Banks

So here’s the deal

We are a startup business looking for finance to get us to production. Over the past five years we have managed to sustain development ourselves with the help of some grant funding.  We are now at final tooling stage and require a development loan to put towards the tools and for stock purchase.  So what do we do? Approach the Banks of course.

So accounts, business plan, amalgamated cash flow and profit and loss projections in hand we head off to the High St. Now, which banks will we go in and speak to? lets try some that we didn’t pull back from the brink of collapse at considerable public expense.

3 banks, who shall remain nameless at this point , later and the results are in.

 DECLINED 

Why not we ask? Well, we don’t lend based on projections anymore and you don’t have any track record of sales. Our Credit and Risk department have been renamed Credit as we don’t take risks.

 Ok, yes, we are a startup, so how about an overdraft? Well, we can consider that, what security can you provide? Well none, we’re a startup and don’t have any assets at present. AH well no then, sorry sir, but please come back when you can demonstrate a history of sales.

OK, OK we get the message. We dredge the bottom of the biscuit tin, borrow and beg until we have half the money we need. FANTASTIC : )

Now then, Mr and Mrs New Business Development Managers.  Over and above the six figure sums we have already invested, we now have half the money.  Can we have the other half please at your large percentage over base and considerable fees?

No, we already told you we don’t take risks anymore.

OK, OK we understand you are risk averse and rightly so, given the balls up by your counterparts last year.  BUT WAIT! Didn’t the government introduce a scheme, the Enterprise Finance Guarantee scheme specifically for this sort of situation, where the Government guarantee 70% of the loan?  Yes they did. SALVATION. we have 50% to put up. There is no risk to the bank. So can we have a loan under this criteria please?

NO

Why not? : (

Well that scheme requires that we would lend to you anyway and as we have told you we’re not lending to you, there’s nothing we can do and anyway, we don’t consider this for new customers, only existing ones who have a track record, looking to grow their business. Furthermore, we would want to take security over your house and as your good lady has said no, she would rather have the peace of mind of having a secure roof over her and the kids head, you’ve really not done yourself any favours.

So, there we go.

Bailout Banks, here we come!!!

Have Scottish Enterprise Gone Mad?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Extremely PISSED OFF!!!! today. After an application process for marketing assistance from SE ( government body tasked to help businesses with advice and funding ) which has taken 8 months, two application forms, 3 competitive quotes and various meetings, we found out that our application has been REFUSED. Not reduced in value. Point blank rejected, turned down, binned, vetoed.

THE REASON? We have been told verbally that our application did not represent value for money???? Does this mean our quotes were uncompetitive? or that our projections for turnover, employment opportunities and what we could bring to the Scottish economy does not represent value in relation to the funds asked for, or is it something totally different?

I have asked for written confirmation and a more detailed report on the rationale behind the decision. We will appeal if we can and take the matter up with a higher authority, either way.

I really can’t get my head round this at all. We are considered to be a high growth potential company by SE. They have supported us through the whole process of development. They provided 50% of the funds for our world class website. We are weeks away from finally launching the product after 5 years and they pull the rug out from under us at the 11th hour?

I REALLY can’t believe that they would help fund the project to where we are now then not want anyone to see the product or website by declining marketing support. Surely this should be a given for any company starting out? We have a global product with global ambitions and we had thought SE were fully onboard with that philosophy. Sadly, at this late stage, it would appear not.

We are hoping that the issue is down to lack of expertise in the marketing field as we understand that SE do not have anyone with experience in the arena of digital marketing who looks at these applications. That being the case we will attempt to persude them to re-consider on that basis, however we would have expected that they would seek an appropriate consultant who has the experience before now.

Things are looking grim for Quiver at present.  Our planned trip to the States to launch is now in jeopardy, but all is not lost. SE still have a chance to redeem themselves and our guy at Scottish Development International will see what they can do at their end.

Watch this space

Ban Coke and Pepsi?

Quiverteam  recognise that individuals will make their own choices over the beverages that they wish to consume, whether this be via ’sustainable’ reusable bottles or the convenience of a single service ‘expendable’ bottle. Taste and convenience also play a major part in the decision making process.

Water seems to be taking the full force of legislation at present but are Coke, and Pepsi to be banned next?

Rather than ban or limit choice, particularly when there are issues over municipal water quality, we would rather see the focus being placed on consumer education and encouraging companies who supply all types of beverages to look towards truly biodegradable and recyclable options.

After all how many recyclable products actually make it to the afterlife? Would you take your old stainless steel or aluminum bottle with a broken lid to a scrap metal dealer or specialist recycler?

We know that corn starch has been looked at in the past but this requires sunlight to break down, not readily accessible in landfill sites.

In March this year Aquamantra, a niche bottled water supplier, began selling their water in a bottle claimed by the manufacturer, Cleantech, to break down in 1 to 5 years, even in landfill. Shouldn’t advances in technology be the way forward rather than the draconian banning measures we are seeing today?

The RO.50 Choice

So what did we decide on for the Quiver RO.50?

Fundamentally, we needed a material which was capable of being moulded to our exacting design criteria.  The material must then perform on a number of levels, all of which must be met without any exceptions.

• Safe and BPA Free
• Immensely Strong and Shockproof
• Durable For Many Years
• Scratch Resistant
• Light in Weight
• Low in Thermal Conductivity
• Dishwasher Safe
• Recyclable
• Taste and Odour Free

Only two materials were in the running.

BPA Free Polycarbonate and  BPA Free Copolyester by Eastman Tritan

We ultimately decided upon Eastman Tritan as having an excellent safety profile and meeting all of our requirements.

So there it is, we have our RO.50.

But why not Stainless Steel? I hear you cry.  Surely a compromise can be made for the green alternative?

Well, apart from the design issues, weight and poor thermal performance of Stainless Steel we had another issue. During the course of our due diligence into material options we came across a number of studies which looked at the real costs of bottle manufacture.  I have included one of those from the New York Times published earlier this year, which proved extremely enlightening

 

The article concludes with the opinion that one stainless steel bottle is much more harmfull to the environment than one throw away plastic bottle, however if you use a stainless steel bottle over and over again that would be the best option.

What if you used a plastic bottle over and over again?

SIGG, BPA what to do?

As you may or may not be aware blogs and twitter are awash with the revelations from Sigg that their bottle liners contain bpa. In light of this I thought it would be better to interupt my history of quiver and look at this in a bit of detail.

So what is bpa?and why should we be concerned about it?

BPA  is short for Bisphenol-A,  and is to be found in some polycarbonates and other plastics used in the manufacture of water bottles, baby bottles, reusable food containers and other every day items.  It is also used in epoxy resins as a liner in metal food cans and as fillings and repairs in dental work. Recent studies have suggested that BPA may leach into the items being stored, particularly at high heat levels such as in microwave cooking and as the product itself ages

The reason for the concern is that studies on rats seem to suggest that bpa can cause cancer.  This has been refuted by industry experts, however there is a ground swell of public opinion against the product and calls for it to be banned.

What are the alternatives?

We at Quiver are involved in the reusable bottle market so I will concentrate on alternatives in this area at the high end performance level

  

Glass, Ceramic and Earthenware

No problems here with bpa, however the bottes are heavy and fragile

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aluminium

Up until recently this was seen as a good environmentally friendly option.  That all changed recently when the revelations from Sigg came out.  Aluminium oxidises, therefore a coating is required inside the bottle to stop tainting the liquid within. 

 

Polycarbonate

 

 

 

Polycarbonate is an extremely versatile plastic, tough, resilient, strong, pleasing to the eye and light in weight. BPA free versions are available.

 

Stainless Steel

Long seen as the champion of the green movement and the environmentally friendly.  There are no BPA nasties here.  Not as versatile as plastic and can be heavy, particularly in double walled ‘insulated’ versions.

There we go, the contendors unveiled.   

 

 So what will we choose for the Quiver RO.50? well, actually none of the above.  Why not? read on…..

 

 

KTP Years – Continued

…..we tried to tie up with a manufacturer in the UK on three seperate occassions.  Two of the companies said’ yes, we can do what your looking for,’  only to let us down after several months of chasing and harrying by Kieran.  The aerogel was proving too difficult to work with.

The third company looked very promising, they had been recommended and our initial meeting with the MD went very well.  He seemed like a progressive kind of guy and was totally on board with the aerogel.  Unfortunately, his board of Directors were not so convinced of our product, afterall at this stage ours was essentially an R and D project.  They were also very busy with their own day to day operation, which was running 24/7 and we got the impression that they saw our project as a complication, although they didn’t spell this out.  Our fears were borne out when we received their tooling quotation, which we felt was excessive and this brought to an end our involvement with them.

The UK being expended, we could not find any other suitable manufacturers to contact, we then turned to China.  This didn’t prove any more fruitfull due to communication difficulties.  We received models instead of tools which weren’t even to scale.  There were also quality issues and it became obvious that to continue working with China we would require a middle man to smooth out our issues .

By this time we had essentially wasted a year of our time which culminated in a crisis meeting with our KTP monitors.  We were at the end of the second year of the three year project and continuation into the third year was of serious concern to everyone for both financial and practical reasons. Given the difficulties, could we even make the aerogel work as we wanted?  The project was in the balance…..

The KTP Years

…… The 3 years of the KTP were relatively quiet for me in business terms. Kieran really took up the reigns at this point with Angela and my role was really to try and keep things on track with the proposal provided as part of the KTP acceptance.

Kieran’s design blog covers this in much more depth but the biggest frustration for me was not being a designer and not understanding the length of time it takes to organise testing with appropriate procedures in place including statistical significance, 3d rendering with SolidEdge (What???). There was also prototyping in 5 axis cnc, 3d printing, SLA and SLS (Eh??)

I have to say though that there was much anticipation and excitement at this time, particularly in the early years. The biggest hurdle however,and it was a major headache, was that we are not manufacturers. The idea for quiver was simply that, an idea. I had not the first clue of how to go about it as our other organisations, ventilation business and a building company were totally unrelated.

It was going to be trial and error moving forward……..

Getting Started

How are you all doing? My name is Stephen Bradley, Director and founder of Ice Cool Industries. This is my story about getting the Quiver project from an idea to a commercially viable product. I will split my recollections up into a series of posts rather than in one big hit. So here goes…….

Almost 10 years ago my father was on holiday in Dubai and returned with a generic silver bottle insulator, which really only acted as a solar reflector, saying that in the 45 degree heat you needed one of these all the time to have water anything approaching cool. I looked at it and thought ’surely there could be a better product than this on the market’.

I started some research and found that while there were other insulators out there, they were mostly all made of neoprene which is ok as an insulator but not that great. The seed was then sown to create the best, high performance bottle insulator possible.

The next 9 years were spent in research and development. I concentrated my efforts into looking at the different insulators which were available on the market. Hytex and Nomex were early front runners for performance until I stumbled across the website of Aspen, an MIT spin out company, who were manufacturing a product called an aerogel. They claimed that aerogel was the best insulator on the planet. The only problem was that 9 years ago the cost of using the aerogel would have meant a price tag for our product being well in excess of $100. Aerogel would not be viable for us at this price.

Not all of my time was spent on the project, we had other businesses to run, so things didn’t really get going until 5 years ago when I attended a seminar by Scottish Enterprise on a project currently still running called KTP or Knowledge Transfer Partnership. Essentially this allows companies to tie up with Universities in order to deliver a project. We were awarded a 3 year project where 60% of the project costs are funded by the Government. I chose the University of Strathclyde, department of Design Manufacture and Engineering Management as my preferred partner with Dr Angela Stone as Project Co-ordinator and Kieran McCrorie as Graduate Designer. We were finally up and running……

Inspiration For The Quiver Name

On honeymoon in South Africa, January 2001, I happened to pick up a magazine in the Cape Grace Hotel in Cape Town, South Africa 

One article on conservation had a stunning photograph of a Quiver ( Kokerboom ) Tree in Namibia

 The article then went on to describe just how amazing a species these are. The image stuck with me and several years later I’m happy it did. I’ll let David tell you the rest and you’ll understand the relevance to our product