By CASEY NEILL
AUSTRALIANS spend $600 million on bottled water every year, while 900 million people around the world have no access to any safe drinking water.
“We thought there had to be a way to combine these two extremes,” Justine Flynn said.
The Thankyou co-founder and marketing and people director shared her story at the South East Business Networks (SEBN) Showcasing Women in Business breakfast at Highways in Springvale last Friday, 20 September.
The social enterprise’s sole purpose is delivering improvements in developing nations.
Once production costs are covered, all profits from the sales of its products are donated to specific projects through charities.
Thankyou started five years ago with three youths with a grand plan for bottled water, and is now expanding to food and body care ranges.
Through its profits Thankyou Water has so far provided safe water to more than 56,000 people.
“Every bottle sold is a month’s worth of water to someone in need,” Mrs Flynn said.
“Thankyou exists to empower Australians to live every day, give every day.”
The Thankyou crew was studying at university, working part-time and needed $250,000 to start their enterprise.
“At the time between the five of us we had about a grand,” Mrs Flynn said.
“Impossibility is only an opinion, not a fact.”
They found a water producer they could pay the initial outlay back to once they’d sold the product, and Visy donated bottle moulds.
They spoke to a national beverage distributor and soon had their first order for 50,000 bottles – before they’d even registered their business.
A business mentor invested $20,000 and they were off and running.
But after a national recall over dodgy labels and losing all but 50 of 350 customers through a production delay, they realised they could have donated more money by just getting full-time jobs.
Retail deals fell through but a visit to Cambodia put everything back into perspective.
“I didn’t realise the extent of it,” Mrs Flynn said.
“It was so much more than ‘you’re not drinking dirty water any more’.”
One woman told her she was no longer sick from drinking contaminated water so she’d used what she’d previously spent on medication to buy a motorised plough.
“Just having clean water means that she can increase the income of her family,” Mrs Flynn said.
Social media has been integral to the company’s success.
Ahead of a pitch to 7-Eleven the crew asked supporters to let the convenience store chain know that it should stock the products.
The company asked Thankyou to come in a week earlier when it got word of a protest at its headquarters on the day the meeting was scheduled.
“We didn’t mean for that to happen!” Mrs Flynn said.
But public support and a professional pitch soon had Thankyou Water replacing the store’s home-brand water line.
Now a healthy food range, hand wash and lotion and alcohol-free hand sanitiser are on their way to major supermarket shelves.
Profits from those ranges will support immediate and long-term food relief and health and hygiene training.
“If they don’t understand that they need to have those health and hygiene practices, there’s no point in them having the clean water,” Mrs Flynn said.
The group turned to social media to win over Coles and Woolworths – and to the skies.
Supporters posted messages online telling the supermarkets they’d buy the products and the Thankyou crew flew helicopters around the two stores’ head offices with a banner: “Thank you for changing the world (if you say yes)”.
“It’s just the beginning,” Mrs Flynn said.
“There’s still so much more that we want to do.
“Don’t let excuses hold you back.
“We all have something different that we can bring to the world.”
