Rob Law of Trunki: A masterclass in resilience

Strategy & Tragedy: CEO Stories with Steph Melodia is the best business podcast for curious entrepreneurs featured in the UK's Top 20 charts for business shows.

Hosted by Stephanie Melodia, Strategy & Tragedy features candid interviews with entrepreneurs who have scaled - and failed - their businesses - sharing their lessons in entrepreneurship along the way. From Simon Squibb of 'What's Your Dream?' Internet fame to Lottie Whyte of Sunday Times Top 100 Fastest-Growing company, MyoMaster. From exited founders like Nick-Telson Sillett to subject matter experts like Alex Merry in the public speaking arena and Matt Lerner, the GOAT of Growth.

This is one of the best podcasts to listen to if you're looking for educational and inspirational content on Spotify, Apple, Google, Amazon, YouTube or watch the clips on Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, or YouTube Shorts

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In this week's episode, Stephanie Melodia interviews Rob Law, best known as the founder of Trunki, the iconic ride-on suitcase for kids. Rob Law turned one of the most famous rejections on BBC's Dragons' Den into a global success, selling over 5 million units across 100+ countries. He scaled up the business over 17 years (winning 120+ awards along the way) and exited in 2023.

Watch on YouTube via the link below or keep reading for the transcript, where Steph and Rob cover:

• Overcoming setbacks - from ridicule on national TV and a luggage ban - to deeper, personal issues like cystic fibrosis and losing his twin sister aged just 16

• GTM strategy, positioning, and growth levers

• The failed attempt to create a “tween” version of Trunki that intentional businessmen ended up wanting!

• The path to selling Trunki and what life looked like post-exit

• Answering the questions he’s NEVER been asked in an interview before

• New ventures and advice to his younger self

SM: We do need to kick start your story with the Dragon's Den fiasco.

So to bring everyone up to speed really quickly, you got pulled apart on Dragon's Den quite literally where Theo Paphitis, one of the Dragons, literally pulled apart one of your products. I don't know if it's your prototype or what one of the actual suitcases there on the show aired on national TV around the country. Obviously, must have felt horrible. But take us back to that moment.

What was going through your mind when that was happening?

RL: The turning point in the Den from a good pitch to things tumbling downhill out of my control was when Theo got a little bit too aggressive with my pink Trixie suitcase. I did not expect the strap to break so easily, I've got to be honest.

It was almost two decades ago now and it was very weird, out-of-body experience being there in front of the Dragons, but - also on reflection - just having no control over the car crash that was happening in front of me, and I just couldn't understand why it was such an issue. It was a production sample, and the strap, if you pull it hard, the plastic the original plastic clip did bend a bit. And he saw it bend, so he thought, I'll pull it as hard as I can, and it popped off. It didn't break. It just popped off. And I was like, well, if that's a problem, although I've just turned around the studio, that can be made stronger. And they just went absolutely wild at me.

SM: Like, Theo said, what was it? You shouldn't come on here with problems that can be solved. It's like, well, yeah. Pretty much the definition of for all products and businesses. You get something out, you find something wrong, and you tweak it. That must have left such a sour taste in your mouth with the whole Dragons' Den show.

RL: Yeah, but it then it carried on. I mean, Peter Jones said, do you think you got something? I tell you you don't. Your business is worthless. Your brand's worth nothing. I said, what? And it was. I just started trading, but I had a brand name. I had a product. I had something to get to get to get started. But, yeah, when the cameras stopped rolling and went there for an hour and a half, whatever, I was at the top of the steps, and I thought, oh, that's a bugger. I haven't got any money, which I really needed a bit of mentoring. And by the time I got to the bottom of the stairs, I was thinking, "Oh, Christ. I wish I had a mentor as a time machine and not ride on suitcase."

This could be quite damaging to the business if it ever airs.

The BBC said they'd give us six weeks notice. Then season three starts airing. No word from the BBC. Halfway through the season, no word. So I'm thinking, oh, I've got away with this. But just to make sure, I went down to local newsagents, picked up the Radio Times just to check. I'm in there. Tuesday night, BBC 2, 09:00, and it said 'Wheelie Rubbish, Dragons' Den.'

The colour drains my face.

SM: What a setback. But, of course, this is one of many setbacks, which is one of the many reasons that makes you a fantastic guest on a show called Strategy & Tragedy! So we are gonna recount some of those. But what I'm aware of is that you did have a deal lined up. So, obviously, it was that gap between recording the that show and it actually airing. Obviously, you've taken a hit, emotionally. That's such a blow to your ego, your self confidence, and all the rest of it. You had a deal lined up.

But then what was the damage after the episode actually aired on TV?

RL: Well, I didn't have a deal with Dragons' Den. That was a separate. My first customer was the Museum of Modern Art in New York. They had seen a design blog where I posted a press release.

So I sold 600 to those guys and started exporting internationally. I was finding it quite hard initially in The UK. None of the high street retailers would take my call. They kept passing me around different departments and I wanted to take the risk on of the Trunki. The classic startup challenge I had was luggage buyers or luggage manufacturers thought it was toy.

Toy buyers and toy manufacturers thought it was luggage, and no one would take the product on initially. This was one of the other things I wanted to come to you about, which was that repositioning of going from a toy to luggage. So let's just talk about that because how did you manage to successfully kind of position yourself in a way that consumers could easily understand? Yeah. It was it was a long startup journey from IDEA whilst at university in '97 to actually starting trading in 2,006.

So this nine year journey of initially rejection from manufacturers, then graduating in product design, working in Taiwan, New York, and Australia. So I did the whole traveling thing and then came back in 02/2002. I found a start up toy company who were really keen on the idea, so I licensed it to them. And over a three year period, they just had one customer in The Middle East, and Chunky had never been to The UK, to Europe, to The US. Right.

So I was really frustrated by their lack of success. They ended up going into voluntary liquidation. And, during that three year period, I took a job as a design consultant in Bristol, and my largest customer was Unilever. And I was inventing all these products with these big name brands like electronic deodorant cans for links or acts as they call it in Europe, Electronic devices to put more bleach down the toilet for domestos and just all this junk that people didn't need. And I was really kind of struggling to get out of bed in the morning.

Ever since I was 14, I wanted to be a product designer. I was now at the peak of my career and I was completely disillusioned. Wow. But Trunki's still in the background. Well, Trunki was with this at the back of your mind.

Trunki was with this license, with the toy company. And then when they phoned me up in October 2005 saying they were going into voluntary liquidation, couldn't represent Trunki anymore, I very quickly kind of thought, well, actually, here's an opportunity for me to have a go at myself. I now know about the power of branding with I work with Unilever, and maybe it isn't a toy or luggage. It's it could be marketed as a lifestyle brand to parents. Interesting.

So this almost gave you an opportunity to kind of reinvent Yeah. Trunki. And it's almost like the renaissance after that, the the phoenix from the flames. I have to ask. I mean, we haven't even gone that far into your journey yet, but already, I need to ask, like, where does this fire come from for you and specifically with Trunki?

Because you've had so many, like, full starts and failures and setbacks. You know, Dragon's Den, again, I'm sure you're sick of talking about it at this point, but, like, obviously, that's one of the most famous things as well. It's one of many setbacks. What was it that kept you going? Like, where did that belief in this children's luggage brand come from?

Well, it was more just a a slight side hustle and a slow burn. So it wasn't I wasn't waking up every morning thinking, right, I'm gonna make it work today. It was just, like, let's try and find a home for it. And at the time, I didn't want to run a business. I just wanted to be a product designer.

So in the earlier days, it was just give it to someone else to do, and then I could become a product designer. It's what which is what I trained to become. And then after, as I said, coming struggling to get out of bed in the morning, I was then like, this could be an opportunity to have a go at. And there were many other challenges. We had the hand luggage ban of 02/2006.

Exactly. Yeah. I could come onto that as well. So that was that was coming home just before the summer after working down the work the warehouse fixing up some stock. The German World Cup was on.

I wanted to see how England had got on, so I turned the telly on, and there was a news flash. And the news presenter was saying the government have foiled a liquid bomb threat. And as a result, they've decided to ban hand luggage. Color drains from my face, and I'm like, what? So the very product I invented, I'd taken nine years to get to market, was now banned from its primary and fundamental use of of being used as hand luggage.

And so how did you overcome that? So that challenge was really around kind of quickly realizing, what can I control and what can't I? So phoning up Heathrow, Department of Transport, Virgin BA, anyone I could think of was very clearly, a waste of my time, and I couldn't influence anything there. So I quickly learned what I could control, and that was pivoting the marketing message, talk about Trunki being used for staycations. I developed a cow print, Friesian cow Trunki for for that messaging, but also international was really taking off.

So I was exporting to The US, to Japan, Australia, and most of those markets didn't have the band. So it was kind of leaning into that, and and pushing international. Yeah. Incredible. So I know I'm picking up on your story already that, like, you're very much product designer first.

Right? Like, more of this creative. You've got an idea. You wanna put it out there. Not so much an entrepreneur, at least assuming that label, at least in those early days.

You would've mentioned, like, giving it to someone else, you turn it into a business. But, ultimately, you became the man to lead that. What do you tell yourself, like, in those tough moments, those setbacks, like, when it would be easier to go and get another job as a product designer, job as a product designer? I don't know. For some reason, they don't seem that insurmountable insurmountable to me at the time.

I guess I'm, I guess I'm thinking about having faced quite a few challenges in my personal life as well. It's kind of not that big a deal that there will be a way through this. I've just gotta face up to it as quickly as possible and move on. I've kind of learned that setbacks can be reframed as superpowers. Mhmm.

So kind of facing into these quickly kind of helps you get over them if you can use your energy wisely and move on and carry on. And you might be pivoting. You might be re being redirected somewhere, but it's not actual failure. It's kind of moving forward.

SM: Yeah. I love that. I think where some of us spend maybe too long on LinkedIn or too long with our head down, it can feel like actual failure. And I think getting that perspective in those moments is so vital. You dangled the kind of personal thing there lightly.

So if anyone doesn't really know, you suffer from cystic fibrosis. Yeah. So was that what you were referring to? And if so, how has that helped you to exercise your resilience muscle?

RL: Yeah. So that is probably the foundation of my resilience being born with this, the is the most common genetically inherited disease that affects your lungs and your digestive system. But in the late seventies when I was born, the average life expectancy was lucky to be to make it to double figures. And spent most of my childhood with my twin sister in and out of hospital, strapped to various ventilators and inhalers and loads of medication. But then as the the science improved, life expectancy improved, so we made it to teenagers. And then the goal was, like, 30.

It was an opportunity. We might make it to 30. But sadly, my sister passed when we were 16, which was, devastating, but it taught me an incredible life lesson about life is short and to make the most of it and to kind of face into the challenges and hurdles and just just make the most of my life. Nothing was gonna stop me from doing what I wanted to do.

SM: I can't even begin to imagine. Like, how how do you process that? Like, something that again, like, these aren't real failures. Like, we're talking about life and death, like, easily puts things back into perspective. But unless you haven't gone through that yourself personally, what can we borrow from you?

RL: Well, I think part of it was not actually processing it, which is not necessarily a healthy thing. But you but I internally processed it to try and give me a real focus. And I think before Kate passed, I wasn't that driven. And then afterwards, then I just wanted to make the most of everything.

At university, my mates called me the Duracell bunny because I just party hard, work hard, and just live life to the full. And then I focused that energy on the business. And yeah. Initially, it wasn't about making any money. It was just about having success with the product.

I wanted to see on the shop shelves in The UK. That was kind of my first goal really with the with the back brand. Then we got into The UK, then it was getting into other markets, then it was kind of getting to a million pounds turnover, and it was conquering the world. So Incredible. It kind of grew and grew and grew.

SM: Well, I did wanna shift gears and talk about some of those highs and not only the lows as much as we started with getting pulled apart on national TV and the luggage ban and then, of course, the kind of the personal -

RL: Well, I think we learn more from our failures than -

SM: Rob, you are a perfect ambassador for Strategy and Tragedy! That's very much the purpose of the show. Right? It's like to share what are the lessons learned from some of those mistakes that have happened along the way.

So, before we do move on to those highs, what are some of those key lessons that you can share with our listeners from those downers?

RL: I think it's, reframing setbacks into them being superpowers and and that's where you succeed. I mean, in business, we're always talking about kind of success, creativity, and momentum. But I think behind that, quite often, is rejection, failure, and setbacks. Yeah. 100%.

So really kind of understanding that. On LinkedIn, quite often, it's all just a bit too glossy about how successful everyone's been. Right. But behind all those successes are lots of anxiety, lots of setbacks. 100%.

There is a fantastic And actually, I'm finding you get a lot of traction now on that platform where you're really honest and open and talk about the things that haven't gone well. Yeah. A 100%. Absolutely. There's this fantastic visual.

You know, an image is worth a thousand words, and it's got if you imagine kind of three squares of dots, the first square of dots are multicolored. The middle one is just one of the colors and everything else grayed out because that's the only thing you're showing. And then the last one is they're all that same color because that's all that you're showing people. So that's therefore what you then kind of extrapolate out to the rest of their life.

You think that that is the reality. And I think that's how social media has really warped our perception and especially something as tough as entrepreneurship. And, of course, the LinkedIn humble bragging doesn't doesn't help with that. I do just wanna connect back.

Before we do talk about some of those highs and amazing achievements that you had, I do just wanna connect it back to that motivation as well that kept driving you. Because whenever I asked you before, it was like, it was kind of a side thing. It was a slow burner. It was kind of in the back of your mind, it took a long time to sort of get it to market. But there must have been a point where it's like, okay.

We're all in on this. We need to kinda get that firepower. How then like, what was most why did you wanna put your eggs in a basket of children's suitcases? I just thought I'll give this a go. I'll quit my job once I've got stock to sell.

And if it fails, at least it'll be an amazing MBA in business. But actually, I growing up, I never wanted to be a business person. My dad was a a businessman. He ran a retail interior design business and his his company designed all the rationing shops and things. Wow.

But he was a workaholic and growing up, I was like, right, I'm gonna I'm gonna enjoy life. I'm gonna party hard and and experience what the world has to offer and travel the world and did quite a bit of that. But then as soon as I found my passion, I became a workaholic. Yeah. So he put me off the idea of being a businessperson, now entrepreneur.

Yeah. But then I found my passion and kind of became one. You're a kind of definition of that. And and why children's suitcases in particular? Like, of all of the things to, you know, to put your time and energy and effort towards, why was it especially in those earlier kind of days as well.

Like, did you have market validation in a more practical sense, or was there more of this, like, deep belief and vision that you had for Trunki? Well, I tested the prototype out in primary schools. I had quite a lot of validation there. Friends and family, but that I was trying to kind of not listen to that. The mum test.

Right before the mum test was written. Well, more more the kind of slightly impartial. It wasn't impartial feedback. Exactly. And then when I started when I posted about the design on these blogs and started getting inquiries, that was kind of quite a significant validation that I started trading internationally almost overnight.

So then it was like, well, let's give this a go and and double down. And, my mom thought I was a bit crazy to quit my job and do this, but I just thought, let's have a go. What have I got to lose? I was in my late twenties. Yeah.

So there's there was very low risk. Yeah. Exactly. You're in a stage in your life where you're able to take more of those bigger hurts. Right?

So But the I mean, the funny thing was that and Trunki's now very well known. But at the time when it came to hire my first person after about six months of trading, one person applied for the job. So they got it. They got the job. What was the role of that first hire?

It was kind of like an operational role, a bit of admin, bit of ops. Bit of everything. Classic hire startup. Amazing. So you find product market fit eventually.

So you've got a bit of this, like, the repositioning, the early market appetite, things are growing. What were your growth levers in those early days? It was all about exporting and the the international trade shows I was going to is where we were really getting a lot of traction, and in a couple of these industries. It turned out that it was actually the baby industry that was the best fit for us. So the kind of mother cares, the baby stores, the baby departments were mainly where we ended up.

In fact, the luggage industry had a very different margin cascades. The the retailers wanted 60% margin whereas the baby market wanted 40. Wow. So we can actually make it work price price point wise Yeah. In in that market along with toy, but luggage was always a real struggle.

Yeah. How much what crosses my mind is given we're turning back the clocks around, you know, a couple of decades at this point. Right? And even in your story, I've picked up on details like popping down to the newsagent and flipping through the radio times and all these kinds of things. Right?

This is, of course, pre social media. This is pre, like, b to c, ecommerce. How much of the time that you were in was a help or a hindrance? Well, actually, it was, the first way I could sell Trunkies was actually a custom coded e commerce site. So, yes, way before Shopify.

Right. But I met a techie in Australia and convinced him to program me an e commerce site, And he had earned a commission on sales. Wow. So and it and it was right at the start of social media. So Facebook, each Trunki had its own Facebook account.

So back then, we had about four or five. And then I suddenly realized this was gonna be hard work to have a Facebook account per Trunki. Scenario. End up launching about 65 different versions. So and then it became just the one account.

Wow. Such early days of it all. Isn't it? Very early days. Yeah.

How much of the timing do you attribute to the success that you had? I think the timing was more around the the budget airlines and the low cost travel. That kind of really was the biggest lever that a lot more people were able to go off on those cheaper holidays. Yeah. That makes sense.

And we're always always quite a small team for the size of the persona of the brand. And I think the ability for the the cases to advertise themselves in airports was probably our greatest marketing gift.

SM: Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. I know I'm kinda skipping ahead a little bit because I do wanna kinda chronologically finish the the Trunki chapter, but I know that you advise other entrepreneurs and startups these days as well. If there were a younger Rob sat across the table from you now who's got a similar idea and he's launching his business with Meta, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, all of these social media channels that we have today that you didn't, bearing in mind, yes, it's democratised entrepreneurship and made it so much frictionless and lowered that barrier. But, of course, it has to everyone else. Right? And so it's increased the competition and the noise.

So, what would be your advice to that younger Rob now?

RL: Well, I think we're actually ten years too late for the whole D2C play, whereas, like, the Harry's razors guys and everyone the cost of advertising on Meta or Facebook was was much lower. Yeah.

Now it's incredibly expensive. Unless you've got a customer lifetime value to achieve, it's really not worth investing in those channels. Yeah. And DTC is really challenging. Mhmm.

What what we've learned and what I also do is focus the business on Amazon. Amazon's a kind of a closed ecosystem that rewards the adverts, whereas Meta and Google don't care if your adverts convert or not. Amazon do. So you you can build this flywheel effect. And Amazon is not just The UK or The US, it's Europe as well.

It's the biggest marketplace in France and Germany. So, Amazon can give you a great tool to be able to get get heard and get get sales. Yeah. So So it's almost seeing it as a marketing tool because margins are quite slim. But, with our new business, we're Amazon only to to sort of start off with.

And we had lots of success with Trunki with Amazon and kind of in The UK, it kind of built itself at the back of Dragon's Den. So Dragon's Den was the best thing that happened, for us. It kind of catapulted us into the public psyche. Interesting. But in Europe, it didn't.

And actually advertising on their platforms about not just the suitcase, but our other products really, really worked. Yeah. And actually off the back of that, me and my brother founded an Amazon marketing agency Yes. To help brands succeed on Amazon because there was this this playbook. And we've sold 12,000 units in our first year of our new product, ZeeBee, just on Amazon in The UK, just to prove product market fit.

SM: Wow. Okay. Amazing. We definitely wanna talk about these other ventures. And, yeah, I guess the pile of wisdom there as well that I'm taking away is, like, going to where the market is, right? Like, instead of trying to build it yourself and getting people to come to you, like, go to them.

And the other thing is the infrastructure. Like, not only have you got the eyeballs, but the logistics, the whole operational side to the business, the a humongous giant, you know, you can kind of can help you get there.

Alright, so we're gonna talk about your other ventures. But closing on the Trunki journey, one of the highs I wanted to touch on was I read that you you were so successful that you managed to acquire your own factory and therefore create this, like, vertical supply chain operations. What was that about? What even gave you the idea to buy your own factory and, like, what's the story there?

RL: Well, the idea wasn't to buy a factory. It was to just reshore production, because making things out in the Far East, you got an incredibly long lead time. You gotta invest a huge amount of stock. I mean, I remember in the earlier days when we were really successful and we were, like, £56,000,000 turnover, and it's great being a paper millionaire with no money in your bank account and struggling to make the payroll each month. And we went into the warehouse, and it was just full of stock. So all the cash had gone into building this massive amount of inventory because the pace of our growth, like, no retailer could forecast for that growth or even see it coming.

So we're always playing catch up and always having to buy more and more stock. Then the exchange rates get fluctuating. There were loads of big swings with, like, 02/2009, where the dollar massively appreciated against sterling, and all of a sudden, we were making no margin selling our products to the retailers. There's just a real lack of control, so many moving parts. So I kind of really wanted to be able to make Trunki close to home.

We put out a national tender and found a company who were really competitive, and they basically were quoting for the same as our landed cost from China. So taking the shipping cost because we're quite a large product, there's a couple of dollars for shipping per unit and the duty, and they were about the same price. So that made total sense to me to then reshore production. To achieve that price, we had to reengineer the product. So the Chinese made Trunki, he had 25 no. 30 metal screws and pins that held it together. And The UK one, we had to completely re engineer it to take out all the metals. So I had no metal in it at all. All the parts just snap fitted together.

Wow. So it was much quicker to assemble. It got rid of all the metal, which is a bit of a safety risk for children, and also helped us create 100 plastic product that was much easier to recycle. So it kind of ticks lots of Yeah. My goals.

And we started producing in down in Totnes, actually, originally then, Plymouth. The factory moved to upscale its production facility to take on our business and another brand. And, my PR vision was to have Trunkies with the Union Jack rolling off the production line. This is 2012. We had the London twenty twelve Olympics.

Yeah. So we secured a low cog license, had official Olympic Trunkies rolling off production line, and had every TV network. Back then, it was channel four, ITV, and BBC filming them roll off production line. So big tip. What a result.

Oh, a clever marketing thing. And then throughout that year, the factory really struggled to keep up with demand. We gave them really clear forecasts. They always delivered short. There were big gaps in our production.

We couldn't completely transfer everything from China to The UK. So we had this mixed message about we couldn't really shout from the rooftops about everything was made from The UK because some of it was still coming from China Yeah. Because they weren't able to ramp up production properly. Mhmm. And at the 2012, I was invited to a meeting in London with the factory MD, and he told me they're on the brink of going into administration.

They completely copped up their supply chain, their ability to produce products. They bit off more than they could chew Oh, yeah. And were on the brink of going bust. And I'd invested close to half a million pounds in this project, retooling in The UK, setting up our our supply chain. But I'm as a product designer, I'm close to manufacturing.

I kind of understand some of the basics, and it just made total sense to me to do a prepack by the administration, save the 40 jobs, and vertically integrate. Wow. So I told all my business mates, and and peers, and they said, don't do it. What are you talking about? Of course they do.

This is biting off more than you can chew. But one good piece of advice was if you do do it, get hire a consultant to try and turn it around. Don't get drawn into it yourself. So we borrowed back quarter of a million quid off the bank and acquired them out of administration. Turned a quarter of a million was working capital to help them turn them around.

And then we discovered why it had gone into administration, and that was a simple lesson in leadership. So the night shift would just produce scrap all night because they just didn't like the people who used to run the factory. So they just just been wasting money. And, yeah, no one really likes the leaders down there, the the old owner who had done an MBO. So kind of listening to the team down there, we ended up having to move out the the old owner.

And to me, it was like, we've gotta find what people are passionate about, what can we hang above the door to get people's real buy and and talking to everyone. It was just they were simply proud to be making in The UK. So we put that above the door and then started turning this sinking oil tank I'd like in it to in the right direction. It took two years and, yes, that consultant stayed there for eighteen months rather than their initial six week contract. Oh, okay.

So it was a real challenge to turn it around. Wow. But we turned it around, vertically integrated it. And then with ecommerce sales booming, we were manufacturing them in Plymouth, moving them next door to our warehouse, and shipping them directly out to mom in The UK and across Europe. So not only are you building this already wildly successful children's luggage brand, but you're also managing this turnaround of a new Managing a turnaround manager.

Yeah. So yeah. Okay. Yeah. It was it was a huge amount of stress and and strife.

Yeah. But, yeah, we we kind of achieved it. And then it was a great so through Brexit where the sterling massively depreciated, we're able to be very, very competitive with our pricing. Yeah. And then, through COVID where sales dropped off a cliff literally, 70% drop in sales for two years, we had to go into hibernation.

But then when, when people were able to travel, we're able to turn the taps back on. We didn't have under twenty day lead times from China and we're able to meet that ramp up in demand very quickly. Much more control over the situation. So it did pay dividends. However, when it came to exiting, no one wanted to touch the factory.

So we have Oh. Quite a bit of interest, but the factory was causing a lot of problems for for people because they didn't want that responsibility. Oh, okay. Wow. I mean, it sounds like such a such a strength though to have that level of control and That's what I thought, but that's not where how most businesses are structured.

Yeah. So no. It was, it was a big challenge. And in the end, the acquirer, we did a deal where the operations manager of the acquirer was so impressed by the factory. He quit his job there, bought the factory office.

SM: Amazing. To two different businesses again. Rob, what a story. I had no idea. And again, it just goes to show these setbacks that have been completely reframed and how you've come out the other side so much better off for it.

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