One of the biggest issues in surfing is the water that always finds a way into your ears, causing hearing problems, infections and other inconveniences. Today we talk with the man who came up with a product to solve this problem.
In this episode of Surfpreneurs Podcast, the host Peter Fabor talks with Christian Dittrich, the founder of SurfEars. This company from Sweden creates earplugs that not only block water from coming into your ears but also let you hear the outside world. With over 120.000 SurfEars sold to this date, it’s proven to be an excellent product.
Listen podcast on iTunes, Spotify or Soundcloud.
Besides SurfEars, we talk about Christian’s other project, dBud, how he came up with the ideas for his products, about quitting.
How do you really sell surf earplugs en masse?
Seeing how this is a product that most surfers need only once, selling this many SurfEars is quite an achievement. As Christian says, people who surf several times a week tend to go through different pairs regularly so they keep buying them – every 6 months to a year or so. Even though there are people who just want a newer pair, the most common case is people buying them because they’ve lost their old ones.
The beginnings of SurfEars
The company started, as Christian says, with his own ears, as he’s been surfing for 25 years in different forms. A lot of it was in cold water since he lives in Sweden. His own ears have gone bad from all the exposure to the cold water and wind in those years and he’s developed surfer’s ear almost fully on both ears. Traveling in warmer areas, bacteria would get stuck in his ears and he’d get an infection soon after.
Since he’s a mechanical engineer by trade, he wanted to figure out a solution on his own. He created a couple of prototypes of a model that later turned into SurfEars. It took almost three years from the first time he came upon the idea until the moment the first prototype was created.
Leaving work at Nokia
Before going into entrepreneurship, Christian first worked at Nokia. The company went down in 2011 and he started elaborating the idea and doing some sketches. He first started a mechanical design agency called Frankly with a couple of colleagues. He then convinced his partners that SurfEars would be a good idea and it got started as a side project for them. The prototype was rough but it worked very well.
To validate their idea, they first put it on Kickstarter to see if there were enough people willing to buy the product. Then they decided to split the company in two – one for SurfEars and one for the consulting agency.
Other products in the offer
The agency is still working and doing very well. It had around 20-25 people and then merged with a design agency, so it became very high-tech in product design. It grew to almost 100 people now and it offers different types of design as it grew way beyond its initial skill sets.
As they worked with surfers, they found the materials interesting for noise reduction. They did some experimenting to select which frequencies they can reduce with a small switch in the plug. This led to a product called dBud, and it’s an earplug noise reducer that lets you set the volume of your surroundings. It’s convenient for people in the music industry or anyone who flies a lot or works in a noisy environment. The cool thing is that you can also let more human speech frequencies in while reducing background noise. Christian believes the product will be able to surpass SurfEars’ success, but not as quickly as the original product.
Scaling the distribution of SurfEars
The exposure from Kickstarter enabled SurfEars to get in touch with their global distributor. They initiated the dialogue and got started. They also reached out to several distributors and had discussions with all of them but selected Creatures. As Christian says, there’s a drawback to relying on only one distributor because you’re essentially betting it all on one shot. For dBud, they couldn’t find a global set up like that so they tried doing distribution in a different way.
Online channels for promotion
To be in direct contact with the consumers, Christian says it’s good to be on Facebook. It worked quite well for them in the beginning, but it slowly started degrading – there are not as many conversions as before. The one channel they focus on nowadays is search and being present on Google.
The company works a lot with ear doctors to get their message out there and connect with people to help them before it’s too late. They work with organic and paid traffic. Amazon is another channel that they use, but it’s run by their distributors instead of directly by the company. On the other hand, for dBud, they are working directly with Amazon.
Working with ambassadors
A lot of the promotion that SurfEars get is because of the work of ambassadors. As Christian says, they didn’t have to personally reach out to them – they came to SurfEars as they all had ear issues themselves. The ambassadors don’t get any money. The deal is simple – they get free products, and SurfEars gets nice images and experiences they can use.
Funding a business
Besides Kickstarter, SurfEars got investment from VCs as well. The main reason for bringing in investors is the need for growth, as well as the difficulty in getting cash. For dBud, it was a huge benefit having some investors already on board. The second round was secured in 2018, to grow the team and get dBud on the market, as well as fund some products which are coming in the future. As Christian says, there’s less freedom in making decisions with investors around, but there are fewer worries about cash flow.
The future
Christian and his team will be working on SurfEars 3.0 in the future. The improvements will make it much better than the last version launched in 2016. They are also working on the future development of dBud.
Surfpreneurs podcast is hosted by Peter Fabor, the founder of Surf Office.
Surf Office helps surf houses, hotels and villas boost their group bookings by hosting retreats with tech companies searching for productive team building experiences.
Learn more about how to become a property partner of Surf Office.
Transcription (automatic, sorry for typos)
[00:00:00] Hey, where you are listening to surferpreneurs podcast where we invite inspiring surf entrepreneurs and we discuss their businesses and I'm pizza. And I'm your host today? I'm going to interview Christian, who is the founder of surf ears. SurfEars is a global leader in the production of air plaques for surfers.
[00:00:21] Hi Christian. Welcome to the surfpreneurs podcast. Hey, Peter. We met for the first time in Portugal. It was about two years ago. And I remember when you showed me the, when he showed me surfers and explained, you explain me that you are selling just this airplane. I really didn't get it like how you can make a business out of it.
[00:00:48] And after that, you told me that you have already solved 80,000. DCS of this air plaques. And I was like, Oh, okay. There is, there is something. [00:01:00] So how many of them have you sold until now, until now should be maybe somewhere around 120,000, at least 30,000, maybe, I guess. Um, so there, there are quite a lot of surfers, uh, who need, uh, earplugs and better effects than what's been out there before.
[00:01:20] That's for sure. Wow. Is there, is there any retention because I've been sitting still using these air plaques. I love them, but they are very there. It's very hard to lose them because, uh, you have, you have this tribe and I, I don't have a needs to buy a new piece. So, uh, how, how does it work with this product, uh, with retention?
[00:01:46] Do you have people who are buying it regularly because they lose it or. Because my feeling is that you, yeah, you buy this product and then you don't need it anymore. So what for you, it's, it's, it's a problem, right? [00:02:00] Well, it's, it's there, there are different kinds of ways we sell and get recurring sales from customers.
[00:02:09] So basically say that the most, uh, you know, the surface is surf the most and the ones who serve. Several times a week and, um, do so in quite harsh conditions, they tend to. It changed here at black small, and then people who serve not so regularly. Um, so in, in places like California and Australia, we see a lot of people who buy every say six months or every year, at least a new set of dogs because they do get a little bit, you know, Uh, dirty people.
[00:02:45] People tend to want to put clean things in there. So people have a tendency to, to replace your books every now and then, even though they do last for a very long time. And that's it, it's, they're intended to last for a long time, because we want people to have a really good product they can use for a long time.
[00:02:59] But [00:03:00] there's of course the limit to how much you've radiation, how much salt water, and how much sun product can stand. Um, so we think it's a good mix. I mean, if you buy this product and use it, occasionally you will ask for many, many years. So the most common case of buying you surfers is actually that you've lost your old ones.
[00:03:17] You misplaced, um, you forgot where you put them, you dropped it on the beach, uh, or something like that. Or if you're really hardcore surfer, you just wear them out after. You know, quite a lot of sessions, but, um, after having spans, you know, maybe 300 sessions in their water, maybe you feel it's time to replace your bugs.
[00:03:40] Uh, so those are the most common cases. And then there's a ton of new surface. I've never. Heard about their blog or never even a youth near dog that will consider using one when they become aware of the issues around the heres in water. So I think, I mean, [00:04:00] if we look at how many people have purchased surface so far and how many people potentially could, I think our, our largest mission.
[00:04:08] From now on, or the largest challenge for us from now on is to inform, educate the rest of the surfing world about what might happen to the ears if they don't protect them. So that's our focus you can say. And I'm very curious, how have you started this business? Was it like you woke up one day and you say, okay, I want to, I want to sell air plaques.
[00:04:31] I want to build Airflex how, it's, how it started. I guess it started somewhere with your personal needs. Yeah, exactly. It started with, with my own ears. So I've been in the water since long time back and I've been surfing for in different forms for over 25 years. So it was a Windsor for hardcore Windsor for 10, 12 years.
[00:04:49] And I was a hardcore katzer for, for 10 or 12 years. And then all that period I've been surfing as well, um, parallel to those sports. And now the past 10 or so years, I've been mostly [00:05:00] surfing and unlocking cold water since, um, I'm living in Sweden, I'm surfing all year around. I've done. So since I was 14, um, and I'm 41 today.
[00:05:10] So it's, it's quite low years. Um, so my own ears have gone really bad from, from all that cold water and cold wind exposure. So I have almost fully developed surface area in both ears. And I got so many issues traveling to, to warmer places as well, where I don't know how to close the ear canal. I got stuff in.
[00:05:30] And D didn't get out. So in, in, in waters with a little bit warmer temperatures, there was maybe more bacteria and more, more of the stuff like he could get in and start growing in American novels. And I always got an ear infection guaranteed after two, three days. So I couldn't really go without blogs.
[00:05:45] And I used togs lot. I spent a lot of time in Portugal and I always went to the pharmacy and bolts, you know, the cheapest ear blazer I could get. But they were just horrible. So I couldn't hear anything. And actually there were anyways. Um, I just felt it [00:06:00] was really a bad experience for me to use the, your bucks.
[00:06:03] So after maybe my 10th year of infection, I just got fed up and I started to thinking about what you could do about your blogs to get a better working solution. And I'm an, I'm an engineer of trade. I'm a mechanical engineer with a background in the mobile phone industry. So I had been working with. You know, small dynamic clinical designs of the mobile phones and components, and a lot of acoustic solutions as well, acoustic meshes and membranes.
[00:06:30] And I started thinking about what you could do combining technologies from the mobile phone industry with earplugs. And that led me to do some prototypes of, of what later became surface. Um, That's really how it started with my own problems. And then just the need of solving that issue. It was an urgent issue for me because I couldn't stop searching.
[00:06:55] Uh, how long did it take? So from this first idea, when you decided [00:07:00] that you would like to build your arm or plaques until you actually solved the first, first piece, As it took quite some time, actually. So probably took around three years, uh, from the, from the very moment I would ask that, like, I have to do something about this until we actually had a plan to sell because at the time.
[00:07:22] I think I would, I was just leaving my work at Nokia because Nokia went down roughly in 2011, they closed down and started closing down the Copenhagen sites where I worked. And at that time it has started to do a little bit, uh, elaborating on ideas and doing some sketching. And we, I started a. Consulting agency, mechanical design agency together with some, some ex-colleagues.
[00:07:47] And we had a three D printer. We had CAD program, so I could, I could prototype there and I could feel around with some ideas, um, and actually convince my colleagues [00:08:00] to make this a side product of our business. So that's how it started. We started this as a sidetrack to our consulting. Agency. And, um, eventually we had prototypes that work really well, and we were all surfers or most of us, um, our friends say, you know, I've got to try them and it seemed, people seem to like what we had built.
[00:08:19] And it was very rough prototypes, three D printed parts, and then some standard. Yeah, let's say the column tips on those, but it worked, um, quite well. And after having done that for some time, we just decided that if we want to do this, we should do it for real. So we decided to test it out by putting it on Kickstarter to sort of vomit it.
[00:08:40] If there was enough people who wanted to buy it and it seemed there were. And then we decided to split the company in two and make one for the company that was going to focus only on surfers and then the consulting agency continuing on its own. Um, so that was, uh, that was how it, how it kicked off business wise.
[00:08:59] Do you [00:09:00] still continue with that consulting company or your focus fully on, on this earth? Or black products because we mentioned on the surf ears, but, uh, we will, I wanted to ask you also about other products, because I know that you, you developed, uh, the products for swimming all are related to their plaques, but there was also for something for DJs and it looks like a lot of work.
[00:09:25] So I'm curious if you still have time for consultancy, right. Um, The agency, um, the design agency, zero mechanical and strategy to see, which is most of the time is still, uh, living in is still doing very well because we did split the focus of the companies in terms of. Separate thing products from the agency.
[00:09:51] And we did also split the workforce. I took the product company and ran that. And my two of my cofounders took agency and run that, and that [00:10:00] agency has grown. It became and larger, mechanical, larger. I mean, they grew up to maybe 20, 25 people and then they actually merged with a design agency. So, so they became a very high tech design product design agency, which can do everything from.
[00:10:17] From, uh, you know, programming, uh, uh, tube stats in, in, uh, wearable devices to making complete products in, in. They work in a lot of IOT and wearable product spaces, but also doing more design, strategic design. And then, um, uh, you, uh, UX design, uh, towards bigger companies, but so they've grown. So they're almost a hundred people now.
[00:10:47] Um, it's, it's been a huge success and that company is called above. So if you wanna check that out, it's above.se it's it's, it's pretty cool company. Really cool customers. They're they're working with. Uh, so that has its own life and we're actually sitting [00:11:00] together. So we're renting space inside about right now.
[00:11:02] And your labs is, uh, is also growing a little bit, uh, even a bit slower pace because it's a different setup above needs people to grow, and we need to sell more products. We grow and we need. Not to grow X, you know, proportionately when people ask me to go abroad. Um, but we're five people today and, um, we're sitting in Malmo and, uh, we're not the only doing surfers today.
[00:11:27] We're doing other products as well. So we, along the way of designing surfers and working with those materials, acoustic members and meshes, we found out that this could also be interesting in terms of noise reduction. And would you have surfers do a DJ and he was, he was testing them out as assets, you know, slight noise reducer, just taking away.
[00:11:50] Had the upper regions of the frequency spectrum to help him reduce some of the pain of the day after, uh, in a ringing ears [00:12:00] after playing for whole nights. And it worked pretty good for him. Um, so we started modifying surfers looking for ways to. To do have, you know, quite smart noise reduction, selecting what frequent is.
[00:12:15] We want to reduce, uh, to what level. And, uh, we, we eventually ended up with a design where we could, uh, Cause it changed the incoming, uh, decibel levels to your ear canal, uh, with a, with a small switch in the blog. So the point we released was called debug and that's, that's a, that's an earplug and noise reducer that can, that lets you set the volume of your surroundings in Revit because as you can decide, if you want to live through.
[00:12:46] Roughly 25 decibels or noise with reducing 25 decibels or reducing with 11 decibels reduction. So it's really convenient thing for people who are in concerts, who work in the music industry, but [00:13:00] also if you're in a cafe working, or if you're flying in loft, or if you're in a open office environment, or if you're working just in a noisy, noisy place, you can really select how much you wanted to let in hand the.
[00:13:14] Cool thinking about this, uh, acoustic filter is you can also let them more of that human speech frequencies, which are the lower range of the spectrum from 70 to four Hertz, roughly in a, which means you can hear people, you can hear people talking about, you reduce a lot of background noise, which is very convenient when I'm.
[00:13:34] When you want us to be aware of what's going on around you. So that turned out to be a pretty cool product, which we're focusing a lot on today to get out because there's, there's such a broad market for it. And it sounds very cool. I would be probably potential potential customer. And I didn't understand, I checked the website and I understood it.
[00:13:53] It's a targeting more people like DJs, most regular people who are in the offices or in [00:14:00] noisy environment. Uh, Is it like, business-wise you see, do you see, like, I understand that you see a lot of potential in this product, but comparing to surf ears, is it, um, is it comparable as a, as a business or it just the beginning and you just believe that it's going to be a bigger market.
[00:14:21] Yeah, I think you, I personally think he can surpass our fears in terms of revenue. Uh, I think it will take longer to do so because with the setup we had with surfers, where we, where we teamed up with a large distributor, very early, it took on a global market. We managed to get altar fast into very many stores, uh, that gave us a lot of exposure.
[00:14:43] Really quickly and grew the brand awareness really quickly and also gave us a good, uh, uh, extra, you know, exposure towards our own websites, which then grew also. So, so with DBA, we're doing a little bit different. So there we're actually growing, we're building [00:15:00] it, the distribution chain market by market because the distribution set up there, it looks a bit different and the markets are so.
[00:15:08] That's the different, which we wanted approach. So you can't reach one global distributor who reaches, you know, musicians and people working on airplanes and kindergarten teachers and, uh, uh, factory workers. It's kind of impossible. So we have to do it's market by market than segment by segment, but we're really seeing traction.
[00:15:29] So diva. Someone secretaries to pass surfers in web sales and, uh, in distribution sales, we're just getting started now. So we were having some pretty good lease of quite large potential deals with, um, with different companies who are in this part. So it's, it's very interesting. So I think you can grow quite a lot more than surface at potentially camp because you have was such a large markets.
[00:15:54] You mentioned that with surface, you. Uh, you, you, I don't know [00:16:00] if I can say that you were lucky you, you know, better that you got a big distributor when you started, which helped you a lot to, to scale the business. Is, was it, was it like, was it like a good contact you had, how you, how you, how you got, how you scaled his distribution from, from the early beginning of, of surfers and what would you maybe recommend to someone who.
[00:16:25] Or has a surf surf product, then one still wants to go in to retail. Yeah, there are many different stories. I mean, um, the path we chose. So, first of all, how we got in contact with them, it was actually the exposure from our Kickstarter campaign that led us to the contact with creatures of leisure, who are, who are now our current global distributor.
[00:16:49] So, so it was through making history campaign that gave us exposure to them. We, they actually initiated the dialogue with they, they contacted us and said, Hey guys, this looks interesting. Can we talk [00:17:00] about distribution? And we did, but we, we also reached out to a couple of other ones. Um, we were in contact with three of the world's largest distributors for surf and water sports equipment.
[00:17:11] And, uh, had, you know, far going discussions with all of them, but selected, uh, creatures because we got the best connection with them and we felt that they understood us exactly. And they, they seemed very good fit for us. So we, we chose to go with them. It could probably be good with other ones as well. Um, But, I mean, you can either do it that way and try to find one good distributor and then support them in the best way you can.
[00:17:40] I say that the drawback potential drawback of such a solution is that you're also very dependent on that distributor being a good distributor because potentially they might not. Um, caring enough about your product and if they have a hundred other products to, to care about who are generating more revenue and profits for them, maybe that's their focus.
[00:17:58] And then you might fall a [00:18:00] little bit behind and, and focus on not, not maximizing the potential of a product. So it's also a risk, but we were very lucky with creatures because they were really good to us. And we've had a fantastic collaboration since, um, I think it makes Sarah, you could also have it set up for you approach.
[00:18:20] You tried to find like the three, three to five bastards division, each region or country, and you tried to get the data with them going and then see if you can get deals going. And that's how we, how we decided to do it in debug, because we couldn't find a global setup like that. And we also want to try it the other way.
[00:18:38] It also gives you a little bit more control over what's happening, and then you can, you can. Influence, uh, you know, actions in different markets a little bit more. Well, they really admire on you that you, uh, even having a really big distributor, you, you are very smart in trying [00:19:00] new, uh, new channels, especially online channels.
[00:19:03] I remember a couple of discussions we had in Portugal about Facebook ads and, and paid acquisition. Do you use, are you still very active in this area? Do you still invest into Facebook ads or do you. What, what is the most underrated online channel here would recommend if you, if it's not a secret? Yeah. I mean, w we're definitely still working actively on that also also to be in direct contact with the consumers.
[00:19:35] I think it's pretty important to do that as a brand because you really learn, learn what works and what doesn't work, and you can also help your distributor and the retailers learn what works and doesn't work. So I think it's a good. Mix, of course it's, it's, it's nice to have an extra revenue stream from own direct sales, but more so it's also, it's, it's a great learning tool cell and it's constantly changing.
[00:19:58] Uh, so I think [00:20:00] for us, uh, I mean we focus a lot on Facebook from the beginning and it worked quite well in the beginning and then it. Really slowly degraded limits. So I think we don't see as much, uh, you know, as much conversions as we would like for Facebook. He answer, um, has maybe been a little bit better recently, but I think the one channel where we're focusing more now is search.
[00:20:25] I used to Google and search and really trying to. Be the go to channel for ear problems because that's where we can add value. We can help people, you know, discover potential problems before they get them and, and learn what they can do about when, before they get it, uh, to prevent. And then after they.
[00:20:49] Had got it to do repair. So I think building really good content. We worked a lot with your doctors these days to try to get [00:21:00] their message out there and connect them with people before it's too late, maybe. And then, uh, then working with starch in a structure way, both paid and organic. I think that's where we see the biggest potential for illness, Salesforce website.
[00:21:16] That was the first thing, which. Came to my mind that your website is very focused on the, on the product. And I guess you have a good, uh, um, traffic from Google, from people who are searching for Airflex, but your customers are probably the people who are searching for. A solution for their problem. And they, they even don't know that they need that they need your product.
[00:21:42] So I think it's a great, I think it's a great strategy. What about, uh, Amazon as a, as an online channel? Cause many people now talk now about Amazon. That it's a great, uh, great channel negative got 15, is that they. They're quite, uh, [00:22:00] quite the big portion of, of your revenues, but, um, they give you basically new cells, which you wouldn't get through through your website, because otherwise you would need to pay for them, uh, with the ads.
[00:22:18] Yeah. So Amazon, I think definitely is an interesting channel. So the setup for us is we've actually given Amazon to our distributor because we get quite a lot of sales coming in through our home website. We like it. For us, it's not about capturing every possible sales to ourselves. It's about creating the best possible ecosystem between us and our retailers.
[00:22:41] So in the total set up, given that they're distributed commits to quite large volumes of purchases every year, uh, we came to a solution where they actually, they, they run Amazon. We do surface.com. Um, they put it out in [00:23:00] over a thousand stores, um, and get, you know, the, the, the bulk of all the things we need to do to sustain this business.
[00:23:07] So in that, in that set up, that was the, that was a deal we can do for debug. We're working with Amazon directly. So with the bud, we're actually. Right now, you know, testing out different studies with Amazon and see how we can scale that. And we're seeing some good results. It seems to be a very good channel for that product.
[00:23:27] I think it could be for services as well, but we're not focusing on that as creatures are doing that. But for DBA, definitely, that's one of our main potential growth areas in direct sales. For sure. One long. One of the things I see that you are very strong in is, uh, working with, with ambassadors and your work with quite many famous surfers from the, from the early beginning.
[00:23:53] That's how I recognize always your brand. How, how did you start working [00:24:00] with ambassadors? I know that it's a common marketing strategy for a lot of surf brands, but, uh, it's not always easy. Like you, I understand that you give them a free product, but your program product is not like they're expensive that people would, uh, couldn't afford it.
[00:24:16] Right. So it's more like created some connection with ambassadors or maybe. You'll give them some other incentives. What would you, what would you recommend to someone who wants to work with them with others? Yeah, I think, I think we've been a little bit lucky because our product was really important. So basically all the ambassadors we have came to us.
[00:24:39] So we didn't actually, we didn't actually reach out to find a bathroom. Um, so it's been, it's, it's been very. You can say a very positive process for us because we had a product that sold an urgent need for them, because all the ambassadors have actually your issues. And they, they reached out and said, [00:25:00] Hey guys, can we, can we do trade?
[00:25:02] You know, can we have this product? We can give you some exposure on, we don't pay. People money as of today to, to expose our products. And we don't, we don't ask for a whole lot from the either. So the trade is sort of, they get free product from us when they need, and we get a nice images and clips we can use in our channels.
[00:25:25] So that's basically how we work with ambassadors. We just provide them with enough value that they think it's worth doing that tray. So I'd say as long as you can provide some real value, I think people are pretty open to, to work with you. Um, and then there's always, of course, if you really want to reach the ones who have, you know, 2 million followers, they're probably going to ask for some money, but we worked a lot with people who are like local heroes.
[00:25:53] They're really, you know, Well known in their community, in their area, [00:26:00] uh, in their geographical, you know, uh, area and, and they have low influence there. So we have so many good investors that we have as a great reach through. And I think that's our, one of our most valuable things to have this great collaboration where.
[00:26:15] We can provide people with Bart. They really need, they help expose it to the world. So I think it's a great collaboration and we're going to continue with that, um, and develop that further. And of course we thought about the incentive programs and affiliate marketing, but we haven't really done it yet, uh, to, to, to some scale, but where we're exploring, if that could be done in, in a, in a genuine way, without losing too much credibility as a brand.
[00:26:43] And, uh, talking about like your stories it's about bootstrapping, right? You had the idea, you developed the product you started with Kickstarter. It's, it's a, it's a nice story. How to bootstrap? [00:27:00] Um, A business, but I know that you, you got an investment from, from VCs. So how this influenced your, your decisions later or what was, what, how do you see, how do you see surf or lapse or surf ears different before getting investment and after getting the investment.
[00:27:28] I mean, of course there's some differences. So we were, uh, we, we, um, participated in the Danish version of shark tank. Back in 2016. And the reason for doing that was that we felt that we were always struggling with cashflow. As we were producing fiscal products, we had to pay for a lot of the raw material before it was shipped out of China.
[00:27:51] And then the larger orders would go the harder it was to find the zones before we go payment, which was then delayed quite a bit because we had the payment [00:28:00] terms set up, um, To, to, you know, get the money a little bit later from our customers. So that was always a hard struggle at the same time as we grew the business and we had to grow the team.
[00:28:13] So it was just hard on cash. So that's probably the main reason why we chose to take in the first investment. Um, and then of course getting, getting investors on board that was, so that was the three angel investors coming on board back then. Um, Uh, the, the, the foster thing is they had little connections and they could help us, uh, hook up, you know, potential new retailers and also for the next, funny, wrong, what we decided to, to, to take in funding, to develop the company for them and, and make debug happen.
[00:28:47] Uh, and, and take that one to go market. Uh, it was a huge benefit to have a couple of good investors on board already who believed in us because they could help us with connections to new investors. So [00:29:00] we quite quickly got, uh, you know, good, a number of potential investors, uh, collected and had a second round of security in 2018, a little bit larger.
[00:29:13] Um, With aim of, of growing the team, uh, taking diva to go market and, uh, Developing some, some new and pretty exciting products that we are going to release in the future. Um, so I think it's, it's a different business than a bootstrapped startup push your own by yourself because then you have all the decision power and you, how you can just do exactly what you want.
[00:29:37] With investors, of course you have to report, uh, there are monthly ports. You, you, you have to send out to keep them updated and let them, let them know what's going on. And now we'll have a press president on board in the company, which, uh, you know, it has to. Be there for the investors to feel, share that the money is spent in a way, and that that fits next to [00:30:00] work some layers of work.
[00:30:01] But when you get routine to that, I think is actually healthy because it forced you to run the company in a very professional way. You can't just do it, you know, uh, Half assed. And the more you have to do it full scale, and you have to do it in inappropriate way. And I think it's actually good for you.
[00:30:20] Hey, even though it can feel a bit annoying sometimes to have to do the extra work for reporting, actually sitting in and reflecting what you did the past month. And some summarizing that in a short email is very healthy. It makes you think about important things in your company, and it gives you a picture of where you're going.
[00:30:39] So I think it's a good thing. Okay. Um, so what is next? What is in your roadmap in the, for the next next weeks or month months? Well, we're, we're launching a new and updated version of surfers, which is called 3.0, [00:31:00] uh, lotion dots, beginning of March. Um, that's very exciting for us because we have worked on that since 2016, when we launched the second generation surfers and it's a really good improvement.
[00:31:13] It's a part that's a. Yeah, considerably better than the last one, which I think was already good. And we have signed a new level investor, which is Conner coffin from California, which is the top ranked USAR from tour right now, which is very nice because through Connor, we're reaching out to younger audiences as well.
[00:31:34] Hopefully that we can, we can reach people who would need plugs, but don't use box yet. Corner has. Bigger problems himself. His brother has problems. His dad has problems. We know, so hopefully they can help us, um, get out to more surfers, uh, before his too late, uh, before they have surfers or themselves. Um, and then we're working on future [00:32:00] development of debug, uh, this, uh, North reduced or where we want to see what we can do in terms of.
[00:32:08] You know, improving people's, um, noise people's, uh, experience in noisy environments, you can say. So say that, um, we want to put them in, uh, other capacities in this product where. For example, you can combine what we have today, which is a passive noise reduction system with an active noise reduction system.
[00:32:31] We might want to be able to help people track how much noise they're exposed to and, you know, give them, uh, an insight in when their decibel dose is reached. So they can actually do something about it because it's so that's a lot of people are listening to music in their hair, in their headphones, too.
[00:32:54] Uh, to mask a noise around them and they're actually exposing their ears to a lot [00:33:00] of volume and that's really bad for their hearing. And, uh, so working in, in, uh, taking hearing safety and, and listen, you know, safe listening to, to
[00:33:14] Sounds good. Sounds fantastic. Uh, I wish you a good luck with, uh, or your plans. Uh, thank you for. For having time for this interview and hopefully see you somewhere in Portugal in the water. Absolutely. Thanks Peter. It was a pleasure.
