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your first purchase. Welcome

0:33

to The Mentor,

0:35

I'm Mark Booris.

0:42

Suji, Angiva, Sanjivan, welcome to

0:44

The Mentor. Thank you, Mark. And

0:46

this is the first time we met, by the

0:48

way. We've met before. We did some stuff for

0:50

Amex YouTube or something like that. American

0:53

Express YouTube a couple of years ago. I

0:56

think it was during COVID. That's right. Yeah,

0:58

we met live here in Sydney. We came

1:00

and filmed with you and then we had

1:02

a retake via Zoom. Yeah, sometime later because

1:04

of the COVID drama. And you guys

1:07

own a candle, scented

1:10

candle business plus another business, which is

1:12

like a consultancy for scent.

1:14

Yes. But your business is called Light & Glow. Light

1:18

& Glow's candle designs. That's right.

1:20

So there's Light & Glow. And

1:22

then the scent marketing agency is

1:25

Brandcent. Brandcent, right. So, and

1:27

you're the co-founders and Suji, you're

1:29

the creative director and Angiva,

1:32

you're the marketing manager. But you're both

1:35

doctors, correct? Yes. Yes. And

1:38

I just go back a bit.

1:41

Born where? So I

1:44

was born in Sri Lanka, but my mother and

1:46

father were in London at the time. They'd left

1:48

Sri Lanka to go study and

1:50

mum fell pregnant. So I went back to Sri Lanka.

1:53

She had me in Sri Lanka and I was raised

1:55

by my grand for two years. In Sri Lanka. In

1:57

Sri Lanka. So for me, that was hard.

2:00

and then at to my mother finished

2:02

her engineering degree and I moved to

2:04

London and London became home. And

2:06

did you do your studies? So everything

2:09

that I know from right through from kindergarten up

2:11

to university was in London. I went

2:14

to King's College London and Queen Mary's

2:16

as well so I started med school

2:18

at Queen Mary and then that was

2:21

a bit of a I can go into the story so I

2:23

failed it in second year so

2:25

I was pushing to medical school in

2:27

terms of I think it was more

2:29

my mother's dream than mine and I

2:31

stepped in and realised quite quickly that

2:33

it wasn't for me and of

2:36

course when there's no passion behind something that you

2:38

do you fumble pretty fast and

2:40

that's exactly what happened and I went

2:42

to King's College did a bachelor's and I went

2:45

you know what I'm gonna give this medicine a

2:47

red hot crack because being the eldest of three

2:49

girls I had to set paved the

2:51

way and and I've an immigrant family. Exactly

2:54

the pressure was there it was very

2:56

much a pressure-cooked environment to finish and

2:58

that's exactly what I did but upon

3:00

finishing I was like here it

3:02

is I'm done and I'm out of here. Am I

3:04

doing this? And that's when I met Jeeva.

3:06

Do you meet Jeeva in London? Yeah we

3:09

got introduced in London we had what you

3:11

would call a modern-day arranged marriage so we

3:13

were introduced through family and we kind of

3:16

got on there was no pressure to you know

3:18

go ahead with it but we really clicked he

3:20

was in Australia I couldn't wait

3:22

to get away from the environment that was

3:24

there going when you when you working out

3:26

what's happening now what are you doing and

3:29

finally I think once I met him and

3:31

moved here I felt a

3:33

sense of freedom to do what I wanted

3:35

to do and but I stepped into policy

3:37

and clinical research at the Royal Children's Hospital

3:39

at that time. In Sydney? In Melbourne. So

3:41

we moved to Melbourne. The

3:43

Royal Children's Hospital is in Melbourne. I know

3:46

it is. I've driven past it on the

3:48

way back from the airport and Jeeva

3:51

you all go slightly a bit

3:53

random as I understand you ended up in

3:55

Russia or something like how that work what was that deal? So

3:58

I bought and bought up in Sri Lanka,

4:00

you know, a small

4:02

village in Jaffna or Point B2. Okay,

4:05

I know a little bit about

4:07

Sri Lanka. Give me a bit of a map

4:10

now. So take me from Kwanba where

4:12

we're going. We're going up into the

4:14

mountains of the Teo, we're going down

4:16

the coast. No, so Kalambu is down

4:18

and then the Kandy is where the

4:20

central area, but you go further north.

4:24

So we are the tip of the north,

4:26

so it's called Jaffna Point B2. So that's

4:28

the northern side of it. A lot of

4:30

the time not many people would have gone

4:32

because it was the whole area. Yeah, because

4:34

it was a revolution or a sort of

4:36

a… The civil wars. So that's where

4:38

I was born and brought up in

4:40

a small village there. And, you know, I'd gone

4:43

through all this, you know, being a refugee in

4:45

my own country. You

4:47

know, it got splitted like my dad was

4:49

in Kandy where the mountain… The Teo is

4:51

here. And

4:54

my mom and my elder brother, we were in

4:57

Jaffna because of the war. You

4:59

know, he was working as a professor at the

5:01

University of Paratania, but my mom was a

5:03

principal at, you

5:06

know, in Jaffna. And then

5:08

the war and we got splitted, you know, and

5:11

I still remember that me

5:13

and my elder brother,

5:15

you know, we used to even take

5:17

the banger, you know, to survive ourselves.

5:19

And it's been so hard

5:21

to go through all of that. But we learned

5:23

to become more resilient. And, you

5:25

know, that's helped me down the track to

5:27

end up in Russia. Well, I

5:29

just want to just stop there for

5:32

a second because I've never really quite

5:34

understood what the civil war in

5:37

Sri Lanka was about. It

5:41

was basically Sri Lankans against each other. And

5:44

there's been… That's a long told story in lots

5:46

of countries, lots of regions around the world. When

5:51

I went there, bombs

5:54

were going… There was terrorists. Bombs

5:56

were going off in Colombia, like

5:58

actual proper terrorists. things. I mean,

6:00

I was a bit sort of unaware

6:02

of these things. Like, I mean, I was aware of it,

6:04

I didn't really give a shit, because I was on holiday.

6:07

But yeah, like, but

6:09

still, stuff was happening at that time. Was

6:12

it really bad though? Like, like,

6:15

were there was a lot of crisis

6:18

and destruction of homes and

6:20

people? Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah. So

6:22

we are the just now that was

6:24

the heart of the, you know, or

6:26

the northern side of the country

6:28

and the eastern side of the country where the

6:31

war. So where you

6:33

would have had those, you know, some of

6:35

the bombs and things like that. It's

6:38

very small, compared to whatever

6:41

have was happening in the northern

6:43

side, because, so the

6:45

Tamils and Singles. So the actual issue

6:47

was, it's not the religious, it was

6:50

more of the language was the thing.

6:53

And then the Tamil, they had,

6:55

you know, rebels, you know, they, they

6:57

wanted to have the freedom, the northern

6:59

and eastern side. So they want to

7:01

split it up late, they do want

7:03

to have like a cessation. In other

7:06

words, one section that becomes Tamil, the

7:08

rest of becomes, yeah, what was on

7:10

becomes like a separate state.

7:13

Yes. So they want a separate state.

7:15

And that's where the ball was. And

7:18

then, you know, it was, I

7:21

remember, like, there are days that you have

7:23

no food, you only have food every second

7:25

day, you know, like, it's quite hard. There

7:28

was no power. So I haven't seen power

7:31

in a when I was young, and there's

7:33

nothing, no take nothing, you know, even the

7:35

schools were there. Some days, you

7:37

know, like, the schools been used

7:39

as shelter for people when

7:41

the bombardment and all happening. And

7:44

yeah, I, you know, I've gone through quite

7:46

a lot, like a lot of my school

7:49

friends died in the, in

7:51

the war and things like that. So it was it

7:53

was full blown war. And so how did you know

7:55

Russia? So when I,

7:57

you know, so then I moved

7:59

to When I was 13,

8:01

I moved to Kandy where my dad

8:04

was. Then

8:06

I studied in Kandy. Then from

8:08

there, I went to Russia to do

8:10

medicine. Why Russia? It's a bit

8:12

random. Like a fizzle random. Anyway, like.

8:16

There's quite a, quite a lot of people

8:18

from India and Sri Lanka. They were going

8:20

to Russia because it's more affordable price point

8:23

wise. So my parents can

8:25

afford it. If you come to Australia or

8:28

if you go to UK, the

8:30

international student fee is quite high.

8:33

So, you know, so the Russian was. Did

8:35

you ever speak Russian? Yeah, I can speak

8:37

Russian. You speak Russian. Yeah. That's

8:39

bad man. I can read, write and I can

8:41

speak Russian. So how old were you when you

8:43

were learning to speak, read and write Russian like

8:45

17, I

8:48

was 18. Yeah. So you

8:50

had to go to another country to do a medical degree and you

8:52

had to do a degree in another language, which you had to learn.

8:55

And you learnt the language and you learnt

8:57

the degree in another language and

9:00

you came out as a medically

9:03

qualified. Doctor.

9:06

And then you came to Australia. Yes.

9:09

Why Australia? You know,

9:11

after finishing, I went to UK

9:13

for a few years, but I

9:15

felt like UK was

9:18

still more of a,

9:20

you know, more populated. So

9:23

I wanted to have a little bit more of a place

9:26

where I can establish and, you know,

9:28

less competition. Yeah, I could

9:31

say less competition. And, you

9:33

know, I heard that Australia

9:35

is the place full

9:37

of opportunities. So I thought, oh, why not?

9:40

And I, you know, I was lucky. So

9:43

you came to Australia. Did you

9:45

go into medical practice straight away? No,

9:48

you have to do the exams. So you've got

9:50

to do. So that's taken a couple of

9:52

years for anyone to. Did

9:55

you speak English? I,

9:58

yeah, because in Sri Lanka. there

10:00

are three language but everyone learned

10:03

a little bit you know so I was in fluent

10:05

in English but still I

10:07

struggled a little bit but yeah

10:10

so I had to learn it's

10:13

not that I have to the

10:15

learning Russian was from the beginning so I didn't

10:17

know anything but English I had the foundation so

10:19

I had to just learn a little

10:21

bit more to talk but sorry Suji you look at

10:24

that point anyway yeah

10:28

of course a bit random but not a

10:30

random is a bit crazy what he did

10:32

so here you are to our in Australia

10:35

young doctors although you weren't all

10:37

I can on being a doctor what

10:40

how how and why did you decide to

10:42

go into what

10:45

is by you to go into the scent market for

10:48

me I think as I mentioned moved

10:50

over here stepped into policy and clinical

10:52

research and we'll I

10:54

mean in it for about 10 years and we were

10:56

working together Juba was there at the age as well

10:58

and I was a part of Murdoch working and

11:01

we had Farron who's our eldest son so we've

11:03

got three young boys 12 8

11:06

and 7 or 6 should I say sorry and

11:09

when we had our eldest without not

11:11

having family here it was extremely difficult

11:14

we drop him off at daycare at

11:16

the children's at 6 a.m. in the morning I'd go

11:18

to work he'd go to work and it was very

11:20

random hours for him when he was working

11:22

so we were very limited by what we could

11:25

provide him so when we picked Farron up

11:27

it would be 6 30 at night so

11:29

he was falling asleep in my arm so I

11:31

was dropping him off asleep asleep picking up half

11:33

asleep so I barely got to

11:35

enjoy his early childhood

11:37

and because I was in research and there

11:39

were deadlines we actually put him in daycare

11:41

at four months old so

11:44

I'd always had that regret that if we were

11:46

to have another child which we wanted to and we

11:49

did put off that something had to

11:51

change something had to give although

11:53

I was in practicing medicine it

11:55

was equally intensive the clinical kind

11:57

of research pathway Juba's hours were

11:59

crazy crazy. He was travelling all over the place.

12:01

So I dabbled in sense.

12:03

I just enjoyed it. I loved the way

12:05

that it allows you to relax, how it

12:08

plays with your hormones and senses. And it

12:10

has a real psychology behind it. So

12:13

that was a sign. It was more of a hobby.

12:15

And when I fell pregnant

12:17

with my second son, I

12:20

made some candles for a

12:22

baby shower. And that really

12:24

was, I guess, the starting point. Not so much

12:26

of a business, but we thought, let me

12:28

do something to occupy myself during

12:30

maternity leave. Not that I

12:32

didn't have enough to do, because I'd actually

12:35

signed up to a Juris Doctor course and

12:37

was about three months into that already as

12:39

well, because opportunities were very limited when I

12:41

came here. Moving to Australia, I felt like

12:43

I'd come into England 20 years ago, faced

12:46

a lot of racism. And things that

12:53

I didn't expect that I faced

12:55

in London growing up as a child in the 80s, but

12:57

didn't expect to face

12:59

it coming here. And being female

13:02

as well. Exactly. So opportunities were

13:04

very limited. And

13:06

my unit itself was very whitewashed,

13:09

if I can say that, at that time. And

13:12

I thought something here has to

13:14

change. And the sense played into

13:16

its circumstances. And so slowly, as

13:19

much as I loved doing the Juris Doctor course, and I was doing

13:21

that out of being kind of, I

13:23

guess, push aside for a role. So

13:26

at that time, I was in a different organisation.

13:28

And I was the one with

13:30

the science knowledge, we were talking about breast cancer at

13:32

the time, and someone else had a legal

13:34

background. And they got the

13:36

promotion, which I didn't still don't quite understand how

13:39

someone illegal gets promotion to do with breast cancer.

13:41

But I said to myself, you know what, I'm

13:43

going to go back and get a legal degree,

13:45

just so that next time this promotion comes up,

13:47

it's going to be mine. But little

13:50

did I know that this business was going

13:52

to start snowball. And that's exactly what we

13:54

did. And I realised,

13:57

as a child had a real passion

13:59

for design. I loved and I have a

14:01

real eye for design. So putting packaging together,

14:03

designing things that combined

14:05

with the sense really started

14:07

to, I guess, um, we started to

14:10

gain a foothold for light and glow

14:12

in the industry. Jeeva has the gift

14:14

of the gap. So he was out talking to

14:16

people. So, and I

14:18

stayed behind the scenes and I did what

14:20

I loved. And I remember growing up as, you

14:23

know, going back to childhood, telling my mom, oh, I

14:25

want to get into design and journalism. And she's like,

14:27

no, you're not. You've got three, two, you've got my

14:29

unit. It's medicine, medicine,

14:31

all medicine. Yeah, no, so

14:33

my family was, you know, my family,

14:36

lawyer, lawyer, lawyer. And

14:38

yeah, so, uh, finally, A, I

14:41

was away from family and I

14:44

had the support of, um, someone,

14:46

Jeeva kind of supported me in

14:48

everything that I did. And

14:50

finally I started to push forward with light

14:52

and glow and people loved it. People loved

14:54

the design. The woodwick element at that time

14:57

was quite novel and just

14:59

to go back to woodwick. So it makes a

15:02

noise. Yeah. As I recall,

15:04

um, just, just, just explain to her,

15:06

okay, you've done your little, you

15:08

know, baby shower, whatever, whatever candles, et cetera.

15:10

But, um, at some stage you've decided,

15:12

hang on, I can turn this into a business. You're

15:15

on maternity leave, et cetera. So, you know, you probably

15:17

got more opportunity. As you said earlier, you had a,

15:19

an income and a partner

15:21

who supported you in more

15:23

ways, wonder, I mean, he obviously just got involved in the

15:25

business too as well, but the

15:27

point at which you said,

15:29

okay, this is a business and this is, and

15:32

how did you decide to go about it? What

15:34

were the first steps you thought about turning

15:36

this into a business, making this business and going to

15:38

market? So as you know, candles,

15:41

um, is such a saturated market. So a lot of

15:43

candlemakers. And there's one

15:45

popping up every other day. So it wasn't

15:48

something that I thought had legs at that

15:50

time. But when we first started, um, in

15:52

December, we said ourselves as target, set myself

15:54

target and that if I could take the

15:56

$237 into 10 fold. with

16:01

the marketing knowledge that I have, which

16:03

is very limited, then we're onto something.

16:05

In a saturated market, if I can

16:07

do that, then I can certainly push

16:09

forward. So that's exactly what I

16:11

did. I appeared on socials. I started to do

16:13

the marketing. So you built

16:15

an Instagram page or Facebook or something? That's

16:17

right. And started building a local community. So

16:19

we were based out in West Melbourne and

16:22

in Pointe-Cork, and that's really what we did. Started

16:24

from people that I knew and started

16:27

to build that Facebook page, build a local

16:29

community, and they had our backs. And

16:31

they still do. We've got customers from

16:33

DADOT who still follow the journey and

16:35

still avid buyers. So

16:38

then we start, okay, right, let's push the

16:40

envelope. Let's go further outside Melbourne. Let's go

16:42

to do events. And that's where Juba would

16:44

help when he had time. Right, Melbourne's

16:47

done. Let's go rural. Let's go

16:49

interstate. And it's really physically meaning

16:51

what? There's markets. So really starting

16:54

at ground level. That's exactly right. Yeah. I

16:56

remember telling my mum and dad this, oh,

16:58

we're going to a market to sell candles.

17:00

Oh my goodness. It hit the back. All

17:02

this education. What's wrong with you? 100%

17:05

she was boiling her eyes out. What's

17:08

Juba saying? No,

17:10

he was all for it. Yeah, but I

17:12

was saying, what's Juba saying about

17:14

this? So, you know, like Suji

17:17

started the business with $237. Oh,

17:21

literally. That's it. That's

17:23

what we put. Yeah, that's the whole

17:25

money. I show capital. Capital. But

17:29

what I was saying is like,

17:31

okay, I will help you. So

17:34

the first one, it was just

17:36

testing, you know, so $237

17:38

December Christmas time, you make

17:40

it 10 times, you know, it's and then

17:43

the second son, you know, was

17:45

born on the January 5th. So it was

17:47

a month before she started this. And

17:50

then in April, I was saying, okay, you

17:52

already did it. So let me help you to

17:54

take it to the local market. So

17:57

I still remember the very first market, you know, we're saying,

17:59

okay. We are going to go and do this one. We

18:02

had that $2,000 from the money, and

18:05

we let's go and make more. And

18:07

I took it, I think the

18:09

store fee was $65, but

18:12

I only made $23. That's the reining

18:14

of the kiosk. I was reining a little bit of the

18:16

rest. Yeah, exactly. But I only made

18:18

$27 or something. Day

18:21

one. Day one. I

18:23

was like, oh, okay. I mean, you

18:25

didn't sell many. No. But

18:28

that was the first time, you know? So I said,

18:30

no, I want to go to the same place next

18:32

month, and I wanted to approve it. Where

18:34

were you, Sajid? Yeah,

18:36

I was looking at it, and I said point blank, I

18:39

don't do sales, so I'm not going to go do markets.

18:41

Okay, so that's what you mean by marketing. So Jeeva

18:43

was doing the actual selling.

18:45

Yeah, I was the only

18:48

one who was selling. Dr.

18:50

Jeeva Sanjiren, standing, speaks Russian,

18:52

speaks one of the three,

18:54

at least one of them, and English, standing

18:56

there behind a counter at

18:58

a local market, selling candles.

19:00

Well, you're actually selling scent, but yeah, but

19:03

selling candles with a certain sort of weekend

19:05

there. That's right, yeah. So

19:07

are you burning them? But there,

19:09

did you have one burning? No, some of these

19:11

markets, these are indoor market, they won't let you burn a

19:14

candle. Oh, really? Because of fire safety reason.

19:16

But there are candles open

19:18

so they can smell it, so they know how it's

19:20

going to smell like. Why

19:23

wasn't anyone coming up to your counter? Or

19:25

more importantly, why wasn't anyone buying off your counter?

19:28

Because normally these small Saturday

19:31

markets, people go there to support the

19:33

local artists and local businesses, how you

19:35

do most of the time, go out

19:37

and help them. So the same way

19:39

they come, they want to find who

19:42

is coming, what they're doing, something new. So

19:44

when you say, oh, I started this, or my wife

19:47

started, I'm helping, they're like, okay, let me

19:49

help you. So they

19:51

buy one. And then the second time, when I went

19:53

to the same market, I tripled that. So

19:56

I was a little bit, but I wasn't talking

19:58

about the net profit or anything. For me

20:00

it's like okay, you know what, you just got

20:03

something and then from

20:05

there some markets

20:07

you know within few months we started to make

20:10

in a market probably $3,000, $4,000, just

20:14

one market in a day. And

20:17

then so what do you think, it's got to feel

20:19

like it's something, what is it you could just tell

20:21

me that do you

20:24

think is the reason why you went from like

20:26

a small amount of sales to a large amount

20:28

of sales? Was it more the regularity, were you

20:30

going back to the same market or

20:33

were you just getting better at displaying

20:35

your product or do you have more product on display

20:37

or what do you think it was or what different

20:39

area is better? I mean when you say some market

20:41

sometimes it would be $3,000. Why

20:45

was the first one nothing, $27 what it was and

20:47

the one was $3,000, what do you

20:49

put that down to?

20:52

So the very first one when I did, I

20:54

didn't know what I'm doing, I didn't know

20:56

much about the candles and I wasn't confident

20:58

enough. So you didn't understand what

21:01

was going on in relation to the candles so to speak,

21:03

you didn't know enough about the features of the candles to

21:05

sell them. But saying

21:08

that you know when we

21:10

started the first second market I

21:12

was like okay now I'm going

21:15

to sit back and think how I'm going to you know

21:18

increase the sale. When

21:20

we started we were selling the candle for $25. I

21:24

sat back and said look it's a consumable. When

21:26

someone buy one candle they're going

21:28

to you know burn that candle in the next

21:31

two weeks or three weeks and I want them to

21:33

come back to me. And

21:35

also I want them to talk about this so

21:38

it can go bigger. So what

21:40

I did is I said look let's do a $15 candle. So

21:44

you made a new candle cheaper.

21:48

So that way it's pretty much

21:50

like yes you are undercutting some of the

21:52

others at the market level but

21:54

you are actually selling more and

21:57

you're doing from home. You didn't have any other

21:59

candle. overheads. So we

22:02

were making quite a good profit. And

22:05

then what we started to do is rather

22:07

than selling 10 candles,

22:09

I started to sell 100, 200

22:12

and some places I was even selling

22:16

four, five, six hundred candles a day. So you

22:18

worked out in terms of your

22:20

product and pricing that changed

22:23

the product slightly in terms of

22:25

size or your cost base and

22:27

sell it cheaper. So

22:29

it made it more affordable. So you open up

22:31

the number of people who

22:34

would be in your cohort

22:36

of those individuals who could justify spending money,

22:38

that much money on a candle. More

22:41

people can afford 15 bucks and 25 bucks,

22:43

bottom line. That's right. Yeah. And it worked.

22:46

It did work. So we have to

22:48

sometimes understand the market and also understand

22:50

your customer. Okay. If

22:52

you're going to test this in

22:54

a big level, you're going to

22:57

spend quite a lot of money in your marketing and all

22:59

of that. So I don't rather than spending on that. Let

23:02

me reduce the price, go

23:04

to the market, see the customers face to

23:06

face, learn from them and

23:09

understand where we can change things and how

23:11

we can bring different fragrance or what they

23:13

are looking for. Did you ask? Did you

23:15

actually ask? Yes. Did you say what price

23:17

would you buy that? Did you get

23:20

to that level? I didn't ask what price

23:22

you would pay, but what I was asking,

23:24

so what do you normally buy, you know,

23:26

from where you are buying candles and how

23:28

much you spend on a candle and what

23:30

is your favorite scent or

23:32

fragrance? And why? So

23:34

I can understand and I can use

23:37

that in our brand. And so that's,

23:39

I was looking at it. Okay. It

23:41

says research. Research. So because I was

23:43

in research as well, so, but it

23:45

was a medical research, but research,

23:47

research, research, you know, you want to understand. I didn't

23:49

have any sort of knowledge in business

23:52

or marketing or anything, but only

23:54

thing I had is I, I'm happy

23:57

to talk to anyone and I'm happy to, you

23:59

know, just. smile and talk and that's what I

24:01

did. And I was in going

24:03

to a market and sitting

24:05

behind the counter and waiting

24:07

for someone to come. I was actually standing

24:09

outside and talking to everyone. So

24:12

everyone was coming to me rather

24:14

than I have to just

24:16

sit back and wait. Because a lot of the

24:19

places when you go, they think that I'm sitting

24:21

here behind, they will bring a chair, they

24:23

will sit there and they think that

24:26

everyone is going to come and buy from them. And then

24:28

they complain, oh, I had a bad day.

24:30

But you decide whether you have a good day

24:32

or bad day rather than somebody else's

24:34

decided. So that's what I was doing.

24:37

Okay, well, I'm just going to go to the break, going

24:39

to come back and talk to Suji

24:41

and Jeeva a little bit more about how

24:44

did they then once they worked

24:46

out the price, where it should be,

24:50

the price point, and then how do

24:52

I amend

24:54

my product to make sure it

24:56

makes sense that price point? How

24:58

do they turn this into a great big business? And

25:00

also I want to talk about the psychology associated with

25:02

your point of difference because candles are candles. You're

25:06

really selling an experience.

25:09

And I want to talk about that. So we go straight to

25:23

the break. Hey everyone, I'm Craig

25:25

Robinson, co-host of the ways to

25:27

win podcast alongside my good friend,

25:29

John Calipari. I've been on the

25:32

go recently, Phoenix, Kansas city, Chicago.

25:34

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25:36

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25:38

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how much at

25:56

airbnb.com/post. I'm

26:06

back from the break and I'm sitting here with Sujin

26:08

Jeeva Senjivan and we sort of covered

26:10

off a little bit of the history of their life as

26:13

random and unusual as it was and how

26:15

they went from being

26:18

medical practitioners and also researchers

26:20

in the medical profession into becoming

26:23

candle makers and scent

26:25

deliverers. We

26:28

got a fair idea of how it all got kicked off

26:30

in markets which is very humbling to be frank

26:32

with you given where they are at today.

26:35

So Sujin, the creative

26:38

mind behind all this, tell

26:41

me about the importance of your scent and I also

26:43

want you to talk about the importance

26:45

of that wick. So what are

26:49

the things that's hitting in my

26:51

senses, in my brain that are

26:54

sort of making me my reward center react

26:56

a little bit? Tell me about that. So

26:59

as with anything, when you

27:01

tap into all the senses, I feel like there's

27:03

a much more of experience. The user

27:05

experience is what we're creating here.

27:08

Through the sense that we're

27:10

using, we're enticing the

27:12

psychology of how you feel. But what we

27:14

did, we went that extra mile and we

27:16

added the wooden wick. The reason being is,

27:18

firstly, it's sustainable. It's FSC certified. Wooden

27:20

wick is actually a wick made

27:23

of wood. That's right. Pretty shavings,

27:25

is it? That's right. It's about 1.2 mil

27:27

thin. It's cedar wood shaving, sustainably sore.

27:29

How do you find it better? So

27:32

at that time, it was trending in the US. There wasn't

27:34

many brands here. It was quite fickle. It's quite hard to

27:36

use and it was a lot of research

27:38

trial and error. Is it burning? Is it not

27:40

burning? And we passed it and

27:42

we finally found the wick and the wacks and

27:44

the right ratios to get it perfect. But what

27:46

we found was it was just the ambience that

27:49

it creates. So when you have it burning here,

27:51

if we're sitting here, it's that crackling. It's like

27:53

a little mini fireplace. But

27:56

it's that auditory sensation that we're

27:58

adding to that user experience. So

28:00

just give me the view being you're you're

28:02

a doctor by doctors. Just

28:04

just quickly hit me up with what

28:07

are the which senses are being delighted

28:11

when your candle is lit with your wooden

28:14

wick. I mean, I

28:16

hear what it was. Yes, surely

28:19

you're seeing the candle burn. So

28:21

there's the visual, there's the auditory

28:23

through the wooden wick and then

28:25

the sensation of hormones as you smell

28:27

the sense of smells and time. So

28:29

depending on the former, depending on the

28:32

sense, lavender or citrus, whether you

28:34

want to be alert, you can use

28:36

it in various forms. Aphrodisiac. So we

28:39

have, yeah, we've got various candles

28:41

for various ranges. And we go

28:43

to Y groups. Well,

28:45

right now it's Valentine's Day. So

28:47

we've got like candle collections there that

28:49

make you feel like it's all about senses

28:52

and sensations when it comes to our candles.

28:54

And what we did was when Juba was

28:56

out and about is really spent in the

28:59

science. So we effectively say we put the

29:01

science back into candle making through our brand.

29:03

And is that something that did happen historically

29:05

thousands of years ago? Yeah, it's been

29:08

around thousands of years and unknowingly

29:10

we've been using it. So although

29:13

people weren't explaining it and over the

29:15

years it became just a candle, it

29:17

became a homeware as opposed to having

29:20

therapeutic benefits. It's a thing

29:22

just to have. But when you

29:24

say aromatherapy, that's exactly what it

29:26

means. It's the therapy using aroma.

29:29

So when you break the words down. So when

29:32

we started Light and Glow, we wanted a

29:34

point of difference and that wouldn't work, was

29:36

our point of difference. But also the science

29:39

into how we explained it was another point

29:41

of difference. And with Juba

29:43

and myself at the helm explaining

29:45

this, people connected, people resonated and

29:47

it was that human connection that

29:49

really started to take us further.

29:51

And as Juba mentioned, being at

29:54

these markets, but being proactive, standing

29:56

outside, talking to people, we were

29:58

building a strong. community.

30:00

We're building that connection with people

30:03

and to this day we still don't

30:05

compromise on that and we don't compromise

30:07

on the quality of our candle. So

30:09

it's all made Australian made, made

30:11

here and we're licensed through them

30:13

and I guess what we do is

30:16

it's a, the

30:18

candles smell good and we also do good. So there's

30:20

a lot of philanthropy behind the candle itself.

30:22

There's royalties that go back to the

30:25

artists we work with. So with every,

30:27

so we, one collection we have is

30:29

called the Soul Collection. So we work

30:32

with fascination artists and so we utilize

30:34

the artwork. But what we do is, for

30:36

example, sorry on the candle or on the box, we

30:38

would look on the box and also the

30:40

candle. So we'll have the artwork on the

30:42

vessel itself applied as a label. But

30:45

what we've done is we've taken it further in

30:47

that if the candle has

30:50

a, a platypus

30:52

in a river sort of sense,

30:54

but that's what you're getting, you're

30:56

almost instantaneously taken back there. So

30:58

we're creating memories through those sense.

31:01

If it has a picture of

31:04

a kangaroo, it's taking you back to that red

31:06

earth. So it's really popular

31:08

with the tourist attraction. So we've

31:10

got them in Melbourne airport, well

31:12

actually Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane

31:14

airports and now pushing

31:17

international. We've got them all along

31:19

the East coast in various tourism centers, Mossman

31:21

Gorge, Alice Springs. Great gift. Yeah, exactly. So

31:23

let's say I'm in Alice Springs, which I

31:26

was, I was in

31:28

Alice Springs, I was in Uluru, but I can

31:30

imagine if I was trying

31:32

to bring a gift back from, for

31:34

somebody that helped

31:36

me share my experience in that area with them,

31:39

it might be something to have picture of Uluru,

31:41

the rock, colours

31:44

and you then attach a scent to that

31:46

as well. How do you work that thing out? I mean,

31:49

how do you work out what

31:51

scent you want to attach

31:54

to, not necessarily that example, but anyone

31:56

you might have done? Could be Mossman Gorge, one of those

31:58

sort of places. But how do you attach? just sent

32:00

to it. Like what do you do scientifically or

32:02

how does it work? It's almost

32:05

as if you're taking back there. So

32:07

what we're doing is we've got sensations

32:09

of being there, having been there, the

32:11

smell that you almost, you not

32:14

almost, you smell as soon as you get off.

32:16

What is it that makes you

32:18

feel like it's warming?

32:20

So if you're talking about Red Earth,

32:22

it's that warming sort of scent and

32:25

so that's really what we do. So that's

32:27

really where Branson actually came from is creating

32:29

user experiences. Could you give an example of

32:32

one of yours now? So for example, Outmagic,

32:34

it's eucalyptus, it's a Koala forest. So as

32:36

soon as you walk into a Koala forest,

32:38

you're getting those woody earthy sensations and

32:40

smells and through utilizing

32:43

scents, we recreate that smell.

32:46

So there's over three, four hundred

32:48

elements that go into it. Three,

32:50

four hundred? Different little elements that

32:52

come into it. There's key scents, there's top

32:54

notes, middle notes and base notes that

32:56

we're aware of. But when you go

32:58

into the nitty gritty, so we work

33:01

with perfumers, they obviously create that for

33:03

us. So you work with perfumers and

33:05

do you sort of stand there and

33:07

actually smell all these different things? That's

33:09

right, exactly. So we meet permanently multiple

33:11

times a week. So we're sitting there and

33:13

it's a long process. It's not something that we

33:15

can just knock out the park quite quickly. It's

33:17

three to six months in development in that one

33:19

scent. We'll have a few more months. So

33:22

from concept to delivery, it could be anywhere

33:24

from six to nine months. So what we

33:26

started with initially was, say for example,

33:28

we worked with Melanie Harbour. We started

33:30

with her artwork. The colors of her

33:33

artwork is extremely important. What

33:35

is the messaging that she wants through her

33:37

artwork? How does she want people to feel

33:39

when they speak? Could you explain, maybe let me know, what

33:41

did you say about that for example? What was the messaging

33:43

she was using? So she's got six different that we work

33:45

with. So if we take, yeah, so if

33:47

we take the Outbag Magic, which is

33:50

the koala. So it felt like home.

33:52

She's got an Austrian, but also a

33:54

fascination background. So we wanted

33:56

to create that sensation

33:59

of being. in a eucalyptus

34:01

forest and that's exactly what we did.

34:03

So we're talking about sort

34:07

of eucalyptus smells?

34:10

And lemon and myrtle, yeah and things

34:13

that also marry up because you can't

34:15

have straight up, I mean no one wants to

34:17

smell like just pure eucalyptus but it's also the woody

34:19

elements of the bark, the tree and earthy

34:22

sort of smells that we put together but

34:24

also is pleasant

34:26

when you're burning and

34:29

also when you give a gift

34:31

of a travel candle or a candle

34:33

that has that artwork, it's

34:35

a pleasurable gift and you want to get

34:37

it again, you burn it, you experience it

34:39

and we ideally want our customers

34:41

you know wanting more of it. Yeah it's sort of

34:43

like a perfect gift when you can't have a gift

34:45

for my point

34:48

of view. Lots

34:51

of women like these gifts, I don't know

34:53

about blokes but I don't really

34:55

give gifts to blokes that much I guess but like

34:57

I'm sure of Jonah who's sitting down there and there's

34:59

a young man, I mean I'm sure if I gave

35:02

a compared to Jess, Jessica,

35:04

she probably would prefer the candle with a

35:06

scent than Jonah would. He's

35:09

nodding furiously down there and he's one of our

35:11

producers but it

35:14

makes a lot of sense, it makes

35:16

a lot of intelligence to me, a lot of logic for me

35:18

to actually go and buy that gift particularly if it's got, if

35:21

it has a reference to somewhere I've just been,

35:23

it makes it more special like I've just been,

35:25

this place is so good and I can

35:27

start to explain it and by the way try

35:30

this because this is really cool and

35:32

it may have some artwork that represents the

35:34

quail of forest. When they burn

35:36

it, it's taking them back there so almost,

35:38

so if it's a tourist to our next

35:41

pet they want a sense of feeling like

35:43

it's home and they're burning it like

35:45

if you're sitting out in London going oh you know this

35:47

is what this is what home smells like to me

35:50

and that's what they take back with them and often

35:52

we've had so many people comment

35:55

and leave

35:57

testimonials to that regard because it feels like it's

35:59

home. like home. And how's the business

36:01

going like now? Are you

36:04

full time? I mean, do you both work in

36:06

full time? Yeah. Yeah. So and do you

36:08

have staff? Yeah. Yeah. And we're offering out of

36:10

Melbourne, Victoria. Yeah.

36:12

So we got a factory in

36:15

Victoria. Yep. And yeah, so we

36:17

started from garage, then we moved

36:19

into a smaller one after a

36:22

year. Then every two years

36:24

we moved to a larger one. So

36:26

the reason one is, you know, we

36:28

got a capacity to make around 5000

36:30

candles a day. A day. So

36:32

you make them actually at the premises. Yes. Wow.

36:35

So you got like, you know, you've got all machinery

36:37

and all sorts of stuff. That's right. Yeah. So and

36:39

we are now working with local tech

36:41

school to bring the robots into the

36:44

manufacturing. So you're going to take, well,

36:46

you're going to make them

36:48

more efficient for robotics to

36:50

build that. Okay, that's very interesting.

36:52

So I want

36:55

to talk to you about your

36:58

perfumery cent

37:02

business where you actually do consulting.

37:05

That's what we're talking about in a second. But

37:08

there's something, sometimes I read these things,

37:10

and I don't know whether to run

37:12

around. But there has been some controversy

37:14

around candles, which have some some lemon

37:17

thing coming out of whatever that's no good for you. What's

37:19

the deal So, so

37:21

in candle, you know, if

37:23

you're using the sustainable way

37:26

of soy, there is

37:28

less problem compared to the passion. So

37:30

a lot of the bigger brands, they

37:32

use passion because they are more stable

37:35

compared to natural wax, because

37:37

when you say soy wax, it

37:40

can be very temperamental, the wax

37:42

can, you know, after

37:44

some time it can frost, it doesn't like

37:46

too much heat, it doesn't like too much

37:48

cold weather. But where

37:50

the paraffin, which is petroleum,

37:53

it's very stable because so

37:55

when you are using a

37:57

paraffin in your candle, you can use it for a lot of different things.

38:00

when you burn, it's pretty much you are burning

38:02

the petrol. Yeah. So what

38:04

happened is if not enough oxygen getting

38:06

in, when the carbon molecule

38:08

burn, they can make carbon

38:10

dioxide and carbon monoxide. And that's what

38:13

happened when it's a house fire or

38:15

something because you are not having enough

38:17

oxygen. So it's eventually the

38:20

carbon molecule is not fully burning. So it's

38:22

producing the carbon monoxide, which is a toxin.

38:24

Nice thing. That's right. So

38:26

that's what is the problem when

38:29

you are not buying the right candle. You know,

38:31

a lot of the big brands, they are... How

38:33

do you check that? Like, I mean, if you're

38:36

a consumer, how would you... It's

38:38

very, very... Because in Australia,

38:40

there is no regulation that

38:42

you have to mention. You

38:45

know, you can just say it's a soy candle. Even

38:47

if you have 30% soy, 70% paraffin, you

38:51

can still call it soy candle because there is soy in it

38:54

or soy, maxing it. So

38:56

not many people go and ask, or is

38:58

it paraffin in it? Or, you know, so

39:00

it is... Because of the

39:03

labeling issue is there. So it's

39:05

quite hard. And some of them

39:07

write that it's 100% pure soy, max, but

39:11

not the big brands. Most of the big

39:13

brands... And what's yours? Our first

39:15

pure soy, max. Yeah, so that's a big point of

39:17

difference for me. Because I'm not gonna... Don't

39:20

wanna give a gift to my son who's got his

39:22

son, my grandson. We wanna put a

39:25

candle. I don't wanna give a candle because I'm not often thought

39:27

about getting this for him and his wife. I'm

39:30

not sure what I... I'm glad I asked the question because

39:32

I'm not sure what the issue was. All I know there

39:34

was an issue. And the last thing I

39:36

wanted was my grandson to get poisoned or something. And he's

39:38

only three months old. So

39:41

I should be looking

39:43

for a soy, 100% soy, wax candle. That's

39:48

right, yeah. So if you're looking for a soy,

39:50

wax candle, which is good, the good thing with

39:52

a moonpeek when we are using it, it's

39:55

burned slowly. So what does

39:57

that mean is when it's burned slowly, the wax

39:59

candle... temperature it's going to

40:01

be just enough to melt the

40:03

wax into diffuse the sand. When

40:07

the wax is going to be

40:09

overheated like for example when you burn the

40:11

cottonbik, someone the cottonbik the flame can go

40:13

quite up and it can get

40:15

quite hot. So when

40:17

it's really hot the air

40:20

actually goes away so

40:22

it's make a vacuum that area so there is

40:24

not enough oxygen so they started to then smoke

40:27

a lot. That's what happened in

40:29

science if you're looking at science science

40:31

and how this is all happening

40:33

is when you use a cottonbik

40:36

if the flame goes up and if it gets too

40:38

hot one you are actually

40:41

making carbon monoxide because it's not

40:44

getting enough oxygen and

40:46

the number two is you are burning your

40:48

sand much faster so you're actually destroying the

40:50

sand so you're not going to get the

40:52

whole experience you're supposed to get

40:54

from a candle. So it is that the wood

40:56

wick is quite efficient in

40:58

terms of thermal efficiencies and

41:01

thermal efficiencies

41:03

in terms of the material

41:06

that it's sitting in that's the soy

41:09

wax or in deep power but that

41:11

makes sense to me in terms of

41:13

logic so what I should be looking

41:15

for is something with wood wick

41:18

and soy wax 100% soy

41:20

wax which is your product okay? But it's funny

41:22

I've never heard you talk about

41:25

this before but I do want

41:27

to ask you because I was concerned about you know

41:30

what people might say if they're listening to

41:32

this podcast so I Boris you know

41:34

like that you should have asked me about you know

41:36

candles are poisonous or whatever I've heard it before I've

41:38

heard people say before not about you guys but just

41:40

generally so I'm glad you cleared that up that's important

41:42

to me but actually I but I'm

41:44

also glad you went that you even

41:47

one step further to explain that

41:49

the efficiency of the candle in

41:51

terms of experience you get from

41:53

the perfume that sits within

41:55

the candle is related

41:57

to the heat at which the wick burns.

42:01

That's right. Yeah. So, so when it

42:03

says that it's better experience. Yeah, yes,

42:05

certainly. And if you are using a

42:07

wood big candle versus cotton big candle,

42:09

it would be burn longer because it's

42:11

a slow burning, less heat. So the

42:13

backs take a little longer to melt

42:15

it. And also it's released

42:18

a second slowly. So it doesn't destroy

42:20

the fragrance. Because when we talk about

42:22

send, you know, there are everyone talk,

42:24

you know, to be centered,

42:26

it's mean, it's all needs have a base note,

42:28

middle note and the top note. So the

42:30

top note is like the first impression, you

42:32

know, when you open the candle or when

42:34

you smell first, that is the first note,

42:36

but it has a very less, you

42:39

know, if the lifetime of the first note,

42:42

or the top note is less. So

42:44

you will go into the middle note and then the

42:47

base note is the one which stay longer. How long

42:49

did I get is like smelling wine and, and

42:51

whiskey, but just just send me through that for

42:54

a second. So open the box. How

42:58

do you actually smell the scent? Like what's the process

43:00

of doing this? Like I know what I do in

43:02

my whiskey, but how would you tell someone to engage

43:06

in trying to work at the top, middle and

43:08

bottom notes? You need to

43:11

smell a little longer. So what does that

43:13

mean, though? So when you open

43:15

and when you smell, you

43:17

always get the, you know, the first part of

43:19

it is the top note, you will smell it

43:22

straight away. But then when you

43:24

sit on that though, can you just sit on

43:26

it? So when you smell that, do you, is

43:28

your brain, are you, is

43:31

it telling your brain that this smells like

43:33

eucalyptus? I don't know. It smells like some

43:36

form of a lemon myrtle. I mean, is it what

43:38

you're looking for? Is that what

43:41

lemon myrtle smells like? Is that lemon myrtle straight

43:43

up? Is it a top note? That's right. Yeah.

43:45

So, so you will give that top note to

43:48

bring that citrusy. If it's a lemon myrtle.

43:50

Because it's a strong smell. That's right. Yeah.

43:52

So you, you will have that. But

43:54

when we lace it out, you know, you normally

43:57

put some of the hard notes,

43:59

you know, like if you have Tonga Bean,

44:01

Vanilla and all, you'll put it on the

44:04

bottom node to create that scent, linger around

44:06

a little longer. Otherwise you'll

44:08

feel like you burned something and you're like,

44:10

oh, it's gone. Why is it not smelling

44:13

anymore? So that's why we play a little

44:15

bit with the perfume is just to make

44:17

it, okay, I want to keep

44:19

the house smell a little bit, keep that

44:21

sweetness and... You want it to linger. That's

44:24

it. So it's linger around, so people

44:26

will feel like, oh, the house smell

44:28

not... Are the lower nodes more subtle

44:30

nodes? The

44:33

top nodes you'll smell instantaneously.

44:35

The middle node starts to come out around 15 minutes and

44:39

then the base node hits it at around

44:41

an hour. So if there's any perfumes or

44:43

candles, what are any scented fragrance products that

44:45

you want to test out and you want

44:48

to get all elements, it's

44:50

around an hour that you start

44:52

to sense all the notes. So instantaneously, when

44:54

you open the box, like Jeeva said, it's

44:57

the top nodes that you're smelling. If you sit

44:59

there and keep smelling it for... exposed to it

45:01

for 15 minutes, you start to smell the

45:03

heart, the middle nodes, and then

45:05

the base nodes that are around. And then the

45:07

stronger nodes, like the masks, the vanilla, the Tonga

45:09

Beans are sitting at base nodes. But what beans?

45:11

Like Tonga Beans, they're like a vanilla sort of

45:14

or beans, sweeter sort of smells

45:16

are usually in the base.

45:18

And when you go to get vanilla beans,

45:22

do you get them from all the...

45:24

Do you get vanilla beans from some

45:26

of these exotic places like Malaysia or

45:28

from where they have vanilla plantations or

45:31

seed beans? Yeah, so they

45:33

do come from those places and getting

45:35

those oils are

45:38

not just... They're quite expensive and when

45:40

they put it into these perfumes, it's

45:42

only few tramps. It's

45:44

not a lot. So the rest of

45:46

the solvents is one on the sand

45:49

making. And then,

45:51

for example, if you want to have a one

45:54

kilo of roast oil, let's say,

45:57

or essential oil, you

45:59

need a little bit of oil. is a ton, one

46:02

ton. So 1000 kilos is making

46:04

it one kilo. So that's how

46:06

much concentration and that's expensive too

46:09

because a ton of vanilla beans

46:11

is extraordinarily expensive. So if you

46:13

turn that into a one

46:18

kilo of one litre

46:20

of essence

46:23

vanilla, the actual essence of the oil,

46:25

right? Yeah. So I was talking about

46:27

the rose petals. Yeah. So for

46:29

the rose essential oil, but if it's a vanilla

46:31

one, I don't know the ratio for vanilla, but

46:33

it's quite high. So it's not just like you

46:36

can make. Or quite low. I mean, high and

46:38

low. You don't get much. You get a lot.

46:40

You get a lot of vanilla

46:43

beans, you get a little bit of

46:45

oil out of it. That's quite amazing.

46:47

Okay. So this

46:49

sort of takes us nicely into

46:51

your consultancy. Tell

46:53

me about the consultancy. How does your consultancy

46:55

work? During COVID

46:58

and everything kind of

47:00

came to a standstill in terms of retail

47:03

and we were kind of like, we were

47:05

only three years into a business and ourselves

47:07

understanding what businesses and like,

47:09

what do we do? What's happening

47:11

here? It's almost like this knee jut. I

47:13

mean, sorry, reaction.

47:16

We didn't want to make any jut reaction. So

47:18

we wanted to obviously sustain

47:20

the business. When

47:22

you think situations like that happen, you've

47:25

got two choices. You can spiral up or you

47:27

can spiral down. So what we chose to do

47:29

was spiral up. We were like, how

47:31

do we now position ourselves differently? We'd

47:33

already thought about it pre-COVID in terms

47:36

of setting up brand sent as an

47:38

agency, because as we mentioned

47:40

earlier, candles is saturated. How

47:42

do we have a point of difference?

47:45

Combining our scientific knowledge, we realized that

47:47

there was a market for sent marketing.

47:50

You've probably morphed into a hotels market and you've

47:52

kind of gone, oh, this smells nice. It's this

47:54

bougie sort of smell in a hotel. You're exposed

47:56

to it three, four months later and go, hold

47:58

on. That reminds me of Stag and the at XYZ. I

48:01

had a girlfriend like that. I had a girlfriend like a

48:03

long long time ago, like 35

48:07

years ago and she's always with

48:09

Cartier perfume and

48:13

I never smelled it because you know it was pretty expensive

48:15

and the house she can afford it anyway and

48:18

many years later like many years I had 20

48:20

years after I'd stopped going and went out with

48:22

her the world but I remember

48:25

I smelled someone else with it

48:27

and immediately, the first

48:29

thing is I realised how

48:31

old she must be because the woman I could

48:33

smell on her was quite old relatively speaking because

48:36

my memory was of her when I was in my

48:38

20s and obviously this perfume was

48:41

an old perfume but I immediately thought of

48:43

her and I thought

48:45

I wonder what ever happened to her, did she

48:47

get married? He writes, it had a memory sort

48:50

of triggering me. I never

48:52

smelled it but that's right and that's

48:54

the power of marketing and that's what you want

48:56

in a brand when you're exposed

48:59

to the scent of a brand, it wants to

49:01

take you back even 20 years later and that's

49:03

really what we wanted to harness when it came

49:05

to brand sales. It's very powerful. That's right. But

49:07

it was underutilised. There were hotel

49:09

chains using it, some other

49:12

places using it but still people and even

49:14

today to be honest explaining people like what's

49:16

scent marketing? I don't need scent marketing but

49:18

once you start to break it down, you

49:21

realise just how powerful it can be

49:23

and I might

49:25

hand over to JooVoo because he

49:27

heads Branson. It's funny because my

49:29

cousin, she owns

49:31

the business called Who's Elijah and they

49:34

make these exotic perfumes and

49:36

a similar sort of thing like

49:39

it's not really about exotic perfumes, it's

49:41

about memory indentations. It's

49:43

about building things into people's

49:45

memories. You're fucking

49:48

with my brain when you do this

49:50

sort of stuff because you really are

49:52

in there, dawling yourself inside my head

49:54

somewhere. It's very clever. Can you

49:56

talk about this a little bit? Yeah, definitely. Let's

50:00

talk a little bit science. Yeah, yeah,

50:02

yeah. I love that. So

50:06

we call it all factory. So

50:09

all factory pathway doesn't

50:11

have any, you

50:14

know, pretty much no disturbance to, until

50:16

the brain. So where

50:19

the scent is processed in your brain, that

50:22

is where you have a motion center. And that is where you

50:24

may monitor. So you may talk about the amygdala, or close to

50:26

the amygdala. Yeah, that's right, the

50:28

amygdala. So that's where

50:30

your motion center and your memory

50:33

center. So what

50:35

it does is actually tie up a memory to

50:37

a scent, because it's part of

50:39

the NBC and part of your brain. So it

50:41

doesn't have a speech, you know, like you cannot,

50:43

it doesn't have a language for that. So

50:46

you can only have a

50:48

memory to a scent. And

50:51

also because it's part of the emotion

50:53

center, every time when you

50:56

smell something, it's also create emotion. So

50:58

that's how we can make someone a

51:00

little happier, you know, or keep them

51:02

a little bit more relaxed, calm. In

51:04

a retail environment, if you keep a female

51:07

relaxed and calm, they're going to spend more

51:09

money. And that's what exactly

51:11

these bigger businesses are doing it.

51:14

And we're actually helping that

51:16

to scientifically help them

51:18

identify the emotion and then

51:22

translate. So identify the emotion, a good emotion, because

51:24

you don't want to have a shitty experience, but

51:26

have a good emotion. And

51:28

then identify a scent that will

51:30

bring that emotion. So we

51:32

tie that to a brand and we

51:35

call it all factory logo. So

51:37

you will see a visual logo, but what we create an

51:39

all factory logo. Can you name an example, but don't name

51:41

a brand, but just give an example, for example. Just

51:43

pick a hotel, change it by name from what somebody have done

51:46

it for. Let's go

51:48

to Burger King. So

51:52

if you go to any Burger King, you

51:54

will smell the Whopper burger. Is

51:56

that right? Yeah. Yeah. I don't get a burger

51:58

joint. Yeah, you

52:00

know that same smell same smell, you know, the other smell

52:03

coming from Everyone thing is come

52:05

from the kitchen. Yeah, it's actually come from the

52:07

aircon You know, taste some funny issues to me

52:09

because my father when

52:11

he came to Australia his father and My

52:14

father came to show with these one or seven boys when

52:16

they come to Australia I mean

52:18

the civil war was on a grease, you know in

52:20

the late 40s His father was already here and his

52:22

father had a restaurant the cafe

52:24

the restaurant It was a late night restaurant. It

52:27

was a crossroad from the movie theaters in those

52:29

days in George Street in Sydney And

52:32

my father told me that his father When

52:34

the movies were about to come out used to make

52:36

my dad his brothers go into they had a a

52:38

fan That was on the roof and he

52:40

said they used to he's the brew or the coffee There

52:44

and he'd say brew it up really hard just

52:46

before they come out I'm going to come out

52:48

turn the fan on and push the coffee smell

52:50

out into the street and people will come across

52:53

For a coffee and some in those days

52:55

supper they get a late meal So

52:58

it's sort of similar concept. Yeah. Yeah Exactly

53:02

that's what it is, you know, it's been

53:04

used but not many people

53:06

knew it and you've been

53:08

actually You

53:10

know consistently uh been got into

53:12

that used It's been used

53:15

in the past But without knowing

53:17

but what we have done is more giving bit

53:19

more of a science side of it and say,

53:21

okay This is why I work. This is why

53:23

it's work and Also, we

53:26

can create a little bit more like

53:28

if you are in a certain sort

53:30

of industry And you're looking

53:32

for a send to you know Let's say

53:34

you want us to create something on the

53:36

thinking side Then I know okay

53:38

I wanted to make sure the temporal side of

53:40

your brain been stimulated and we know

53:42

which Fragrance would stimulate that

53:44

side of the brain because of the

53:46

hormones and things like that. So and

53:48

so the I'll call

53:50

the research so much or passive research on if you

53:53

did research separately, but is this stuff

53:57

Documented in publications that you

53:59

are go off research or

54:01

are you guys doing any research,

54:05

like control groups etc. Have you done any of that work

54:07

yourself or are you just relying on other

54:10

research that's been done and public

54:12

research stuff that's available publicly? So

54:15

there are research done and we

54:18

do check some of those ones on the department and

54:21

look at it now what is there

54:23

and also now we are getting into

54:25

the research because at the beginning when

54:27

you start the business you wouldn't have

54:29

enough funding for that. Yeah because you

54:31

have students and research people there. That's

54:33

right. So now even the

54:35

brand can afford to do the research. So now we

54:37

are going into the next step further

54:40

when the metaverse we are going to talk about.

54:43

Everyone is going to be on the helmet

54:45

but how you're going to actually connect the

54:47

virtual world to the real world is

54:50

only thing can connect to the scent because scent

54:52

carry the memory so we can

54:54

work on those digi scent. So

54:57

when you wear a suit you know those

55:00

scents will come when you go to different

55:02

area and it's going to give the memory.

55:04

That's in KFC. So

55:07

that's what we are doing. So in other words when I'm

55:09

in one of the metaverses like there's a few when I

55:11

might be in one of the metaverses and for example KFC

55:13

might be in that metaverse they might have a store. And

55:16

of course I've got my goggles on or helmet

55:18

whatever the device is that I'm using. And

55:23

not only am I visually seeing KFC down there

55:25

in the corner and I'm wandering down there but

55:27

you're going to hit me up with a scent

55:30

to make me feel like I just walked in the KFC. Or

55:33

you might take me to the eucalyptus forest where

55:35

the koalas are and

55:37

I might think I'm actually in the...

55:39

So you're going to double up my

55:41

sensory receptors so you're

55:44

going to hit me... Visual?

55:46

And also... Smell? Modifactory?

55:49

Modifactory, yeah. That's cool. And

55:52

that's very cool. That's really interesting. So

55:54

you're getting many jobs. There's many consultative

55:56

jobs. Consultative jobs are in the words.

55:58

You get much of this work. Yeah,

56:00

of course, one of the partner

56:02

is American Express. So we created

56:04

a send for them for the

56:06

APEC region. Really? Yeah, and they

56:08

love it. And then

56:10

the other one we just finished for Shandon Moie,

56:14

Hennessy Group. So

56:17

exactly their champagne

56:19

or the Garden's Great Smell. And

56:22

we created a collaboration with the Light and

56:24

Glow. So it's been released last month. And

56:26

do you use this for, is

56:30

it really fee based or is it more

56:32

for you guys to do a collaboration with

56:34

these big brands to sort of get your

56:37

story out there? No,

56:39

it's a fee based. So the

56:41

Amex paid for the send creation

56:43

and then some brands will have

56:47

a collaboration side of it as well. But

56:50

yes, and it's quite a

56:52

labor intensive as well because it's not

56:54

just how everyone thinks that we can

56:57

mix few essential oil and

56:59

create a send. No, we got to think

57:01

about the safety of the send and

57:04

the life, how we can use this one.

57:06

You can't use a send on a candle.

57:08

It can be a bomb because if it's

57:11

a flammable without testing,

57:13

you sell it to someone

57:15

and that can cause fire. So

57:17

we've got to be very careful

57:20

with, you know, so that's where

57:23

it takes time. So anywhere from

57:25

three to six months for us to

57:27

create a unique send for them and

57:29

then to manufacture in the

57:32

product range. And in terms of the

57:34

product range, so you go and do the consultation, they

57:36

give you the brief what they're sort of looking for,

57:38

perhaps, or you might have suggested what they

57:41

should be looking for, given the brief. In terms of

57:43

the smell, you go off and spend your

57:45

time three to six months creating the send.

57:48

But the way the device you use

57:50

to express the send, is that a candle?

57:52

Or is it just like a little oil?

57:55

I mean, what is it? No, there's

57:57

various kind of methods of dispersion.

58:00

really depends on the brand. As Juba mentioned,

58:02

we're talking to Shandon and we're

58:04

working with them on their garden spirit.

58:07

So yes, there's initial merchandising in the

58:09

camp stall but more so when they're

58:11

at various locations for pop-ups, they can

58:13

use it to entice just like you

58:15

mentioned with your grandfather that coffee, that's

58:17

exactly what they're doing. They're trying to

58:20

lure people into the booth to experience

58:22

their Shandon experience. I can imagine. So

58:24

I'll walk through one of these joints

58:26

where there's like thousand curls and there's

58:28

one. Where's that coming from? Yeah

58:31

and that's it. So just utilizing the

58:33

power of that same marketing. So

58:36

they're using it to get people to come to their

58:38

kiosk in order for them to show whatever the curls

58:41

are showing. And it might have nothing to do

58:43

with that. We can

58:45

use on few different ways like for example, we

58:47

work with a volume builder.

58:49

What they do is they use on

58:51

every display home. So

58:54

when you are building a house, the first thing you

58:56

do is you go and see their display homes. So

58:59

without thinking that you are smelling and you are creating a

59:01

memory with that brand. I want to buy that hat and

59:03

just buy them because I didn't realize because it smells a

59:05

certain way. Yeah and also you

59:08

feel like the smell is like very

59:11

unique for that brand and every time you

59:13

go to their display home, you're like, oh

59:15

I remember this one. This is the same

59:17

house I've been to that suburb. Unconsciously. That's

59:19

right. And then what we are doing is

59:23

after the display home, you'll be going to

59:25

their offices, same smell. Let's

59:28

say you're building with them and once you build

59:30

the house, their settlement gift is also going to

59:32

be the same smell because we produce their settlement

59:34

gifts. So what we are actually

59:36

doing is we are creating the journey of

59:40

that home building journey through the

59:42

scent and that actually

59:44

ties up the memory, how they

59:46

felt with that builder and

59:48

it's also giving them the opportunity

59:50

to get

59:52

more reviews and more, you know, like the

59:55

customers are always going back and saying, oh

59:57

I love that smell. So it's

59:59

a very unique experience. different point,

1:00:01

you know, we are touching point, we are giving the

1:00:05

builder to connect with their customer and

1:00:07

which is the best outcome they want.

1:00:09

Can I ask you this, Jeeva? This

1:00:11

sounds a bit random but let's

1:00:14

say we go through the process and let's say the scent

1:00:16

is something that is like countryside style

1:00:19

like I don't know eucalyptus or whatever

1:00:21

or middle, bottom notes,

1:00:24

whatever you design, create and

1:00:26

then I go into one of these houses and

1:00:28

I smell it and I think

1:00:31

that's great and then I buy

1:00:33

the house, they build the house for me and there's a candle

1:00:35

waiting in there when I go in there for my first day

1:00:38

and I smell

1:00:40

it, I'm unconsciously reminded of the original smell

1:00:42

that was pleasant enough and then

1:00:44

I have a look on their Instagram page, there's

1:00:48

no scent coming out of my phone of course but

1:00:51

do they or anybody, do they

1:00:53

start to then play with my,

1:00:56

really fuck with me by putting up

1:00:59

some photographs of

1:01:03

things that I unconsciously

1:01:05

would remember through sick now

1:01:08

I'm visually seeing as well and I like playing

1:01:10

back with me the other way, like really hooking

1:01:12

me in, do they get into

1:01:14

that extent where they're really mucking

1:01:16

around with my brain like it's

1:01:19

a double down but it's no sense, it's just a double down

1:01:21

on what I now see, every

1:01:24

time I would put one of these

1:01:26

houses up as part of my screen

1:01:28

display, post or stories,

1:01:30

maybe I'm going to always make sure that I

1:01:32

put some eucalyptus trees in there or big leaves

1:01:34

or something like that, if that was the scent,

1:01:37

do they go to that extent? So

1:01:39

what they do is, you

1:01:42

are using the scent in a subtle way but

1:01:45

you are tying up that memory

1:01:47

what I was talking about, how

1:01:49

the signs work and you

1:01:51

are tying that memory with that brand so

1:01:53

even if you walk into a crown,

1:01:56

you will remember the crown with that smell

1:01:59

and they use that same smell,

1:02:02

let's say in a gift, you know,

1:02:04

without even, you know, I can blindfold your eyes

1:02:06

and I can show you, give

1:02:08

the smell, you'll be like, I remember

1:02:10

this, I remember this smell from Crown.

1:02:12

The same way how you mentioned that

1:02:14

you remember your ex-girlfriend from a particular

1:02:16

smell. And that's, that's how we are

1:02:18

actually creating this smell to

1:02:22

tie up that brand with

1:02:24

the customer. So, so they're always going to

1:02:26

remember every time when they exposed to this

1:02:28

smell, they will remember the brand. And that

1:02:30

is what we call all factory logo. Because

1:02:33

when you look at the digital

1:02:35

marketing visual site, the recall power

1:02:38

for a scent of smell is nine

1:02:40

times more than the visual. If you

1:02:42

have the, if you have this,

1:02:44

this, the old factory recall,

1:02:48

the visual stuff becomes nine times more

1:02:50

powerful. All factory sites

1:02:53

come much more powerful than

1:02:55

the visual site. So

1:02:58

nine times more. So for

1:03:00

example, if I give you a

1:03:03

vision in a visual part, after

1:03:05

three months, your

1:03:08

record will be 50%. On

1:03:10

a scent after a year, you still will have

1:03:12

at least 85% recall. Wow.

1:03:15

Because that how much power.

1:03:17

It lasts longer. It's not nine times

1:03:19

at that instant, but it has a

1:03:21

life that is effectively nine times

1:03:24

longer. Wow. That's cool. Well, you

1:03:28

guys are lucky that you're a scientist. We

1:03:30

have science backgrounds and I guess you're

1:03:32

our scientists. And that sounds

1:03:35

like a really cool business. Apart from

1:03:37

the, apart from your candle

1:03:39

scent business, that's pretty good. But that's

1:03:41

like business as usual type of stuff. This is the

1:03:43

stuff that excites you. I guess it's pretty cool and

1:03:45

interesting. I want to, thank

1:03:49

you both very much coming back into the studio

1:03:51

after all these years. And I,

1:03:53

you have definitely developed your business a lot more

1:03:56

than I was maybe three years ago. I think

1:03:58

it was. Well done. Congratulations

1:04:00

and thank you very much for coming out from

1:04:02

Victoria. Thank you. Appreciate it. Yeah,

1:04:05

I really appreciate you having us here and

1:04:07

we always enjoy being with you and learn

1:04:09

a lot from you. I'm learning a lot

1:04:11

from you today, but that was great. I

1:04:14

actually loved it. Thanks so much, guys. Thanks,

1:04:16

Matt. Thank

1:04:30

you.