Speaker 1: We have this year launched three products. We created our
Speaker 1: own computer system control system. You can turn your sauna
Speaker 1: on from your phone anywhere in the world, this kind
Speaker 1: of stuff, and like, I think there's one person on
Speaker 1: our team that has a degree. At the time, I think,
Speaker 1: and certainly my dad was like, you're doing it. It
Speaker 1: was a double degree of engineering and business, Like you're
Speaker 1: going to walk away from that, Like, I don't know
Speaker 1: if that's a good thing. Maybe you should do it
Speaker 1: and then come over whatever. But I just knew where
Speaker 1: I needed to be and what I need to be doing.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Sees the Yay Podcast. Busy and happy
Speaker 2: are not the same thing. We too rarely question what
Speaker 2: makes the heart seeing. We work, then we rest, but
Speaker 2: rarely we play and often don't realize there's more than
Speaker 2: one way. So this is a platform to hear and
Speaker 2: explore the stories of those who found lives. They adore,
Speaker 2: the good, bad and ugly, The best and worst day
Speaker 2: will bear all the facets of seizing your yay. I'm
Speaker 2: Sarah Davidson or a spoonful of Sarah, a lawyer turned
Speaker 2: fu entrepreneur who swapped the suits and heels to co
Speaker 2: found match Maid and matcha Milkbar. Cca is a series
Speaker 2: of conversations on finding a life you love and exploring
Speaker 2: the self doubt, challenge, joy and fulfillment along the way. Hello,
Speaker 2: lovely neighborhood, and welcome back to our third guest episode
Speaker 2: in a row. As we were unexpectedly able to squeeze
Speaker 2: in more recordings than we had originally planned, it's turned
Speaker 2: out to be quite an efficient December, which, somehow, in
Speaker 2: amongst all the chaos of silly season, is not what
Speaker 2: usually happens to me in this month of the year,
Speaker 2: but it's meant that we did squeeze in another guest
Speaker 2: for you before we wrap up. Then we will be
Speaker 2: back next week for our final episode of the year,
Speaker 2: which will be the last yeays of our lives for
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three. And I'm sure as chaotic as ever
Speaker 2: when and and I do finally get back on the
Speaker 2: mic together. We have so loved answering your submitted questions
Speaker 2: across a couple of Q and A episodes on different themes.
Speaker 2: They're always so interesting and considered, So we open up
Speaker 2: the floor to your last questions for the year in
Speaker 2: that episode. That is the next coming episode to see
Speaker 2: if you've got any remaining questions about friendship, about the pregnancy,
Speaker 2: our twenty twenty three reflections, our twenty twenty four plans,
Speaker 2: and everything in between. The questions have been amazing so far,
Speaker 2: and there's still time to submit yours, so we cannot
Speaker 2: wait for next week and I'll pop another question box
Speaker 2: up on socials in case you missed it. If you
Speaker 2: have more to submit, then we will take a short
Speaker 2: break for the holidays and be back in January. As
Speaker 2: for this week's guest, you know I love an interesting pathya,
Speaker 2: but especially one that we haven't seen before, or haven't
Speaker 2: seen perhaps as often. We've seen many people start their
Speaker 2: own businesses or make their way to CEO, but I
Speaker 2: believe Alex Tyson is our first who dropped out of
Speaker 2: his original pathya to not only take over a family business,
Speaker 2: but to completely revolutionize it. You may have seen that
Speaker 2: Nick and I recently installed an incredible of found space
Speaker 2: sauna in our new home as part of the Brenos
Speaker 2: that has us literally pinching ourselves every day, having both
Speaker 2: been avid sauna users for many years now. Me when
Speaker 2: I first experienced chronic fatigue back gosh more than a
Speaker 2: decade ago, and was completely overhauling my health and wellbeing
Speaker 2: and learning about the things that would really help me recover.
Speaker 2: And Nick as a professional athlete who was seeking optimum
Speaker 2: recovery for his muscles and his body. And Alex is
Speaker 2: the CEO of found Space formerly ie Health Saunas, having
Speaker 2: taken over from his parents who were years ahead of
Speaker 2: the curve, and his story is just absolutely fascinating. I'll
Speaker 2: let him tell you the rest himself, and about the
Speaker 2: immeasurable benefits of hormetic treatments like saunas and cold plunge therapy,
Speaker 2: which ties into one of our earlier episodes, Gosh a
Speaker 2: couple of years ago. Now with the iceman Wimhoff, and
Speaker 2: Alex just really articulately explains the science behind why both
Speaker 2: of these therapies are so beneficial for you your body.
Speaker 2: So I hope you guys enjoy and learn as much
Speaker 2: as I did. Alex, Welcome to CZA.
Speaker 1: Hello, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: It is so lovely to have you here and even
Speaker 2: more special because I feel like our last couple of
Speaker 2: guests I've had longer term relationships with and lets has
Speaker 2: been a surprise. Whereas you're a bit of a mystery,
Speaker 2: and I'm really excited about this.
Speaker 1: Mysteries are fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you're also one of those people who your
Speaker 2: brand and your business like there's so much information about
Speaker 2: your professional life, but a lot of the questions that
Speaker 2: I love to ask, which is all the weird, quirky
Speaker 2: rando shit in the background, it's not as much about that.
Speaker 2: So I will get to enjoy this for the first
Speaker 2: time along with everyone listening, rather than me knowing all
Speaker 2: the weird stuff and outing you so love that. Before
Speaker 2: we get started, I love to start with a little
Speaker 2: icebreaker for everyone, an icebreaker being even more relevant for
Speaker 2: someone who loves cold plunges, but just to ask what
Speaker 2: the most down to earth thing is about you? Because
Speaker 2: you're a CEO, you run an incredibly successful business. It
Speaker 2: sounds very fancy and glamorous on the outside, and I'm
Speaker 2: sure there are some very normal, you know, just down
Speaker 2: to earth things that everyone can relate to about you.
Speaker 2: So what's the most like normal random thing you do?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would say, someone asked me this morning, like,
Speaker 1: what's something I'm good at? And I would say that
Speaker 1: I'm a good listener, Oh yeah, and like just good
Speaker 1: at asking questions and getting curious about other people, those
Speaker 1: kind of things in terms of like down to earth. Oh,
Speaker 1: I guess I like playing music that's really fun. Like
Speaker 1: this is my office and my guitar is just like
Speaker 1: right there. So oh, ever, one of those shit days,
Speaker 1: or just go and play a bit of guitar just
Speaker 1: to calm everything down.
Speaker 2: I feel like people like you who are CEOs, published authors,
Speaker 2: particularly in an area that is so wellness orientated, so
Speaker 2: easy to assume that you never have a shit day
Speaker 2: and that you're always mindful and present and grateful and
Speaker 2: aware and balanced. Like I'm sure that's just not the case.
Speaker 1: No, totally. Actually, we now live up in on some
Speaker 1: land in Ninuso, and many times, almost every day I
Speaker 1: just need to like go for a bushwalk. But I
Speaker 1: think that's the journey of like being a CEO or
Speaker 1: being an entrepreneurs. Like on paper or certainly on the socials,
Speaker 1: that looks like things are going great. You know, Oh,
Speaker 1: I found space is launching new products. That's amazing, your
Speaker 1: team's growing amazing. It's like yeah, but like ninety percent
Speaker 1: of the time, it feels like stuff's going wrong, you know,
Speaker 1: or making mistakes, things are breaking, you know, Like that's
Speaker 1: just that's just the journey. And so I like being
Speaker 1: able to just go and stare at some trees for
Speaker 1: a little bit and it's kind of downregulate the nervousystem
Speaker 1: a little bit. Oh.
Speaker 2: I love that. I really do think that if people
Speaker 2: kind of don't have a CEO on their life or
Speaker 2: haven't you know, run a business, especially a family business,
Speaker 2: it is so easy to just think of the glamour
Speaker 2: of you know, e, suite level life and popping bottles
Speaker 2: and revenue and reports and launches, and actually it is
Speaker 2: like just a constant shit show. Like really, you're just
Speaker 2: where the buck ends for everything that goes wrong.
Speaker 1: Totally. Yeah. The other day, Dana White, the owner of
Speaker 1: what is it the Big Don't follow mma OKA like
Speaker 1: cage Fighting UFC. Yeah, UFC, thank you. He he did
Speaker 1: a podcast. In that podcast, he was talking about how,
Speaker 1: you know, running your own business it looks great, but
Speaker 1: actually it's like working till three am during Easter and
Speaker 1: not having Christmases and whatever. And I thought that was
Speaker 1: really interesting because so many people were like, oh, like,
Speaker 1: Dana White opens up about the hardships of running business,
Speaker 1: and I thought, man, every business owner who sees that
Speaker 1: must be thinking yeah, no shit, Dana, of course, mate,
Speaker 1: there's no surprises here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally, Like kind of when you do go from
Speaker 2: a regular structured job to business, it's kind of a
Speaker 2: rude awakening. Actually, how much does go wrong? And how
Speaker 2: I love that? Like, you get so many benefits of flexibility,
Speaker 2: but and you know, control of your time. But the
Speaker 2: flip side is there's no structure. You have the final world.
Speaker 2: You're responsible for everything, you wear every hat, Like, it's
Speaker 2: just about which, like balance suits you the best in
Speaker 2: your working structure. And I think for me, the flexibility
Speaker 2: and dynamic pace is worth more than the structure of
Speaker 2: a corporate environment. But for others it might be different.
Speaker 2: I don't think. I think we glamorize it a lot,
Speaker 2: thinking everyone will be happier if they run their own business.
Speaker 2: Some people would hate it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think there's like a personality type that
Speaker 1: it suits. And like some people just want consistency in
Speaker 1: their life. And if you want consistency, starting your own
Speaker 1: business probably isn't going to deliver that. For some people.
Speaker 1: It's yeah, it may not be the best thing, and
Speaker 1: like you get the freedom of running your own business.
Speaker 1: But for me, at least I actually have to structure
Speaker 1: myself a lot because there's so many things happening. And
Speaker 1: you know, found Space is like over thirty employees. Now
Speaker 1: we've got more than double that in contractors around two
Speaker 1: countries looking to be in three countries soon. Like there's
Speaker 1: a lot and you have to evolve with that. But
Speaker 1: then also yeah, like be very structured. And it's a
Speaker 1: bit of a topic of contention, I would say between
Speaker 1: my partner and I because I literally have like times
Speaker 1: in my diary as to when I have our son
Speaker 1: and like even her and I we have like a
Speaker 1: weekly connect or it's just us, but that's in the diary,
Speaker 1: like everything is in there, because without structure, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to be able to, you know, look after my
Speaker 1: team as best as I want to in this kind
Speaker 1: of role. So you get the freedom and you fly
Speaker 1: around and you get to do really fun stuff, but
Speaker 1: also like, at least for me, there has to be
Speaker 1: that discipline there otherwise it's probably not going to go
Speaker 1: so well my experience.
Speaker 2: You know, well, I love that you said for me,
Speaker 2: And also how long it's kind of taken you to
Speaker 2: do the test and learn and the tweak and to
Speaker 2: figure out what suits you best within that environment. And
Speaker 2: I think that's a smaller example of everything that I
Speaker 2: love to talk about on this show, and that's that
Speaker 2: your ultimate yay or your ultimate balance, or your happiest
Speaker 2: life or whatever you want to call it, whether it's
Speaker 2: success or ful film or whatever. It's not meant to
Speaker 2: look like anyone else's and it takes most of us
Speaker 2: a really really long time to figure out what that is.
Speaker 2: And it's going to suit different people's strengths and weaknesses,
Speaker 2: but it takes kind of a lifetime to figure that out.
Speaker 2: So I really like to spend the first part of
Speaker 2: the episode going back to how you got to where
Speaker 2: you are, before we even get into how far Found
Speaker 2: Spaces come by itself. How you even got into this
Speaker 2: role or into this company. I think is also fascinating
Speaker 2: because we all started as kids who had no idea,
Speaker 2: were a blank slate. We all had like first jobs
Speaker 2: at fourteen or nine months, and big dreams of what
Speaker 2: we wanted to become. I mean, you came from a
Speaker 2: mechanical engineering background, and like, how did you choose that?
Speaker 2: So can you start by taking us back to Mini Alex.
Speaker 2: I know you're not from the sunny coast. So where
Speaker 2: did you grow up, what did you think you'd be
Speaker 2: and how did you start to figure out who you were?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Good question. I think I'm still figuring out who
Speaker 1: I am. I mean out we all, Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I grew up in these suburbs of Melbourne. Out in
Speaker 1: the burbs, pretty normal life, I guess for someone in Melbourne. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I played heaps of music during school. Love that. And
Speaker 1: I was also very good at maths, So going into UNI,
Speaker 1: I loved how things work. I still love pulling things
Speaker 1: apart putting them back together. Found that really interesting and
Speaker 1: went to UNI started doing engineering because that's what I
Speaker 1: felt like I could do and I thought I would
Speaker 1: have an interest in it. Kind of in parallel with that,
Speaker 1: probably from around fourteen fifteen, my mum was really into
Speaker 1: natural health and well being. So I'm the kid going
Speaker 1: to high school in like year eight, year nine, year ten,
Speaker 1: bringing like beautiful, elaborate salads that my mum had made.
Speaker 1: And like I remember in year twelve, I was walking
Speaker 1: around with like a two liter bottle and people like,
Speaker 1: why are drinking so much water? I'm like, because it
Speaker 1: hydrates me and it's brain apparently.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, you started the emotional support water bottle
Speaker 2: like you started a trend.
Speaker 1: Long before people carrying around water bottles outsize, and like
Speaker 1: ninety percent of what my mum was telling me about
Speaker 1: back then, I's just in one ear and out the
Speaker 1: other wasn't really important. Whatever mum's talking about something again,
Speaker 1: Great went for UNI mechanical engineering, and I was still
Speaker 1: very much like drinking regularly and not caring about what
Speaker 1: I eat, YadA yadda. You know. I move out with
Speaker 1: my now fiance at the time, and we moved into
Speaker 1: an apartment, brand new apartment, and I remember turning the
Speaker 1: water on and it's stunk, like it was bad, Like
Speaker 1: it smelt like fresh pipe of glue. You know, it
Speaker 1: was not good. Yeah, And in that moment, I was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: that water filter thing that my mum's been banging on about.
Speaker 1: I think I should get one of those. So I
Speaker 1: rang her up. I think it was like the best day,
Speaker 1: one of the best days of her life. Like finally
Speaker 1: alex is seeing a light. She looks me up with
Speaker 1: the water filter. Great, And that was kind of the
Speaker 1: start of me starting to, I guess prioritize my well
Speaker 1: being in a way. You know, I could have just
Speaker 1: kept drinking the crap water. But something that had been
Speaker 1: planted in my brain years earlier from my mum was like,
Speaker 1: filtering water is important. Otherwise you become the filter.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, catchphrase yeah.
Speaker 1: And then over the next couple of years, my partner
Speaker 1: Chris and I really start diving into health and wellbeing.
Speaker 1: We watched fatsic Can Nearly Dead. We do our first
Speaker 1: juice fast again. I get on the phone to mom, Hey,
Speaker 1: I need that juicy you have. She's like, you around.
Speaker 1: We do a five day juice fast. All these kind
Speaker 1: of cleansing starts happening, and at the end of my
Speaker 1: first year of UNI, I didn't graduate. By the way
Speaker 1: of my first year, I worked full time in my
Speaker 1: parents business, which at the time was called Ie Health Saunas.
Speaker 1: Up until that point i'd kind of helped them out
Speaker 1: on the weekends for some extra cash whatever. But I
Speaker 1: never wanted to be involved in the parents' business because
Speaker 1: all I saw was like arguments at nine pm on
Speaker 1: a Wednesday. I didn't really want that in my life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I worked full time over that first summer break
Speaker 1: at UNI, and I had to send out by post
Speaker 1: like a questionnaire to a customers who had bought her
Speaker 1: an infrared sauna off my parents, and then they would
Speaker 1: write their testimonials in hand and then send them back.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, the whole other world.
Speaker 1: It was a long time ago, and I started getting
Speaker 1: these back and realized very quickly that like my parents
Speaker 1: weren't selling saunas, they were in some cases changing people's lives.
Speaker 1: In one case, like this lady was sent home to
Speaker 1: die from her doctor. She bought one of the infrared
Speaker 1: saunas on a whim and she's still alive today. And
Speaker 1: that just like struck something in my I would have
Speaker 1: been about twenty, I think at that time, just ru
Speaker 1: something in my soul that was like there's something here
Speaker 1: that you need to pursue. And like a few weeks later,
Speaker 1: I go back to UNI for the year two, and
Speaker 1: I remember looking around the office, the office, the library.
Speaker 1: I just remember, if I end up like working in
Speaker 1: this space and I'm going to work with the kind
Speaker 1: of people that I'm studying with, like I'm going to
Speaker 1: be deeply unhappy. And in contrast to that, there was
Speaker 1: something telling me like I need to go and do
Speaker 1: this sauna thing. So I rang my parents up. I'm
Speaker 1: half Italian. So I think I'm a bit dramatic. Sometimes
Speaker 1: I ring my parents, like, I want to meet with
Speaker 1: you guys in the office. So I go into the
Speaker 1: office and I say I want to leave UNI and
Speaker 1: I want to come and work here full time. And
Speaker 1: there was obviously some heated conversations as to why we
Speaker 1: shouldn't do that. Anyway, after a few days it was
Speaker 1: decided I'm leaving. I'm going to come work there full time.
Speaker 1: And so that was when my sauna journey began. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I was twenty or twenty one at the time,
Speaker 1: and I started getting involved, and at the same time
Speaker 1: time I'm starting to prioritize my health and wellbeing and
Speaker 1: doing lots of fasting and going from eating very badly
Speaker 1: to eating very cleanly, and you know, started doing morning
Speaker 1: walks and all this kind of stuff which is now
Speaker 1: just baked into my life. Started doing with my partner,
Speaker 1: and things kind of progress from there, I guess. So
Speaker 1: that's kind of I guess how it all started.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, that's such a cool story. And I
Speaker 2: always love focusing on the journey to get somewhere because
Speaker 2: it's usually not the conventional straight line that people think
Speaker 2: it is it. Interestingly, I think you are the first
Speaker 2: person who has gone into a family business and then
Speaker 2: kind of taken it over, and that in itself brings
Speaker 2: I'm sure, like a lot of unique decisions and crossroads
Speaker 2: and folks in the road kind of thing along the way,
Speaker 2: particularly deciding to not graduate, which is a really big deal.
Speaker 2: And I think one of the things we get so
Speaker 2: preoccupied with in our society, in this hustle culture is
Speaker 2: like what's successful, what's prestigious, what's like for some reason,
Speaker 2: and the hierarchy often puts like academically challenging things high up,
Speaker 2: like mechanical engineering would be considered a very successful career
Speaker 2: to go into. Did you face like was it a
Speaker 2: no brainer for you when you decided to walk away
Speaker 2: from something? And there's also like an idea of if
Speaker 2: you don't finish something like did you fail or was
Speaker 2: that a step backward? So how did you navigate that
Speaker 2: big kind of choice in life to not abandon but
Speaker 2: close one pathway to take on a completely different one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a good question. I think at the time
Speaker 1: I probably wouldn't have been so concise in the answer.
Speaker 1: It was more like a I feel like I'm kind
Speaker 1: of not intuitive, but I very much go on like
Speaker 1: a feeling basis, and it was a feeling. It was
Speaker 1: like I think I need to go and do that thing.
Speaker 1: And also just not feeling super I guess fulfilled in
Speaker 1: my initial year in a bit of study and I
Speaker 1: just I just did it, you know, and made the call.
Speaker 1: And in terms of it's a good question around the
Speaker 1: getting a degree or masters or whatever, and that whole
Speaker 1: space in my experience and what I've seen is that
Speaker 1: it can hinder people living the life they want to
Speaker 1: live or doing the things that they want to do
Speaker 1: because they think they need a piece of paper to
Speaker 1: make them worthy of doing the thing that they want
Speaker 1: to do. Although there's some professions like yeah, you need
Speaker 1: a degree to go and do that. Absolutely, I want
Speaker 1: my doctor to have graduated. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I hope
Speaker 1: they did, you know. But for me, what I've seen
Speaker 1: and seen work is like that passion and that drive
Speaker 1: is somewhat more critical because I do believe pretty much
Speaker 1: anything is possible in this life. So even now, like
Speaker 1: where we'll get to where we are, I guess it's
Speaker 1: a company later, But we have this year launched three
Speaker 1: products that we designed in house from the ground up.
Speaker 1: We created our own computer system control system. You can
Speaker 1: turn your sauna on from your phone anywhere in the world,
Speaker 1: this kind of stuff. And I think there's one person
Speaker 1: on our team that has a degree, you know whoa yeah,
Speaker 1: but there are a lot of people who give a
Speaker 1: shit about what we're doing, you know, Like I've got
Speaker 1: a sauna just over here, which started out as a
Speaker 1: sketch on my notepad. Right, Maybe that first three months
Speaker 1: of university helped me learn how to sketch. But at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, like we created it. It
Speaker 1: now exists. We've created something from nothing. So yeah, at
Speaker 1: the time, I think, and certainly my dad was like,
Speaker 1: you're doing it. It was a double degree of engineering
Speaker 1: and business, Like you're going to walk away from that, like,
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's a good thing, Maybe you
Speaker 1: should do it and then come over whatever. But I
Speaker 1: just was like, I just knew where I needed to
Speaker 1: be and what I need to be doing.
Speaker 2: That is so fascinating because I think that often where
Speaker 2: people get to ear is listening to their intuition more.
Speaker 2: But it often comes a lot later sort of after
Speaker 2: not doing that and making decisions that not that they regret,
Speaker 2: but that end up being something that they kind of
Speaker 2: later on are like, oh, if I could go back
Speaker 2: in time, i'd probably to my gut, but I listened
Speaker 2: to everyone else. But I love that from very early
Speaker 2: people were also telling you maybe don't do that, and
Speaker 2: you still were just like, nah, I can feel this
Speaker 2: is for me, And that's quite unusual to be tuned
Speaker 2: into that so early.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Thanks, I mean I think I don't know, that's
Speaker 1: just you just did it. Yeah. And like my big
Speaker 1: passions are health and wellbeing and also educating. I love
Speaker 1: educating people on health and wellbeing or on anything in
Speaker 1: that matter. And as I started getting into my health
Speaker 1: and starting to, I guess, move away from the bad
Speaker 1: health choices I was making, I just started to feel
Speaker 1: better and you know, have more energy, more clarity and
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. And I just felt like,
Speaker 1: this is what I need to be doing, you know,
Speaker 1: and I got really inspired. Like there were a couple
Speaker 1: people that I looked up to at the time, like
Speaker 1: Tyler Tolman was a really big influence on me and
Speaker 1: just helped me realize, like, if I want to achieve
Speaker 1: what I want to achieve in life, the vehicle with
Speaker 1: which I do that being my body needs to be clean,
Speaker 1: it needs to be efficient, and that really kind of
Speaker 1: got us going down that health and well being path,
Speaker 1: and that was where the passion was.
Speaker 2: I also love that it didn't take you. I think
Speaker 2: were so commonly and you've probably encountered this in your
Speaker 2: own journey and on your podcast as well, that the
Speaker 2: health and wellness industry is full of people who have
Speaker 2: come to the industry through a health crisis, and you
Speaker 2: seem to have kind of got there without the need
Speaker 2: to hit rock bottom, have absolutely everything stripped away from
Speaker 2: you to value your health. I love that you got
Speaker 2: there without that, because I believe that's possible, but I
Speaker 2: just don't see it very often.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would say, although I didn't have my own
Speaker 1: personal health crisis, I was very lucky in the sense
Speaker 1: that growing up in the family business in the early days,
Speaker 1: we just had a sauna in the house, like it
Speaker 1: was a side gig for my parents, and sick people
Speaker 1: would come round and use the product, right and they
Speaker 1: would come in and they often presented with similar kind
Speaker 1: of issues. They were inflamed, they didn't have much energy,
Speaker 1: they didn't look great, you.
Speaker 2: Know, looking the most vital.
Speaker 1: No, no, like these people needed help. You know, they're
Speaker 1: dealing with chronic fatigue syndrome, or arthritis or rheumatism, like
Speaker 1: these kind of things, heart disease, and they would come in,
Speaker 1: they'll use the product, and they'd walk out looking like
Speaker 1: a change person. And so for me, I was very
Speaker 1: lucky to be able to witness that for years and
Speaker 1: see like the end result of not prioritizing you well
Speaker 1: being for thirty five, forty or fifty years. So I
Speaker 1: kind of started to join the dots, like if I
Speaker 1: don't do that myself, I'm going to end up like these,
Speaker 1: like these people. Further to that, and kind of a
Speaker 1: little bit later in life, I had to go through
Speaker 1: the experience of witnessing my dad be diagnosed with Alzheimer's
Speaker 1: and then go through that process. Now, my mom was
Speaker 1: always the health and wellbeing guru, and my dad was
Speaker 1: very much the not health and life guru. So I've
Speaker 1: had to, I guess, in some ways be lucky, but
Speaker 1: it's also been really challenging, Like to witness my dad
Speaker 1: go from this vibrant, energetic, funny, high functioning, like smart
Speaker 1: dude to go to like like he can't speak anymore,
Speaker 1: you know, and he recently just stopped being able to walk.
Speaker 1: So I witnessed that. And in my book, I talk
Speaker 1: about this in the opening chapter. The links between chronic
Speaker 1: alcohol consumption and Alzheimer's are kind of indisputable now. The
Speaker 1: links between chronic poor sleep and not getting into the
Speaker 1: deeper sleep cycles of deep sleep and rem sleep, links
Speaker 1: between that and Alzheimer's is really clear. The links between
Speaker 1: chronic stress and Alzheimer's is really clear now. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like it's written in the science. And my dad lived
Speaker 1: that life. He drank regularly, he was very stressed, especially
Speaker 1: in the last five to seven years of his life,
Speaker 1: and those things affected his He rarely slept well. In fact,
Speaker 1: he didn't sleep well for most of his life, and
Speaker 1: in the early years he was taking a lot of
Speaker 1: sleeping pills, which we now know are also not good.
Speaker 1: And he never exercised in never ate well like lifestyle factors,
Speaker 1: you know, And I got to witness what happens when
Speaker 1: you just continue doing that. So for me, like I
Speaker 1: often ask people like, where does drive come from? And
Speaker 1: what is it that makes some people have more drive
Speaker 1: than others? Because I've certainly noticed that some people seem
Speaker 1: to be more driven than other people, and like, why
Speaker 1: is that? I'm really curious about that. For me, I'm
Speaker 1: driven because I've witnessed many sick people in those like
Speaker 1: between like as you're fifteen and twenty, and I now
Speaker 1: know the science thinking how those people were living and
Speaker 1: what is likely going to happen to them, and that
Speaker 1: is shorter health span, last ten years of their life
Speaker 1: are pretty average, and then they die from heart disease
Speaker 1: or diabetes or our Simon's the main kind of three.
Speaker 1: And then I got to witness that in my dad
Speaker 1: and see exactly that thing happen and witness him all
Speaker 1: of a sudden not be the man that he was.
Speaker 1: So when I get up most mornings and do some
Speaker 1: sort of workout and then jump in the sauna and
Speaker 1: then finish on a cold plunge or start like whatever
Speaker 1: the morning ritual is that morning stereo run or like
Speaker 1: find time to go for a bike ride when it's dark,
Speaker 1: whatever that is like for me, that's what's driving me.
Speaker 1: People say like Alex, like why do you need to
Speaker 1: open the business in America? It's like, because we're helping
Speaker 1: people and a part of me needs that and there's
Speaker 1: also the shadow side where it can get too extreme sometimes,
Speaker 1: But for me, that drive is really it's deep, and
Speaker 1: it's on the back of those two big kind of
Speaker 1: life events.
Speaker 2: I guess, oh, that's so fascinating. Yeah, that it didn't
Speaker 2: have to necessarily be your own crisis, but that it's
Speaker 2: born out of the things that you witness and the
Speaker 2: lessons that you're taking from you know, people around you,
Speaker 2: and you can hell, I mean, it's only been twenty
Speaker 2: minutes and I'm like, this guy is so frea compassionate
Speaker 2: about what he does and about sharing that with other people,
Speaker 2: which it makes sense that you're not a mechanical engineer
Speaker 2: building something for someone else, and that you're balls deep
Speaker 2: in something you've been surrounded with, you know, as a
Speaker 2: kid all the way until now and translating that into
Speaker 2: something that's translatable to generations to come generations now. And
Speaker 2: I think one of the coolest things is so I
Speaker 2: came to Saunas through chronic fatigue. That was the first
Speaker 2: time that I sort of had my own what is
Speaker 2: health and well being? How do you you know? You
Speaker 2: have to earn it, It's not just something that you get.
Speaker 2: I was trying everything and very much realized it wasn't
Speaker 2: just treating something medically from a chemical perspective, the Western
Speaker 2: medicine kind of side, but also, yeah, lifestyle factors. There
Speaker 2: are so many complimentary things you can do. But I
Speaker 2: never really understood the science. I just someone was like,
Speaker 2: go and get saunas, and I kind of did them.
Speaker 2: And then my husband, he's an athlete, he was the same.
Speaker 2: It was like he was told like, this is good
Speaker 2: for recovery, go and do it. He did it. He
Speaker 2: did ice bars, but without really engaging in the science.
Speaker 2: And it seems like you're the opposite. You're like, I
Speaker 2: need to know, like all the science, all the facts,
Speaker 2: and understand why this is important. But what's really cool
Speaker 2: is that from a family business that onsold other saunas
Speaker 2: called ie Health, which is very functional, very trustworthy, but
Speaker 2: very functional, to now this all encompassing lifestyle brand that's
Speaker 2: beautifully branded. The storytelling is immaculate. The industrial design of
Speaker 2: the saunas is beautiful, Like you've totally transformed this whole business.
Speaker 2: But also like an industry that isn't traditionally really sexy.
Speaker 2: It's like a medical device kind of world, and you've
Speaker 2: made it so cool. And we are so excited, like
Speaker 2: so excited and proud to be customers, But I know
Speaker 2: that your passion really is like why it works? So
Speaker 2: can you just explain to us, like what is it's
Speaker 2: homedic homeitic? Is that the right word? Medic tech?
Speaker 1: Big tech? And yeah, yeah, totally. So we actually coined
Speaker 1: the term hormetic tech because we realized they're isn't a
Speaker 1: category of products which encompass both sauna and icepath And
Speaker 1: that's where we're going as a company. And what you know,
Speaker 1: that's what we've seen many kind of startup companies start
Speaker 1: to do now sell the contrast therapy kind of vibe. Now,
Speaker 1: hormetic tech comes from the concept of hormesis, which hormesis
Speaker 1: by definition, is a stress that in short doses has
Speaker 1: a net positive outcome on the physiology of the body.
Speaker 1: So the a hormetic stress that we're very familiar with
Speaker 1: is exercise, right, So by definition, exercise in small doses
Speaker 1: has a positive influence on our physiology and our cellular health. Now,
Speaker 1: if you exercise NonStop, you'll die, right, So exercise is
Speaker 1: a form of hormetic stress on the body. Fasting is
Speaker 1: a form of hormetic stress. Right, you fast for a
Speaker 1: period of twelve hours, twenty four hours, three days, five days.
Speaker 1: That's a stress on the body, but the net positive
Speaker 1: outcome is incredible cellular health and detoxification. These kind of things.
Speaker 1: Sauna is a form of hormetic stress right when the
Speaker 1: body gets hot. It does certain physiological processes which have
Speaker 1: a positive outcome on our physiology and our cellular health.
Speaker 1: One of the big ones is activating heat shock proteins,
Speaker 1: which the short of it is helps our cells repair
Speaker 1: or kill off cells that are no longer working, and
Speaker 1: even create more mitochondria within our cells, which is called
Speaker 1: mitochondrial biogenesis. So when we get hot, that's what's happening
Speaker 1: in our body on a cellular level. We also then
Speaker 1: have an input into the cardiovascular system, so we start
Speaker 1: to increase our heart rate, increase our breath rate. The
Speaker 1: reason I love infrared sauna so much is because you
Speaker 1: can really adjust the temperature of the product, which means
Speaker 1: you can also then play with the nervous system. You
Speaker 1: can stimulate the nervous system and really go hot and
Speaker 1: push hard get all those benefits of heat shock protein
Speaker 1: release in the body, or you can go a much
Speaker 1: lower session, maybe like forty seven degrees for a little
Speaker 1: longer and activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which is what
Speaker 1: I need more of in my life because my life
Speaker 1: is full. I need to slow down, right, No, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: The infrared is very good for that, and you don't
Speaker 1: you can't really do that in traditional sauna because they're
Speaker 1: always just really bloody hot. So there's the heat side
Speaker 1: of it, and then there's the cold side of it,
Speaker 1: which is cold plunge or ice bars or even cold
Speaker 1: showers have some benefits. Or there's the name escapes and
Speaker 1: we got the cold rooms that have the cold air.
Speaker 1: It's like minus two hundred and thirty or something. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it'll come to me anyway. The cold is very similar.
Speaker 1: It's a form of hormesis. So in small doses it
Speaker 1: has a positive influence on our physiology and our cellular health,
Speaker 1: but in long doses not good. Like if you going
Speaker 1: three degree water for like two days, probably going to
Speaker 1: do it.
Speaker 2: I don't like if he did last two days.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, there's some crazy people out there that will
Speaker 1: probably get by, but it'll be very hard. So and
Speaker 1: then the cold has very similar effects on the body
Speaker 1: as the heat and there's some minor differences, but again
Speaker 1: it activates not heat shock proteins, but cold shock proteins.
Speaker 1: Cold has also been shown to generate BDNF brain derived
Speaker 1: neurotrophic factor in the brain, which is like building of
Speaker 1: new neurons. So there's some cool science out there linking
Speaker 1: cold plunge as a way to reduce the onset of
Speaker 1: things like Alzheimer's and dementia, which is obviously very potent
Speaker 1: for myself. And then there's the benefits to the skin,
Speaker 1: and sauna is also great for building chullagen in the
Speaker 1: skin if using near infrared and red light therapy as
Speaker 1: part of that. So there's all these kind of ancilliary things.
Speaker 1: But both cold and hot are great for cardiovascular work
Speaker 1: and BDNF in the brain. Cold shot proteins, heat shock
Speaker 1: proteins great for cellular health and building more mitochondria in
Speaker 1: our cells, which leads to more ATP ATP DNIZEE triphosphate
Speaker 1: is more energy and great. We come out of cold plunge,
Speaker 1: wild feel great. Come out of the sauna, We feel good.
Speaker 1: Some neurotransmitters are doing their things. Don't put me no
Speaker 1: opreneffer and we feel alert. But we feel calm, vigilant,
Speaker 1: having any good time, and then if we're doing a
Speaker 1: cold plunge, we're instagramming it and telling all of our
Speaker 1: friends that we did a cold plunge, because that's.
Speaker 2: It becomes our whole personality.
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. We actually had Wimhof on CZA two or three
Speaker 2: years ago and he was the coolest. And then I
Speaker 2: got to go end of last year to Antarctica and
Speaker 2: they were like, do you want to do the like
Speaker 2: literal polar plunge. I was like, fuck, yes, I do,
Speaker 2: Like that would be the coolest thing of it. I
Speaker 2: don't think I have ever had such a rush of
Speaker 2: endorphins as getting out. I was energy, like I can't
Speaker 2: even we'd hardly slept because we were just were in Antarctica.
Speaker 2: You don't want to go to sleep a Wales sit
Speaker 2: around and I was on. It was like drugs, Like
Speaker 2: I was on a different level for I reckon twenty
Speaker 2: four hours afterwards and it was only I mean, the
Speaker 2: water was like one degree, so we could only be
Speaker 2: in there for a tiny amount of time and none
Speaker 2: of us have trained to do it, but it was amazing.
Speaker 2: But what I think is so cool is that your family,
Speaker 2: and by default you have obviously been shouting from the
Speaker 2: rooftops about this really amazing science technology that makes accessible
Speaker 2: in homes now for so long, and the problem with
Speaker 2: being ahead of the curve on a lot of things
Speaker 2: like now it's quite ubiquitous. You can a lot of
Speaker 2: gyms have saunas. It's not as expensive. Like when I
Speaker 2: had chronic fatigue, it was like one hundred dollars a session.
Speaker 2: You had to drive a really long way to find
Speaker 2: anywhere that had an infrared sawna that was actually like
Speaker 2: a creditor you know that you knew wasn't just a
Speaker 2: sort of a random box with a door. Microwave, Yeah,
Speaker 2: like a microwave. You know, it was very technical and inaccessible.
Speaker 2: But when you're kind of leading that charge, not only
Speaker 2: do you have the doubt of I'm not qualified for this.
Speaker 2: I didn't graduate. I've come CEO kind of randomly, and
Speaker 2: there's no guidebook for becoming that, but also the industry
Speaker 2: is the same. The industry is a baby you're kind
Speaker 2: of pushing it uphill with Like, people don't know this
Speaker 2: science yet, it's not as necessarily easy a sell as
Speaker 2: it is now. How did you go about packaging. The
Speaker 2: information that you know is so powerful and now a
Speaker 2: lot more of us know. But in the early days
Speaker 2: where you were building your own products, so you were
Speaker 2: not just on selling other sorn as, you were actually
Speaker 2: starting to develop new products, did you have any moments
Speaker 2: of self doubt and freak out? Was it a really
Speaker 2: hard kind of challenge to be the first to market
Speaker 2: or one of the first to market. It's an enormously
Speaker 2: difficult role to occupy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, my parents started selling saunas in two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: and that is long before people had a clue what
Speaker 1: the fuck an Infred' SWNA was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's so early legit.
Speaker 1: It was a slog, you know, and it's kind of
Speaker 1: like twenty fourteen fifteen around that time I started getting
Speaker 1: probably involved, and it was also still a slog. I
Speaker 1: don't think we're the right business model back then, mind you,
Speaker 1: So things might have been different, but it was all
Speaker 1: about education, and in fact, in my opinion, it is
Speaker 1: always going to be about education, not just how to
Speaker 1: use sauna and cold plunge, which is something that we
Speaker 1: educate our clients on when they have it installed in
Speaker 1: their homes. But what we find is people get one
Speaker 1: of these products and then it's like a catalyst for
Speaker 1: them to want to do other things in their well being,
Speaker 1: and then educating on that. You know, hey, let's talk
Speaker 1: about nutrition and some of the things you can look
Speaker 1: at there. Let's talk about the nervous system, you know,
Speaker 1: whatever it might be. So I think education will always
Speaker 1: be part of it. But yeah, back in the day,
Speaker 1: there just wasn't a real It just wasn't part of
Speaker 1: culture in the way that it is now.
Speaker 2: And it was kind of daggy, like I kind of
Speaker 2: wouldn't tell people I was doing it because it was
Speaker 2: like this daggy, weird medical thing I was doing. Whereas
Speaker 2: now we have a sauna in our house. People are like,
Speaker 2: you are the shit. Like you guys are like, that's
Speaker 2: the tits, like that's life goals, you know. So that's
Speaker 2: a very different market to operate into, the one where
Speaker 2: it's like dagtown totally.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And this corners also used to be really ugly too,
Speaker 1: so ugly. They weren't instagrammable, you know, it was.
Speaker 2: Bad lucky there was no Instagram then.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, you know, it's interesting, this is a
Speaker 1: bit of a tangent. But you said before about how
Speaker 1: you think our products look great. That to me is
Speaker 1: a huge compliment because for me, something that's kind of
Speaker 1: fundamental to our product design is it has to look good.
Speaker 1: And I feel like majority, if not all, of the
Speaker 1: sauna companies in the world kind of miss that point, like, ah,
Speaker 1: it's just got to be a square. And it's like,
Speaker 1: so I'm glad that you think they look good. I
Speaker 1: also think they look good.
Speaker 2: Oh they're slick. They're so beautiful and they're like timber
Speaker 2: design features, the slick glass like it makes it if
Speaker 2: you if you have this in your house. Obviously the
Speaker 2: primary goal is the benefits for your health, but you
Speaker 2: want to be proud to put it in your home.
Speaker 2: It's like a piece of furniture. And they're massive. They're
Speaker 2: not just like you know, a jacket that you hang
Speaker 2: up in your cupboard. It's like a huge thing.
Speaker 1: Agreed. Yeah, they've got to look good. That's like fundamental.
Speaker 1: So yeah, back in the day it was it was
Speaker 1: just hard. And it's also the market's changed in the
Speaker 1: sense that we used to be dealing with a lot
Speaker 1: of sick people and now we're dealing with people proactive
Speaker 1: about their health, which is amazing. People come to us,
Speaker 1: they kind of already know all about coal plunge. We
Speaker 1: just need to show them that we also know and
Speaker 1: then we can talk about, you know, the product and
Speaker 1: the extra stuff that we do at found Space on
Speaker 1: top of just the product itself and the kind of
Speaker 1: service side of it. But yeah, people are now coming
Speaker 1: very aware of the benefits and how they work, which
Speaker 1: is amazing. And I still think that it's a very
Speaker 1: early days for the industry, I would say, compared to
Speaker 1: a lot of the bigger industries out there. So see
Speaker 1: how it to unfault.
Speaker 2: Well, so you've had a very clear contribution in taking
Speaker 2: a business that it existed into a new generation into
Speaker 2: a completely new chapter, new name, new branding, but also
Speaker 2: new products like cold plunch wasn't part of it at
Speaker 2: all at the beginning. And now you have I spars
Speaker 2: that you can have at home, as well as the saunas,
Speaker 2: and there's lots of different tiers and different models and sizes.
Speaker 2: Was that all under your leadership? And how do you
Speaker 2: go about? Like I think sometimes it seems almost easier
Speaker 2: to start a new business than to just evolve something
Speaker 2: that exists. But obviously you've done such a wonderful job.
Speaker 2: How do you even go about that? Like, that's a
Speaker 2: huge undertaking.
Speaker 1: When I took over, the business had like nine full
Speaker 1: time employees. It wasn't very profitable at the time. This
Speaker 1: is in twenty seventeen, and I just I was very
Speaker 1: ignorant as to what's involved to run a business Like
Speaker 1: I was, yeah, twenty four.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, you're a baby. Yeah yeah, yeah, not
Speaker 2: just a business baby, but like a life baby in
Speaker 2: the world.
Speaker 1: That's right. And yeah, the employees were really thinking that
Speaker 1: at the time as well, who is this kid? Like
Speaker 1: I said, literally, I actually did have to deal with
Speaker 1: that kind of way of thinking for a little while.
Speaker 1: But what I knew was I knew what I believed.
Speaker 1: And I don't necessarily believe that we're going to fully
Speaker 1: change the world. Now. I think we're just going to maybe,
Speaker 1: you know, blow a little bit of dust on the world,
Speaker 1: just have the tiny little influence. But at the time
Speaker 1: I knew we're onto something amazing. And I said, right
Speaker 1: from the start, we don't sell fucking saunas. We help
Speaker 1: people with their health and wellbeing. Sauna is just one
Speaker 1: of the ways that we do that. But I knew
Speaker 1: I knewed people on the team who also believed that,
Speaker 1: of which out of those nine, only eight did, so
Speaker 1: I had to go through this whole process of switching
Speaker 1: the team out. You know, some people had been on
Speaker 1: the team for years at that time. Some people were
Speaker 1: family friends from like back in the day with my parents,
Speaker 1: so that was a real kind of challenge. But I
Speaker 1: knew that if I had the people on the team
Speaker 1: who believed what I believed, we could do amazing things.
Speaker 1: So those first couple of years were really challenging. You know.
Speaker 1: I had some ideas about the business model and that
Speaker 1: kind of thing, but was kind of ignorant to what
Speaker 1: was involved. And then yeah, we just kind of started
Speaker 1: making some good moves, and twenty twenty we rebranded to
Speaker 1: found Space again because from the start it wasn't about
Speaker 1: the Saunas, so Ihealth Saunas as a brand wasn't going
Speaker 1: to work long term and globally, so we made that change.
Speaker 1: And it was also I think twenty twenty when we
Speaker 1: really started to say, okay, up until that point, our
Speaker 1: products were they were ours, but they were kind of
Speaker 1: like off the shelf products that we'd made a few
Speaker 1: tweaks too to make the mouths if you will, and
Speaker 1: then sell them on with our brand, and then all
Speaker 1: of the education and everything that we do on top
Speaker 1: of that, and we started to say, well, if we're
Speaker 1: like really taking this seriously, we need to develop our
Speaker 1: own products right down to the screw, like everything needs
Speaker 1: to be ourip. So we started the process of we
Speaker 1: hired some designers and all of a sudden we had
Speaker 1: a product team and we started designing our products. So
Speaker 1: this year we launched the Newer collection. That was the
Speaker 1: first actual sauna we started designing back in twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: and it was also twenty twenty when we started the
Speaker 1: project to create our own control system so you can
Speaker 1: turn it on remotely and these kind of things. So
Speaker 1: in August this year we launched that. So it was
Speaker 1: like many years of slogging away and learning and fucking
Speaker 1: things up and everything. And then since then we've launched
Speaker 1: another collection which is called the Nissa, and we also
Speaker 1: launched our coal plunge this year which is called the
Speaker 1: Yerie and all of those are designed in house that
Speaker 1: found space in Melbourne, which is really cool, and every
Speaker 1: product we'll roll out from here is our design. So
Speaker 1: we knew we kind of need to do that. If
Speaker 1: we wanted to be taken seriously on a global stage,
Speaker 1: then that was Yeah. We kind of went down that
Speaker 1: process and so yeah, now we're a product development company,
Speaker 1: which is really exciting and there's lots of cool stuff
Speaker 1: in the world. Cool. Yeah, it's fun.
Speaker 2: It's so cool because one of the quotes I always
Speaker 2: come back to is that you don't have to climb
Speaker 2: the whole staircase. You just have to take the first
Speaker 2: step and like nothing ever unravels all of the developments
Speaker 2: at once, Like you couldn't just design stuff from the
Speaker 2: day you took over a CEO and then release them,
Speaker 2: Like it just doesn't ever happen that way. You wouldn't
Speaker 2: have learned enough. You were like, you've got to grow
Speaker 2: into things. And I think we're so impatient. We want instagratuity.
Speaker 2: We have these big visions, and there's something about just
Speaker 2: like taking it one step at a time, like the name,
Speaker 2: then the vision, then one product, then two products. You know,
Speaker 2: no one launches everything at once, And I think that's
Speaker 2: a good takeaway. But also the idea that you said
Speaker 2: that you were kind of ignorant, and I think sometimes
Speaker 2: the naivety is a benefit to you, it's a benefit
Speaker 2: that maybe you didn't do an MBA and that you
Speaker 2: didn't know exactly what you were getting into, because a
Speaker 2: none of us would start if we knew what we
Speaker 2: were actually in for, because water shoot show, and it
Speaker 2: means you're not colored by the way it's been done before.
Speaker 2: But it does mean that I think one of the
Speaker 2: really interesting parts of listening to stories like yours is
Speaker 2: like how the fuck did you figure out what to do?
Speaker 2: Like you get given this company and then you want
Speaker 2: product designers? Like where do you find them? How do
Speaker 2: you change a business model? How do you even know
Speaker 2: what a business model is? How do you address profitability?
Speaker 2: Like the how when you haven't gone to business school
Speaker 2: is sort of like where did you learn to be
Speaker 2: a CEO? Like did you have a brains trust? Did
Speaker 2: you google shit? Did you? Like? How do you even
Speaker 2: learn how to hire and fire? Like all that stuff
Speaker 2: that's really fundamental at twenty four? As well, like how
Speaker 2: did you become capable of all this stuff?
Speaker 1: Yeah? For sure, I can give you some exacts? Actually,
Speaker 1: oh yes.
Speaker 2: And also did you freak out? Please tell me you did?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah good, I'll tell you a quick
Speaker 3: story there was one day very early on where it
Speaker 3: was one of those moments where it was like it
Speaker 3: felt like it was all over, you know, like I said,
Speaker 3: we weren't financially sound in the beginning, and it felt
Speaker 3: I remember there was this one day and I was
Speaker 3: on the kitchen bench in my house in glen Waverley
Speaker 3: a rental, mind you.
Speaker 1: I didn't know how so that's say like Edwards in
Speaker 1: my hands, and I just remember thinking like like, we're
Speaker 1: not going to be able to pay wages this week.
Speaker 1: I don't think we're going to be able to pay
Speaker 1: the bets. It was one of those moments and I
Speaker 1: was like I just felt like I was like I
Speaker 1: had nothing left. I didn't know and I was kind
Speaker 1: of like give me a sign. And we were at
Speaker 1: the time, we were exhibiting at the Sydney Royal Easter Show,
Speaker 1: like selling saunas to people who go to the Royal Show.
Speaker 2: Mate they came for the cows and the sheep like.
Speaker 1: Business model wasn't great And yeah, it was like seven
Speaker 1: pm at night, it was a Thursday, and then our
Speaker 1: salesperson rang me up. He's like, mate, I just sold
Speaker 1: a one person premium and I just remember I was like,
Speaker 1: we can fucking do this, Like you know, it was
Speaker 1: like yeah, like I'm not fucking leaven kind of moment.
Speaker 1: It was like oh yeah, yeah, but there were there
Speaker 1: are several moments like that, you know, to do with
Speaker 1: various things along along the journey, and so yeah, definitely
Speaker 1: definitely freak out moments. To answer your question, I had
Speaker 1: a mentor in Stephan Kasakas from Business Benchmark Group. He
Speaker 1: was great with the numbers. He's like Alex. He has
Speaker 1: this line is like words are good, stories are great,
Speaker 1: but the numbers never lie. And yeah, so he was
Speaker 1: really good at like how many leads you're getting, what's
Speaker 1: your sales process, what's your conversion rate on that conversion rate,
Speaker 1: what's your average sale price, what's your GP that like
Speaker 1: break the numbers out. Cool, Like you've got to understand
Speaker 1: that stuff if you're going to have a business that's
Speaker 1: profitable long term. So he was really good in that
Speaker 1: kind of phase of the business. I needed that. I
Speaker 1: also worked with the guys at Dent Glenn Carson. The
Speaker 1: guys at Dent they do like a forty week key
Speaker 1: Person of Influence accelerator. I did that. That was really
Speaker 1: really potent. So those were the two kind of people
Speaker 1: in the early first few years of me running the
Speaker 1: business that I kind of worked with to help because
Speaker 1: I realized very early on, like I don't really have
Speaker 1: a clue what I'm doing here. I've learned some good
Speaker 1: things from my dad who was running the business before me,
Speaker 1: and I've also learned a lot of bad things from
Speaker 1: my dad who was running the business before me. So
Speaker 1: I felt like I needed some like a brains trust,
Speaker 1: I guess, to kind of keep moving through that early phase.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that, and I think like, no one
Speaker 2: does it alone, even though it looks like it, like
Speaker 2: it's like, now it's Alex Tyson CEO, done all these things,
Speaker 2: all these amazing things under your belt from a growth perspective,
Speaker 2: from an awards perspective, and it's like, now, at one
Speaker 2: point you were just starting and you had no idea
Speaker 2: what was going on, and everyone starts there and that's okay.
Speaker 2: I think that's really reassuring.
Speaker 1: First of all, just acknowledging the found Space team. I
Speaker 1: won the in the retail category. I won Entrepreneur of
Speaker 1: the Year in Melbourne last year, and to your point,
Speaker 1: everyone's like, oh, well, that's amazing, I'm like, I like,
Speaker 1: there's like twenty five people behind the scenes made this happen.
Speaker 1: It's not me, you know. I just felt like I
Speaker 1: need to acknowledge the team there because they're amazing, and
Speaker 1: oh yeah to your point, like, yeah, it can feel alone,
Speaker 1: but you know, you get good people on the team
Speaker 1: who believe in what you believe, you can make it happen.
Speaker 1: And it's yeah. I said to someone this morning, like
Speaker 1: team is a top priority. Always looking after the team
Speaker 1: and having their needs met and having them feel challenged.
Speaker 1: And the other thing I was going to say was
Speaker 1: is like through the journey, like I didn't know what
Speaker 1: I was doing in the early days, sure, or I
Speaker 1: had thought I kind of had a bit of an idea,
Speaker 1: but as things grow, like for me as a person,
Speaker 1: I feel like I need to be challenged constantly. You know,
Speaker 1: we're opening in America next year, That to me feels
Speaker 1: like a challenged right, And so I'm actually kind of
Speaker 1: constantly at a point where there's I'm doing something that
Speaker 1: I haven't done before and I don't know how to
Speaker 1: do it, you know, and I'm better at finding out
Speaker 1: what I need to do. But as you scale a business,
Speaker 1: you kind of as the CEO or the business owner,
Speaker 1: whatever your title is, you're constantly in that space. I'm like, cool,
Speaker 1: now I've got to figure out this thing. Now you
Speaker 1: got to figure out this thing, you know, and the
Speaker 1: stuff that you've done then becomes easier. I'm very unconsciously
Speaker 1: confident about lots of stuff in the business, more than anyone,
Speaker 1: but there's constantly something that I'm kind of learning and
Speaker 1: trying to figure out.
Speaker 2: And I think that's why I love business so much
Speaker 2: because in the job I had before I was an
Speaker 2: m and a lawyer, even though it's a very hard job,
Speaker 2: your discomfort, your ongoing discomfort, is less and less the
Speaker 2: opportunities for you to get that discomfort of I actually
Speaker 2: don't know what I'm doing, Like you just become more
Speaker 2: accomplished and that fades away. And I think the capacity
Speaker 2: in business to seek that out all the time is
Speaker 2: what I love. And the like related to that. When
Speaker 2: people are like, how do you know when it's time
Speaker 2: for a new market or how do you know when
Speaker 2: it's time for something new, it's usually when you are
Speaker 2: a bit comfortable and you haven't had that like complete
Speaker 2: I am in the deep end. If you haven't thrown
Speaker 2: yourself in it in a why well, like you start
Speaker 2: to get itchy, it's like okay, it's time, like we
Speaker 2: need to do something else. But what I love about
Speaker 2: your approach to Found Space is that it isn't just
Speaker 2: selling saunas. And we very much had that approach to
Speaker 2: Matcha made and it's tea, Like you know, it's not
Speaker 2: that fancy, But the business got so big because it
Speaker 2: wasn't about tea. It was about tea helping people feel
Speaker 2: really good about what they were doing and connecting with
Speaker 2: them over that moment, which was a community and that
Speaker 2: was so much fun. But the products are actually important
Speaker 2: somewhere along the way, and we have just I think
Speaker 2: it's been a month now that we've had the premium
Speaker 2: and I sadly was pregnant by the time it arrived
Speaker 2: and unable to get in it for the last four weeks,
Speaker 2: which is absolutely devastating. I'm counting down. But Nick's been
Speaker 2: in it no shit every day. So for those who
Speaker 2: have listened, and like we've had so many people sort
Speaker 2: of say they've been sitting on the fence or like
Speaker 2: it's really overwhelming if you don't know the technology or
Speaker 2: you don't know the brands, you don't know the reviews
Speaker 2: and the price points are all so different. Like even
Speaker 2: when we first started looking, before we found you, guys,
Speaker 2: I was like, if I gave someone money to blow,
Speaker 2: still couldn't have found what I wanted because I didn't know.
Speaker 2: So can you talk through like maybe the most entry
Speaker 2: level option in the light range and what that offers
Speaker 2: versus going up to the premium, then the outdoor, the nissa,
Speaker 2: the newer, Like what are the differences and like is
Speaker 2: the light enough for someone who's a complete newbie?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Cool, Well I'm not here to sell saunas, so
Speaker 1: I am. I'll just give some insight on what to
Speaker 1: look for and a.
Speaker 2: Swar in general, Yeah, that'd be amazing.
Speaker 1: So when looking for an impred sauna, first of all,
Speaker 1: look like it needs to be lower MF low electromagnetic fields,
Speaker 1: so you want them to be less than three in general,
Speaker 1: unless you're looking at a full spectrum so on, it
Speaker 1: can be a little bit higher because no one's figured
Speaker 1: out how to get a lower So less than three
Speaker 1: is a good, good rule of thumb. Make sure you're
Speaker 1: looking into. The second thing you want to look into
Speaker 1: is you want to actually ask them for a wavelength
Speaker 1: report of their heaters to show that they actually are infrared.
Speaker 1: Right now, if you're looking at a more typical sauna,
Speaker 1: is a far infrared sauna. You want to see that
Speaker 1: the wavelength is between seven and ten thousand nanometers in wavelength.
Speaker 1: It can also be written as seven to ten microns
Speaker 1: seven to ten m. So you want to make sure
Speaker 1: that the heater is actually omitting that because there is
Speaker 1: a lot of unfortunately cheap crap coming out of China
Speaker 1: which isn't and it's not verified. So you want to
Speaker 1: look for that second thing you want to look for
Speaker 1: is you want to look for a company. Now this
Speaker 1: is going to be bias towards us, but you want
Speaker 1: to look for a company that has been around for
Speaker 1: a long time and has a lot of reviews. Now
Speaker 1: why is that important? Because a mistake that people often
Speaker 1: make when they use sauna is they think buying a
Speaker 1: sauna is like buying a printer, that you just buy
Speaker 1: it and then it's just going to work and that's whatever, exactly,
Speaker 1: Whereas in reality, buying a sauna because you want to
Speaker 1: look after your health and well being, you want to
Speaker 1: do that for more than a couple of years. You
Speaker 1: want to do that for at least a decade, So
Speaker 1: the sauna has to be good quality, and you need
Speaker 1: to have you need to be buying it from a
Speaker 1: company who has a track record of doing this for
Speaker 1: a long time. It is very easy to go on
Speaker 1: Ali Baba and find a supplier of saunas from various
Speaker 1: countries and buy a twenty foot container, bring it in,
Speaker 1: get them to chuck your logo on there, do an
Speaker 1: Instagram ad, and all of a sudden you're an infrared
Speaker 1: sauna seller. Right. But what those companies don't have is
Speaker 1: a network of people around the country and more importantly,
Speaker 1: where you live, that will actually be able to service
Speaker 1: that product. It's like when you buy a car, like
Speaker 1: you kind of you read up on or at least
Speaker 1: I do, get to know what the service from that
Speaker 1: company's like because you know you're going to have to
Speaker 1: service it once a year. Right. Some companies have a
Speaker 1: much better track record than other companies, And it's the
Speaker 1: same with sauna. You're going to need to get it
Speaker 1: serviced at some point, right, And I guarantee that if
Speaker 1: you can't get a service quickly, you'll be pissed because
Speaker 1: you're going to fall in love with. You're in cred
Speaker 1: sauna and you want to working. I hear it time
Speaker 1: in time again. So make sure it's a reputable company.
Speaker 1: They've got the reviews and they have the people near you,
Speaker 1: They've got the warehouse with the parts near you, so
Speaker 1: if something does go wrong, which inevitably will over that
Speaker 1: ten year period, it can be supported. That's really important.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of companies, especially in the cold plunge
Speaker 1: space right now, who are all popping up. I feel
Speaker 1: like every second day it's like, oh, there's another cold plunge.
Speaker 1: There's another one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we bought plastic containers from office works and put
Speaker 2: ice in out.
Speaker 1: But what people just assuming is I'll just buy that
Speaker 1: and then that all just work forever. You need to
Speaker 1: have that that support there. The thing I'll say when
Speaker 1: looking Intimfred' sauna is like, make sure that the company
Speaker 1: explains to you how to use it and more importantly,
Speaker 1: how to get the most out out of it based
Speaker 1: on what you want to achieve. Right. Because using the
Speaker 1: car analogy again, if you go and buy say a
Speaker 1: Kia Serato, right, you go there when they deliver it,
Speaker 1: but when you go they pick it up they run
Speaker 1: you through how to use it. Right, This is the
Speaker 1: screen press. This here is where the USB goes. Right.
Speaker 1: But you know how to drive a car, right, And
Speaker 1: yet they still do that. And the thing is that
Speaker 1: people don't really know how to use infrared sauna. And
Speaker 1: a common mistake people make is they assume that I've
Speaker 1: got a sauna, it's got to be really hot. I
Speaker 1: got to go forty minutes. You know. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like that energy happens, and I see it in both
Speaker 1: men and women. It's not just the men who go crazy, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: And they say I've heard these are great for sleep. Great,
Speaker 1: and they'll do like seventy degrees for forty minutes three hours,
Speaker 1: am right? And then they bring up and they go,
Speaker 1: I'm not sleeping well. Right. And this happens to us
Speaker 1: sometimes because although we explain it to people who doesn't
Speaker 1: go in, we give them a book saying, hey, this
Speaker 1: is how to use it for sleep, this is how
Speaker 1: to use it for recovery, this is how to use
Speaker 1: it for inflammation. Sometimes people don't read that and then
Speaker 1: they go, oh, I've heard this is good for sleep,
Speaker 1: but I'm not sleeping good at all, And how are
Speaker 1: you using it and they tell us and they're not
Speaker 1: using it correctly. Hey, read the Sauna Sessions Guide, check
Speaker 1: it out, and then they go A man that helped
Speaker 1: like a lot. I'm sleeping good. Great. So the education
Speaker 1: piece is really important too, because yeah, sauna isn't just sauna,
Speaker 1: and cold plunge isn't just cold plunge. We've been putting
Speaker 1: a lot of content out about cold plunch recently and
Speaker 1: I'm kind of having fun in the cold plunge, jumping
Speaker 1: around whatever, and I want to put out a couple
Speaker 1: new pieces kind of talking to the serious nature of it.
Speaker 1: Cold plunge should be treated with respect. You're going in
Speaker 1: there in ours at a minimum, at a low of
Speaker 1: three degrees, also known as really eff and cold. Right,
Speaker 1: it's full on for the body in the first thirty
Speaker 1: to sixty seconds. It's activating the sympathetic nervous system fight
Speaker 1: or flight. Your body is trying to survive, so you don't.
Speaker 1: And that's got to be treated with respect. And there's
Speaker 1: sometimes that that would be counter productive to what the
Speaker 1: person's trying to achieve. So that education piece is really important.
Speaker 1: So I think that's probably my hot tips to come
Speaker 1: back to your question light sauna, empty level, You're going
Speaker 1: to have a great sweat. We'll install it for you.
Speaker 1: You're gonna love it. Really simple, basic light in the
Speaker 1: roof done, Bluetooth sound system. Awesome. We have an outdoor
Speaker 1: barrel sauna. You can go outside completely not protected, gets rain,
Speaker 1: hail shine. It's fine, beautiful, full spectrum in for Reread's sauna.
Speaker 1: We then have the newer which is kind of our
Speaker 1: top of the line. Lots of glass. There's no sauna
Speaker 1: on the market that has much glass as this. It
Speaker 1: feels very open. You can choose between clear and tint,
Speaker 1: which is really cool. It has more full spectrum heaters
Speaker 1: than any infrared sauna in the world, which means you're
Speaker 1: getting more full spectrum red near and far in for
Speaker 1: red light than any other sauna, which means kind of
Speaker 1: more light means more benefits quicker, which is really cool.
Speaker 1: And therefore that sauna is really eff and hot, and
Speaker 1: all the saunas we're releasing at the moment are super hot,
Speaker 1: like almost too hot. We love that the idea. And yeah,
Speaker 1: then we have the Nissa, which is more like private.
Speaker 1: Lots of really thick timbers, nine mil timbers used on
Speaker 1: both sides of the wall. No one else is doing
Speaker 1: that using that much material, laminated glass, sound insulation, really private,
Speaker 1: really kind of inward space where you can have a
Speaker 1: sweat like a cocoon. Yeah, a bit of a cocoon.
Speaker 1: So yeah, we have various saunas depending on what you want,
Speaker 1: what your budget is. Obviously, our saunas range from five
Speaker 1: thousand to sixteen thousand, depending on the size, the model,
Speaker 1: the technology you want.
Speaker 2: But yeah, oh my gosh, well that is like literally
Speaker 2: the best explanation I've ever heard of what to look for,
Speaker 2: because it is really overwhelming. And like the funniest thing
Speaker 2: that when we were first looking, before we even had
Speaker 2: connected with you guys, that when we were first looking,
Speaker 2: just scoping out kind of the landscape, we'd shortlisted two
Speaker 2: businesses and one was I Health, which was you, and
Speaker 2: the other was found Space, which is also you. And
Speaker 2: when we realized You're like, oh, it's the same company,
Speaker 2: Like well, like one's heritage, like got a really long
Speaker 2: history and the other one's newer, but like, look at
Speaker 2: all the specs and the research. And then I think
Speaker 2: when we eventually spoke to Molly, because she knew we
Speaker 2: were looking for one She's like, you know, it's the
Speaker 2: same company, right. I was like, oh my god, well
Speaker 2: that solves the problem because we were tossing up literally
Speaker 2: between these two businesses. And then Mike, they're the same thing.
Speaker 2: So it's funny that the same thing stood out about
Speaker 2: both of them and that Yeah, it's obviously just an
Speaker 2: evolution of the same journey, which has been so fascinating
Speaker 2: to learn about. And like, I just I can't even
Speaker 2: tell you nicause having the time of his life, Like
Speaker 2: he has the disco lights on, like I know they're
Speaker 2: not actually disco lights, but he uses them as disco
Speaker 2: lights like every night. Yeah. Oh, I'm glad it wasn't
Speaker 2: just asked the coin that because he's living his best
Speaker 2: life and he I mean, he trains so hard and
Speaker 2: is you know, like we're getting older, like he needs.
Speaker 2: He didn't used to do recovery at all. He just
Speaker 2: kind of train and lie down. And now, like you do,
Speaker 2: you have to put so much into your well being
Speaker 2: to earn you know, it is the vehicle through which
Speaker 2: you experience your life, and to have the best experience
Speaker 2: it requires an investment. So it's been we have loved
Speaker 2: having it. I cannot wait until April and to hear
Speaker 2: more about the story. So thank you so much for
Speaker 2: your time. It's been wonderful to get to know.
Speaker 1: You, of course. Yeah, no, it's been a pleasure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: to your final point there. For me, I see a
Speaker 1: world where these products are very much a normal part
Speaker 1: of the home. And obviously I'm bias because what we do.
Speaker 1: But the thing that stands out for me. I was
Speaker 1: recently in LA and we did a lot of fancy
Speaker 1: biohacking stuff when we're over there, But I've yet to
Speaker 1: see a health product that works on such a wide
Speaker 1: array of health outcomes than hormetic tech being smaller and
Speaker 1: cold plunge. You know, it's not just like a supplement
Speaker 1: which does one thing. These things work cardiobatsculist system, the
Speaker 1: nervous system, the endocrine system, ther gut, microbiome, the quality
Speaker 1: of your skin. You know, it's thirty minutes of just
Speaker 1: peace and quiet in life.
Speaker 2: That alone is worth it for me.
Speaker 1: Probably where all the other benefits come from. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: so for me, like these things help people live healthier
Speaker 1: and help people live longer, and that's that's what it's
Speaker 1: all about. So I'm stoked that you guys are excited
Speaker 1: to use it because you've got a very powerful piece
Speaker 1: of equipment in your house.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so so exciting, and also it's beautiful. I
Speaker 2: mean like I kind of want to have it at
Speaker 2: the front door just to be like everyone who comes
Speaker 2: in has to look at it and be like, oh, look,
Speaker 2: how beautiful. But I will include links to found Space
Speaker 2: in the show notes and alex asite as well. He
Speaker 2: is a published author, does speaking, gigs, does all sorts
Speaker 2: of things. Very busy man and obviously desperately needs a
Speaker 2: sort of in his laugh to actually carve out some
Speaker 2: time for himself in between. Alex, thank you so much
Speaker 2: for joining and I hope you're seizing your yea such
Speaker 2: an interesting story and I love finishing an episode feeling
Speaker 2: like I understand a new area of science or a
Speaker 2: new area of life. You guys know, I love a
Speaker 2: niche community, particularly when that's a niche community of knowledge
Speaker 2: or wisdom. I've included the links to found Space and
Speaker 2: Alex's website in the show notes as usual, And if
Speaker 2: you have any other questions about the range, about our sauna,
Speaker 2: or anything else that we chatted about, don't hesitate to
Speaker 2: send us a DM and I can pass it on
Speaker 2: to Alex as well. As mentioned, we'll be back next
Speaker 2: week for our final episode of the year. Gosh, this
Speaker 2: year has flown by, Oh my gosh. I feel like
Speaker 2: we should play a drinking game every time I say
Speaker 2: time is flowing, so fuch, you will have to do
Speaker 2: a shot. And that will include an update on our
Speaker 2: surprise CCA activities from this week. I think I mentioned
Speaker 2: that Ange and I have been planning surprise activities for
Speaker 2: each other across three different days, with kind of doing
Speaker 2: a CZA Christmas party, but spread across different days, and
Speaker 2: that promises to be full of yay. So we'll update
Speaker 2: you then. I hope this silly season is treating you
Speaker 2: all kindly in the meantime and that you're seizing your
Speaker 2: yay