Foundr Journal publishes in-depth interviews with the world’s best entrepreneurs. Our articles spotlight key takeaways from every month’s cowl function. We talked with Daniel Flynn, cofounder of Thankyou, in regards to the advertising ways he’s used to altering the dialog on ending excessive poverty via retail. Learn excerpts from that in-depth dialog beneath. To learn extra, subscribe to the journal.
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Daniel Flynn has two tips for his social enterprise firm. The primary: By no means use a superb trigger to promote a mean product. The second: Create a world the place not one individual lives in excessive poverty.
Daniel Flynn is co-founder and managing director of Thankyou. Based in 2008, Thankyou is considered one of Australia’s main mainstream social enterprises. Thankyou is 100% owned by the Thankyou Charitable Belief (established in 2015), which distributes income from its merchandise to the a number of nonprofits they work with—organizations they name Affect Companions.
In accordance with Flynn, 736 million folks dwell in excessive poverty world wide. In the meantime, customers within the developed world spend $63 trillion annually on items and companies.
“Think about if there was a bridge between the 2 extremes,” Flynn says. “We’d say that’s Thankyou’s job. We’re a bridge between our world to excessive poverty.”
How Daniel Flynn Makes use of Unorthodox Advertising and marketing to Finish Excessive Poverty
Earlier than beginning Thankyou Water, Flynn had labored in a Vodafone kiosk pitching to passersby. He was used to being assertive together with his gross sales pitch and wasn’t shy about getting his message out. To get main manufacturers to inventory their water, Flynn and his staff used some considerably unorthodox methods involving social media to get their consideration and in the end nook them right into a “sure.”
7-Eleven Marketing campaign
To get 7-Eleven Australia to inventory their waters, he and his spouse recorded a video for his or her followers, asking them to go away feedback on 7-Eleven’s Fb web page promising to purchase the Thankyou Water in the event that they stocked it.
The marketing campaign labored, and 7-Eleven agreed to inventory Thankyou Water.
Woolworths and Coles
They created the same marketing campaign to get their merchandise into Woolworths and Coles, two main retailers in Australia. Flynn and his staff had spent 5 years making an attempt to get Thankyou merchandise onto their cabinets with no success.
So that they launched the same video to their followers. “We mentioned, ‘Hey, Thankyou did effectively. It’s in 7-Eleven. For 5 years, Coles and Woolworths have mentioned no. Two weeks from immediately, we’re presenting to the board, however this time we’re not taking the water. We’re taking the entire vary of physique care merchandise. We’re taking the meals. We’ve developed it for years. We’d like you, Australia, to come back with us.’ We actually mentioned, `Come to the assembly with us.’”
Then, they took it a step additional. They employed two helicopters to fly over Woolworths’ and Coles’ headquarters in Sydney and Melbourne with big indicators that learn Expensive Coles, Expensive Woolworths, thanks for altering the world [If you say yes].
Flynn says that inside 5 hours of their conferences, Thankyou had a sure from each firms.
Chapter One
When Thankyou determined to develop to the infant care market, they didn’t have the funds to truly make it occur. However that they had one other trick up their sleeve to bridge the funding hole.
Flynn determined to jot down a e book. Entitled Chapter One, the e book shares the story of Flynn and his enterprise companions as they constructed Thankyou from nothing.
The e book was revealed in 2016 and launched on Amazon with a pay-what-you-want mannequin. Their purpose was to lift AUD$1.2 million to fund each their child care line and a world take a look at market in New Zealand.
In its first 28 days on-line, it bought greater than 55,000 copies and raised greater than AUD$1.4 million.
“A number of folks paid $0.05. However some paid tons of, even 1000’s,” Thankyou states on their website. “CEOs bought 1000s of copies for his or her staff. Essentially the most paid to this point—$50,000—was paid by an extremely beneficiant woman. However our favourite story was about 12-year-old Landon. His mum wrote to us after he’d bought 4 copies at $20 every, which he gifted to folks he thought ought to go on to vary the world. We obtained an replace that Landon has given 18 copies (and counting).”
