The Company That’s Tackling the World’s Plastic Crisis, One Aussie Household at a Time

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The word “sustainability” is thrown around a lot in 2022, but one company that’s following through on its sustainability mission is Zero Co. A company dedicated to un-trashing the world — one kitchen, bathroom, and laundry at a time — Zero Co is tackling the world’s plastic crisis by producing household and personal care products that people genuinely want to use, sans single-use plastic. 

In the fourth episode of The Flipside podcast, Zero Co’s founder Mike Smith joins hosts, Sali Sasi and Julie Stevanja, to explain what inspired him to create a sustainability-minded company and how he made it a success, even when every investor in Australia told him no.

Zero Co’s story starts in a similar way to many founder stories: Smith saw a gap in the market and went for it. In 2017, Smith sold his wine company, Cake Wines, and convinced his wife to spend 18 months travelling to the most remote and far-flung corners of the world and venture deep into the wilderness in countries like North Korea, Russia, and Afghanistan. What he realised along his travels was that no matter where he travelled, there was a huge plastic problem — and he decided he needed to do something about it.

When he returned home, Smith spent another 18 months refining the Zero Co concept before launching a Kickstarter campaign after being endlessly knocked back by investors who failed to see the value in his idea. The public disagreed, and that Kickstarter campaign became the most successful crowdfunding effort in Australia, to date, with 7,000 households pre-ordering Zero Co products. 

When asked whether he was disheartened by investors not understanding his idea, Smith explained that instead of feeling sorry for himself, he let the rejection fuel him. “One of the things I did very early on in the pitching phase was, I grabbed a piece of paper and stuck it up on my bedroom wall, and after every single meeting where someone would give me a no, I’d write their name on this list,” he says, laughing. 

“Then I had this big long list of ‘nos’, of all the people that I said to myself, ‘I’m going to prove every single one of you wrong’. It actually became a point of motivation for me, not a disappointment, and every day I’d look at that list and think ‘okay, that’s another person I need to prove to, that this thing will work’.” Smith explains that he quickly realised that when trying to build any successful business, there are going to be plenty of people who tell you “why it won’t work, why it’s not a good idea, why you’re not the person to pull it off, and that every single no gets you one step closer to a yes”.

While it looks like Zero Co has seen meteoric success since that Kickstarter took off, Smith admits that there were plenty of challenges that came with launching a business within months of the COVID-19 pandemic starting. For Zero Co, their supply chain completely dried up, delaying their products by six months and leaving 7,000 brand fans waiting for their first products to even arrive. Early on, Smith realised that radical transparency was the best way forward, so he started speaking to them through videos and newsletters, and learned that this was the best way to build brand trust and community in an organic way.

Bootstrapping and honesty like this have been central themes in the Zero Co story, so far, and one area where Smith has been particularly resourceful is in earning press coverage and raising awareness of his brand. “As a founder, in the early stages of a business where you have no money to spend on marketing, you have to be really creative in the ways you earn media,” Smith explains, adding that the $1 million they’d initially raised was invested directly into producing the products. 

Smith says that the simple adage of “don’t ask, don’t get” has paid off for him, for example, when he roped Malcolm Turnbull into joining him to kayak on Sydney Harbour, with a lifetime supply of plastic strapped to them. “If you can make someone smile or have a laugh while doing something good for the planet, then you’re likely to keep people engaged,” he says.

Since launching, Zero Co has stopped one million plastic bottles from ending up in landfill, and they’re just getting started. “We are about to announce that we are putting our money where our mouth is. We’re writing a $100,000 dollar cheque . . . and are inviting our industry partners, our competitors, and our friends, to match or beat our investment and try to raise $1 million to fund the clean-up of 20 million water bottles or rubbish in the next 12 months.”

You can listen to The Flipside wherever you listen to your podcasts, with episodes dropping every Thursday — each with an exclusive offer from one of the Her Black Book brand partners. In this episode (which you can listen to below) Zero Co is offering $20 off orders over $100 when you shop via the Her Black Book app. You have until midnight on Sunday 25 September to take advantage of the discount, so be quick!  To unlock even more exclusive deals and offers, download the Her Black Book app now.