Episode 438: Abigail Forsyth of KeepCup
In this episode, Fiona chats with Abigail Forsyth, co-founder of KeepCup, about the journey from running cafes to creating an iconic sustainable brand. They also discuss aligning business practices with personal and brand values. Tune in!
You'll Learn How To:
Challenges in creating and marketing a new product in the pre-social media era.
The role of sustainability and education in KeepCup’s growth.
The impact of major events like the "War on Waste"
The importance of trade shows
Advice on dealing with setbacks and scaling a business.
The significance of aligning internal values with external messaging.
The evolution of consumer behaviour and the rise of customisation.
The initial challenges and successes of pitching KeepCup
Transitioning from a product business to sustainability advocacy.
The importance of maintaining authenticity and sincerity in branding.
The importance of value alignment in business decisions and brand loyalty.
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Thomas Carlyle, the Glaswegian philosopher, says that the merit of originality isn't novelty, it's sincerity. I do think authenticity is a very overused word, but I do think that because we started as a mission, that was all about impact it guides every decision we make. Even though people often don’t know the facts of that. You do get a feeling of that through the brand. The brand did lose its way during that covid period. And we were a bit shrill in what we were saying. Because People were like, you're saying use a reusable straw and Taylor Swift's going to get a coffee in her jet. Like how stupid. But in the end, when you go through that whole journey to go, well look what everyone else is doing. You still are left with living by your own values. If you can do that, then that gives you a good sense of who you are and life satisfaction.
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Welcome to episode 438 of the My Daily Business podcast. Today is a small business interview and it is another interview with somebody I chose to profile in my new book, Business to Brand Moving from Transaction to Transformation because they have created something that has such meaning and purpose and drive and ambition behind it. And it has created a global community. I had to have them in the book and of course, had to also ask them to come onto the podcast. I'm excited to be bringing you this interview. Before we get stuck in, I want to of course acknowledge where I'm coming from and acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of these beautiful lands on which I wrote this book and connect with these people and create this podcast and live and work and play. And that is the Wurrung and Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. And I pay my respects to their elders past and present and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded.
The other thing I wanted to mention is my new book, Business to Brand is coming out and I would love for you to pre-order that and help me get this message out into the world. And you can do that pretty much anywhere that you normally buy a book. I would also urge you to think about buying it from another small business owner because that way you are also supporting small businesses. You can also pre-order it from us directly at mydailybusiness.com and we'll do a signed copy. You can also find a copy of our first book, Passion Purpose Profit there as well. If you are someone who stocks books and would like to stock my new book Business to Brand, you can always just email us hello@mydailybusiness.com and we'll put you in touch with the right people at Hardie Grant, our publisher. Let's get into today's interview episode.
I love doing this podcast. It is an enjoyable marketing platform for my business. And I have to say that this interview I particularly enjoyed, I was laughing, and I was smiling the whole way through. My cheeks hurt by the end of it because my guest is just an absolute wonder and such an intelligent, funny, humorous, deep-thinking, just wonderful all-round human. And I'm excited to be meeting her in real life for the first time at the book launch in Melbourne, which is coming up soon. If you want to be part of the online book launch, you can go to mydailybusiness.com/booklaunch. But back to our guest today, our guest is Abigail Forsyth, the co-founder and managing director of KeepCup. KeepCup almost needs no introduction because I'm sure as you're reading this, you probably own a KeepCup.
You've got a KeepCup in your kitchen, or maybe you've got it in your hand right now because you've just got your morning beverage and you're reading this podcast. The woman who is responsible for that, alongside her brother Jamie, is today's guest. And KeepCup was a brand I wanted to have in my new book business brand. Because of what they have been able to create, they have been able to change behaviour. This is something that a lot of small business owners don't feel that they're big enough to do. What's interesting is that Abigail created a cafe originally with her brother Jamie, even though her background is in law, which was very surprising and it's something she talks about today. But whilst running that cafe in Melbourne, they realised we are wasting so many disposable cups and surely there has to be some other avenue to do this.
Originally Abigail thought someone else had already like I'm sure created this and all we need to do is just find them and then start stocking them. But she could not find that because it didn't exist. This is the late nineties, early two thousands when cafes, and particularly here in Melbourne, where we love our coffee, were becoming a real thing. And it was the age of baristas and who is making your coffee and how do they make your coffee and the art of coffee making. It had to be a cup, a vessel that was barista standard and that baristas would be okay to serve coffee in. The people running these cafes know their brand, they know what works, and they had to have something that looked on brand for them, looked high quality and went with what they were trying to do that would deter them then from using these traditional single-use disposable coffee cups.
That's when the idea for KeepCup was born. Since then, KeepCup has served millions of customers around the world from London to Los Angeles and they have diverted billions. Billions of cups from landfills. This started with a single idea from a person in Melbourne and her brother. If you are reading this and thinking, my business can't have that much of an impact, think about the story of KeepCup now. I won't leave it any longer. This is just a fabulous interview. Abigail gives so many tips and insights and is so honest and real and humble and just a wonderful, wonderful person to talk to and learn from. Here is my interview with the wonderful Abigail Forsyth Co-founder and managing director of KeepCup.
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Hi Abigail, welcome to the podcast. How are you?
Thank you, Fiona. I'm very well, thanks for having me on.
I'm so excited and I'm so excited to have you here. But also in the new book, which is coming out, thank you for agreeing to be interviewed in that and sharing so much wisdom. And I just know that so many people will get so much out of our chat today as well. A lot of people know about KeepCup, it doesn't need much introduction, but I've already introduced it in the intro. But can you tell us what were the early days of KeepCup like and then what inspired you and Jamie to start this business? Because it wasn't what you were doing originally.
We were running some cafes called Blue Bag at the time and I guess they were predicated on that fast quick service food. It was open shelving, we could grab a salad a sandwich or a soup. Over time I started to get concerned about the amount of packaging we were going through as a business what happened to it and was it recyclable? We talked about coffee cups being the most ubiquitous of all those items of packaging and probably the most unnecessary that you could drink it, have it in-house rather than take it away. We discussed it and we're like, surely someone else would've done this. Why hasn't anyone done this before? That was our primary concern. And I went down to Maya and tried to get some reusable cups and the only ones aware there were giant thermos, which we just laughed at.
Everyone started to drink out of a 30-ounce thermos. But we went in they didn't fit under the group heads so we couldn't use them. And then we thought, there must be some reason this doesn't work. We got in these like decor, plastic soup mugs and we gave people 50 cents off if they brought in their soup in the winter of 2007. We had like a 20% reuse rate and we're like, this could work if we designed the right product. That's how it started. We designed the product, we got a prototype made and we wanted it, it was made in Australia because it was all about sustainability. And a guy goes, oh what are you thinking? Like this is a plastic cup. And he goes, I've got millions of dollars worth of tools over there of better ideas than yours. If you can't sell it off this prototype, then forget about it. Because it's all about the selling, less about the product. And it was very, I was not very happy to receive that advice at the time, but in retrospect it was sound and we did end up selling off the prototype.
Wow. How did you go from the cafe? I've worked in plenty of cafes in my time. I can make some good coffee, but a cafe is a very fast pace. The people who own cafes are always on. You have to start very early in the morning, like where did you have the time to go? This is a bit of a problem. Because lots of people think, this is a bit of a problem in my business, or I'd like to reduce the waste. But they don't go full ball into creating a prototype. Outside of going to Maya, how did you like to get it happening?
I wanted to get out of being in the cafe, truth be told, it was all very well when we were in our early twenties we were running these cafes. It was fun, it was dynamic. We were going out and it was, and then I had a child, it was just all a bit, it was like there must be an easier way to do this. And I guess in some ways Jamie and I weren't people who do well in the food industry are very, in my experience, pretty precise people and pretty ordered people. And we're probably a little more on the chaotic end of the spectrum. Finding something that was not in the hospitality issue was probably a driver in some ways.
Then what were your biggest challenges? Even when you said it was 2007, that was right when I think I don't know if I'm getting my dates wrong, someone will tell me, but 2007 I think is when Facebook came out. But in 2009 I moved to London and I remember I got an iPhone I was so flashy amongst my friends because no one had the iPhone and then it wasn't, it was not social media and smart like it is now. What were some of the challenges? You can just go to Alibaba or you can go online on social media or you can find quickly find a supplier, quickly, find someone from Upwork to design something for you. But what were the challenges that you faced, not just with the actual prototype, but also the idea, the whole education, this, never existed, as you said, there was just thermos. Tell us about some of those challenges that you went through.
The challenges were probably around health and safety. And thinking, am I allowed to fill it? Like how do you know it's hygienic? All those concerns were up there in people's minds. We got a letter from the city of Melbourne, we got a letter from a lawyer saying there were no health and safety concerns to try and put those issues aside. And then beyond that, the main issue was just a sense of permission. People were embarrassed. And still to this day, that's a factor, but not to the same extent it was back then that people just baristas were starting to peak coolness. people didn't want to, they were afraid to go, can you refill this? It felt like no one wanted to impose upon people, they didn't want to slow down the service, that thing. But it turned out that the baristas who were filling disposable cups thousands a day were like, this is fantastic. This is a great solution to a problem that I'm facing every day.
That's so true. I remember even asking for, skim milk once and this little place in Hollywood and he just looked at me like I'd ordered in Japanese or something. He was like, we don't do skim milk. I was like, okay. Like there's definitely that that I can see how people are like, I don't even want to ask them for something normal, let alone to give them this. When you created that prototype and you had that great advice, like how did you sell it? Did you just sell it in your cafe to start with and be like, could people order, did you go to trade shows? We were talking before we hit record that I met some of your family members at a London trade show very early on. How did you get it out to people?
We did all that. We had a corporate client base as well as a cafe base. Throughout the cafe business we were running, we had catering clients. We called them and got to their sustainability person, but they didn't have any budget. We got to their marketing person and pitched it in there as a saying you, it was when six-star green buildings were coming in and we were like, if you're all drinking our disposable cups and you've got solar panels, there's a bit of a disconnect here in what you are saying about yourselves. That went pretty well. And then we did a lot of trade shows and design markets and we did one in Sydney and a girl came up to me and went, I'd like to use this. It's a very good idea, but I drink Campos coffee and they're way too cool for reusable cups. And I was like, what? And then the next week Young from Campos Coffee called up and said, “I've been looking for a product like this for years. I can't believe it's made in Australia. I'm going to order 10,000.”
We sent them to him in bits because we were so focused on sustainability, we didn't even come in a box at the time and we made people assemble them themselves. But that changed what was cool in coffee. And from there we knew we had to work that angle where the coffee shops would be pleased to serve them. We wanted it to be a good source of revenue for the cafe, that they would make a good margin when they resold them and would be happy to accept them. That's where we focused our energy.
Wow. KeepCup is such a known brand and that's part of the reason I asked you to come into the book. What were you doing before the cafes?
Lawyer?
Wow. Okay. That's very different. That's a good person to have on your team. A lawyer who knows what's legal or not. But even with the cafes, did you go, we are going to build a brand and with KeepCup going to be a brand?
No.
Did you get to that point?
We were just trying to solve a problem. Jamie's like, you could run it from the garage. We were like, once people work out that these aren't recyclable and they're just going to landfill people will stop using them. Little did we know, but there was this real sense that we were, there was a big education piece because a lot of the time we had to convince people why disposable cups were bad or problematic and then why they would make that behaviour change. That was a bit, I guess that excited me was that behaviour change piece of getting people to change behaviour and how that could, that cultural shift could have a profound impact on how we we live. I read this book when I was pregnant by Jared Diamond about how cultures collapse and how often we cling to these values that have no real logic behind them, but that we feel like we must be able to have convenience food and we must get Uber Eats or we must.
If we don't have these things we can't exist. But they're the things that are killing our society. Like yes, we'll bring it at our end. It’s unpacking, well what's the cultural thing and what's the thing I need for my quality of life? And is it enhancing my quality of life and how does it affect my belief system? Because I guess when you go deeper into that, systems change a thing. I think changing your mindset changes, like the cascading effect of how that changes behaviours is the most powerful thing.
I could just keep having you talk, but even when you said before about the disconnect between the buildings that were six and a half star, like I often talk to people about your internal values alignment and your external and there's lots of companies that externally promote something and internally it's a whole toxic culture that is not aligned. Even when you knew about even that, that like the sustainability stuff, was it something you were interested in or did you just, I mean I get being in a cafe and seeing this waste and saying we should have a problem. But then were you already reading a lot?
I mean you mentioned this book, but were you reading a lot on sustainability at that time? Because 2007 is very early. It's now sustainability is such a buzzword and it's probably overused by a lot of companies that aren't sustainable. But back then, I mean I know there's like, there's a book from the 1970s, I can't remember what it is called, it's called like Small Things or something. And it was all about sustainability.
Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson, was written in 1970. I know always interested me and how do we like, I guess coming from the beauty of the natural world and the beauty of wild places and how do we keep them, how do we preserve them? How does the life we have now, how do they coexist? Thinking about things as an ecosystem, all those things have always interested me.
When you said I was a lawyer before and then you've gone into business and then going into this big brand that's well known around the world. Now part of what you said when that person from Sydney said, I drink this coffee and they're not going to have these reusable cups, it's not cool or it's not on brand or whatever, and then they call you part of KeepCup. When I remember seeing it in London, it must have been 2009 or 2010, I thought, this is so cool. And you can mix and match the colors and it's so vibrant and awesome and it's classy but also fun. Did you have lots of help with the prototype and did you know always that people would be able to individualise it and customise it or buy something that's in their vibe? Or did you start with a pretty plain prototype?
We had five colourways when we started like a soft charcoal and a warm grey in a and whatever the like the bands came from a Chinese supplier and we'd chosen all the colours and then opened the box and they were nothing like what we'd chosen. We just we just had to run with it. But initially, the idea was that the colours would be like, I wanted it to be that you could walk along the street and someone wouldn't necessarily notice that you were doing anything different. Because I felt like people didn't want to stand out. Some people just wanted to do the right thing and make a change, but not shout about it. And then as it grew, then we became bolder and more fun with the colour because people did want to shout about it and you'd walk down the street and someone else would be carrying one.
You'd give them a bit of a nod like you are in a bit of a secret club. It became more fun and more vibrant and more ex we always thought it would be part of self-expression that you people and we were just following what we saw people doing. We'd be on social media, you'd see someone going, look, my scarf matches my KeepCup. We knew that that was a bit of a glue that would because in the end, sustainability's one thing and we've got those stats and we're proud of what we do under the hood as a business, but it's not necessarily a driver of what, how we behave day to day. Like we do want to be cool, we do want to have fun colours. We do want to and I think the other thing that was strong about KeepCup is we were strongly associated with good specialty coffee. If you were carrying a KeepCup, it spoke also about, good coffee 'cause you are carrying a keep cup. That association was important as well.
It's funny that you started with the tone toned down. I don't know if that is more whatever colours. My husband has a cute cup that he uses every single day it's glass and it has a cork colour and a grey lid. It's very him. And then I would find the cover of my book.
I'd be like, let's have it as bright as possible as big and bold and like look at me. There's something for everyone with the brand, as you said, this can change behaviour by people using the KeepCup and millions of people around the world are using these. I mean, I dunno your exact figures obviously, but just from what I've seen over the years, what advice would you give to somebody who thinks I can't change my behaviour, I'm too small, I have this one little business and can I make any impact on whatever they're seeing as a problem in the world right now? What would you say to somebody? Because you didn't start knowing that you would get so big.
No, I'd say we're all influencers. We're all changing behaviour all the time. All the choices we make people are observing them, and people are feeling the impact of them. Connecting with your values and living them is so powerful. And the same goes for business. Like it's something that you believe you have an audience from and it's, there's a bit of push-pull isn't there, that you've got to create something you think the world needs or might want. And then you've gotta listen to the responses of what people are telling you about that product that, it's nice to have the soft charcoals and warm greys, but now we need some bright pinks and bright greens and Make it more fun. It is that back and forth.
I know I'm asking you on the spot, but how have you dealt with challenges or setbacks or, I mean, even when you got 10,000 orders, like an order of 10,000, I don't even know if you could fulfil that easily? Like I know people will say, it's great to get these big orders, but it's also, I had Phoebe from Sage and Clare on the podcast a while ago and she was saying sometimes people think, you're so successful, that's great. But she's like, we didn't have our logistics in place. We couldn't fulfil the orders quickly, which then led to customers getting annoyed. They've changed everything now with different warehousing. But what was that like as well? Are we set up for things like this or any other big challenges that have come up?
There have been heaps. I think probably the two biggest ones have been so War on Waste in 2017. War on Waste said you should use a Keep Cuppy field or tram with cups and that just like the business doubled overnight, the website crashed when that happened and it just pushed KeepCup into the mainstream quickly. We had project operational arms in the warehouse like we just needed people whose arms worked to pack the cups. It was just this, everyone was going out and doing a shift after work to try and get the orders through. And then change, trying to get the logistics happening on the fly.
Then Covid. That just stopped us dead in our tracks because we didn't have an alternative product and KeepCup was banned for two years. And we were a very analog business. We had an internet business that was ticking over, but we hadn't dedicated a lot of resources to it. And it's probably taken a good few years for us to get on top of that and get it used to be that we'd put up the words of a song and have just a lovely photo on Instagram and people like, oh that's amazing. And now like you've got to have a whole production team and be thinking about that content and it's, it's a much different landscape.
It is. And it's hard because I've worked in publishing and I used to work, I used to have a newspaper column and everything else. But I say to people, it's hard to remember that you're not a media empire, you are running a business. Because you can turn into, we're all content creators and I need to spend half of my time just making the content to feed the beast of social media. And it's like, you can make some content, but is it strategic and is it helpful and all of the things? But people also are used to it. We're just such consumers to go to that int you made about the Uber Eats and stuff. We all just want instant gratification, instant knowledge, instant everything.
Taking it to a more human level because I think with the rise of AI, there's going to be even more of a want of people to meet in person and see each other and connect with your trade shows. How important were they to you looking back, you said we did lots of trade shows internationally as well as in Australia, what do you think you could have done better and what worked? If people are reading this thinking I'm about to go into my first trade show or my third, what are some things that worked well to connect with people and what didn't work so well?
I don't know, trade shows I guess have been around since time began. We've pulled back a little from them in the last couple of years. But initially, if you've got a product that is innovative and is, I mean it seems so silly now to say KeepCup was innovative, but it was at the time.
It was totally.
You do need that word of mouth and to explain it to people and they touch it and feel it. And I think that was, so instrumental. I did a lot of travelling when my kids were young as well. Like I'd be in a roastery in Sweden and then I'd hear an Aussie accent out the back and that was the roaster. I think that we also had the advantage of Australia and New Zealand exporting a lot of baristas in the 2000s and tens and they often took keep cut with them as, have you seen this thing? This is great. That was a big advantage to us. But meeting people face to face, having those conversations, you don't need to have many of them. But if you always remember when you've met someone in person, it's just a bit more sticky.
In terms of trade shows, you've gotta do your work around them. To just turn up and hope someone's going to wander past. Like you've got to look at the exhibitor list, find out who's coming, try and get meetings before the trade show, and make sure you've got a plan of how you're going to follow up after the trade show. I mean we would write sticking business cards in a notebook back in 2009. You'd never do that now. It's like how you going to get them onto a list so you can immediately email them and keep in touch. It's thinking strategically around that event and then also what activations you can do to, I guess, connect with other brands. I think that's becoming increasingly important to get your reach. There are so many businesses and many brands out there. How can you partner with someone who's got maybe a slightly different audience to your own to amplify your message, I think is important as well.
Even at the start when you said we had this corporate client and the cafe clients like, and then you've got baristas, you've got all these different audiences that you're talking to. And I think sometimes with businesses when they think about a product, they're just thinking about the end user coming to the website or the end user buying the product for themselves as opposed to all these other people who are helping sell your product for you. And mini brand ambassadors with the coffee companies and the baristas. I get it just spread like wildfire. But did you have a bunch of those just because you'd run cafes or did you have a lot of networks that were helping like getting all of these coffee people to get interested in it so that then when they moved to London or move elsewhere, they bring it with them? Or was that a hard thing to crack or not?
Not. The coffee communities are some of the nicest people you'll ever meet. We were not in the coffee community but it was pretty welcoming and it still is. They're a lovely bunch of people, generally the hospital group. We were never coffee experts, but we certainly had been in the hospitality industry we understand. I still like employing people who've been in the hospitality industry. You know that graft.
And they know the vibe. With your corporate then the corporate tea or the corporate people that you went after, was that because you were doing catering? Did you also have just your networks from being a lawyer? Did you tap into them at all?
No. It was probably through the catering and then it just, but then we were pitching to people as well. We were going in and you've got your six-star green bill. They were our first customer. Just there. And I like it. That's the old thing about sales like it is success breeds success and I probably did like being a lawyer I guess gave me the confidence to pitch to lawyers maybe. I was comfortable in the cafe environment and in a corporate environment, which maybe it was certainly an advantage. I still remember going to all the law firms in Melbourne and they're all like, is this firm got it? Has this firm got it? And it like, as soon as one fell, they all.
Yes. That's social proof. Like okay, it's good enough for them. And then when you said about Covid everything stood still and by that time you guys have been in business for 10 years, is that right? Or 10 or longer? I'm guessing then you have staff and you are leading and everything else. How did you push through your own doubt and worries and then be a leader for the rest of your team in that time when it was just so uncertain and your product was so related to going out, getting your coffee, doing all the things that people didn't need to do because they were stuck at home?
Didn't do that bit very well at all. That was a tough time for the business. We had been and we had drifted, like you said, not so much into content production, but into sustainability advocacy, which is I guess where a lot of my passion lies. We'd almost forgotten we were a product business and had drifted across into advocacy and then that started to feel a little, I think tone deaf to the public. People like, what are you talking about? A keep cup's not going to save the planet. We ever thought it would, but our message started to feel a little hokey and then we had to restructure the team completely at that time. I was about to sign a lease. Our lease had been ended in LA in January 2020. I was about to sign a lease to go into new premises and I was just like, I can't do this. I'm not going to be able to travel. We ended up having to shut down the office there. There were some tough decisions at that time and it was tough on everybody. People made all sorts of choices.
It was full on time. You can't even imagine. I remember just like my husband and I were watching The Handmaid's Tale and then we'd flick and it would be the news and I'd be like what are we watching? Is this real? Like is this what's happening? Especially when it was New York and all the coverage and it was just horrific. Was there anything that helped you get through that? Did you meditate? Did you watch a documentary? Did you have a mentor that was like, you will get through this? How did you cope with that difficult time?
Just one foot in front of the other? I think I did hire quite a few people. I guess I had a real crisis of confidence as well. It's like I just I've been on this fortunate ride, I don't know what I'm doing. I got into some advisors who were coming from a people perspective. They're like, you need to professionalise this business. And then I hired in a whole lot of very senior people to the team and they were by and large it didn't work.
It ended up that I'm back with the team that we've worked with. We had to restructure the team. There's a lot of people who've worked here for a long time and we've just gotta do this. There's no one coming to rescue us. We've gotta just push through. I guess it was the old hero's journey. There's no one coming to rescue. You've gotta find your own confidence again. And I think even those people, they weren't right for the business. They probably gave me and helped me make some of the more difficult decisions I had to make at that time.
And everything can be a lesson, even if it's a hard lesson. It's a lesson that we learn from it. And I think that's nice that you came back to the old gang, like, let's just keep going as we're.
Also, we moved into new, bigger premises in December 2019. We've been squashed into this one place and then we're in this massive building. This is where we are now. I'm like toot and calm and I've built myself too. It all seems so heavy at the time. And I was in an office for the first time in this time. And that was the worst move. I didn't like it, the team didn't. I was trying to step back to give my leaders a chance to not be in their faces. Because it's hard when you've, it's your startup. You've always got a viewpoint, you've got all the history, but in the end, I'm now back out on the floor and I think everyone's me, I'm happier. And I think probably everyone else is too.
And it's good to know that about yourself, how you work and how you lead the team. Speaking of people KeepCup has this giant community around it and even now years and years later. But when you were saying when it first started people would like to give themselves a bit of a nod, like we are part of the cool kids, but it's still such a thing like my husband goes to work every day and he'll like, I left it in the car. He never leaves the house without his Keep Cup. And even if we go for a roach or anything, his surf trips, whatever that Keep Cup comes with him, it's a huge part of, it's just like breathing.
I know that sounds a bit over the top, but how have you cultivated that community around your brand? And when you were saying before not necessarily being these media empires that are spitting out content all the time, what do you think has helped so much? Is it just there's a shared value? Has it just become a behaviour like with my husband, it's in the morning, put the kettle on, go to the truck, get my kid, and come inside? It's just part of who he is. How have you created that and has it been something you've actively done or is it just organic?
No, I think we've actively done like I remember giving my grandmother who I love dearly, she had this old chipped brown coffee cup that she would have on the table all the time. I went and bought her this special new cup and she never used it. She kept using the whole brown one. I thought of that and I thought that if you just that's what we've been trying to do. Like we always talk about drinking pleasure. It's gotta be something you enjoy drinking from because that's what's going to keep you there. And then if you're there long enough with something you enjoy drinking from you, it does, you do become attached to it. It does become something you just love. That has been something. I guess that's been about the quality of the product that we've invested hard in and tried to, and then aligning the values of what we're trying to do through the business.
I love that quote from Thomas Carlyle, the Glaswegian philosopher who says that the merit of originality isn't novelty, it's sincerity. And I do think authenticity is a very overused word, but I do think that because we started as a mission that was all about impact and it guides every decision we make. Even though people often don’t know the facts of that. You do get a feeling of that through the brand. The brand did lose its way during that covid period. And we were a bit shrill in what we were saying. Because People were like, you're saying use a reusable straw and Taylor Swift's going to get a coffee in her jet. Like how stupid. But in the end, when you go through that whole journey to go, well look what everyone else is doing.
You still are left with living by your own values. And if you can do that, then that gives you a good sense of who you are and life satisfaction. And now when we're doing, we still talk about sustainability on our social media, but we do it with a bit more tongue in cheek and a bit more of a nod to the fact that we're aware that there's a whole lot of crazy things going on in the world, but we can still do live the way we want to live. And there are other reasons to do it other than sustainability being a big part of it, but you're doing it for the drinking pleasure of it. What is a good life? Is it? When you think about how you want to consume things, do you want to drink and eat out of bits of paper and plastic or do you want to do it from a plate that you wash? And those things tap into those deeper sentiments.
Which is so true. And you can just tell that you are so genuine when you're delivering that and saying this. It's so true. And even as you were talking when I was thinking about my husband my son, the 11-year-old is seeing him make that same calf and not get a takeaway and not use a paper calf. And it's just these little habits that then you see as absolutely normal in your household as a child. And then of course they're going to become normal. I had this wonderful guy, Chris from the series in Brunswick. he was saying what's so great is that they have hundreds of thousands of kids that come through their program. But because they've been running it for 40 years, those kids are now becoming CEOs and the things that they saw as normal, because they got taught how to do like a little bit energy efficiency audit with their primary schools.
They're now doing that in corporate offices. He is like, so now this change is gigantic because what is seen as normal by a child then becomes normal in the community, in the society. I think it's so good. On that, you have developed other products outside of the KeepCup and you have one that's coming out roundabout now. Can you tell us what else you've developed and also how do you decide what to develop when you've got a product that's just doing so well and is iconic? Do you go, let's just stick with this. Like we don't need to expand Or when do you come up with those ideas?
We've wrestled with that and like, particularly with something like the water bottle, we're like, does the world need another product? We have that always front of mind. But I think there's been a change, a shift in the way people are consuming coffee. 75% of Starbucks drinks a served cold now. And younger people are like, drinking hot milk is gross. We've developed a range of cold cups with a straw lid. Wow. With that same back to our roots, which is a very low-fi product. Not too many parts, not like we deliberately designed things made of single materials that can be pulled apart for recycling at the end of life. We've thought through all that. We've got a range of cold cups which are there for ice coffees, ice smoothies, protein shakes, all the ways young people are drinking.
Wow. Can I ask, I'm just being selfish because my good friend has an iced coffee every single day and I was trying to find her a birthday present of a reusable cup and I had to get a glass one that is so fragile that if you tried to chuck that in your cup holder in the car It would break in a second? It's so fragile.
We've got the keep cup glass cup with the cork and we've put a straw lid on it. We've got the original clear plastic, which is very lo-fi and very much like how people like, because also with a lot of these drinks and the boba’s, it's all about seeing the beverage as well. That's part of the pleasure of it, that you see all the colours and the bubbles and the ice.
Do you have the dome lid?
We haven't done it. We just got a flat lid.
Flat lid. Okay. I know she'll be like, they need to do a dome lid because she has like a whole bunch of cream or something. But yes. Maybe that's another iteration. But that's fascinating. 75% are cold drinks. That is interesting. In this, you sound like you have your own determination, and ambition and you're taking initiative and reading these books and up to date with all these things. Have you also had business mentors? Have you had anyone that's helped you, I know your family, we were talking about before we hit record that your family, you've got your brother in this business and then you've got another brother who has another business that's very well known. Do you have that, is that a mentor or have you found other business people to help you?
I've got, I've been a group of women who have their own business.
Love this.
The main thing I've gotten out of that is you walk into the room and you think that you've got 101 unique problems and you sit around these table with six other women running their own business and they're the same problems. They're all different businesses. That was interesting to find that out and see that all businesses have a life cycle and all the problems are all pretty similar. That's been terrific. And then I think also just having friends that don't like that are not anything to do with your business world and what you do and having that respite as is almost as important as having good advice.
It is. I have this, in the first book, I've put this like the different crews that you should have and one of them is your non-work crew. And those are people you don't speak about business with. You don't it's just like switching off like let's just be human again. Then in terms of tech tools, do you have any apps or tech tools or anything else that's helped either the business or yourself as a business owner?
I have recently become completely obsessed with Semrush, which is an SEO team.
Yes. It's great. We have that.
They've all waxed and waned over the years. I used to love First Round Review a US capital raising company.
You can see what other people and they put all their business case up. My friend was telling me about something where you can buy into businesses and they put their entire business case up online.
Maybe they do, but this was more like the articles. Like they had that woman who is into radical candour and they just have some good interviews with people about how they've built businesses, how they've built teams, how they've structured teams, just which I found some like all the articles I've reread First Round is the one I've gone back to and reread the most.
I have never heard of this. I'm going to check that out. I don't think it's the same as a friend was telling me, which I'll try and find for the show notes, that there's another place where you can see people requesting capital for their businesses, but they put their entire business strategy everything up online and you can just go and have a look once you become a member and it's free membership. And she was like, it's fascinating because you can see Australian businesses and you see all their numbers and all this stuff. You can buy into them or buy a fraction of the share or, it was fascinating and it wasn't like the ASX share reports at all. What are you most proud of from your journey in business so far?
Probably just hanging on. And I guess that it's changed, that it's brought. I mean sometimes I lie in bed and I go, now we've got a reusable cut problem as as well as a disposable cut problem. I'm not sure how much things have changed. I think they have and they're just probably the people on the journey.
Do you still get a kick out of seeing someone use it or are you so used to it?
I still do. And particularly when I see one and from the colours and we've made it easier if design changes over time, I can see sometimes it's old or it's new like I love that.
So good. How can people connect with you if they've listened to you? They can read the book that you're in I'm going to give it a little plug. But if they're reading and thinking she's amazing how do I find out about this new cold cup? Where are the best places to go to connect?
Our website is keepcup.com. I'm on LinkedIn, Abigail Forsyth, and then we're on TikTok and Instagram as well.
Amazing. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing and we'll link to all of that in the show notes. And thank you for being in the book and thanks for all you do. It's been like, it's a fascinating brand to watch and I feel like you've done such an incredible job and you're very humble and Aussie I guess in that. I can't wait to see what comes out next.
Thank you, Fiona. Thanks for the opportunity.
Bye.
Bye-Bye.
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How lovely is Abigail? Honestly, I could have kept that interview going and going. Just so many interesting things and insights and realness and modesty and humbleness and just wonderful, a wonderful conversation. I know I have taken so much from that and I love when I get the opportunity to listen back to these interviews later on and I feel like I still get so many new things each time I listen. I just want to say a massive, massive thank you for Abigail coming on and giving up her time and also giving up her time for the book, in which she is featured. And can't wait for everyone to see it in a couple of weeks when it comes out. But as usual, I'm going to highlight two things that stood out for me and I'd love to know what stood out for you. You can always send us a DM @mydailybusiness_ on Instagram or just @mydailybusiness on TikTok of course, I'm sure you can send Abigail a DM two through KeepCup and we'll link to the TikTok and Instagram as well.
You can also just go to keepcup.com or keepcup.com.au and check out the new cold cup, which I'm going to be buying for one of my friends. But the two things that stood out for me, I think the first was when Abigail so openly shared about Covid and just having that crisis of confidence or worrying, has it all just been this smooth ride and now you know this stuff is happening and can I cope with it and how am I going to go forward as a leader and what team do I need? I think that happens regardless of whether you're a big brand like KeepCup and you're going through a massive thing like Covid or if you're a much smaller business but something rocks you. And I think this is why I often say that being in business is like seeing a psychologist where you are both the psychologist and you're also the person getting therapy because you are constantly coming up against yourself and constantly questioning and asking yourself, how am I doing this?
Why am I doing this? Where are these thoughts coming from? And then you've also gotta answer that, which is like the psychologist, you've gotta be like, why are you having those thoughts, Fiona? I don't know, Fiona, what do you think? And dissecting where stuff is coming from. I love that Abigail first talked about that. It can be easy to look at a big company like this successful company and think that the people at the top must just always know what they're doing, always feel confident they're just writing the success all the time and they never have these down moments. I love that she talked about it but also said that it was coming back to basics and going, what do we need? Also what works for us? And I love that she brought up, even though they'd had the advice or she was going to have her own office and sit back and let people lead and she would be maybe a bit more removed, she came back and was like, you know what? That doesn't work fast and that doesn't work for me as the leader of this business.
If I want to sit in with everyone, then that's, that's what's going to happen. I love that because sometimes, and I know I'm saying this as somebody who coaches and mentors other business owners, I often say to people, take the advice and what fits and what works for you. You don't need to take on every single thing that I'm saying. I am not the owner of your business. You are. This goes for any advice you've gotta look at. I always say gut and data because what does your gut say? What does your instinct say? And in this case, Jamie and Abigail, her brother, have created this business and it's done incredibly well up to this point. And that has not been just a series of luck that has been strategy and understanding and reading the market and reading situations and understanding what the audience needs and talking to them and talking to it through the product.
She's been able to do that year after year. Yes, she had those doubts, but also she understood, you know what, we have built this, we do know what we're doing and I'm going to come back to what works for us and what works for me as the leader and implemented that and look where they're going. It's been able to come back after a tricky time during Covid, which hit so many businesses, particularly anyone in or around the hospitality arena. The second thing that I want to highlight that I loved that Abigail brought up is the idea of complete values alignment. And it's something I talk about a lot. I know if you've read this for a long time, you might be so over me talking about it. But that idea that you are in alignment internally and externally with the values as a business and a brand.
I love that she brought up that. What world do you want to see and what community are we trying to create and are we genuinely creating that? And I think this question when you are going to bed at night is thinking, is the business aligned with its values? Are we saying one thing and completely doing the opposite? Or are we saying one thing and we walk the talk, we're doing what we say we do and we're aligning to the values that we have? Abigail is very passionate about sustainability, about the world that we are creating about community. And it's bringing all of that to the fore of the business that makes a business so successful in my eyes. And not just, it makes it a business, it makes it a brand, it makes it a brand that you have loyalty to, that you respect.
Also, she talked about this, that you are buying into that brand to express to the world what you value and what you believe. We talked about the idea that the people who genuinely love KeepCup, have become just part of their lives. It's become just something that they don't even question. Of course, I use my KeepCup because I would never go back to not using a Keep Cup. I love that she talked about changing behaviour and brands can do that. And they do. You look at Keep Cup and it's a perfect example of millions of people who have changed their behaviour when it comes to seemingly a small thing like what you put your coffee order your tea order or your cold beverage in. But it's making a massive impact on people.
I just want to say another huge thank you to Abigail for coming on and sharing. If you want to check out the cold cup or anything else that KeepCup is offering, you can find them at keepcup.com or keepcup.com.au. You can find Keep Cup on Instagram and TikTok and all the places and we'll link to that in the show notes, which you'll be able to find at mydailybusiness.com/podcast/438.
If you are in Melbourne, you are welcome to come to our book launch. We have two one in Melbourne in September and one online so anyone who can't get to Melbourne or isn't in Melbourne or doesn't want to come out to an in-person event for whatever reason can come to our online book launch. You'll find ways to RSVP for both of those at mydailybusiness.com/booklaunch. And if you would like to pre-order a copy of my book, which includes an interview with the lovely Abigail in it all about KeepCup, and I ask a bunch of questions that I did not ask on today's podcast, you can find the pre-orders of business to brand anywhere that you usually order your books. You can also find it on our website if you just go to mydailybusiness.com, you'll be able to find it from the homepage. You can also find it on the book launch page, which again is at mydailybusiness.com/booklaunch. Thanks so much for reading and I'll see you next time. Bye.
