Founded in 2008 by Daniel Flynn, Justine Flynn, and Jarryd Burns, Thankyou has grown into a movement of millions of people taking small steps to create big change. With 692 million people around the world living in extreme poverty, Thankyou was created as a social enterprise that brings consumers a product choice that exists to help end this poverty. Their aim is to fundamentally change the world we live in for good by making products that are designed to be kind to humans and the planet. Their highly engaged community successfully petitioned the two largest supermarkets in Australia to stock Thankyou products, allowing them to give millions of dollars to their projects. Currently, they are excited to be working on the biggest category launch they have ever attempted, to make a huge impact for a world in need. Read on to learn more about their story.
The passion: What inspired you to set up your business?
I’d say it all started with a moment when I was 19. I saw extreme poverty through videos online-stories of kids who didn’t have access to clean water. I was really moved and challenged by the scale of the injustice. At the time, 900 million people didn’t have clean water. I also read about the bottled water industry, which globally, was worth $50 billion back then. Today, it has grown to close to $350 billion, and I thought, “This is wild, such an injustice”. One world, two extremes. Today, at Thankyou, we talk about extreme poverty-the 692 million people living in it-and the $69.58 trillion of combined consumer spending. We ask, “What if we could bridge that gap?”. That’s the heart of what we do-launching products that exist solely to end extreme poverty. Our first product was bottled water. It’s no longer in our range, but that’s where this all began.
The launch: How did you start out in the beginning?
We literally started by Googling “how to start a bottled water company”. Then we found factories, met with people, and presented the idea. It was a typical bootstrap story-lots of passion, no money. But we had a breakthrough when a factory manager was inspired by our vision. Then, in our first sales pitch, the largest beverage distributor in the country took a chance on us, placing an order for 50,000 units on the spot.
The innovation: What was the biggest breakthrough for you with your business?
Our biggest breakthrough came five years in. For five years, Coles and Woolworths had said no to Thankyou. Then, one Wednesday morning, we launched a little video on YouTube that said, “Hey, everyone, two weeks from today, we’re presenting to Coles and Woolworths. If you’d buy our products, jump on their Facebook wall and let them know”. The petition went semi-viral. People sang, danced, rapped, and uploaded posts. We got about 105 media features, and two helicopter pilots flew 20,000-square-foot signs for free around Coles’ and Woolworths’ head offices.
It culminated with Coles saying yes, five hours after our meeting, and Woolworths saying yes three hours later. That was our biggest breakthrough, securing shelf space. Not long after that, we were able to give millions of dollars to our projects.
Yin and Yang: How do you balance work and family?
We’ve had to get really good at saying no-no to lots of opportunities and ideas. It’s always a challenge because work and business are fulfilling and full of opportunity. But we’ve learnt, through trial and error (and getting it wrong), what happens when you’re out of balance-when you’re not giving enough time and attention to the people who matter most, which for us is family. Today, we’ve got that balance much better than we did at the beginning.
