? Really? Wow. Maybe I don't have to use that single use coffee cup and I'll go buy my own keep cup," or "I'll actually think about what that impact of that extra plastic bag was that I grabbed when I bought some bananas."
Deco:
Another interesting one ... Well, it's the oldest education about sustainability, this whole thing. Corn starch, it's not a recyclable product. So if you get cornstarch, don't put it in the recycling bin, it needs to go in a compost bin.
Jono:
There's different-
Deco:
It's better off going into landfill than being recycled, because recycle centers can't recycle it.
Jono:
Well, ours is home compostable, so chuck it in your veggie garden.
Deco:
That's right.
Pru:
In your compost? That's a really important point because-
Deco:
People at work, we may get someone to fill in, in the warehouse or something, and they have to pile up a whole lot of corn starch bags that have come in. And they'll go straight to the recycling. It's like, "Hey dude, this isn't recyclable."
Pru:
Yeah, I think everyone needs to check what goes into their recycling.
Jono:
Definitely.
Deco:
Yeah.
Pru:
Because there's a lot that's not recyclable, and you're doing more damage by putting them in the recycling bin. But then bringing it back a step, it's like sometimes it even shocks me when I go out to our bins each week and there's only two of us that live in the house, I'm like, "How did this much stuff end up in the bin?" There's two of us, just actually consume less, buy less. Like it's such a wake up call.
Jono:
Yeah, definitely.
Deco:
Very big topic.
Jono:
There's a lot of things to think about.
Deco:
A lot of things with it.
Pru:
Yeah, and I think it's just important to keep it topical, to keep talking about it all the time, because not talking about it for so long is what got us into the shit fight we're in right now. So if we just keep talking about it every time we do one of these podcasts, or every time we send an email newsletter out, then it just does keep it top of mind, and that's where behavior actually changes.
Pru:
So you guys obviously have done heaps and I've directed everyone to go to the website and see more. But you only recently started talking about it, around your efforts around sustainability. Had it been missed, or were you kind of steering away from the keyboard warriors?
Jono:
Little bit of both. It's a big job too, to properly document your sustainable path and get the wording right, because the last thing we want to do is put something out there that's green washing, or something that's not true.
Deco:
And it depends what expectations you have and what your knowledge is around sustainability. Someone that's at different levels or uneducated, they might try and state that you are green washing or whatever. So I guess we tried to get it right. Well, we had a lot of web updates and stuff that needed to happen. It just takes, everything takes ages.
Jono:
It takes a lot of time.
Deco:
It took 18 months probably from when we ... And we kind of had it finished like 12 months ago, and it just ... Yeah.
Jono:
It was a really-
Pru:
It's been a pretty full on year though, we've got to say.
Deco:
It was a big challenge to get it and it's probably half as good as we want it.
Jono:
We've just had so much going on with the business and it's just been like ... We've been doing the right thing we feel, as far as our sustainable journey goes, and developing it the right way and it's just been ... The communication of it should have been there earlier, but we felt like we were doing the right thing anyway, so we're kind of like well, we feel good about it.
Deco:
We had all these things in place well before we communicated them really.
Jono:
Yeah, we knew it for ages.
Deco:
To be honest, probably the best answer to your question is we didn't realize that we weren't communicating it until about two years ago. And then we sort of got everything together really quick, but as we started to dive into it, we realized that we needed to be certified to claim it. So then we had to do the certifications, and then we thought we were almost finished those and then we realized there's a whole lot more certifications to get, and then we need the factory certified. And then one of the factory certifications was expired, so then we had to do another audit. And it's like it's just ongoing.
Jono:
Yeah, that's the what to it.
Deco:
But now that we've created a foundation of what we need, we should be able to stay on top of it.
Pru:
Yeah, I think it's really important for people to hear about this as well, that it's not like just whacking it up on your website and we're good to go. It's like you'd have team members dedicated to this kind of stuff all the way along, probably?
Deco:
And just right when it's about to go up and you're super proud of it, someone's just like we don't have any of this covered and you're like, "You're kidding me." So then you're just, like we're back into it.
Pru:
And obviously, like back to where we started with this, was that process of continual improvement.
Jono:
And it's all trial and error, just like our whole journey from starting the brand, to now starting this new sustainable journey. And by the end of this year, into our season one collection, we're going to be 100% using sustainable fibers and that's going to be a huge, huge achievement.
Pru:
Yeah, massive.
Deco:
I reckon 95, just in case there's that one or two things we've missed that we don't realize-
Pru:
The optimist and the realist.
Jono:
By season two. That's our goal.
Pru:
That's your [crosstalk 01:02:00].
Jono:
You can set goals and you can try and-
Deco:
2021, we're pretty much like-
Jono:
By 20-
Deco:
Yeah, 2021.
Jono:
We haven't really put that out to the world yet, the exact date, but our goal is to be pretty much there.
Deco:
Well COVID pushed it out back a little bit because we moved a season, just kind of reformatted a few seasons with products coming out. So it was supposed to be a 100% by January, next January, every product is ... But yeah, so I think we're pretty much on, let's call it 2021.
Pru:
Heard it here first, kids. And I guess, I don't know it's something I just feel like it's important to say it actually as we've been talking because there's a lot of keyboard warrioring going on at the moment with all of the things that are happening in the world, as the world is recalibrating. It feels like you can't put a foot right or wrong, you post, you don't post. It's crazy what's going on. And I just think particularly in this realm of sustainability ...
Pru:
I don't know, Brené Brown says it really well in her Netflix special when she did her talk on Shame, I think was the first one that she did, Shame of Vulnerability. And she got the all the keyboard haters after it when ... And she said she just sat in bed for three days and ate ice-cream and just cried looking at all these things. And then she made this decision was like if you're not in the ring I'm not paying attention.
Pru:
And I just think that's such ... Quit with the keyboard warrioring and if you're going to do it, be in the ring, be playing the game, make yourself visible, put yourself in that arena and just walk a few steps in those shoes and see what it's like and then, if you want to criticize from there, go for it. But if not, stop.
Deco:
Yeah, that's it.
Jono:
And I think if you're genuine and you're actually generally wanting to do the right thing and you're putting yourself out there, for someone to come and diss you and make you feel bad about that, like how's that positive to humans evolving in a better way? So yeah, more positivity I think. And if you're giving positive comments on someone that's doing something right, they're going to keep doing the right thing because they're like, "Sick, someone's stoked about that." If you bring them down about that and then they lose their confidence and go, "Oh I only did one thing right, but the rest of it's still not where it should be-"
Deco:
It's working together, isn't it?
Pru:
Yeah.
Deco:
It's like if you employ someone and they, I don't know, work for you and half the week they do a good job and the other half of the week they don't do a good job, you're not in there just going, "You're doing such a bad job. You're no good. This is bad." It's more about working together and working out how to do a good job the whole time. I think that's what's important in all these topics.
Pru:
Yeah, absolutely that we're just working for the betterment of all of us.
Deco:
Yeah, that's right.
Jono:
Yeah. We're in a tricky time at the moment though. There's a lot going on in the world and the more positive you can be, the better, because that's what we need right now.
Pru:
Yeah, positivity and support. I agree. I think the world's going through a huge recalibration that it needed to.
Jono:
Yeah, probably do.
Deco:
Yeah, 100% agree.
Pru:
And the kinder we can all be to each other in the process, the better.
Jono:
Yeah. It is hard to be positive when there are negative things that are happening and really sad things to a lot of people out there right now. So yeah, it's a tough time to be alive for some people.
Pru:
If we can just support each other through to the other side, I think is the important part of it, where we can, where we can. Awesome. All right, guys, what a stellar chat. I was going to ask what's next for Afends, but we've already put the big goal out there. So bonus question for you guys, what are you most proud of in the Afends journey so far?
Jono:
For me I think it's being at the forefront of the hemp revolution. That would be the most thing I'm proud of.
Deco:
Yeah, I think probably my ... Like totally proud of the hemp revolution and our sustainable push. But also just the business and the culture and all the people that we've got working for us and what we've created. Yeah, it's a pretty good place to go to work each day, big family, and we're all working on everything together.
Pru:
Awesome.
Deco:
Nah, it's good.
Pru:
Yeah, it sure is. All right guys, well to wrap us up, I'm going to ask you some rapid fire One Wild Ride questions that we ask all of our guest here.
Deco:
Oh really?
Pru:
Yeah.
Deco:
Okay.
Pru:
So I'm going to flip between the two of you. I'll start with you, Jono, and then I'll go to you, Deco. Tea or coffee?
Jono:
Coffee.
Pru:
Excellent.
Deco:
Coffee.
Pru:
Brilliant. We're all friends around here. Fate or free will?
Jono:
Probably free will.
Deco:
Yeah, I guess free will.
Pru:
Okay. Do you have any kick-ass daily habits in place?
Jono:
Daily habits? I wish I could go surfing every day, but probably the kick ass daily habit would be ... Yeah, I don't have anything completely daily at the moment, so I think a lot it's-
Pru:
Aspirational, it's surfing.
Jono:
Yeah.
Pru:
For you Deco?
Deco:
Pretty much getting up early. I love it. I love getting up early. I love getting up in the dark.
Pru:
Me too.
Deco:
If I can surf, definitely surf before work. Spending time with family in the mornings is cool. So a bit of a balance there I guess. Like surf one morning, family next.
Jono:
That'd probably be mine actually. Getting up with my little son and hanging out with him in the morning.
Deco:
That habit's juggling, isn't it, between all those amazing things. And then coming to work, doing that sort of thing. And then trying to slide a surf in during the day as well, if it's possible.
Jono:
Life's a habit.
Deco:
Juggling. Yeah, life's a juggle.
Pru:
Yeah, life is a juggle.
Jono:
It gets busy.
Pru:
And there is something really special about getting up in the dark.
Deco:
It is, yeah.
Pru:
You're one of the only other crazy folk that I've met that likes to get up in the dark like me, like just watching the world wake up.
Deco:
Yeah, love it.
Jono:
It's a nice feeling watching the sunrise, if you can.
Deco:
To get up early.
Pru:
Yeah, watching and feeling it and hearing it, all things. Okay, if we weren't in COVID and you could jump on plane tomorrow and go anywhere in the world with anyone, where would you go and who would you go with?
Jono:
I'd go with my family and we'd probably go over to ... I'd probably go back to Fiji. I love Fiji. I think it's got everything I need, waves, culture, good food, nice temperature, and then yeah.
Pru:
Awesome. For you Deco?
Deco:
And for me?
Pru:
Yeah.
Deco:
Tricky question. So probably there's three different situations that I'd pick from.
Jono:
This is going to go on for a while.
Deco:
Okay. If it was family, I'd probably go to France or something and hang out on the beach over there in the summer. If it was personal, I'd take like 10 of my mates and go to the Mentawais and hang out there for two weeks. There's no communication, there's no phone signal, there's nothing. You can just sit on the beach, or on a boat, and surf the whole time. If I was working, I'd probably go LA, New York, London, Japan. Do it all in like a week, or two weeks.
Jono:
Isn't that what you just did?
Deco:
Yeah. It's really inspirational, super fun. Yeah, love traveling. So, if I had to go next week, it'd depend on what I'd done last. Yeah, I don't know.
Pru:
I like that. You kept yourself with a smorgasbord there. All right. And then finally, who else would you like to see me interview on the podcast?
Jono:
Heaps of different people. Locally, my mate Dylan and Zocch. They've got this really cool coffee company called Sipp. It's quite inspirational the way they've packaged it. It's very sustainable packaging, which will be home compostable, which no other instant coffee companies have. And yeah, they seem to be keeping some goals, so locally, them. Yeah, I think that would probably be a good one.
Pru:
Awesome.
Jono:
Deco?
Pru:
Deco?
Deco:
Gee, there's so many good, creative businesses. Don't know. What other clothing brands have you done around here? Have you met with Ebony?
Pru:
No.
Deco:
From Auguste?
Pru:
No, but I've been meaning to reach out to Auguste.
Deco:
You should. Yeah, reach out to her. I think you'll enjoy it. She's had a cool journey as well, really successful, great.
Pru:
Yeah, awesome.
Deco:
And yeah, really nice. And have you met with Spell yet?
Pru:
No, not with Spell yet, either.
Deco:
Another amazing brand. There's so many, isn't there, out here?
Jono:
Pretty much everything's in Byron these days, isn't it?
Deco:
Yeah.
Pru:
Yeah, we're pretty spoiled for choice, wouldn't you say?
Deco:
So spoiled. I'm trying to think of someone else outside of the-
Pru:
Bubble.
Jono:
Outside of fashion and-
Deco:
Our little bubble that we've got.
Jono:
What about that thing that [Matt Border's 01:11:32] doing where it's actually in the same building as us?
Deco:
Oh yeah.
Jono:
You'll bring in all your old types of plastic. I don't know what type of plastic-
Deco:
For sure. Definitely meet with him.
Jono:
And then they're recycling and making kids toys and stuff like that, which is really cool.
Pru:
Awesome.
Deco:
And he's doing it with one of his mates that has been in the toy industry for ages. So they've got like a 3D printer going in there. And you literally bring your rubbish in or certain bottles or whatever it is. It must be a certain type of plastic and they put it through their 3D printer and make toys out of it.
Jono:
So bring in your trash, come out with a toy.
Pru:
That's awesome.
Deco:
That's really cool, I reckon.
Jono:
Cool business idea.
Pru:
Yeah wow. All right. I got a list right there. I better get to work.
Jono:
That's next year covered.
Pru:
Yeah, totally. Awesome. Well guys, thank you so much for joining me, it's been an absolute treat.
Deco:
Thank you so much.
Jono:
Thank you very much for having us.
Deco:
We've really enjoyed it. It's been great.
Jono:
Cool.