Richard Capp - CEO of Milton & King | Disrupting a Global Industry

Richard, thank you for joining. I appreciate you a lot for coming on. I was trying to think of ways to kick this off, but I think we should just start with a very obvious question because I don't think too many people understand or know anything about the world of wallpaper. So what is one thing about your world that people have no idea about, that people have no clue when it comes to wallpaper, designing, building a business around it? I guess like the biggest misconception in your industry. That's a really good question stuff. And then I guess it depends on which way you're angling that frog. If you're an American, talking to an American or an Australian, talking to an Australian that makes wallpaper. Because in Australia, you talk, I used to tell people in Australia what I did for the living. And they build up wallpaper. Is that a thing? Like, I remember the appearance bedroom and that was it. And then if you want to see it again. So to an Australian, they just forgot wallpaper even existed as a product. So they don't know too much about the industry. But wait, just a second, like seriously, like what year was this? So Australians have really pushed the wallpaper out the door. And it wasn't necessarily anything for quite a while. I remember it as a kid. It was everywhere. But now if you're western working on wallpapers, might you come back really? Where in the US it's different. It's wallpapers always been a thing, especially in a commercial environment. But now it's coming back full force into a residential. But I guess you sort of don't think about it. It's a bit like paint, like you look at it on a wall, but it just doesn't. You just don't compete. It's just one of those things. So as wallpaper as an industry, no one really looked at who designs wallpaper. How do they come up with this concept to how do that produce your search in all those topics? Like no one, if you're not in the design world, you wouldn't even know what a roll of wallpaper costs. How much is wallpaper? So yeah, it's just one of those things. You get sort of sucked in. It becomes you will. But if you're not, it's completely wrong. Well, okay. So you're right. Because most people do not buy multiple homes. They probably buy one home, which is the most important person of their life, at least at a young age. If they can, just talking about how unaffordable homes are. But that's besides the point. And it's not like they're going to redecorate it every single year. So they're going to make some key choices about aesthetics, decoration, wallpaper paint, whatever when they move in or closely after. But I am curious because now I have a follow-up question to that because wallpaper was not a thing in Australia. And I didn't even know that about five minutes ago. So what makes somebody from Australia want to start a wallpaper business when wallpaper is really not prevalent in Australia? Well, we were naive. We were naive. And we didn't know that because we hadn't been in the industry. So we had a printing business for the doing canvas prints, things like that. And someone said, can you guys print wallpaper? And we said, right on the lips, let's have a go. And we did. Well, we managed to print the product that looked like wallpaper, the first sort of evolution of what we were doing. And we just got intrigued as to whether or not we could see it through whether or not we could actually get that product right. And then as you're learning that, you realize what makes up the market. And especially the market in Australia. But yeah, it was it was a really like anyone with any insights into it or even business insight would have said, this is a crazy money. But we were young. We're looking for something to do. And just a bit will very, very naive. But you know, like sometimes that's what you need to, you have to be naive to make some of these cases. If you thought about it, we'd never, you would never do it. You'd never do it. Now, I'm curious because you grew up in rural Australia. You were the child of, I guess, farmers, correct? Walk me through your upbringing was, was farming something that sort of unlocked this entrepreneurial bug in you because your parents weren't, quote unquote, working in a job. It probably gave you a lot of, it probably gave you access to what hard work looked like, which is probably useful as well. But maybe just walk me through your experiences of kid, what that imprinted on you, maybe as you grew up. Well, so I grew up in a very original part of Northwest New South Wales. And it was all broad acre farming and chic. So, dad was a farmer, but it was fifth generation Australian farmer. Like, it wasn't just instilled in mum and dad, it was headed all the way back. So, we grew up with this get out and work hard, kind of mentality. And there were three boys, some and, you know, also the middle son. And we were really sort of kicked out side all the time and balancing what your dad's doing. And, and that was all the, you know, trying to fix something or find a solution to something. And just generally out there doing something for himself. So, I guess it does. Like mum was working. She had a job attempt. She was actually a teaching fashion at one of the local college. So, she used to go off to work with dad, obviously work on the far. So, yeah, it does. It just instills this work hard, kind of figure it out. If you don't know how to fix it, figure out how to fix it. There's no one else is going to come up do it for you. So, yeah, it was, that's come. That was really instill this. And that's really obvious why, when Bryson and I started business together with me, we get into wallpapers like how to do it. So, we just spent, essentially years figuring out how to get our product run and our production run. And when we started technology wasn't even helping us. Like, there wasn't a, oh, you need this printer and this type of paper. It was, we had this printer. The printer we used now didn't exist. The ink type didn't exist. So, it was really, it was one of those, all right, what are we going to do? Like I used to. We had a water-based printer and we're trying to produce a product that's waterproof. Here we, we'd print it and then I'd be spraying it in the shed and have my mask on and we're in the garage and I'm, I'm spraying it to lock the ink in so the ink wouldn't run when you went to install it. So, and it was just, it was one thing out for none of that. But eventually we, we got there. But it was that, I guess we just didn't grind it to make, like it was just this, it's not going to work. It didn't really, I'd say it's not going to work. And Bryson said, of course it is. So, the other way around. So, Bryson's, Bryson's, your older brother, younger brother, younger brother. Okay, so the older brother never got involved in wallpaper. He's in agriculture. Okay, he's doing his own thing. So, did he actually continue farming to a degree? No, he went off and did all the things and then back in, yeah. Okay, no, I'm curious why, you know, even fifth generation, you chose to never, you know. Well, no, mom and dad, mom and dad sold them far. And then moved to town. We finished our education then. We went off of it. Well, yeah. Well, so, so, so, Bryson, so you went to school for accounting and you were, you were planning on I'm assuming being some sort of CPA or something. Bryson was what creative graphic designer? Yeah, so Bryson finished school. And at that stage, I finished school a couple of years before him. And I was working for a company out in the middle of nowhere, drawing tractors. And so I said, well, I've lost, you know, you're going to do, come and hang with me for a while. So, it didn't take him very normal to realize that sitting on a tractor was no fun. So, he went off to art school and did the plier also in advanced communications, which is graphic design, essentially. And then he got into that, worked in London for a few years, just doing graphic design stuff. And then when he came home, I also was sick of sitting on a tractor. And I then after a few years went and studied accounting. And I deferred a business degree and then went traveling and then didn't get back to business. So, but I had his sales background and I had, you know, the touch on accounting. And Bryson came home from, you've been living in Spain for a few years and he decided that he was going to get into advertising. And I thought he's not going to be able to do that by himself. So, I was kind of in a bit of a loss, I guess. I really know what I want to do. So, I thought, well, I just team up and into what's seen what happens. And that's kind of the start. And that was in 2009. And we didn't really stop producing wallpiper until, uh, 2009 to 2015. Stopped around with a bit of advertising stuff first. Well, I was going to say, so you just realized, like, as you're starting to work with Bryson, you're realizing, listen, like, this is a skill set that he has. Let's just find a commercial application for it. No, no idea how to do it. Or just going to figure it out. Okay, so in all seriousness, like the first version of it, like, when you start a wallpaper company, what are you buying a role of blank paper and Bryson's, like, doodling on it? And then you're trying to find somebody who's going to put it up on their wall, like, walk me through how you actually get this first customer. We're also, I know I hold massively oversimplified, by the way, no, no, no, no, no. Let's get down to it. We had a microphone in reach out. He was selling paints and things like that. He's like, can you design wallpaper? Because we're designing canvas prints. We bought this white format printer and we're designing canvas prints, whether they be photographs, not a lot of photographs, more sort of vectors sort of stuff. And it was all about pitching to interior designers that just really needed wall fillers and some bright colors and something that wasn't just, you know, you're standard sort of stop stuff. So we're kind of coming up with this collection and stuff and we thought, and then Bryson's designed, this typical designer, he designs a brochure and he put a wall mural in there and said, it looks really good in the brochure. Now, it's all the same. We can't make it. I'll look for you at that. That was his response. So everybody wanted the mural. And we get the wall mural. So I was like, I've got no idea how we're going to produce this, but we I saw some paper that was that was kind of being used for internal graphics, like in shop feed-outs and things like that. And then we used the printer that we had, which is this old water-based printer, and then I sprayed it all. But we're doing adding panels, which we hadn't really done before, so we're trying to figure out how to get the colors to match and the panels going across and the links right. And it was just a bit of a nightmare. But the first job we got was at the Noose-to-Surf Club, which was, if any of your listeners have ever been in Noose-to-Surf, is this beautiful park in Queensland, it's this little beach sort of, it used to be more of a beach sort of village now. But there's a surf club there right on the point, which is just a great spot to go and spend it afternoon. And we got this mural put in right down the downstairs. And we printed it. It looked pretty good. And we had this friend who was round the corner and was a pipe-a-hanger. And we had this old one. He kept dropping into single wear up to it. More out of just what are the boys doing there? Anyway, he installed it first. And there was errors all throughout those wrong lengths and all sorts of things. But he might look pretty good and we got paid for it. So that was a lot brought, where are we? This concept called business. It's a business. It costs us a lot more than we produced in the first year, but we were just trying to figure out, like people were buying. It was a pretty cracked product. It was overpriced and people were still willing to pay for it. So that kind of discourse going on. But it really had an idea of why that is. Oh, because it was something new, it was something that I just hadn't seen before. And we put these designs together. So to answer your question, how did we get into it? We sort of started with some custom murals. And we were filling that sort of, oh, I need this for this kind of project, we're filling that hole. And then we were like, we need to do some collections. How do we do that? So brass out of designing all these kind of victory kind of designs? Because he's not asked, he's just a graphic designer. So he's putting all this together. We had this first original collection and we had another collection. And those things starting to settle, but it really was quite obvious that it was being designed by God that had no experience in the interior's market. So that's why we started to get other artists involved. And we were getting a bit of different stuff. It was working. And it still wasn't commercially global, but we had the initial concept. Well, we had some art, we had some wallpaper and people were interested. So you didn't do this, this stereotypical entrepreneur stuff where you're looking at the tam of a market and you're figuring out the MVP. Now you're just like, but you're burning money at this point. You have to be burning money. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're like, wait, we didn't have any. I'm like, I'm any, um, when Bryson joined forces, we had like a couple hundred bucks and we had rent and drew. And I'm like, how am I going to do this? And so I ran an uncle who I'd worked for in the past. And he was like, well, I'll give you seven thousand dollars to see what happens. Like I'm just intrigued to see what you two come up with. So he gave us the money and that was there. It was like, oh, okay, we're kind of in business, you know, with stuff. And that was how we started the advertising and then we actually went back to him for another loan, but we sort of got him in a walk over site, but yeah, we won't make any money. We'll make a bit of money out of the camp's prints that we were still doing. And then we got to a certain point we said, there's a future in the walk over list. It's can't be really else and just can't some trial. But yeah, how long did you sort of like flail through this this period of trying to figure it out working off your uncle seven thousand dollars? You were, I mean, you're, I feel like even the way that you're creating wallpaper at this point is not the industry standard. So I thought that this, yeah, but definitely not the industry standard. No, it took us a while. So we had this printout. We had this paper, I sort of grabbed this paper that was available because there was nothing available at the time. No one was pretty wallpiper in Australia. Well, there was a couple of guys screen printing, but they weren't going to give me too much information about where they got their paper and things like that. So I had this, this paper that was coming in through a distributor for white format printing products and things like that. So it was super expansive. We were paying more for white paper than than people were retailing wallpaper before. So we were the same but we're doing a lot of the custom murals and things like that, which we had decent margining because people needed a solution. So I'm not going to shop it out or something like that. So we, we do a mirror and we might get a couple thousand bucks to a mirror, but it wasn't that much product. So we're kind of making money there while we try to figure out how to scale it. Like you can't scale custom murals doing one wall at a time. You've got to figure out how to get a collection out there and just push it globally and then rather than like we wanted to be able to design a collection throw it up and then produce everything on demand. That was our concept from day one, but it took a wall for the, you know, to get us to that point. So I spent a lot, it seemed a lot of amounts, but I was looking at all of the mass-produced stuff that came out and you're, I'm like, all right, well, wait until I get the paper from and how did I do it? And I haven't, I have no experience in the printing industry. So I didn't even know what topic bridges that were easy. So and there's definitely, there's no wall that says down on print wall, but like it was, it just took me ages to figure it out because I was completely green to the whole thing. How did you, how did you bench that? How did you figure it out? Well, I've actually found a mill in Germany that was providing paper to the wall coverings industry or non-woven. It was it was right on that edge of going from an old-school paper to becoming a non-woven product, which is what they're selling out. So it's, it's got semi-wise fibers in the paper, so that it actually sticks together. It's just a lot of take-on on the wall paper, but it comes off in sheets and it's a lot easier to go. So that was just coming in. And I found this mill in Germany that would sell us up. And I didn't tell them how we're printing it. I didn't say I was going to be printed with digital printer in the system. So I got some samples out there. Meanwhile, every time you requested a sample, like it probably took a couple of months before we got the paper. And we actually, we had a test it. So we had this paper that we got. We printed it out. I think we had a new printer at the surge. And we had hang on the on the clothesline for like, I don't know, months to see what I would do in the sunlight, in the in the rain. Like, was the ink going to stick to the paper? This is an extremely recent patient business. We were very patient. Anyway, and then yeah, this was not this wasn't a fast. I'm going to be rich tomorrow. I can't write a concept like that. Yeah, I can see that. We're still trying to figure out a week, right? Anyway, we got this this paper work. So we pretty much put all our money into buying a few reels of this paper. So in that way, it's a lot of that 15, 20,000 meters of this paper. We're not right. We imported into Australia. That's not the three months later. And then we've re-wanted into rolls that have fit on our printer. And we started printing wallpaper. And that was kind of the concept. We had a small digital printer. And then from the name, we just run out. We get a faster printer. How do we get it more efficient? And then we change quite a bit. But when the concept was working at the stage, we were designing wallpaper, we were marketing it, and we could actually produce it and get it to the point. And this is you're still in, are you still in Australia at this point? By, yeah. It will have only been used two years. In the US, you only been here for two years out of this whole list. Okay, I didn't realize you were that recent in the US. Okay. Okay. Okay. So as you're as you're scaling this out, it starts to work. Then it turns into a little bit of a business. And then you're starting to apply, like listen, we have some systems and processes. Now we're starting to make some money. Now we're you know, finding better equipment. What is the what is the outside of figuring out the basics of the business, which already seem to be excruciatingly painful to figure out what are some of the biggest mistakes that you made when you first started out in terms of now it's working, but then I screwed this up or I hired this person that didn't work out or I don't know. Well, so we take it. Like we, we didn't, we didn't have any big stuff ups because we didn't have big budgets. Like having money. And I look at it now and I think if someone gives me a chunk of cash back then, I would have, I would have, I'd be telling you a story about how I blew all the money on some dumb idea. But because it was happening so slowly, like we, we had time to actually go through it, we think about it and then we, well, we come with a concept and then we'd think about it. There's time when I went, we went, that's a crazy idea. There is one, there's one concept that we did, we did it probably almost 10 years ago. We had these collections and we were selling through the Australian wholesale market. So we were selling through the few wallpapers shops that actually exist in Australia. And we're trying to figure out how we can compete with all the important stuff, which is, which is quite check really, even to be shipped from Europe into Australia and still be a fairly competitive. So we're looking at how we would do this and we thought, what if we can't with customs watchbooks where the shop can, can choose which designs in a vehicle actually they actually are? Because rather than giving them a book, it costs us a fortune, it may, it takes even more time. And at that stage, like we weren't good at making books, they're costing us a fortune to make just a swatch book or whatever swatch book. So I said, all right, let's do that. Let's do a custom book. And I got this guy to create this, we'll build this site to do it. And it was, it took months for this to happen. And eventually we sort of got to the end and this guy hands over this website and I said, that is ridiculous. I'm not launching that to anybody. And we never launched it. So the concept was, I paid the guy because he'd done the work, but he hadn't really delivered a decent product. So we sort of came to an agreement at the end and said, well, this is where it stops. But it's funny because we're coming back to that now. It's literally about to get live on our website in a couple of weeks. We're going to have customs watchbooks for our US wholesale market where they can go in and they can choose from our 2000 designs and go, I want that design, that design, that design, the designs are going to resell in my store to my clients. So it's funny, boss, we wasted the money 10 years ago. We've actually come back to it now. The business is in a point where it's actually going to work. So that's, but you know, all those mess ups, like you hear this quite often, like if you learn from the mistakes and they're not, you know, they're not wasted, right? Like now you have all the learnings of compounded over how many years. And I actually, like, I really have to just highlight something and we were just, again, very briefly before we turned on the camera. We were just speaking about how important it is to be patient and obviously if people are listening, like none of this moved quickly. I think that you as an entrepreneur, I think you're actually a very rare breed in terms of how you think through problem solving and the time horizon that you're committing to solve these problems. And I think that's why you're successful because I think a lot of people try and get something done in two months, three months, six months. It doesn't work. Okay, I'm going to give up. But you were like, well, you committed this for your life and you're like, I'll figure it out. But we're very fortunate to. We're, you know, we had, we had a few big advantages. We were, one, we were at side of the industry. So we weren't like no one knew what we were doing. We were waiting on this journey. I tried to figure out a digitally print wallpaper. So we were out of ISOC, essentially, from the rest of the industry. So we had time to sort of stuff around and do our thing. We had made these big ball statement that we were going to change the world tomorrow. And that we were in our 20s. We didn't have, we were both, when we started, we were both single. So we moved in with mum and dad to put all our money together, we didn't have any, but we joined forces and whatever you have. We're sharing some bike blades. But yeah, so we were lucky that we were able to just sort of grow. But as, and we sacrificed for the big picture, like we weren't taking money. We took nine knees before we went on the payroll. Like tell someone that is trying to start a business site. It's going to take a decade. Like tell an employee, it's going to be 10 years before you get your first paycheck. Don't know if you're ridiculous. I'm out of here. But we were just, and if we didn't know that when you started to take that long before you actually start playing income, but we were, we were, essentially, we've been sales funded. Very slow sales, but we've been sales funded in our breath. So we just sort of moved along slowly and you've developed something you launched and sort of pops you up again and then you cruise along and you go the next stage and the next stage. The problem is you then get to your 40s and you've put everything into your businesses. There's actually nothing in you in your private bank account. But your business is still going and that's the thing where we're still cruising along. And people probably look at it and say, oh, they're so lucky to have done that. But we missed, we pretty much missed every party in the up 30s because we didn't have money to get to them. You know, you sort of lock yourself away to get this thing going. And now it's starting to pile off because we've had the vision to actually see it through. But it's kind of with a huge amount of sacrifice. People don't see people don't see that. They see the venture backed, you know, SF tech companies that IPO in five years and people are overnight millionaires, Deca millionaires, sent a millionaires billionaires overnight by, you know, any objective standard five years is a pretty quick time to build a business. But then they get they get burnt out. And I actually, I love the fact that you said it took you nine years to go on payroll because I've said this in different ways many times. Like if you commit to anything for 10 years and you find ways to learn from your failures and you iterate through all the problems that you have, you will find a way to become some level of success if you commit 10 years to anything. I think it's very hard to screw it up if you're a smart person that keeps learning. Exactly. You just got to keep showing up. And that's what it's about. Like I had a landlord in Brisbane once said, he said, I just do one thing every day. In his business life, he just works on the fact that he does one thing every day that actually counts. And as long as you put that sort of mentality around, we're pushing forward all the time. Yeah, it just sort of starts to build up. And then eventually you get to that 10 years and you look back and you go, wow, like we've come a long way. And it's sort of like my mother's actually, she came for a visit this week. And we were in the office last night and she hadn't been informed she hadn't been to the US to check out what we've been doing. So we've had this facility here in Dallas for going on nearly two years. And she sort of walks in and she was blown away because she just didn't expect really what we've sort of set up. She just didn't have that in her head. And you think about, well, it's only made two years and it looks like it's been around a whole lot of that. But then you think back 10 years and it's, yeah. Well, because you start to see, you know, like if you look on a chart, like you start to see, you'll have this like marginal, marginal growth and then all of a sudden, like when things start working and you start investing more and more into the business, you do that hockey stick growth curve, right? And that's where you, that's where you're at after 10, 20 years of doing the business. But that's a beautiful place to be. But people would never, most people would not want to sacrifice nine years of their life without taking a paycheck. Well, we'll survive it. But we definitely want to do it in stock. Like it was like, what if you get on this weekend? All right. Well, you can have your money this way. Yeah. And then I'll see you there. You're budgeting, you're budgeting, which events are going to go to? Yeah, like, so yeah, that was, but that was the thing. Well, we did it with, essentially with, with styles funded the whole way through. And that really, it was always, it was always, it was always possible then. It was always possible. Well, I think that was always possible. There's been some losses in there, but, but it made sense to get the eye. So, yeah, and, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's all a bit, all right. That's, that's our goal. That's what we want to be. What have we got to do that? And, and we've never brought some of them in mentality. We're going to get rich from one style or one client, or anything like that. We've got to put lots and lots and lots of logs together to make these actually work. And that's what we've just been trying to do. So yeah, it's, it's getting better. Like now we, we have systems in place and we have a really good little team of people that, know what they're doing. We're not doing all the work ourselves. And, you know, I spent, I spent a lot of time working night shift doing customer service for the US. Now, even telling someone to get out of bed at one o'clock in the morning or two o'clock in the morning to sit in front of a chat, you know, when the live chat comes up, like, yeah, we're there. We're actually talking to, and I'll be sitting in the dark at home and going to, like, with my video, answering the phone, and talking on chats. You know, that's all that. It just takes, it just takes time and effort to do these things. Um, how do you, so when you, when you start to grow, what are the, these are the sales lessons? And let's do sales first. And then let's talk about some marketing stuff as well. Um, but this, because right now I was looking at some of the numbers just are your marketing numbers and, and your growth numbers. And they're actually quite impressive. But we'll talk about things that have worked and things that haven't. But in terms of sales, like, just universal sales wisdom, um, are you going through, like, retail channels? Are you going through, uh, partners, um, affiliate partners, uh, intermediaries, channel partners? Are you going direct to consumer? Uh, I'm sure you've tried all things to some degree. If you were going to say, Hey, listen, we're in a niche industry, because I guess you are to a degree, which is earned the niches. And that's really where you're at. Um, how do you take this to market in, uh, an effective and scalable and a profitable way, uh, entrepreneurs want to sort of mimic your strategy? Where, where would they go? Yeah. Well, it's been, it's been a bit of a, yeah, we're all wrong guys, but it's been a coalition. So obviously we started in a really cool market. Let's have pull market, a small market, uh, the Australian market is really, really small, but yet it's set you're out of the product. You can get anything that you can get pretty much anywhere. Someone will stand up to you when he's trying for not that much money. So here we are trying to, trying to produce locally. And I said, right, let's, the best way to do it, we need to sell, we need to go to walk out the shops, we'll design it, we'll manufacture it, we'll have other people sell it. So off we went, we went and saw the, the existing shops that have been around for 30, 40 years in Australia. Um, and I'd sort of evolve a little bit to stay in business, but they won't, you know, booming, booming businesses, but don't worry business. So I went and saw them and they're like, we had a couple of allies going away. I said, we love what you do, you know, and we'll correct that up. Let's support you. So we're so, we're right. Let's start this way. Let's go also. Let's figure out how to get their price point in there. We've got to compete with a retail price of everything that's being imported. Can we make it happen? So we, and we did, we're in business, do a degree. Um, the problem is it just wasn't enough. So we had enough, you know, at a few shops that were willing to support us, but not enough to, you know, pay the wage. So we went down that and we had, we had static websites up, we had our library, we were showing our products and then we were sending people to these stores, but we just wanted to compete. It just wasn't working. And the stores, you know, as much as they wanted to support us, we were one book, you know, walk over shop with 400 books in it. So, and it was a shop that wasn't going gangbusters. So we were never going to reach from that concept. It was never going to really work. So, like, right, okay. And after a while, it was, it was, we said, we've really got to put, we had a, I had to go in Japan, who we've sort of found us and then he started selling some products and that was kind of working, that concept was kind of working for him, but again, not enough to, it was expensive to get it there. So then we said, right, we've got to go, we've got to put a shopping cart on this website. We've got to put a retail cross-point on start selling. So we did, that would have been, must have been 11, 12 somewhere around there, and brought spent months figuring out how to build a online store. Because this was all branding, you see? And it always allowed you to Shopify. Was there Shopify? It was like, I don't know, we're on, we're on, we're on magenta. So we built a magenta platform and then we got it up and then all that wholesale guys were like, oh, you know, supporting us, you're selling it online or something like that. Well, we've kind of got it. So as soon as we put it up, we started getting a bit more acquired from overseas, and then most of that acquired started coming from the US. So we're trying to figure out how to get it to them. And we had this, we had this wholesale cross-point that I'm trying to build into it. So I said, well, we can pay for the international freight with that margin. So let's just give that a go. So it was costing us a 14% because we printed on to the end of Australia and then we'd gear freight it, express it for it as fast as we could to web on to buy it. I hope like I'll let him want to send it back or was it right or anything. So we started off that way and then and it started to build a bit more, a bit more, hence why I ended up on night shift and I'm just trying to get every sale. We just wanted a position where we could let someone slip away. So we're answering phones and we're doing that sort of stuff. We're trying to push this train market and at the time I had a business coach who said, when we get to this price point, you can go to the US and we'll set up a little office and we're trying to get to this point. No, we're not going to be going to get to it unless we go. So in 2016, we had a certain amount of exports to the US. So I said, well, let's go. So we had a little office, my wife, my now wife, Felicity and I. Hopped on a client. We had no idea what we were doing. We just were going to see if we could do something. So we went to Austin, ran into a little Airbnb and our families were warehouse and we set up a little, it was mainly for Sam's so we could localize our Sam's. And then also our customer service. So I'm sitting there on the phone and I'm sending out the samples and then we had a bit of stock. So we sent some stock over which was trying to get rid of that, bring that cost in. So we did that for 12 months and we had some growth over those 12 months but it wasn't booming. We'd had some, we'd figured out this production thing at home where we were, we were using external printer and he was fast but we started having issues with it. So I needed an arm for a bit. So I managed to calm my, the guy that owned the Airbnb or staying and had become friends with us. So I said, here's the case. Can you send samples for a couple of weeks? I'll be back. So answering work for us for four years. I can go back four years. Luckily, he was, he was loyal. But he was running a customer service in the US and and we would always kind of, we went home with this, we're going back. We didn't get there. We we didn't have a stuff at home. Then we got married up to kids and then the pandemic hit and they eventually would go back here. So yeah, we had that for seven years. This customer service sent a new shipping product from Australia whilst it was expensive. We were sort of, we were just getting better at selling online. And it's just like, it's just, sorry, it's the wholesale, like it's just, you're not going through one broker that's taking you into various retailers in the US. It's like, almost like deal by deal. You're setting these up. Yeah, yeah. It was, it was, it was directed to Kinshama with a, we also got a trade side which is discounted off the retail hospital, um, Ross point. There was no wholesale because we couldn't get it to a wholesale or a decent, but they actually make getting money. So that wasn't an ultra. Um, so it was not right. And we get back there and we do it. So we, we implemented new production technology in Australia, which sort of, um, I kind of made against because I thought it was too slow originally, but, um, all right, this concept works and that's consistent. Let's just do the same thing in the US. So it was always our plan, but the technology sort of, there was, you know, a few little help say. So I'd run out. Let's, let's get over there and let's set it up. So the start of last year, we moved into the office for Austin, we closed that down and we had a couple of staffs and we kind of didn't go. It was very successful. So we knew, we knew we had to get back over here and set it up properly. And by this time, 80% of our sales were US sales. All right, so this was, this was pretty stressful from Australia during COVID, for example, when you just can't get over there and don't really know what's happening. Um, you know, so we, we, we, we had our second daughter who was, uh, born at the start of last year. And when she was 12 weeks old, for the city, not helped on the airplane coming back. So, um, it was pretty crazy. So last year, it's been pretty busy. Um, and we set up the, the factory, which with now about, um, yeah, so which one runs for us, it was, it produces all our US sales. Happy. And now you're set up in the US. So now, now, like full production, full production has shifted to the US, correct? Yeah, so what that and I want us to do. We took all the US sales out of the Australian production, like Australian production was bursting. We had, we were pretty much running, um, sort of from sort of six, five, six, eight, eight, seven, seven, at the end of the night. So there wasn't a lot of growth there, like your sales, you know, like local people, you know, in Australia, for example, you'd have someone calling, oh, I really wouldn't do something again. We haven't even got time to, to jam down here. We're just trying to fill our retail stuff. So by freeing up all of those US sales, but then in the night, what else, trying business to then say, oh, right, we've actually got some down time, what print is now, let's, let's grow our work, you know, local stuff. So we've actually been lucky with seeing some good sales growth in Australia as well, um, because we've had the outputs. You know, when you think, when you thought through this problem, what are, I guess, how did you think, is there now, now it's worked out, right? It's worked out and now you've sort of lightened the load on the Australian production. So now Australia can grow, US is growing well. What are some of the things that you have to consider when you are moving production to a new country? What are some of the things that even you went through that you probably weren't aware of? Is it, is it difficult to find the right technology? Do you have to be innovative? You have to create your own thing? Like, what are all the different things that you sort of encountered as you move production, or more production of the US? Well, that was something that auto, like we, we tried to get right from day one, was get the product from, and by the product, I mean, all the processes that go into that part. So when I left in 2000, I said, I didn't, I went home, I mean, it's production issues. What, what had happened really early in sort of around 2012? I had this guy who said he was selling whiteful apparatus, and he said to me in a passive comment what you need is a bag for doctorics, which was this type of printer, right? There were very few of them around, but essentially it was this inline fast high-speed printer, and I managed to find one. So I was like, what did he say? So I wrote it down. I'm Googling the hell out of it. I found one in Australia, there was one in Australia, and I rang the guy who I wanted, and I said, I think your printer will print our wallpaper. And I just got him on one of those times where he was looking for for more work on it. And so we took out the real paper that we all we had left, and we real paper. And we put it on the back of this press, which was printing it around 23 meters per minute. So super fast. And we're watching our paper, which was pretty much the last money boss that I had. I think we can do it. And that kind of kept us in business. We went, right, okay, now we've got a new platform where it's got to do the brand new set price. We can then we know how much time's involved in production. We can then sort of scale from that. So that was what it owned us to scale to the US originally, was that we didn't have to worry about factory staff and buying our own printers. We just knew for a certain meter price, this got printed for us. We provided the paper. So towards the end of that, that relationship lasted for about five years, but towards the end of it, we started to get so much paper waste that it just wasn't, we just couldn't do it anymore. So in 2017, we brought printers back in now. And I went home, we bought this new printer, we bought the first one in within, but the second one in, yeah, and that's kind of life. So that platform in the Australian factory was like, you're still in back at the end of it and when we're just going to copy this. So that's what we've done. Essentially, the American footprint is a bit bigger, but everything needs exactly the same. So from, so you have, so now we're just going through the, the gamut of things that an entrepreneur has to think about. So obviously, nail down sales, you figured out your SOBs, your production, your sort of like your innovation, how you think through expanding to new markets. Let's talk a little bit about how you think through marketing and how you market wallpaper, because wallpaper is not inherently a sexy product that I think that people who are looking for wallpaper in a non-commercial aspect, they actually just trust, they probably go to a showroom or something like that and there's probably like you mentioned hundreds of other competitors out there and they're just looking for the style that they like the best and I, I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think many people look for like the brand of wallpaper. I think most people are just looking for, how does this look in my, in my room, right? So how do you market this? Is it just having the most, the most beautiful design or is there actually a way to build affinity with a wallpaper brand so that the customers like, I want, yeah, there is a, okay, so let's go into that because that's very interesting. If you can build affinity with a wallpaper brand, then an entrepreneur can build an affinity with anything that they're building. That's my thing. But if you know of another wallpaper brand that's not built in King because you're talking to me, have you ever heard of a wallpaper brand? No, I haven't said. That's right. So unless you're in the industry, you know, and aware of what's out there, you don't know, you don't know. So like you think about it, if you were trying to style a room or if you've got this idea, where are you going now, like the other technology sort of caught up, originally you'll go to wallpaper shop and you're going to flip through every book and go, oh, yeah, that kind of works in the colors and all that stuff. Well, now you're just going to Pinterest. Yeah, you have a Pinterest and you're talking in what you want and you go to pages and pages or just coming in. So essentially what we've got to do as a brand is finish that look, right? So if you're wanting a certain look, we've got to have designs that finish that room off that people, so not necessarily looking for a black and white wallpaper design. They're looking for a certain style of room or design that they call it. And it just happens to have a black and white design that we use, they get on, wow, I didn't thought about like a lot of how that wallpaper finishes on this room or that gets that design. So that's kind of, we're trying to, you know, finish that lifestyle vision rather than say, he's a, he's a picture. Do you like it? People are on the wall. We're sort of showing them that in resolve. So what is that actually in your, in your, in how you think through marketing strategy? Like, are you looking at the most viral Pinterest clips? And then that's what informs the design. Well, not where, so what we do, we're going to now, we've got a few methods. We, we do, we work a lot with, I guess smaller influencers in the Hyundai sort of market. Who are all going for a different look? If you, if you had endless money, you'd be setting up this studio and you'd be shooting your wallpaper with this style of beer and couch. You know, no one's got that. No one's got all of those settings. So you've got to go and find those different settings because we've got, we don't have one style of wallpaper. We've got lots and lots and lots of styles, but lots of different projects like we can be in commercial projects, bars and clubs, and then we're in kids bedroom and all sorts of stuff. So you've got to, you've got to look at all of those and go, all right, well, how am I going to incorporate more wallpaper at all of these different projects? So the best way to do it is to really, and we're fortunate to, as you go on, the more people that use it, they want to share it, they want to share their finished project. So we'd, we'd very rarely photograph new ranges. We'll design it, and then we send it out to a few of the influencers that we work with and say, what projects do you want to help with roles, can you use it in that? And then we get that marketing content back. So that's essentially how we're getting that, but, and then it was all about driving people to the website and then showing what that design looks like, showing them what that institute, what that room setting looks like, and letting them in their minds go, all right, I'm building this concept, this design concept can be made and that's product on it used to help it all sort of come together. Like wallpaper, whilst you don't think about it, is really good, bang for your buck, you know, right at the end, you can completely transform it into a room with a different, you know, wallpaper on the wall. So, yeah, we're sort of fortunate that we can have that impact with that product. But I love the way that you think through marketing, sitting that's very smart, like with the influencer marketing, I mean, as a company, I think you're good, I mean, I have not researched every single wallpaper company and how they market their products or services, but I mean, you're out there. So, you have a beautiful website, you're working with influencers. I think you also collaborate with some artists, which I'm actually very curious about. You have a podcast, you have PR, you have like everything, you're doing all the marketing things, which I think for myself, these are all very normal marketing things and maybe other people that are very forward looking marketers. But I look at some industries, I don't know if wall papers like this, but I know there's a lot of industries in like in the home, in like development and home and architecture and they have like a website. They're not working with influencers, some are obviously, but I think that a lot of people just think in legacy industries, they don't have to do as much to attract a customer. And I think that that's probably the wrong way to think about it because they've gotten too comfortable with their showroom or they've gotten too comfortable with their roller decks of clients that they've had for the past 50 years, whatever it is. And now, disruptive, innovative companies that know how to market, that know how to tap into influencers audiences and know how to basically communicate with people that are actually going to be buying their product in the ways that they like to be communicated to because I don't like going to a showroom and driving. I don't want to. I never want to go out of my house if I don't have to. So it's like, how do I bring my brand to the consumer wherever they like to consume content and wherever they like to experience new things and how do I get into the brain that way? And I think that's what you're doing exceptionally well. Well, but we've also been, we've kind of been forced to do it. And by that I mean, when we were looking at how do we break into this market, like we've come into a market that essentially is hundreds of years old. And your big players have, like we've looked at it and said, what are we going to do here to be able to essentially have our product on par with these big guys who have been around forever? Like how do we do that in the market? So well, we're going to start by doing things little differently. We're going to print everything on demand. So traditionally, a wallpaper factory has, has used big ammo of machines. They set them up and they run out 100, 200,000 rolls of the same product. So the whole design concept, the design is designed one year. Then it's finally gets passed and they decide wrong. We've got the budget to put these 12 designs in one new collection. We're going to production. We're going to produce this much and we're going to weigh out. And then we're going to tell everybody how good it is. And then we're going to jam down this rights until we don't have any in the warehouse anymore. So that's essentially how they house work. And the way that it works is with this big factory here and then with our marketing locally, whether it be shops, there's probably a step in between where you have distributors. Then you go to your international distributors so you actually have that reach and then you go to shops. So you're taking product that was worth, let's say, $20. And we've eventually got it into the market at our $100 cross point. Well, we didn't have an hell of competing with this $20 price. So we couldn't use that platform. That wasn't an option. We had to figure out how we're going to get it on par at $100, but we don't want to carry it in stock. We're going to use digital printers. And when it order comes in, we're going to ship it directly to them. The advantage that did give us was that we could launch collections without the huge investment. There wasn't been investment of time to decide what one is to do. There wasn't a culling of, oh, that color doesn't work. I don't want to do a hundred rolls of that. We could just throw a designer and it didn't matter if no one bought it because it hasn't cost us anything apart from that original design. So that's kind of been able to have this bigger library because we haven't got these huge set up fees. So we've, and then we're like, all right, well, we don't have this huge distribution market. So how are we going to sell it? Like, how are we going to get it in front of people? And that's when it's like, all right, well, we need to figure out how to get people to our website. How are we going to do that? We're going to work with backwards in terms of now because we've started with e-commerce and then we started to fill the holes backwards to wholesale because as we grow into that, actually, we have, you know, we've got another another factory coming on in the Netherlands next month. So we'll be able to produce, we'll be able to produce the design marketing globally into all markets at a decent price point, like at a fair price point across the board. And then fill those orders locally. So there's no international freight, there's no delays, there's no still no stock. And so within a lot of fill backwards to say, all right, well, we can work with the showroom and we can work with wholesale market into the customer's watchbooks where it's about to release. So by getting rid of international freight costs, we've been able to say, all right, we can put that step back in. Where if you're a traditional guy, and you've been selling sort of distributors and showrooms and shops and all that, can you want to go directly to Shima with that brand that you've spent a hundred years building? That's very hard to do without pissing off everybody at the bottom overnight, right? You can essentially kill your business very, very quickly. Yeah. So that's, and what's happened is it also had resellers who've been, they've been innovative and entrepreneur and all that said, oh, well, I buy this wholesale. I'll just throw a 20% on sale online. So then they've got these brands essentially aren't selling online direct, but they've got resellers selling their product online for them. And then they've got to somehow claw it back and get control of what's actually out there and at the price points. And like these guys are all essentially it's a rise to the bottom with the product. You know, so yeah, it sounds like an industry that is like ripe for disruption. Yeah, and then it is happening because technology is enabled. Whilst it didn't enable us to go and find an off-the-shelf solution, you could come into it now with a few dollars. You could go and do that. You could find an off-the-shelf solution. So it's, it's, it's, it also, it's putting a bit more pressure on these big guys. And, and I like, I like to look at what they're doing and how they're doing and how they're evolving. Like there's been a couple of standouts that have seen online and the way that we market in terms of how whether it be ads and Facebook have things like that. There's been a few of those guys who've adapted really, really early in all the side that they miles in front of that than the competition in the in that regard. But yeah, it is, it's, it's, it's, and this is a lot of all industries that would be exactly as signed as that. So yeah, it's, it's the challenge. But we've been fortunate that we've been sort of sleeping, you saw it perfectly. I think you're set up perfectly. Yeah, at the moment of conduct. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, then there will be some other new, there will be some new company that will eventually try and de-throw new. But that's where I think as you grow, you can't lose that, that, that edge, that innovative entrepreneurial spirit. That's very important too. Yeah. So what, like what we, we've looked at that and said, are we sitting up our, our little satellite factories and we know the concept we can design and put it together. We've got a bulletproof product that's the same world over. How do we grow on that? Like there's lots of little brands and interior designers, the surface designers and high-wear companies and all sorts of people that want to put their, their designs on a wallpiper product. And then how do I do this? Essentially, you'd go to one of the big producers and you, you do a contract range and they produce, you know, however much, and set it all up and you can restock and that's how you do it. But there are now, there are, you can go to digital guys like us who will help you launch a range and then do it all on command. Right? There's only a few, but then if they're doing it quite successfully, we're looking at it and saying, all right, well, maybe we should offer those services. So we're actually about to also release what we're calling MLK Enterprise. We're just going to give you, so you're a design, you can come to us, set up your designs in our system and then you can go and market someone in Germany, someone in France to sell your product and you can actually have a might of your ship locally. So you're all of a sudden, you can, you as a small individual brand, could be competing internationally with the big boys with your mark because you could bottom with some of those. So you're turning it into a little bit of a tech platform too. Yeah, trying to. Very smart. Because, and like we've had to think internationally from day one because of our market worry. But if you're in the US and I listen to e-commerce podcast and stuff, and I have done for years, and you listen to these guys talk, they haven't really met in most cases. You don't need to think outside of the US. Like you think, can I mean, too, you know, because you put this huge market, he'd be very successful within the US market. But we've always had to think internationally. So you've got to think sales, like I've got accounts in every location, because you've got to be compliant everywhere. So you just sort of thinking, all right, we start here and then what do we do in the US? You've got all that sales tax side. So we've got you cover all that. And then you go in Europe, you cover what duties you have. I just like ship that in. What can I get around if I produce it locally? Am I going to be brought for VAT? What's my rules and regulations around that? So we're trying to cover those bases because we already have for the person coming in to say, oh, these guys can actually come to me on that. Like a ship of locally, but I think you worry about it. So that's what we're we're in the middle of sort of growing. Yeah, which I think is very, very smart. What out of all the activities that you're taking on, I mean, this is sort of like the innovation innovation expansion of your business, you're building a platform for people and designers that want to actually launch your own brands. I think it's fabulous. I love I love this. I did not know you were doing this out of all the different marketing activities that you that you've sort of engaged in. What is the what is the I guess the highest return? What is the the 20% of activities that yields the 80% of the results in terms of your marketing? Because there is influencers or PR, there is paid, there's like, what is the thing that you think has helped you the most? It's it's kind of hard because they work very very well together. Like, you know, you've got to have that top of fun. You've got to be showing people what's out there. And you spend a lot of money doing that, putting stuff in front of people with every Facebook ad or you look at the return of that, the return as well as a Google ad or whatever it might be or Pinterest, right? Like Pinterest. We've got a huge following on Pinterest or we're getting in front of a lot of people on Pinterest. But, you know, wallpaper is a slow bit. Like, it takes you can see wallpaper, you can see a room that you like. We could like about 12 months before you buying anything. So it doesn't happen quickly. It's not like a little business that you go, oh, I've got to have it full. Click it and see you the next day. Like, this is you've got to design everything else or you've got to wait for the builder or whatever it might be. The project takes a lot of time. So you look at it and you think, which is the best bang from a bar when you're looking at your return. I don't know, it's hard because it also sort of melts. It sort of has to work together. They do. Yeah. And if you take one piece out, then the other pieces aren't going to function at the same level. They're not going to be as effective. But essentially, we are, we're a retail, we're a direct customer. Like, most of our sales, 70% of our sales kind of from retail. But it's saying that our trade market is growing. That held a lot too, because you've also got people who are now aware of your world by the brand. You've actually seen the Milton King logo. And they're going to their interior designer or they've been walking into a shop and saying, oh, do you have this for Milton King? And it's a shop hasn't had a sell-up boot, like how do we get it? And that's so powerful too. That's so powerful when somebody comes in and asks the best man. That's right. It's not us trying to convince them that they've already got a buyer. So, yeah. So, let's sort of say in the whole market, it's kind of, you know, come along with it. Yeah, it's probably the, but we're controlling our online. So, back to your what are you doing with the affiliates? That's something we're then looking at. What's the big thing for us? We're walking in the wallpaper shop. They go, do you sell online? Who else sells online? Can I sell online? And we're like, well, hang on. We're trying to control what is out there. So, we control our website. We control what's all online. And then we're looking, well, how do we support the shops? How do we do our best there so that they have a lot of run their own website? They can actually generate income from our site. How can they send people? So, we're looking at that. We're going to do the affiliate program. How are we, how are you doing? You know, reward those guys who are using our website rather than trying to compete with us? I have a couple. I have a couple like just general entrepreneur questions and insights that I want to pull out of you. But before I pivot, is there anything last words of wisdom on anything you've built on wallpaper, on the strategy you're deploying right now on just learnings? I mean, we've gone through a lot. So, was there anything we didn't go into that we should have gone into? No, I don't think we're going to make this grandly long. No, I love it. Because it's all relevant. And I want to just, there's like some sort of like some best practices for entrepreneurship. And I want to just ask, but that's where I want it to go next. But I'm just trying to think there's anything else about about the business tactically that we didn't go into right now that that would be good. I think generally we've sort of come up a fair deal to that with our chapter. But it turns to wisdom, but I don't really know. I have too much wisdom. But I guess the the thing for us, the reason we're still in business is that we've just kept showing up and we've kept doing it. And it would be very, but we've also put ourselves, we started off in a position where we could do that. Like we didn't have mortgages, we didn't have kids that were hungry, we didn't have any of those things where it was really, really dependent on us or return from day one. Like so, but yeah, I think the main thing for any entrepreneur or anyone in business is just to keep going. If it's working, if it's not working, you're going to make very drastic decisions, but if it's working, and you've got to take the going to stop and look, everybody's race is completely different. You can't look at these guys and go, we're going to get into that. Hang on, hang on, hang on, that's what he's doing. So yeah, you're just going to find an old nation, get good at it. That's the job, just get good at what you're doing. You started this business with your brother. What advice would you give entrepreneurs that go into business with their family? I think it's been, well, we've been lucky because we're fairly close, but we're also both, you know, if you're very different when you're when you're about single, because you can deal with it time. But then when, well, now we're both married, we've both got children, and we did that through different stages of the business. You know, Ross was married first, and he's got these kids, so you can see he went through a part where he was, you know, he had kids, so he didn't want to sit at the office like I did all the time. He didn't want to, you know, he had other obligations. So I guess the big thing is you're going to be aware that life is going on outside of, and it's not one of the other, you're really going to figure out how to blend it all together, and actually live with it, blend it together. And as much as I think you want to say, leave that at work, it's very hard to do that. And so, you know, being brothers, we're probably not the best communicators. We are, you know, we go through, and we know a lot of what each other sort of thinking of where they're at. But I'll get off the fine and my wife will say, oh did you ask me about that? No, like I didn't go up, you know what I mean? So, here we are, I don't need to know. So it's interesting, and especially as you go into multiple countries, like Bryce works in Australia, so we talk at the end of the day, he's started that, and usually we sort of have that like my drive home on one of the phone to Bryce, and you sort of get to the driveway and sort of round and things up because you want to get inside. So, you know, we sort of, we tick off what we've got to tick off, but how communication could always be better. And that doesn't matter if you partner is you're going to have better communication. Obviously you mentioned, you know, balance, balance between your work and your life is very important. Integration is almost required because it's very difficult, especially as a founder, CEO to leave stuff at home, or at leave work at work, excuse me at the office. How is your approach changed to what you give your work and how much you work and balancing now, your family, your children? You've evolved as a person as a business leader, maybe just walk us through what an entrepreneur who currently is building something, maybe single, no kids, how they should evolve and mature based on your experience. Well, I think there's always, like when you're starting something, there's no idea about it. It takes hours of work, but you're just going to get in and you're going to grind. It's not going to go itself. It's deciding at what point you can let other people do some jobs. You know, you've got to let other people and you've got to get a team in which he was well. But as a founder, like, you know, this is the CEO that you're going to work on your business, not in it. Now, you've always got to start, you know, and you've got to be doing it, like I used to run the printer, you know, to run the chats and the answer to the funds, like someone's going to do it. But as soon as you get to that point where you can put other people in there, you can't mark her and manage them. You've got to tell them what to do, what your expectations are and let her run with it. And I think we wouldn't be in a position where we're able to grow and actually plan ahead if we were trying to do that. It's still being doable, making sure every role was perfect. So I think, and as that, as you evolve from that, you then, you can, you don't have to be at work all the time. You can be walking along with your kids somewhere else, thinking about it, still thinking about what you've got to do. It's always in your head, after that next step of going to do that, which takes a bit of time. And then you can say, I know I've got three hours of work, I've really got to knuckle in and do. But you can sort of bang it up a bit more. And it just starts to blend together a little before. Yeah. What would be your, you know, on that note, what would be your tips for finding the people that you can, you can trust, and you can, you can let them run with different tasks. You have to hire the most incredible people, you have to trust them, you have to let them go, do what they're best at. How do you find these people? How do you track them? How do you retain them? How do you make sure they're the right fit? Well, I've always been, I'm not necessarily one of them, because we didn't start with an idea of producing what we're brewing to the role of wearing now. So I think, as long as they, like, when I look at people who are joining out, I don't really care about what they've done in the past. Oh, I didn't really agree. Well, I don't care about what they actually want to do moving forward. And are they going to be right for our team? Are they going to fit in with our team? Because we're on a really small team. We take responsibility and we do our roles. If there's a step up, we own up to them. But we need hard work as not people that are just, I am, you know, on the inside of something. So we've got all these different backgrounds that kind of come together. You know, people in an all works quite well as a team. So when I'm looking at people, I really look at how you're going to fit in with our team. And where are you at? Like, do you want something to get into? Because like you start off, you need the money, right? Well, always the price that I started, fight broke. We just needed some money. And then you sort of start and you think, oh, there's something in this. And then the innovating side comes along and you know, it was something really about the money. It's about whether or I can fix this, you know, certainty. And then it goes to the next thing. And it's, and you kind of, because you're, you're growing as a person and you're, you're getting out of bed for a reason, not just to make a dollar, but you're getting out of bed because it's something that you actually want to do. You're going to find the people that want to be like that that actually don't find work or pain. You know, you're going to find those people that are happy for Monday mornings. So that's kind of what I'm, you know, I just kind of try and find those people that are just really willing to crack into that next thing and want to be involved. I love that. Happy for Monday mornings. I like that. It's so important though. It's very important. If you were going to look back and tell your 20-year-old self one thing, what would it be? I don't know. I don't know because I think everything that, like, in my 20s, I know I chop, like I started off in my 20s, I was drawn to attract that, you know. I was waiting on a cotton and up and down all day and I remember I had a tape cassette stuck in the bloody thing. It was steamed on repeat and I couldn't get it out of the thing. So, you know, I would tell you 20-year-old that was there was before iPads and iPhones and things like that. Bluters. So I think all of those steps involved are drawing the attract going off and studying accounting. I went to study accounting never to be accounted. That was never one. I was only there to figure out bookkeeping essentially because I thought it was, yeah, this is a good step. I'm going to use this one day. I need to be able to understand financials. Everybody else in the class won her job boring. So, and then I went off to the UK and I met all these people in the UK and I was cleaning ours in the UK and then I worked with this group of guys who were South African and Kiwis and I caught up with one a couple of weeks ago who used to be my boss from 20 years ago. So, all those things that you do all end up coming out later on. Like, so I don't think I'm changing anything because I wouldn't be here now in this position. You know, if I hadn't made the change, I'd been doing something completely different. So, I don't really, I don't really tend to look back and go, I wish I'd done that because I wouldn't change all the outcomes. Yeah, I like that answer a lot, actually. That's very smart. It's very wise. It is, like life is just this aggregation of all your learned experiences that end up, let you do what you do and let you end up where you're supposed to end up. I like that a lot. If you could look back and now you see you've had this incredible career, you've built an incredible business. This question will be two parts, but the first part would be what does success mean for you in terms of your business? Like, where is success in terms of where you can take it? You have a goal of vision for where you actually build this and then also, more importantly, though, where is success in your own life? What does success mean to you now again that you have built the business that you can take a little bit of a step back? You're still obviously highly operational, but what is the personal success metric in your life? So business, personal success. Well, business, I think, like, I look at where we are now and I essentially think we're starting. All the work we've done in the past has gone us to this point where we're actually competing in the market. We're definitely not a major player. We're definitely not, you know, I would say you're not not a major player. You're you're innovated. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but we're not and that's he's trying to attempt, but I think we're in we're in this position where we're ready. We're rotten guy. Like we've figured it all out. We can go. Let's crack it. And and we've also figured out how to how to expand ourselves quite easily into new markets. You know, we know what's required to let's say we want to get into out into spying, for example, we know what's going to be required to get into spying. We know we can do it the product basically point. We've already got the website. We've already got the business. So I look at that and think we've done this bit. We've got where it's starting on, right? And we can then just start rolling it out. I don't know where it goes. I don't know what it ends up looking like. I want to mask the wall coverings before I try and last or anything else. Like, smart. Very smart. You know, and and and we really have that if you think of wall coverings, you think Milton can I really want to have that come up first. In terms of what does it look like? I don't know. Maybe some maybe I'm not so active. Maybe Bryce isn't so active and we can actually have a decent size holiday and not not have to pay wages on a Wednesday and all those topics. But they'll come in time. They'll come in time. So it's just about getting that team a bit bigger and a bit better. Putting ourselves in a position where we're not as required day to day. But my personal life, I think like we we we we we've got two young kids four and two on the other side of the world without any support. I wouldn't say without any support without any family fly spot. And and so it'll be it'll be nice to be able to close that up and keep continuing doing what we're doing and they go out our family to have this adventure like I don't think there's a whole lot more mentioned to be had. But it also locked to be added too in the form. Let's try our people more. Still have those relationships with grandparents and cousins all I've talked with. But also I'd be able to give them out what is the opportunity to understand that the world isn't that big and scary that you know let off our planet. I love this. Okay. So if people want to connect with you a couple things. First of all, you do have a podcast too. So I was looking at some of the episodes. You're speaking with a whole bunch of creatives, designers, artists, some influencers. So there's a lot of like please go listen to the podcast because it's it's not just a wallpaper podcast. There's a lot of really really incredible people that are on this and I was listening to a few of them and I really actually quite liked it. And the music at the beginning is very calming and soothing. So hats off to whoever produces this. No, that's Chris. Chris is, um, Chris is bringing one of this, but looks so in six or seven years. He's the one who interviewed you. Is that, is that okay? So it is a very nice podcast. Yeah, he's, uh, he actually had a music background and he made an island who also works for us. And um, right now we know a lot. And but Chris has got that. So what, what big ones on fighting his strengths all the whole time. This is one of Chris's strengths. Like he's got the soothing. Yeah, it's a very well done podcast. Like I'm not, I'm not just blowing smoke like for these first ones. Uh, it's very good. Um, I promise I won't, I won't try and, uh, I won't try and steal them. But, uh, uh, outside of that, where should people go to connect with you? I mean, you have Milton King.com for the website. Uh, but what are your personal social, personal socials? Do Twitter, LinkedIn? Where, where are you at? Uh, among LinkedIn. I, I, I, I don't use Instagram. We use company use Instagram. It would be, you know, that's the good way to get product together and tell people what we're doing. Um, I'm a bit hopeless on, so um, but the big one is obviously the website. Get on the website and then follow everything from there. Um, okay. Perfect. Yeah. But, but, and then maybe personally, I'm just rocking the LinkedIn action. That's about it. Sounds good. I appreciate it. Okay. Richard, I really appreciate what you've built here. I appreciate, I appreciate the innovation that you've brought to this industry. So I want to thank you for, for jumping on, but also thank you for sort of teaching entrepreneurs. In my opinion, how to disrupt something that's been around for hundreds of years. And there's going to be a lot of industries and a lot of entrepreneurs and a lot of legacy industries that can learn from you. And probably there'll be some business leaders who have family businesses that I go back to generations that should also learn from you. So they don't get disrupted by another you and another legacy industry. That's my, that's my case. That's, that's, that's fair enough. That's alternatively with big day pockets. They won't come in as competition, sir. Exactly. Yeah. No, say it, say it a wallpaper, but any other legacy industry you can go to. Anyways, I appreciate you, man. Thank you very much. It's been good. Not my pleasure.