Scott jams with Daniel Flynn, co-founder and managing director of one of Australia’s most successful start-ups, Thankyou. It’s a fully for-purpose brand built on bottled water, founded to solve the world’s poverty-related water crisis, that continues to diversify into new products we all use every day to help solve the wider challenge of global extreme poverty. They discuss the decision to no longer sell the bottled water that made them famous, building a brand and business without the limits of business experience and being mission-led. Scott asks about getting shelf-space in supermarkets, the choice between not for profit and partially for profit and the thoughts and challenges around naming a brand Thankyou. Elon Musk, size 14 Nikes and Yeezy also get a mention, along with some hints as to where Thankyou is going next as they move ever closer to their goal of seeing every human free from poverty.
“We are a brand that we hope and aspire to be led by our values to make these value-based decisions which means they’re not marketing-based decisions.”
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Determined and resourceful, Daniel Flynn is the co-founder and managing director of one of Australia’s most successful startups, Thankyou. He co-founded Thankyou at the age of 19, and today 12 years later, Thankyou’s products are stocked by major retailers in Australia, with every product contributing to helping end global poverty. To date, Thankyou has raised over $17 million to impact the lives of people across 22 countries.
Daniel is also the author of best-selling book Chapter One, a story that generated $1.4 million in sales in its first month using an unorthodox ‘pay-what-you-want’ model. He is known for his disruptive marketing and has received widespread media coverage for some truly unconventional and highly successful campaigns that led to Thankyou products being stocked by some of Australia’s biggest retailers.
Daniel’s achievements as an entrepreneur have also been widely celebrated. In 2014, he was named an honoree in JCI’s Ten Outstanding Young People of the World, and in 2015 Daniel won EY Entrepreneur of the Year (for the Southern Region). In 2016 Daniel was named in the Forbes Asia 30 Under 30 for Social Entrepreneurship.
Daniel is known for his ability to tell stories to engage and motivate audiences to realise that they too can make their own ideas a reality.
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