What is Who Gives A Crap?
We sell toilet paper (and tissues and paper towels) and use 50% of our profits to help build toilets in the developing world.
How did you get the idea?
It was one of those business idea epiphanies. One day I walked into the bathroom, saw a six pack of toilet paper sitting there and thought, “That’s it! Sell toilet paper, use the profits to build toilets and call it Who Gives A Crap!” I called three friends and they all said I had to do it – and the third friend was Jehan who helped co-found the company.
Have you had any challenges with sourcing and growing your team?
It’s no secret that recruiting is one of the hardest parts of running a startup! We’ve had our ups and downs, like everyone else. We’re lucky to have a strong mission embedded in our company’s DNA, which certainly helps us to find people who are passionate about what we do.
We’re lucky to have a strong mission embedded in our company’s DNA, which certainly helps us to find people who are passionate about what we do.
What’s the biggest win you’ve had so far?
Crowdfunding our first production run was a huge win – we gained a tonne of media attention, raised the $50K necessary to place our first production order and gained the support of 1000+ customers, many of whom are still with us today.
What’s was your biggest mistake?
In the early days, we pretty much said yes to everything because we were so desperate not to miss an opportunity. In hindsight, this meant we ended up spending a lot of time on high involvement, low return activities that were a distraction from what we were really good at. We’ve gotten a lot better at saying no since then!
How’s your experience been funding your startup?
We had a lot of fun crowdfunding our first production run and have grown using debt from there. Once we could show that the business model was working and we knew that we only needed funding to help manage working capital, debt was a good choice!
What needs to improve/change for Australia to become a global leader in innovation and tech?
I think Australians like to give Australia a bad wrap – we should stop bagging ourselves out and stay focused on creating!
Australians like to give Australia a bad wrap – we should stop bagging ourselves and focus on creating!
Do you have any tips for acquiring new users and/or scaling your business?
I think it’s easy to get caught up in the idea that you have to raise equity to scale a business. This is true in a lot of cases, but bootstrapping has been great for us – we know our numbers inside out because we’re forced to always watch cashflow, and we never spend money unless we know we’re going to get a good ROI. As a result we’ve been able to make our money work really hard, which has definitely helped us to grow in an effective manner.
What would you be doing if you weren’t doing this?
Something else that creates scalable social impact, and ideally has me spending a lot of time in the developing world. I think socially impactful products that reach the two billion people at the bottom of the pyramid are going to explode in the next decade – and I’d love to be a part of that explosion.
Socially impactful products that reach the two billion people at the bottom of the pyramid are going to explode in the next decade.
If you could go back to the start, tell us two things you would do differently.
Looking back, I’ll always want to start testing things smaller/faster/leaner. I’d also place more importance on recruiting the right people (not just people who are 90-95% right) from day one – we’ve got an absolutely amazing team now, but definitely learnt about recruiting the hard way.
What’s the best advice you could give to someone starting out?
Make it happen before you have kids or a mortgage!