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In this episode of all about business, James Reed meets Byron Dixon, scientist, entrepreneur, and founder of Micro-Fresh. He shares how he went from a council estate in Leicester to living in Denmark and learning from the Scandinavian way of life, to building a global brand that’s protecting lives, championing sustainability, and changing how retailers think about product longevity.
Byron reveals the untold truth about bootstrapping a science business, the resilience it takes to go years without revenue, and how one unexpected call changed everything. He also shares how Micro-Fresh is tackling mould in homes, and why “Home-Fresh” might be his most important innovation yet.
If you’ve ever doubted yourself, struggled to stay motivated, or wondered if your idea could really make a difference, this episode is for you.
03:16 why did Byron start Microfresh?
07:27 Microfresh's sustainability, waste reduction
10:40 designing a non-hazardous environmentally friendly product
18:46 starting without advantages
20:09 Open University
25:18 determination & no fear of failure
26:25 the first breakthrough
28:40 domino effect - competition doesn't want to be left out
31:00 big growth & market validation
36:51 how does a CEO prioritize and achieve goals?
39:59 moving to the USA?
47:03 why young people feel they can't do this
49:24 switching off the phone
51:00 boredom as a source of creativity
52:42 putting the phone and social media away
54:54 top 3 things we should import from Scandinavia
59:41 interview round
Check out Microfresh’s website: https://www.microfresh.com/
Follow Microfresh on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/micro-fresh/
Follow James Reed on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/chairmanjames/
[00:00:14] James: Well, today on all about business, I couldn't be more delighted than to welcome Byron Dixon, OBE, who's traveled to talk to us today from Lester. Um, Byron is an amazing entrepreneur, innovator and scientist.
[00:00:29] James: He's the CEO and founder of a company called Micro Fresh. That's right. And you're gonna tell us all about it, aren't you, Byron? I have, but what I mean what, where I'd like to begin is. What does Reh do? Or what is the problem that Resh sets out to solve?
[00:00:45] Byron: And it's ironic that you almost slip the tongues head, Microsoft, because lots of people do that.
[00:00:50] Byron: I didn't say
[00:00:50] James: that, Byron.
[00:00:53] Byron: We have had Microsoft
[00:00:55] James: on the podcast.
[00:00:56] Byron: Right? Okay. So what Reh does in, I think it's very simple, um, is that it stops the growth of microbes. That's the boring bit. So any micro freshed surface means microbes can't grow microbes. So microbes are, microbes are fungi. Fungi this size, not literally this size.
[00:01:16] Byron: I'm relative. Bacteria this size, or viruses, which are this size, right? And that's what Resh does.
[00:01:24] James: Do you know that joke? Why did the mushroom go to the party?
[00:01:27] Byron: Yes.
[00:01:27] James: Yeah.
[00:01:29] Byron: You don't wanna say the bug, you're gonna say it. Go on to say, because they'll say it. You know the joke. Because he's a fun guy. He's a fun guy.
[00:01:37] James: So, yeah. Uh, so, so you are out to get these fun guy in the sense We are. And so, and so how did that, how did that begin? What, what sort of I immediate problem or what sort of issue did you first see and think, oh, I could do something about that?
[00:01:54] Byron: Yeah. And James, that's a question a lot of people ask. They say, why are you doing that?
[00:01:58] Will: Yeah.
[00:01:58] Byron: Um, the short story is I drifted into, I could do chemistry at school. That's all I could do. And I went to what's called a comprehensive school, um, and a sink school, but I could do chemistry. So I left school. I approached Zenica for a job, right? The nearest before it was a pharmaceutical business, so Zenica, and it was a proper chemical business, I call it.
[00:02:21] Byron: The nearest one to me was in Loughborough, and that was the leather and shoe division of Zenica supplying chemicals to the tanneries and shoe factories all over the world. So I worked there for 10 years. Doing customer service, looking at leather, looking at problems with leather and shoes. And I got head onto by Echo the shoe company, which is in Denmark.
[00:02:40] Byron: So I didn't realize the job was in Denmark. I accepted the job as something new. Oh. So this is why you
[00:02:46] James: can speak
[00:02:46] Byron: Danish. That's why I speak Dan. You were just
[00:02:48] James: talking to one of my colleagues. That's right. That's it Was quite impressed. That's
[00:02:51] Byron: right. Uh, so yeah. So, so you went to work in
[00:02:53] James: Den,
[00:02:54] Byron: so you didn't know the job was in Denmark?
[00:02:56] Byron: No. So I got this job offer and I thought that's great. And then the guy who offered me the job, the head of Human Resources and I'm still friends with today, um, he said, oh, do you want to fly from East Midlands or Heathrow? And I said, where to? And he said, well, Denmark, of course. But I thought the job was in London.
[00:03:12] Byron: So I thought, why not? And I went off to Denmark for four years. I worked for Echo, uh, fantastic company, absolutely fantastic company. And the difference was Zenica was top down management. And I'm not saying e either's, right or wrong. They're just very different. And then I went to echo, it's bottom up. So you are almost like an entrepreneur in a business.
[00:03:34] Byron: Uh, and I was responsible for the finishes around the whole world. So every, for every shoe. For every shoe. And then I worked closely with the tanneries. How many
[00:03:42] James: shoes do they make? I mean, remember they did about
[00:03:43] Byron: 20 million pairs a year back then, not to 20 years ago. So that's
[00:03:46] James: 40 million shoes.
[00:03:47] Byron: Yeah. Yeah, of course.
[00:03:48] Byron: Yeah. And so you're responsible for making sure they're all Absolutely. They all looked perfect, felt perfect, made the most of leather, nothing happened. They didn't finish, didn't come off, didn't change color. I was responsible for the whole lot. Wow. And given complete freedom because of my background. Uh, and I, I loved it.
[00:04:07] James: Danish businesses are interesting, aren't they? Because I mean, I've been researching Danish business for a book I'm writing, um, on philanthropy companies. A lot of them have charities own absolutely substantial stake and they have very enlightened management. Yeah. And that was your experience?
[00:04:20] Byron: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:04:22] Byron: Mm-hmm. Honestly, it was, it's like I felt like a chrysalis here and then I felt like a butterfly when I went to Echo, it was that different. Uh, Denmark's a great country. I've still got great friends there. You pay a lot of tax,
[00:04:35] James (2): right?
[00:04:35] Byron: And it's very dark in the winter. So I came back after four years, started my own leather chemicals business.
[00:04:43] Byron: And then I remember the echo shoes when they were made in Asia, used to go moldy when they were shipped to the west. So I was struggling back then. I was pretty skint, uh, moved back to Leicester living in a little terrace and I thought, why don't I make a product that stops the shoes going moldy in transit that you can just put on in Asia, spray on, and it protects them in transit.
[00:05:04] Byron: And that became micro freshs.
[00:05:07] James: So you, so you invented this product, um, yeah. So you used your own science.
[00:05:11] Byron: That's right.
[00:05:11] James: Chemistry knowledge.
[00:05:12] Byron: Yeah. In fact, I still have some of my old open university equipment, which I used to make the product.
[00:05:17] James: Right.
[00:05:18] Byron: So some of my experiments. So you could
[00:05:19] James: see. So, so what, how, how does it work?
[00:05:22] James: What's it do? So how does it stop this from happening? Yeah, so what
[00:05:26] Byron: I wanted, I was clear in my mind that I didn't want something that kills fungi, kills microbe because that's quite easy. You can do that with bleach or vinegar, you know, quite nasty chemicals. If you look at anything that kills mold in store, there's quite often some quite hazardous symbols attached to it.
[00:05:43] Byron: But I wanted something that was non-hazardous and something that just prevents the growth. So if in everyday language, microbes land on the surface and they can't reproduce, so they suffocate.
[00:05:54] James (2): Right,
[00:05:54] Byron: so they don't proliferate and you don't get all the, all the um, the deficiencies that associated with microbes.
[00:06:00] Byron: IE the growth of mold, but I didn't realize at the time it also stops bacteria. So things like e coli, salmonella, listeria. And also I played football for lesser university and one of the LA team said If it stops mold, it should stop bacteria. And bacteria causes odors.
[00:06:18] James (2): Ah.
[00:06:18] Byron: So we test it inside the shoes and they didn't smell.
[00:06:23] Will: Oh,
[00:06:24] James: so this replaced what were called odor eaters. Is that right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I remember those when That's right. Yeah. My youth. That's
[00:06:30] Byron: right. Yes. So nobody pays extra for non moldy shoes. That's just a given. Right. But when retailers saw that by protecting the shoes in transit, they also had a sellable benefit to the consumer of the shoes won't smell that turned our business around.
[00:06:44] James: Oh, amazing. So then you had lots of other applications, I guess, from this technology.
[00:06:49] Byron: That's right. Yeah. That came from the bacteria side.
[00:06:51] James: Yeah.
[00:06:52] Byron: So. When I realized it stops odors. And then we realized it works in textiles because it was meant for leather, right? Um, we test it in clothing and in textiles. And we did a deal with John Lewis back in 2014 and they said to us, how many washes does it do?
[00:07:07] Byron: And I said, I actually don't know. And they test it and came back and said, it does 50 washes. And I said, it's that good? And they said, absolutely. It's still over 80% efficacious after 50 washes. So we then realized that we had a product and a brand you could put into textiles, that means they all last longer,
[00:07:25] James (2): right?
[00:07:25] Byron: 'cause you can wash at lower temperature. Uh, you don't need to kill microbes. Uh, and all the benefits that go with that, less detergent, less water, less energy.
[00:07:33] James: Right. How interesting. So that is good news. If you don't want to have lots of textile waste and That's right. That's right. Associated landfill. And that's, that's right.
[00:07:41] James: The results of fast fashion.
[00:07:43] Byron: Absolutely. And so you
[00:07:45] James: are very much focused on the other end of
[00:07:47] Byron: That's right. But this is very mind, this was 2009. And several retailers said, we don't want that. We want people to buy things. And ah, yes. Built in obsolescence as you call it. Uh, but then sustainability became a thing and they said, where's that guy that was here a few weeks ago?
[00:08:04] Byron: That cheeky guy from Leicester.
[00:08:06] James: Oh, I see. So you were, you were not exactly pushing it an open door to start with. Ah,
[00:08:10] Byron: not
[00:08:11] James: at all. No, not at all. In fact, uh, beyond the shoe business,
[00:08:13] Byron: I suppose, beyond the shoe business. That's right. It was a completely closed door. And everybody said, why would we want to do that?
[00:08:19] James: Right. Which doesn't reflect that well on
[00:08:21] Byron: that sector, does it? But now
[00:08:23] James: that you've persuaded them that this is a good,
[00:08:25] Byron: that's right. That's right. And so we've now become a brand that means it kind of means sustainability and it means they care about sustainability.
[00:08:31] James: Yeah. Yeah. So what, are there any other applica you mentioned e coli and I mean other food related applications that you So the main one
[00:08:39] Byron: is healthcare, right?
[00:08:41] Byron: Because one of the reasons is, um, hospital acquired infections, HAI. So people know that once you go into hospital, it's quite often you can come out sicker than when you went in because of what you pick up when you're in there. And you probably remember. Well, it's definitely a fear, isn't it? It's the fear.
[00:08:57] Byron: That's right. And you remember MRSA, well that was a classic example. That was a
[00:09:02] James: sort of super bug. Was it superbug?
[00:09:03] Byron: That's right, that's right. And it's, um, without getting boring, there's a, there's a, there's a bacteria called staphylococcus arrays, and this was what's called methicillin resistant staphylococcus arrays, MRSA.
[00:09:16] Byron: And you could pick it up in hospital very, very easily, and it's very deadly. Mm-hmm. So an application for resh was on ling in and towels where it just couldn't, couldn't reproduce.
[00:09:27] James: So is that sprayed on
[00:09:29] Byron: the
[00:09:29] James: bed? No, no, no. It's fixed in when they make, when? When it's made at manufacture. I see. So when you d
[00:09:34] Byron: the fabric, you add micro profession, it's fixed in.
[00:09:37] James: So it's all, it's all at the beginning of the, all at the beginning of the production process, the supply chain. Right. So how many customers have you got now? What's the,
[00:09:44] Byron: wow, that's a good question. Uh, I would say around the world, 200. 200. Two 50.
[00:09:51] James: Big producers of, yeah. Fabrics. Fabrics. Leather products.
[00:09:55] Byron: Leather products.
[00:09:56] James: Right. And where's your biggest market then?
[00:09:59] Byron: Currently it's, um, bedding. Right? We're a massive, uh, ingredient, branding, bedding. So you can go into John Lewis now and buy a bedding with micro freshs technology and several other retailers. Uh, but what is growing is the call for mold reduction in social housing,
[00:10:16] James (2): right.
[00:10:17] Byron: So
[00:10:18] James (2): we, so talk me through that. What does that mean?
[00:10:19] Byron: Yeah, so I grew up in a council house, um mm-hmm. And my mum was a single parent with five children. And mold was just a thing that then everybody had it. You just wipe it off with a bit of bleach. Uh, now it's much worse. It's much worse. What? The mold's worse.
[00:10:34] Byron: The mold's worse. The um, in what way? What, what, what? It's a lot more, if you go into some social housing, you see mold. It can be whole walls, it can be whole rooms, which you never used to see when we were, when we were kids.
[00:10:46] James: And is that because the housing's deteriorated or the mold's got more powerful?
[00:10:50] Byron: Generally the housing's deteriorated.
[00:10:51] James: Okay. Yeah. I mean, when I lived in
[00:10:52] Byron: Denmark, uh, as cold as it was in winter, you had to have the window open to sleep at night because the houses are that well insulated,
[00:11:00] James (2): right.
[00:11:00] Byron: Whereas here we have a lot of old houses, a lot of old stock. Yeah. So mold is a huge problem.
[00:11:05] Byron: Uh, and 10 years ago we did some trials with Aston University and the HSC with Innovate UK funding. Right. Because I thought, will it work on. Walls, friends tried it and they said it's absolutely, it doesn't come back. The biggest problem with mold is it comes back. You're killing it. It's quite easy. So I thought, I don't wanna go to market with a product where your friend say, it's wonderful.
[00:11:28] Byron: 'cause that's like, yeah, your mom's saying you're a good boy. Uh, well, Marmon doesn't say that. Did she say that? No, she doesn't. That would be consistent with quite a lot of our guests. That's right. That's right. Uh, but yeah, so we went to, uh, innovate Fund, innovate uk. They part funded a two year. Testing schedule, uh, best part of court.
[00:11:48] Byron: So what does innovate,
[00:11:49] James: just just for the benefit of our listeners, what does Innovate UK do? Because Innovate uk it's quite interesting you use that. Yeah. It's
[00:11:55] Byron: government. It's out there, isn't it? For them? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, and it's government money. Mm-hmm. Government funding and it funds innovative projects.
[00:12:03] Byron: There's a bit more to it than that, but you have to apply and you have to apply. And if they like what you're proposing, if they like what you're proposing, it can create jobs or save lives or benefit the economy. They will help to fund it,
[00:12:14] James: which is fantastic.
[00:12:16] Byron: It's really, really good and it's, well, back then it was grant funding.
[00:12:19] Byron: Now they do a bit of debt or a bit of equity funding, but we would never have been able to do that without the funding. And we, it's match funding. So we matched, yeah, over the two years on average, 50%. So we put in 120 5K. Yeah, they put in 120 5K, but at the end we had first year report from the HSE saying it absolutely works on walls and plaster and even if you paint over it.
[00:12:42] Byron: And the second year was Aston University, ran a trial in his shower room throughout the whole of the winter and it showed there was absolutely no mold growth. Wow. So, so this
[00:12:50] James: hopefully will be widely applied. That's right. So it's dangerous. It's mold, isn't it? Black mold. It is dangerous. Yeah. You breathe it in and stuff's not good.
[00:12:57] James: Yeah.
[00:12:57] Byron: Yeah. It's the cause of a lot of respiratory issues. Mm-hmm. Um, I lived in Denmark, as you know, and Denmark, Northern Europe. Mold is almost clut as a pathogen.
[00:13:07] James (2): Right.
[00:13:07] Byron: Whereas over here it never has been until tragically, I think it was four years ago now, a young lad died up in Rochdale and they realized it was because of the dam, because of the mold.
[00:13:18] Mm-hmm.
[00:13:19] Byron: So this young lad was called our aha. Uh, and a lot's happened since then. I remember that. It was shocking. Yeah, it's shocking. So from this October it's gonna become law. There's a law that will say if you have damper mold, the landlord has to respond. I think it's within 48 hours.
[00:13:37] James: Right.
[00:13:37] Byron: So that's, that's coming.
[00:13:39] Byron: My daughter
[00:13:39] James: in Glasgow, who's a student there, was told that it was her problem, not the land.
[00:13:44] Byron: That's good to know that I'll tell her. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's, uh, that's, that's quite often they say it's the way you live and you know, you can't have the window open the windows. She had
[00:13:51] James: to have the window open the window 'cause of it, I think.
[00:13:53] James: Yeah,
[00:13:54] Byron: yeah, yeah. Not because
[00:13:54] James: it was too warm, it's,
[00:13:56] Byron: yeah, that's right. Nobody does that. You know, we grew up in the council house. The last, if I got caught open the window in the winter when the heating's on. My nose would be even flatter as you know. Right. My mom would say,
[00:14:09] James: right. Well, I'm glad you, you didn't.
[00:14:11] James: So that's a, that's so that's an amazing range of applications.
[00:14:15] Byron: Yeah.
[00:14:16] James: So I mean, I, I'd I'd like to ask you a bit, I mean, you said you were good at chemistry at school, you went to a comprehensive, you said it was a sink school. It was, it doesn't sound like the ideal place to start a journey to become a scientist and an innovator.
[00:14:31] James: So how did you do that?
[00:14:35] Byron: Uh, that's a good question. I think, I mean, people around me will say Byron's, you know, hyperactive and I always have been. Um, and when I was at school, I found school a bit dull. Right. Um, and I could do things, but I just found it in general a bit dull than when I was about 10 and I saw chemistry and I thought, you can burn things.
[00:14:59] Byron: And get a grade so you could blow things up. You like the excitement of that? That's right. Yeah. Yeah. I can see that. You get a grade of blowing stuff up and burning things and
[00:15:08] James: Yeah. Creating, so you were doing practical chemistry where you Absolutely. So it's good they had a lab
[00:15:13] Byron: then at this school. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:15:14] James: And I
[00:15:14] Byron: thought, this is for me, this is absolutely for me, but also James. The thing is I actually understood it, and I don't, to this day, I don't know how, but I understood it. I could see atomic models in my head. I could, I just got it. And I just thought, interesting. Why does everybody else find this so difficult?
[00:15:35] James: That's interesting. So it sort of mirrored your abilities in a way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I
[00:15:40] Byron: just, I just got it. I did my O level, um, and I was doing the exam and I just thought, this is straightforward. This is like saying put your right leg in front of your left and call it walking. Right. And I did a level I, it was the same.
[00:15:53] Byron: I just thought, this is, why is this? A thing. It's just
[00:15:59] James: obvious. Right. Well the world is sort of thing. I mean I suppose that's true. I mean that's what chemistry is ultimately isn't. Yeah,
[00:16:04] Byron: yeah, yeah, I did. I just thought, why are people going on about this being so hard? 'cause I just got it
[00:16:09] James: right.
[00:16:10] Byron: And then, uh, but I couldn't afford to go to university, so I got a job.
[00:16:14] James: So you got a job, but you went to university later? Interestingly, I did. So what did you do? I
[00:16:18] Byron: did. So I got to my mid twenties and I thought some of my friends from school had come back to Leicester with degrees, not many. Um, and I thought I'd like a degree. What can I get a degree in? I know chemistry. So I looked around and I found the Open University 'cause I thought I had a job at.
[00:16:40] James: So you were working at, was this at Zenica? I was working at Zenica, yeah. Yeah.
[00:16:42] Byron: Style was the division it was called, yeah. Style. S-T-A-H-L, which was a Dutch division of Zenica. Um, and uh, I wrote off to the Open University. And I did open university. Yeah.
[00:16:55] James: And is that something you'd recommend to other people?
[00:16:57] James: Absolutely, yeah. Situation like that.
[00:16:59] Byron: Halfway through it, I was just off to Denmark. Right. Uh, but you could carry on, I guess, carry on front and board. Yeah. And because I was traveling a lot with my job, I, I had more time to do it. I was in airports or long hall flights out to Asia, so I'd do assignments on planes, which people found quite interesting.
[00:17:17] Byron: That's hard work. I
[00:17:18] James: mean, you're doing a job, you're studying, I mean that's, you know, that's pretty intensive, I imagine. Yeah. Yeah. So how long did that take you to get the degree? Nine years. Nine years. To be nine years. Fantastic. Yeah. Well, good for you. And do you feel that that was helpful in as well, in terms of developing your ideas for the business?
[00:17:33] James: Or was it aside from that?
[00:17:36] Byron: I think in that phase I went through a huge amount of personal development. Because I grew up with, um, let's just say on counselor dates. You can imagine the sort of people I had around me. Uh, then I randomly got the,
[00:17:49] James: you said you were one of five siblings? Yeah, that's right.
[00:17:52] James: Yeah. You what order, what number are you out of interest?
[00:17:54] Byron: I'm the second youngest.
[00:17:55] James: The second youngest.
[00:17:56] Byron: I'm the second youngest. Okay.
[00:17:58] James: Yeah. Alright. Do you think that has a bearing or now you are mean, I'm always interested this sort orders. I don't, something maybe the other because I'm the eldest. Some people say, oh, you paid like the eldest.
[00:18:06] James: But I dunno, dunno if there's any truth in
[00:18:09] Byron: that. Yeah. My oldest brother Cliff's people say he'd be ELs behaves like the eldest, as in he's very sensible and yeah. You know, smart and straightforward as I'm the random maverick and I'm the youngest boy. Right. Okay. So we always used have as kids, we had those, um, those fairytales, you know, they typically had the three sons and there was always, yeah, the youngest one was always the, the coolest one.
[00:18:30] Byron: Do you think so? I used to play that. That's what
[00:18:32] James: you told people anyway? I did. Alright. Yeah. So you, yeah. Well there might be something in that. Yeah, yeah,
[00:18:38] Byron: yeah. But you,
[00:18:39] James: but maybe there's something in that you felt that you could go and try things a bit more, or you'd be you a bit more free in a sense. Yeah.
[00:18:44] James: Yeah. And I've
[00:18:45] Byron: always been the free spirit, right. Always. I've tried anything new, try anything different, go to different places, different countries. Um, yeah, the Denmark thing, as I say, the personal development, because by the time I'd been to Denmark, done my degree, done a whole amount of traveling.
[00:19:03] Byron: Because in Echo, you travel all the time. You're in Slovakia, you think I'm going back on Friday. You wake up Friday morning, there's a, there's a envelope to your hotel room saying you now I need to go to Brazil's your ticket.
[00:19:15] James: And you were going there what to oversee a batch of That's right. Product to see.
[00:19:18] Byron: Yeah. Shoes or leather. Yeah. So I, I came back to England as a completely different person. Right. I spoke and understood several languages as you've seen today.
[00:19:30] James: So you, well, I've seen Danish. What else can you speak? Yeah, so
[00:19:33] Byron: I can get by and I can understand Swedish, yeah. The, the Nordic, uh, Scandinavian languages.
[00:19:38] Byron: Yeah, I can understand German. Right. Um, because I lived quite close to Germany. I lived two kilometers from the border. I spent a lot of time in Portugal and Italy. So the Latin languages I can again pick up,
[00:19:48] James: I mean, I hate to say this, but this is kind of being closed off to young people now 'cause of Brexit completely.
[00:19:53] James: Which is such a shame. I give it. Well, that's help. The help that's given you.
[00:19:57] Byron: Yeah, and I did it at the right time because 20 years ago, if you went to Portugal, you had to learn Portuguese. Whereas now everybody speaks English
[00:20:05] James (2): right.
[00:20:06] Byron: In the whole world, which I do think it's good, but I think it's a bit of a shame.
[00:20:12] Byron: Because I, I had to get by and, I mean, I was in a restaurant last night and I said goodbye and thank you to four different people in the restaurant, waiters generally. And there yeah. Was Brazilian. That was Portuguese. There was a Chilean girl, so that was Spanish. There was, uh, an Arabic guy that was, uh, Charan and there was.
[00:20:31] Byron: An Italian. Yeah, it was Italian restaurant. They thought that was hilarious.
[00:20:36] James: Well, so yeah, that's so, so does that help you today with your business? 'cause you are, yeah. You said you deal in different countries around the world. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we are truly global. So it's, people speak English, but they do like it when you speak their own language.
[00:20:48] Byron: Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's a good skill to develop, you would say. Even that willing. But also what I learned in my time at Echo, the owner of Echo was a massively inspirational guy, Carl Toby. And we had the same birthday, which was ironic in the whole company's When was that? February the 23rd.
[00:21:04] Byron: So
[00:21:04] James: you and Carl shared the same birthday? Yeah, that's right.
[00:21:08] Byron: Uh, so what did
[00:21:09] James: you do? Did he celebrate, did he invite you for a coffee or something? Kind of, yeah.
[00:21:12] Byron: Did he? He'd go to his house on really my birthday. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's nice. Which was a bit random. But he had, so he started that company, he started Echo from scratch.
[00:21:20] James: And So you obviously knew him personally?
[00:21:23] Byron: I met him when I went to Echo.
[00:21:24] James: Yeah. But did you learn much from him? Loads. Interesting. Oh yeah. So working for an entrepreneur like that Absolutely. Was educational.
[00:21:33] Byron: Yeah, massively. And when I was leaving, he said to me, don't get a job. He said, you shouldn't get a job.
[00:21:39] Byron: You're not the sort of person that gets a job. You should start your own business. And he said, now you've got an international network, which I didn't have before I went to Echo. So I came back, started my own business, and
[00:21:49] James: I guess he became a customer.
[00:21:51] Byron: Yeah, he did. But I fell flat on my face for the first few years because why?
[00:21:56] Byron: What happened? Nobody bought micro Fesh because it was about sustainability. So I had five years with zero turnover. Oh, what? Pushing at those doors that weren't open, pushing at those doors.
[00:22:03] James: Five years of zero turnover, five
[00:22:05] Byron: years of zero turnover.
[00:22:07] James: So we are establishing quite a few things about you, Byron.
[00:22:10] Byron: I mean, I'm ski a lot of the
[00:22:11] James: linguists, but pretty determined. I mean, that was telling me.
[00:22:14] Byron: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You were not a quitter though, are you? I'm not a quitter, no. I'm not afraid of failure as well.
[00:22:20] James: Right.
[00:22:21] Byron: Uh, and
[00:22:21] James: so why not? I mean, 'cause that's sort of haunts some people.
[00:22:24] Byron: Yeah. I think naturally I'm a creative person.
[00:22:27] Byron: When I say creative don't mean like an artist, but I mean, yeah. Um, I like to build things so I'm not scared of starting again. So I've never been afraid of everything crashing. And that's why as entrepreneurs we take risks. Yeah. And I take some big risks, uh, because if you don't
[00:22:43] James: try, you don't know.
[00:22:44] Byron: You don't know.
[00:22:44] Byron: That's right. And the risk is the bigger the risk for me, the bigger the thrill. The biggest
[00:22:49] James: risk or the biggest failure is actually not trying. I always think
[00:22:52] Byron: Absolutely. And I always say I treat things like a plunge pull. So just hold your nose and jump in. It's gonna hurt and it's going to, what you're
[00:23:00] James: expecting is be cold, right?
[00:23:04] James: Yeah. That's because, but I'm not the sort That's because of your time in Denmark. It's not always cold. That's right.
[00:23:08] Byron: And yeah, it's, I'm not the sort to be standing around the edge, just dipping my toes in going, oh, it's a bit cold. I just go straight in saying that when I'm on holiday, I don't go into the walk.
[00:23:17] Byron: Cold Sea. Right. So practice, I don't do it, but in theory it gets me true. But in your business though, if
[00:23:22] James: you do,
[00:23:22] Byron: absolutely. Yeah.
[00:23:24] James: So you were five years. So what, what was the sort of breakthrough then? When did it suddenly
[00:23:29] Byron: turn? The breakthrough was, I pitched all the retailers, nobody's interested, and then I got a call from Next
[00:23:37] James (2): Right, who are up in Lester.
[00:23:39] Byron: In Leicester. Yeah. And I'd been to all the people down here, em saved with a whole lot and they said, can you come see us? And I said, yeah. And they said, can you go through that costing again?
[00:23:50] James (2): Right.
[00:23:51] Byron: And I thought, that's an odd question 'cause I've been here like two years ago. I went through everything. So I went through the costing how, what it cost them to micro, fresh a pair of shoes.
[00:23:59] Byron: And they came back and said, right, we're gonna run a trial.
[00:24:02] James (2): Right.
[00:24:03] Byron: Uh, and that was 2011. So 2011 they ran girls back to school shoes with micro freshs technology. I.
[00:24:10] James (2): Right.
[00:24:10] Byron: And they said, we'll need your swing tags. And I said, yeah, sure. Thinking I haven't got any swing tags.
[00:24:15] James (2): Yeah.
[00:24:16] Byron: By the time this control I will have.
[00:24:18] Byron: Yeah. So if you are watching the next people, you know, um, and they launched Girls Shoes in 2011, right back to school girls. Really successful. And they came back and said, we're gonna launch boys and girls a year afterwards. Right. So 2012, all their back to school shoes were micro pressed and they still are today.
[00:24:35] James: Fantastic. So, and they're a hugely successful company and they're huge successful company and obviously a big and important customer. But So their calculation when they said you run the costs, was that, that they must have been losing product or there must have been some sort of Yeah. And, uh, trade off where they could see by using micro fresh That's right.
[00:24:52] James: They would have, would have better economics.
[00:24:54] Byron: That's right. That's right. Uh, and I don't know, maybe something happened the year before and they'd lost market share and somebody internally said, we need something, a differentiator. And they thought, where's that guy?
[00:25:05] James: Right.
[00:25:06] Byron: So that was 20 11, 20 12.
[00:25:08] James: So he remembered you from two years before.
[00:25:10] James: Two years before, yeah. I just, there's a real message there. I mean, I'm, I'm often telling people it's not a question of, you know, if you're gonna make the sale, it's when, when, keep going. That's right. Keep going. But is a very good example of that. Yeah. Keep going. You've got a
[00:25:23] Byron: good product or you've got a
[00:25:24] James: good service.
[00:25:24] James: In fact, when
[00:25:25] Byron: I pitched to them, there were two questions asked in the first one. One was, we don't sell smelly shoes.
[00:25:30] James: We don't. Well, yeah. They're not smelly usually when you buy them. No, that's right. Thanks to you probably. That's right.
[00:25:35] Byron: That's right. Uh, and they just said there's no demand. But then two years later they came back and said, so something happened in those two years, which I've never been party to.
[00:25:44] Byron: Right. Uh, where they came back and said, let's try it. And then 2014. Yeah. Retailers do a thing called comp shopping. They go round the stores. So we got 2014 Tesco, Debenhams and Sainbury's came to us and said, we wanna launch Micro Fresh on our back to school shoes. When you say what
[00:26:01] James: they're comparing what the others are doing.
[00:26:02] James: Yeah. And they can see that next we're doing this. That's right. So once you've got one, the others they, yeah. Line up. Domino effect. They see that, especially when it's a market leader, like next, I suppose. So that's quite a good strategy for someone starting out. Absolutely. Yeah. Pick who you want. Yeah. If you That's right.
[00:26:17] James: If you could get one customer, who would it be? Pick one. Yeah. To encourage the others, so to speak. I've got a question for you. Oh, yes. Go on. Yeah.
[00:26:25] Byron: When they came back to me, because I pitched to men's shoes.
[00:26:28] James: Mm.
[00:26:29] Byron: Sports shoes. Uh, why do you think Next picked back to school?
[00:26:35] James: Why did they pick back to school?
[00:26:36] James: Because to me it was a random thing. For For the shoe range?
[00:26:38] Byron: Yeah, for the Resh.
[00:26:41] James: Um, because it's a particular time of year.
[00:26:44] Byron: No, it's much simpler because I didn't think of this, but they did because they were all, every day.
[00:26:51] James (2): Okay,
[00:26:52] Byron: so the only equivalent in adults is safety shoes, if you were Yeah. Yes,
[00:26:56] James: yes.
[00:26:56] James: Makes sense. Yeah.
[00:26:57] Byron: Otherwise, we wear different shoes every day.
[00:26:59] James: So you are micro, fresh.
[00:27:01] Byron: Yeah.
[00:27:02] James: You said other company that starts with micro, and I'm trying now to not say it.
[00:27:10] James: You put that in my, your micro fresh, uh, uh, service or, or, or product. Is it, is to stop the shoes smelling. Smelling after a period of time. That's right. Yeah. So it's not about when they arrive in
[00:27:24] Byron: the shop, it's what they're like. That's right. Months later. So in wear, they won't smell. So the dual benefit is they treat them in Asia anyway.
[00:27:33] Byron: That will protect them in transit, but also they won't smell in wear.
[00:27:36] James: Yeah.
[00:27:36] Byron: So two reasons. School shoes are.
[00:27:38] James: Because the reason I said because it's September was back to school because I thought maybe they get hot in August and you know, the bacteria like that. But it's not that, it's just, it's through wearing that they through, they get
[00:27:48] Byron: hot, hotter, obviously by people wearing 'em every day.
[00:27:50] Byron: That's right. So you wear them every day. They either gr the more they start to smell, they buy a new pair. So if they don't smell last longer, especially teenagers, I dunno, teenagers. That's right. When I remember being at school, it's a sustainability story.
[00:28:02] James: Right. So it's good for parents as well.
[00:28:04] Byron: It's absolutely good for parents for the purse.
[00:28:06] James: Yeah.
[00:28:07] Byron: And next I've gotta say, they were the innovative ones that said, we're gonna push this, push this envelope and say it's good for parents. Because before that, the resistance that we had was retailers saying, that means we'll sell less product. Yeah. That's not a good way of,
[00:28:23] James: you wanna do the right thing for your customer.
[00:28:24] James: That's right. That's right. Well that's how you build a sustainable business, I would argue. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's an amazing story. Yeah. So, and, and I like the way that you've widened the application into all these different. Um, yeah. Different product lines as well.
[00:28:39] Byron: Yeah. And the link then was by 2014, we then started to have presence in a lot of stores.
[00:28:45] Byron: We'd been through legal and compliance with most of the high street retailers because they're carrying our name in store, so they need to check that we are who we say we are. Product does what it says it does, when we are gonna be around. Lots of things around that. Um, and then as I say, John Lewis approached us about bedding.
[00:29:02] Byron: They were the first. Mm-hmm. They lost bedding in 2014. It was really successful. They then launched baby and nursery bedding in 2015, and then people started going into John Lewis seeing our name on baby and nursery bedding and thinking, wow. Wow. It's an aspirational retailer. Yeah. It's the thing that's the closest to you.
[00:29:22] Byron: You know, the baby, your children. Sure. And it's certified. Well, the most precious thing. You most precious thing. And it's certified next to a baby's skin.
[00:29:31] James (2): Right.
[00:29:32] Byron: So, yeah, there's some real big ticks there. So you
[00:29:34] James: must feel really proud about that, you know, having started off with your chemistry idea. I do, I do.
[00:29:39] James: And it took you five years to get a sale. I mean, that's really, yeah. That's an amazing journey.
[00:29:43] Byron: I do. And I suppose like most business a entrepreneurs is you're just doing it. It's only when you pause and have moments like this. So you think actually that's quite a lot.
[00:29:52] James: Yeah. 'cause the entrepreneurs, you know, like you are always looking for the next thing.
[00:29:55] James: That's right. So I'm gonna ask you that. Where next, what do, what do you wanna do
[00:29:59] Byron: next? Or how are you gonna take this from where we are now? The next things are, um, some quite chunky stuff that we're working on. So one is home fresh, which is about molding homes.
[00:30:09] James (2): Right.
[00:30:10] Byron: So we want, um, house associations and council tenants to be able to, so this is a
[00:30:16] James: development of what you were just talking about?
[00:30:18] James: Yeah. We've done that now. So that's out now
[00:30:20] Byron: as a product called Home Fresh. And that will be available in retail DRI retail. So was it a spray or It's a little box of spray. Yeah. So we've got a cleaner and a. Protector spray. It'll also be available through Travis Perkins, but we're also talking to Construc.
[00:30:35] Byron: So that's business
[00:30:35] James: to consumer.
[00:30:36] Byron: Business to consumer. That's right. So that's different as well, isn't it? It's different, yeah. So it's an actual product that, so
[00:30:40] James: that's coming soon. Is it that coming or can you buy it now?
[00:30:43] Byron: It'll be July from next month. Oh, fantastic. Yeah. And Travis Perkins.
[00:30:47] James: Right. And it's home fresh.
[00:30:49] James: Everyone listening if you want to get it, it's home fresh. Travis Perkins. That's right. Nail that
[00:30:53] Byron: mold
[00:30:54] James: is a lesson.
[00:30:55] Byron: None of us like mold. That's right. And we're talking to house builders about incorporating it into the houses at the time
[00:31:02] James: when they do the work. When they, when they make. And that'll keep it away.
[00:31:05] Byron: That'll keep the mold away. Amazing. And again, it's not, we say it's not a guarantee,
[00:31:09] James: but is it, is it essentially the same chemistry as the micro fresh, it's
[00:31:13] Byron: the same chemistry as micro freshs that's on baby safe next to baby skin. Right. Going back to my original point of not wanting to have anything.
[00:31:20] Byron: Nasty and hazardous.
[00:31:21] James (2): Yeah.
[00:31:22] Byron: So that's the difference. That's number one. What's coming next? The other thing, what's coming next is the us
[00:31:28] James (2): right?
[00:31:29] Byron: So we finally got the micro freshs trademark in the US It took us six years. So why did that take so long? Because other people had it for different things. Yeah.
[00:31:40] Byron: The US is quite hard like that.
[00:31:41] James: I mean, I, I was, I can't use the name re in the us. Yeah. 'cause someone else has already, but there must be thousands of people who read in the That's right here. So it seems like a funny You feel
[00:31:51] Byron: my pain.
[00:31:52] James: I feel pain. Yeah. So that was your, that was your, so it's interesting.
[00:31:54] James: But you, you persevered. That's what I'm hearing. Me. So you got that eventually, we finally got the, how did you do? So you had to go, you had to get lawyers to keep putting in requests. Yeah. And we had to
[00:32:03] Byron: not all the, and it wasn't in our industry. So there may be afresh, putty, putty somewhere.
[00:32:09] James (2): Yeah.
[00:32:09] Byron: In Wisconsin.
[00:32:10] Byron: Or there may be a micro fresh blinds company or a micro freshs car cleaner.
[00:32:16] James: Yeah.
[00:32:16] Byron: So we had to one by one knock these off and it took six. So if
[00:32:18] James: you want to use your own brand, you have to get permission in all those different locations. That's right. That's right. That's a big job.
[00:32:25] Byron: I thought this is a big job.
[00:32:27] Byron: And in the meantime we have So are you
[00:32:28] James: expanding there now? Is that your Absolutely. So you, you
[00:32:32] Byron: three growth areas are home fresh. The us So we've now got, you can guys buy socks in the US with Resh. You can buy towels and you can buy shoes.
[00:32:45] James: I was thinking shoes probably. Yeah. Yeah, shoes.
[00:32:46] Byron: Yeah. We've just, but we know in the US their FOMO is much bigger than ours.
[00:32:50] Byron: So that, um, comp shopping thing will happen we think much quicker. Yeah. That they'll go around and say, what's this micro thing? We need that. Right. And the third thing is automotive. Oh God. So how does that work? There's a UK company that already has Micro, I can't say who, they've not launched yet.
[00:33:09] James: UK Auto Company.
[00:33:11] Byron: UK Auto Company. Uh, and will they put it on the seats or It's in the seats. So it's a micro freshed interior, right. For the cleanest possible interior. So it will smell
[00:33:20] James: good like new or it smell good
[00:33:22] Byron: and nasty. Microbes can't grow and it's just the cleanest possible. Oh, but you can't tell us yet who that is?
[00:33:29] Byron: No. 'cause it's not launched yet and everything. So how long, how
[00:33:31] James: long have you got to go for that?
[00:33:33] Byron: We are hoping it'll be either this winter or next spring. Oh, quite soon as well. Yeah. Yeah. So you've got a lot going on. We've got a lot going on. And then we are hoping that that will then, um, spin off into the US because in the US it's all about aviation.
[00:33:49] Byron: So we're hoping that they'll see that and then say when they get on planes, why isn't this micro freshed, micro fresh, the verb, which is also
[00:33:56] James: coming. So you, you want people to say micro freshed. That's right. That's right. Okay. Yeah, no, I like that. And so, yeah, why isn't my, why isn't my plane seat being micro fresh?
[00:34:06] James: That's right. Well, so that's a nice shirt. Is it
[00:34:07] Byron: micro freshed?
[00:34:08] James: Right. But that, that suggests that you could do something to it after it's being purchased rather than it part of the production process. It, it does. So you're gonna have it at both ends then? We're not
[00:34:18] Byron: gonna have the after treatment for clothing.
[00:34:20] James: Not for clothing. It has to be built in Okay. To make it permanent almost. So the shirt wouldn't be micro refreshed if I bought it from the wrong cut supplier. That's right. But the, the, the, the car seat could be you. Yeah. And then you
[00:34:33] Byron: with the shirt, you'd have to go into the retail and say, you know, look for ones with micro freshs on it.
[00:34:38] James: Right.
[00:34:38] Byron: Yeah.
[00:34:39] James: Can you do that now?
[00:34:41] Byron: Not in the uk, in the us You can.
[00:34:43] James: Right. But coming soon in the uk. Soon. In the uk yeah.
[00:34:47] Byron: You can tell now you're picking up on all my body language. Sorry. From spring summer 26, there will be shirts in the uk. Fantastic. Fresh. Yeah. And everything we do, we're not allowed to talk about it until it's in the public domain, as you can probably imagine.
[00:34:59] James: Well, because you are doing this with partners, I imagine. That's right. Yeah. It's You're a supplier to other businesses. That's right. Of course. I understand that. Yeah. But you've got a lot, so there's a lot of demand. What, what I'm hearing is there's a lot of demand. There's a lot of potential in this. Yeah.
[00:35:11] James: There is
[00:35:11] Byron: a huge amount of potential. So, so
[00:35:13] James: you are, you are actively growing a UK based business out of Leicester. That's right. With markets in the us, different markets around the world. That's right. Different product lines. So what, so, so how do you approach that as how does you, as the CEO, you know, what do you prioritize to make sure all of that happens?
[00:35:31] James: Because I'm just thinking there's a lot going on. I mean, I'm a CEO as well. I mean a lot going on here. Barron gonna, how's Barron gonna nail one, two, and three? 'cause there are three different, there are, and
[00:35:40] Byron: what I've done, Jos, is I, um, 'cause I'll chase everything. And I don't mean that in a bad way. What I mean is I'm naturally like wired, so I wanna do, oh, that's a good idea.
[00:35:51] Byron: That's good. So you're always looking for good ideas, always looking for good ideas. And I'll think that's a good idea and then I'll be distracted. And that was what you, on my school reports, it said easily distracted. So we now have a board, right, an advisory board, which for me is heaven because I put everything on the table and they say, you gonna do that?
[00:36:08] Byron: Or you can do that.
[00:36:10] James: So they help you with strategy. Basically. They
[00:36:11] Byron: help me with, I call it the boring word strategy, but it's a proper word. Start the ness on a child. Whoa, just a minute. If you're gonna do that, you need to have this, this, and this.
[00:36:22] James: I think strategy's really difficult 'cause it does involve not doing things which might look interesting and prioritizing things in an order and you're not sure if you've got it in the right order.
[00:36:33] Byron: Yeah.
[00:36:33] James: I do find, I think we spend quite a bit of time at this time of year on strategy. 'cause our financial year ends at the end of June. Same as this. Yeah. We're the same. You're the same. And so it's, but I always find it tough. I mean, I always feel after really intense strategy meetings, I feel really tired, you know?
[00:36:48] James: Yeah, I do. There's a lot of brains. There's a lot of brainpower involved somehow.
[00:36:51] Byron: Yeah.
[00:36:52] James: And the drivers, I mean, the difference between getting it right and wrong is huge. I suppose.
[00:36:55] Byron: It's huge. And the
[00:36:56] James: driver for
[00:36:56] Byron: me is, if I had the board six years ago, I wouldn't have had the trauma of getting the micro pressure US trademark and the cost, which I won't even talk about today.
[00:37:06] Byron: 'cause when I think about the cost, it's huge.
[00:37:10] James: Oh, well, the lawyers. The
[00:37:11] Byron: lawyers. Yeah. Whereas if I, so why,
[00:37:13] James: why would that have been different if you'd had the board?
[00:37:15] Byron: Because I'd have said to the board, thinking only to the US they'd say, right, you need this, this, this, this, this. Whereas we went in. Yeah. And then we almost had to pull out Oh, '
[00:37:24] James: cause
[00:37:25] Byron: you didn't have the trademark.
[00:37:25] Byron: Didn't have the trademark. So we had to have another name in the US that nobody liked.
[00:37:30] James (2): Right.
[00:37:30] Byron: Um, called Rore. Oh, right.
[00:37:33] James (2): So when
[00:37:33] Byron: we sold the concept, everybody said, love it. Great. We said, ah, it's called Viro Fresh. You just seen the faces go.
[00:37:41] James: So all the clients and the why. So what's the difference? I mean, I'm interested in this, the sort of brand you've got Reh.
[00:37:45] James: Viresh. Yeah. Why does one fly and one doesn't? Why is that? I don't know. Uh, is it 'cause it viro you think of virus and Yeah. Microbe means smaller. Just turn
[00:37:55] Byron: people off. 'cause micro fresh says what it is. It's like what It does what it says on the tin. Yeah. It's clean. So it's fresh and it's, you can't see it.
[00:38:03] Byron: It's microscopic.
[00:38:04] James: Micro meaning small. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Viral. What's that mean?
[00:38:07] Byron: Well, I, we just thought of some other alternatives. Yeah. Yeah. So it doesn't mean, yeah, it doesn't say what it's, it just didn't fly at all. And now we own the name Micro Fresh, two thirds of the world.
[00:38:17] James: Right.
[00:38:18] Byron: Which is great. And it's cost us.
[00:38:20] Byron: Money. But again, well, that's
[00:38:21] James: called being a uni brand. Just having, I mean, this is something I've learned along the way Yeah. Is that having a UNI brand is really helpful 'cause you don't have to put money by different names and different lines. Yeah. I mean, our business re is a uni brand. I mean we, I operate in different areas, but it's always called re but there have been times when we've had other brands and it's always complex.
[00:38:40] Byron: Yeah, yeah. And we've just, that's why we just have micro, fresh and home fresh.
[00:38:43] James: Yeah.
[00:38:43] Byron: But yeah, so the, now the fact we've got it in the US means our, you know, our potential.
[00:38:49] James: It's a huge market.
[00:38:50] Byron: It's a huge, so
[00:38:51] James: you're gonna move over there for a bit. We've had podcast guests lived in the US to get their businesses going.
[00:38:56] James: I need to be there. So you're thinking about that a lot more. Probably not
[00:38:59] Byron: moving over there, but I need to be there at least four months of the year. At least between four and six months of the year. Right. So that's in our strategy. Yeah. Yeah. For the next financial year, starting next week like yours is that I'll be in the US for at least.
[00:39:12] James: Which
[00:39:13] Byron: bit of the US would you go
[00:39:14] James: and look? Because I'm, I'm interested in this for people listening, expanding in the US is a, is a great goal for British businesses. Yeah. Because obviously it's a big market. Yeah. If you've got something successful here Yeah. If you can take it there. The upsides are huge.
[00:39:26] James: Yeah. How do you go about that? I mean, so where would you set yourself up? Well, and obviously you've had this problem with the trademarks, but you've got that behind you.
[00:39:34] Byron: Yeah. So we are gonna get an office in New York,
[00:39:36] James: New York,
[00:39:37] Byron: but my time will be in around the Boston area, Massachusetts. Uh, why did
[00:39:43] James: you choose that area?
[00:39:45] Byron: New York
[00:39:45] James: at Boston
[00:39:47] Byron: Shoemaking.
[00:39:48] James: Is that a famous, the, the history
[00:39:49] Byron: of shoemaking is the shoes
[00:39:50] James: are made in that area.
[00:39:51] Byron: From that area. Yeah. I didn't know that. They're not anymore. But all the shoemaking people are in that area. Are they? But the other one is, uh, Portland, Oregon. Right. So, which I know is diametrically opposite.
[00:40:01] Byron: That's a long way. Way. Yeah. It's a huge distance. Uh, but that's where. The sports industry is sports. Is that where Nike is? That's where Nike is. So all the spinoffs all around. I love that. I love that shoe
[00:40:13] James: dog.
[00:40:13] Byron: Oh, it's fantastic. It's really good book. I read that on a plane and I couldn't sleep and I thought, that reminds me of my business.
[00:40:19] Byron: Obviously. Yeah, it's a lot bigger, but that book is The Entrepreneurs Eye because that is the story of most entrepreneurs that
[00:40:28] James: Yeah. If anyone wants a good book to read this summer, absolutely. We both recommend me here, Byron and me Shoe Dog. Absolutely. Yeah. On the Finer of Nike. That's a great book. I
[00:40:36] Byron: love
[00:40:36] James: that book.
[00:40:37] James: So, so that, so yeah, I remember from that, that that's, they were all on the West coast, that sports shoe people
[00:40:42] Byron: and that that story, you know, some of the mistakes, the ridiculous expensive mistakes flying by the seat of your pants. Yeah, yeah. I thought this could be the story of micro afresh one day. Maybe that'll be the book.
[00:40:56] James: Yeah. Well, hopefully you'll do your story. No, it's a great story. And I mean, it's obviously still very much in evolution and development. It, it is
[00:41:03] Byron: massively an evolution. Well, I can
[00:41:04] James: sense your excitement about these new opportunities. Yeah. I'm, I'm really pleased to hear about Home Fresh because we have a couple of, um, retrofit academies mm-hmm.
[00:41:14] James: Um, where we help people learn skills to retrofit buildings. Oh, really? So, yeah. So, um, you know, because that's a big, as you were saying, a big problem in the uk, the poorly insulated buildings, it's that are often poorly fabricated and need to be retrofitted. Yeah. Um, so this is a, this home fresh product would be a really important ingredient in that, I think.
[00:41:36] Byron: Absolutely. Yeah.
[00:41:37] James: Should be.
[00:41:37] Byron: And could be. Yeah. And I was talking with someone the other day, and they said in London, typically a lot of it's obviously a lot of old buildings, but a lot of the newer stuff is down to rogue builders.
[00:41:47] James (2): Right.
[00:41:48] Byron: Which I'm not gonna call, you know. Live on this podcast, but they said, well, you know, they're names
[00:41:55] James: so you're not What gonna say?
[00:41:57] James: Yeah. That's sad, isn't it? When things, people, you know, put money into things and they're not Well, well we've had a lot of bad examples of that.
[00:42:03] Byron: The instances of dampen mold in London, in, in the west, the rest of the country's. It's, it's quite, it's not, it's, I think it's worse in London. Is it? It's worse in London.
[00:42:13] Is it?
[00:42:13] Byron: And in the rest of the country it's mainly, of course, Victorian houses, which we all know about. Uh, but social housing, whereas in London it's kind of almost generic across the board.
[00:42:23] James (2): Right.
[00:42:23] Byron: So you can have people living in Ham and Chelsea that have got mold.
[00:42:26] James (2): Right.
[00:42:27] Byron: Um, and student homes, accommodation, it's almost like paraphrasing obviously, but it's like compact as many housing to smaller areas possible.
[00:42:37] Byron: Yeah. To give you dampen mold.
[00:42:40] James: Yeah. I suppose density populated, density populated areas. So that would be where you would begin your Yeah. Marketing, I imagine. Yeah.
[00:42:48] Byron: And we, we want home Freshs to be almost like, um, an altruistic side of the business because it's about quality of life,
[00:42:55] James (2): right.
[00:42:56] Byron: So we, we can't set it up as a charity for legal reasons.
[00:42:59] Byron: And if you know about, you know, about charities, it's quite difficult to have a charity on its own. But we are setting that up as, um, yeah. As an altruistic side of the business. So the money making bit that pays all the bills is micro freshs. Yeah. And Home Fresh is about giving back. 'cause again, it is about quality of life for tenants.
[00:43:17] James: Oh, good for you. And talking about giving back, I'm aware that you, you're a chancellor of a university, isn't that? I am, yes. So talk about that. And you also do quite a lot of mentoring. I do. Yeah, I do. So I'm interested in this. So talk, talk me about that. What. Why did you make that decision and, and how does it, how does it work?
[00:43:36] James: How does it fit into your, obviously very busy timetable?
[00:43:40] Byron: Yeah. Well, yeah. I was talking to somebody this morning who, who we're talking about social values, and I said to some people it comes naturally. So if I'm asked to go and talk to a bunch of kids, you know, students or pupils, I would, I want to do it.
[00:43:57] Byron: I want to give back. I want to talk to them and say, anybody can do what I do. You know, I'm from a background. That means if you pull yourself up, you can do it. So for me to give that back is absolutely important. So you go
[00:44:10] James: into schools and talk to kids? Yeah. I go
[00:44:11] Byron: into schools and I go, do you do that a lot?
[00:44:14] Byron: I like to it more actually. Um, and institutions and in some cases I've been asked to talk in prisons and young offender centers, institutions, um, because I believe, I mean, my other half will tell you, she said, Byron sees the good in everybody. And I think there is good in everybody, but I also think there's opportunity in everybody.
[00:44:34] Byron: It may not be something that is relevant. Like I, I did some work with some excluded kids and one of 'em said, I just love climbing,
[00:44:40] James (2): right?
[00:44:41] Byron: So I said, let's go climbing then. And we went climbing and I can't climb. But he became almost like the, um, the lead in his school when they went climbing. It was a purpose.
[00:44:52] Byron: Another guy I liked drumming,
[00:44:54] James (2): right?
[00:44:55] Byron: And I said, the thing is, I know it's different, but I liked chemistry. That's all I liked. So everybody has something and I, you find something you like, you find something you like, please do that. That's right. That's right. It doesn't mean you're a failure if you can't, all this other sort of typical stuff.
[00:45:09] Byron: So I spend a lot of time James talking with especially young people and especially from backgrounds that I was from, because I think this is the first generation where it's gone backwards. It's actually harder.
[00:45:21] James: Well that is a concern, isn't it? That Yeah. Yeah. It's getting tougher every generation. Yeah.
[00:45:25] James: When I speak
[00:45:25] Byron: to my mom and then, I mean, I didn't know my grandparents 'cause they were in Jamaica. Um, but when I speak to my mom, then she tells me about her parents and then going back and as you probably know with your parents and going back, every generation gets easier for various reasons. Technology, advancements, uh, leisure things that get labor saving devices.
[00:45:45] Byron: Healthcare. Healthcare. And I think this generation is the first one where it's gone backwards. Um, yeah. So what's
[00:45:52] James: the most, what's the question? When you go to the schools or young offender, what's the question you most commonly get asked? What school did I go to? What school did you go to? Yeah. What school did you
[00:46:01] Byron: go to?
[00:46:02] Byron: I mean, I went to a school called Maryal and Mandela in Leicester. Mandela's closed now, I think too many.
[00:46:07] James: Why did they ask
[00:46:08] Byron: you that? Because, is that 'cause you're talking to people in Leicester or? No, it's because, and again, this is something I've learned is people feel it's not for them,
[00:46:17] James (2): right?
[00:46:18] Byron: So they think what school did they're looking at me going, what school did you go to?
[00:46:21] Byron: 'cause how did you get to do that? Did you go to, you know, a posh go? Did you go to Harrow or did you go to, I said, no, I went to Mandela. And they look at me like, how? Because it's So they're
[00:46:33] James: looking for some sort of advantage that they don't have.
[00:46:36] Byron: That's
[00:46:37] James: right. That that gives them a reason for not doing what you're doing.
[00:46:39] James: That's right. Is that what they're looking, is that what you Yeah. When I
[00:46:41] Byron: stand up with my business and the brand and stuff I've do in the US we're on the Nasdaq Tower and stuff like that. And their question is, can anybody do that?
[00:46:50] James: And what's your answer?
[00:46:51] Byron: And I'll say, yeah, because,
[00:46:54] James: well, you, I guess I did.
[00:46:55] James: Is it your answer? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's, it's almost feeling like that's not
[00:46:59] Byron: for them.
[00:47:00] James: Right. Does that make, but why is that, why, why do people come with this? What, what is it that, why do young people or so many of them feel restricted in that way? Or it's not for Yeah. I mean, I, but they don't have that opportunity or I
[00:47:12] Byron: Absolutely no scientific or data to back up what I'm gonna say.
[00:47:16] Byron: But I think a lot of it is down to social media. Do you And, uh, mobile phones, when I go into schools these days, you go into school at eight o'clock, it's quiet. Kids are walking around getting all the social media out. Never used to be before I have to go. No. It was always racket. We were, yeah. There was a rumble going on somewhere.
[00:47:34] Byron: That's right. It was a lot of us Right. Was always, yeah. Racket and football. Fire up.
[00:47:39] James: Yeah. Pushing people around and stuff. And I
[00:47:41] Byron: thought, wow.
[00:47:43] James: Yeah. Grange Hill wouldn't have been the same. That's, that's right. That's right. Would've studied
[00:47:46] Byron: there like that.
[00:47:47] James: So that's interesting. But I do. So what, so what's that?
[00:47:50] James: But why does social media make people constrain themselves in terms of what their upside could be?
[00:47:56] Byron: I, I believe there's, um, there's, what's the word? It's like keeping it with the Joneses.
[00:48:01] James (2): Right.
[00:48:02] Byron: And I think it makes people feel that everybody's having a better time than they are. Right. And it's not for the, so yeah,
[00:48:10] James: they sort of give up on it
[00:48:12] Byron: almost.
[00:48:13] Byron: Yeah. It's almost like they're having a great time. That's not for me. 'cause my life isn't so great. Which we all know life isn't that great a lot, but we all know our own problems, I suppose.
[00:48:20] James: Yeah. And other people don't. And we dunno other people's problems. So you see someone doing something on social media or looking fantastic or having a holiday or something.
[00:48:27] Byron: That's right. You scroll through social. Everybody's having a great time. They're on holidaying. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. So this is, why am I sitting there? This isn't going
[00:48:33] James: away though. Is it? Social media? This isn't going away. I don't. So how, how do people like you and. Me. If we want to encourage people to be entrepreneurial and have a go, we need to get amongst them and say, we need to get amongst them.
[00:48:45] Byron: Yeah. My phone's in black and white. I dunno if you noticed that.
[00:48:48] James: You showed it to me. Yeah,
[00:48:49] Byron: yeah, yeah. It's in black and white and it's, everything's in black and white.
[00:48:52] James: Why
[00:48:52] Byron: is that? Because I don't look at it.
[00:48:55] James: Because you don't look at
[00:48:55] Byron: it. I don't look at it. A friend of mine said there's a particular red color.
[00:49:00] Byron: Yeah. Which I'll show you after this. Um, that hits the dopamine in your brain so that you can't put it down. So how do you put it in black and white? I wanna do that. Yes. You go to settings. There's some way of doing it. Is there, the phone companies know this, so to change it to black and white is quite hard.
[00:49:19] Byron: But to change it back into color is quite easy.
[00:49:21] James (2): Oh,
[00:49:22] Byron: I'm gonna have a look at that. But mine's been black and white for coming up for nine years now. And that makes a difference. A massive difference. I go out and I never look at my phone after six. I saw that picture
[00:49:31] James: of you playing the gay bass guitar on the phone.
[00:49:33] James: On your phone. Thought that looked cool. I thought you put it on black and white delivery.
[00:49:35] Byron: No, the whole phone you did. The whole phone is like that. Yeah. The whole
[00:49:37] James: photos. Yeah. Oh, right. So that's very interesting.
[00:49:40] Byron: Yeah. And when we're out with friends, I never look at my phone. Six o'clock I switch off, I play football, I play music.
[00:49:47] Byron: We, you know, we do things as a family. We, I do normal things, read books.
[00:49:52] James: So you'd get rid of the phone at six o'clock. Absolutely. But you, you had that story though, that he threw airport was closed and the guy was, was, didn't answer his phone. You know, the CEO. But that could happen to you, I suppose.
[00:50:02] That's right.
[00:50:03] It would
[00:50:03] James: be. Yeah. But I suppose you're saying that's a price I'm prepared to pay. Yeah. And I learned that from living
[00:50:08] Byron: in Denmark. 'cause that's a very Scandinavian thing to do. Not just switch it off. Switch off. So when I, on my first day at Echo, we finished at three, right? I was in the office, I was thinking about 20 plus three, and somebody came around and said, what are you doing?
[00:50:21] Byron: Right in Danish, ou, which, you know,
[00:50:25] James: and we have a Swedish member of our team who was quite impressed by your Danish and Swedish. I should that.
[00:50:31] Byron: And, uh, the direct translation says, what are you doing? But it's, it's not meant in an aggressive way.
[00:50:35] Will: Ah.
[00:50:36] Byron: So when she said it translated into English, it sounded quite aggressive.
[00:50:38] Byron: And I said, I'm just finish off. She said, why?
[00:50:41] Will: Ah, I
[00:50:41] Byron: said, well, I'm just, you know, I'm just, I'll be leaving soon. She said, in Denmark, if you are here after hours, that means that you've not been working in the daytime.
[00:50:50] James (3): Mm-hmm.
[00:50:51] Byron: So it's seen as a sign of inefficiency.
[00:50:53] James: What time did you have to start though, if you seven seven till three.
[00:50:56] James: I didn't read
[00:50:56] Byron: that either before I started the job. Did you
[00:50:58] James: get there at seven? No.
[00:50:59] Byron: You didn't tell her? I was a bit late the first day and I was like, and I really signed up for this seventies early. Yeah. 7:00 AM Yeah. Yeah. Seven till three because of the, it's something to do with the daylight and the farmers or something,
[00:51:10] James: but that's quite a nice working day.
[00:51:12] James: 'cause you get a good evening, you do but's
[00:51:15] Byron: very, very quiet. So you have a, a long, long evening. Right. And I was there on my own. Right. So I had this loneliness thing that I'd never had in my life. Um,
[00:51:26] James: alright. So people say that being bored is an important source of creativity. So they, they say that looking at phones is what people do now when they would otherwise be bored.
[00:51:37] James: That's true. And you've just said you shouldn't look at your phone and, and what you, kind of, what I'm hearing from you is that you were prepared to put yourself into a place where it was very quiet. That's right. And you maybe were a bit bored and you, the culture went in February. Yeah. And you read and did things differently.
[00:51:51] James: And then you came back and started a wonderful business. I mean, this is sounding more than coincidental to me that, you know, your mind was sort of
[00:51:59] Byron: Yeah. My mind working
[00:52:00] James: in a different way than just liking things and Yeah. No scrolling through stuff.
[00:52:05] Byron: Yeah. No, I, I like to, and when I, I think I was talking to him the other day and I said, you know, 20 years ago if you were sat at a desk, your boss thought you weren't working.
[00:52:16] Byron: Now we all look at screens all day.
[00:52:19] James (3): Yeah.
[00:52:19] Byron: And it's the opposite. So I'm used to doing things. I can go into a shoe factory and spray 15 rats of shoes.
[00:52:25] James (2): Right?
[00:52:26] Byron: Because I've done it in the past because I learned that way, right. When I, at Zen Alert, spray shoes, spray leather, and I was doing stuff. Yeah. And so when computers came in, James, anyone that knows you will tell you, they'll say, Barron can't sit in front of a computer for more than half an hour.
[00:52:40] James (2): Right.
[00:52:41] Byron: I can't. I have to get up and I just feel like I'm not efficient. Right. So I can't sit in my phone doing that.
[00:52:48] James: No. That might be your secret power. It's your secret advantage bar. And if I'm
[00:52:55] Byron: out now, it's not
[00:52:56] James: a secret. 'cause we can all allow profit from your insight. I
[00:52:59] Byron: find myself making excuses when I'm out with people.
[00:53:01] Byron: Say, 'cause I might think something, they'll say Just a minute, I've just got to do this and I'll do whatever I need to do and then I'll put it away.
[00:53:06] James: Yeah. Yeah. That's if you, if you have an idea or you wanna find something out that is, is useful to have it, then Yeah. Yeah. But, um, that's because I, I've been thinking, you know, analog life is good in many ways.
[00:53:17] James: You can cut off that, but you've actually, you've actually got a routine where you do that. Yeah. Consistently. I absolutely
[00:53:22] Byron: do that. Right. I absolutely do that. And sometimes we're out. You can be out with people and somebody's, oh, just a minute. I've got to, and they sit there on the phones. And then normally one of the others will say, Byron's got a global business.
[00:53:33] Byron: Yeah. And he's not on his phone.
[00:53:35] Right.
[00:53:37] Byron: Like it's all relative. That's quite satisfying though, isn't
[00:53:40] James: it? That's a very good bar. I like that. Well, I'm always, yeah. Yeah. My wife and I so say, oh, you're on the phone again. She say, so are you. So I think we, we can both learn from this. By the
[00:53:51] Byron: half she's like me.
[00:53:53] James: Oh,
[00:53:53] Byron: so she doesn't do phones either,
[00:53:54] James: so. So six o'clock gets put in a drawer. Does it put in a drawer? And you don't look at it until the next morning? No.
[00:54:00] Byron: Occasionally I might have to do something, you know, mess. Yeah. I don't sit there.
[00:54:04] James: No, no. Looking at it while you're watching TV or something. No, no, no.
[00:54:08] James: Don't tv. You don't look at X and get down rabbit holes and stuff like that. No, I'm learning. I'm learning from you. I'm gonna try. Other people say you see
[00:54:16] Byron: this thing on social media and say no.
[00:54:19] James: So you don't look at it for news?
[00:54:20] Byron: No.
[00:54:21] James: Do you watch the TV for news?
[00:54:24] Byron: Not really. No.
[00:54:25] James: Because one of our other guests, Jan, he closed himself off from news.
[00:54:29] James: Totally. Yeah. He said he didn't, he didn't help his mental health and No. So he doesn't, he, he deliberately doesn't look at the news.
[00:54:35] Byron: I don't look at the news, I don't look at the weather. Um, hence I'm wearing this today. Yeah. And
[00:54:40] James: it's got a bit hot. Yeah. But
[00:54:41] Byron: I find if you have a detox from news and you go back to it, it's constant bad news.
[00:54:47] Byron: It is. Yeah. And you think, wow, why, why am I listening to all this stuff that I have no control over? Um, and it's, it's all negative. And I know that's what sells. But I don't want to hear it. Yeah. And of course I keep a take with current affairs. Um, I listen to, I mean, I've taught sport on in the car one extra.
[00:55:08] Byron: Um, and every now and again they have a little, um, news bulletin. Yeah. But I don't listen to, you know, half an hour news programs.
[00:55:17] James: That's very interesting. So you've cleared your mind for things that you wanna prioritize. I have. And you've released I sleep seven and a
[00:55:23] Byron: half hours every night. You've
[00:55:24] James: released.
[00:55:24] James: Well, that's very important too, I'm told. But no, these are serious. These are serious points though. I that, that I think help people to be really successful.
[00:55:33] Byron: Yeah. And I learned this from Scandinavia, you know, so my Danish friends now, they joke, they say you can't get the Scandinavian out of you.
[00:55:42] James: Right.
[00:55:43] Byron: Because they do have, so you can
[00:55:44] James: take Byron outta Scandinavian, but you can't take Scandinavia outta Byron. That's true.
[00:55:49] Byron: I like
[00:55:50] James: that. So, so what, what are the top three things you think we should be more Scandinavian about? You know, if we were thinking in the UK to raise our game in this respect,
[00:55:58] Byron: I think.
[00:56:00] Byron: Community,
[00:56:01] James: community
[00:56:02] Byron: when I was there. There's a strong sense of community. Uh, I was welcomed with open arms. I was the only, I guess, non-white person in the town.
[00:56:12] James (2): Right.
[00:56:13] Byron: Of 8,000 people.
[00:56:15] James (2): Right.
[00:56:15] Byron: Um, and everybody made me feel so welcome. That's very nice. And d have a natural sense of, of community and it's little things like, you know the saying, treat others as you want to be treated.
[00:56:28] Byron: Yeah. And it's kind of an inbuilt thing.
[00:56:30] James (2): Right.
[00:56:31] Byron: Um, that's number one. The other thing is Scandinavia is very strong on family. Right. So this six o'clock cutoff thing is we wanna spend time with our families.
[00:56:41] James (2): Yeah.
[00:56:42] Byron: And it makes you more efficient in work. So I have two sides of my brain, which does amuse people.
[00:56:49] Byron: I have the work micro freshs, entrepreneur, chancellor Byron Dixon, and I have the after six o'clock Barron Dixon.
[00:56:59] James (2): Right.
[00:56:59] Byron: And the two are very different. 'cause um, I can go into a store, work out what the bill will be at the end, by the time I get to the till. Right. That's the, this side of Barron Dixon. Yeah.
[00:57:13] Byron: But I can't tie a shoelaces properly. And that's this side of our right. And Amy will tell you, she'll say, you know, watching me trying to cut a banana, I watched her cutting a banana once for breakfast. And I thought, how does she do that with one hand like this? And I tried it and she said, stop. 'cause you're gonna cut your fingers off.
[00:57:30] James: Oh, right. Okay. So you, you're very good at separating. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:57:35] Byron: Like that's this and that's this. And I suppose the third Scandinavian trait is, um, there's a thing in Scandinavian, in Denmark anyway, I know in Denmark called Del Law.
[00:57:46] James (3): Mm.
[00:57:47] Byron: And what that means is, um, trying to translate it means no one's bet than anybody else.
[00:57:54] Byron: Right. So. It's almost so it's sort of egalitarianism. Yeah. It's almost a stay humble thing. Right? Talking about in football.
[00:58:03] James: So you, they talk about that in football. Stay humble. It's been
[00:58:06] Byron: last year, arsenal and Man City, were taking the Mickey out. Each of the saying, stay humble. And ironically it came from Har is Norwegian.
[00:58:13] Byron: I dunno if that's the reason, but there's a thing in Denmark where Yeah, he's just stay humble. Don't go out saying I'm wonderful and I'm this and that just,
[00:58:23] James: yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. So you really related to those.
[00:58:27] Byron: Absolutely. And which is why when I went to Echo and I met Carl Toby, now in Seneca, you met your line manager.
[00:58:35] Byron: You didn't meet their manager, or definitely not their manager.
[00:58:38] James (3): Mm-hmm.
[00:58:38] Byron: You're just there.
[00:58:40] James (3): But
[00:58:40] Byron: when Carl Toy came down, I thought he's the owner and he came in and spoke to me. And that's a typical Scandinavian trait.
[00:58:48] James: Hmm.
[00:58:48] Byron: God. Danish trait I can speak for.
[00:58:50] James: Yeah. And do you, and you apply that now in your business?
[00:58:53] James: Absolutely. You go and talk to everyone on Absolutely. The shop floor and stuff. Yeah.
[00:58:56] Byron: Yeah. And we're all, of course, we're not all equal, but it's an equal ish feeling, so I encourage people to be themselves. Hmm. And I say be self, and I've got a bit of a, um, there's a Al KRS one and I took a, a snippet of, he did a, he did a thing called Edutainment where he did a seminar.
[00:59:15] Byron: Mm. And one of the, one of the modules was called Be Yourself. And I send that to everybody in our business when they start. And it's quite deep stuff. It's five minutes long. Right. It basically says, you know, being yourself means you might walk up to your boss and say, I want to leave, or I wanna do another job.
[00:59:30] Byron: Mm-hmm. The main thing is be yourself and feel that you can be yourself. It means they feel you can walk into my office Yeah. And say, I'm not happy.
[00:59:37] James: Well, I guess that's ultimately the best way to give you the best of yourself if you can be yourself. I, I think so fulfilled. I think so At work, I don't
[00:59:43] Byron: want people working for me that are unhappy or feeling oppressed.
[00:59:46] Byron: No. Uh, I'd rather them to say, I'm not happy or I don't like it here. Or Yeah. There's something majorly wrong. I don't wanna just festering and then just walking off.
[00:59:55] James: Yeah. Yeah. No, I agree. Just, um, just lastly, you mentioned the university or I mentioned it as well. Yeah. So what, what's that? Involve your chancellorship.
[01:00:04] James: Yeah. So it's Deford.
[01:00:05] Byron: Yeah. Deford University. So it's, uh. Ceremonial role I think is the saying, right? So I don't have to do any work.
[01:00:11] James (2): Right.
[01:00:11] Byron: Uh, the irony is the vice chancellor, um, Casey Normanton, she, people think that I'm her boss. 'cause in everyday language, if you are vice chancellor, like vice president, then you've got the president.
[01:00:22] Byron: Well I thought that Yeah, it's not Surely that's the case. It's not. No. No it's not. So yeah, it's, I'm Chancellor of DMU. Right. Um, and DMU is the second university. Leicester, there's got LE University Lester. Yeah. And they typically have a wide student base, um, like an old fashioned polytechnic. I think it's a saying.
[01:00:46] Byron: Uh, but I do, I do awards. I give out the degrees. Every six months to a year. Right. I try and do the business degree because obviously I have a, you know, business, uh, and if I can, I sit and inspire the students I did give a talk to. So you do
[01:01:01] James: go and talk to the students? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So you are, you're not, it's not just ceremonial.
[01:01:04] Byron: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So I've done this talk with the students again, just about the business and that anybody can do it.
[01:01:10] James: Yeah. Well, that's a really great thing to do. So you'd encourage other entrepreneurs to consider getting involved with you? Yeah. Yeah. And how did that come
[01:01:17] Byron: about? Did they approach you or you They approached me.
[01:01:19] Byron: Yeah. They knew you. And they said, yeah. They said, would you, we'd like you to be a pro chancellor. And I said, absolutely.
[01:01:25] James: Good for you. Yeah, that's a really great thing to do. Hey, well, thanks so much for coming in, Byron. There's so much more I should be asking you. Probably, um, I actually asked you one question, didn't I?
[01:01:34] James: That's the wrong way
[01:01:35] Byron: around.
[01:01:36] James: But I, I mean, at the end of the, each of my, um, conversations, I like to ask two questions. Um, and, and the first one's related to what you were just saying really is. Is what gets you up on a Monday morning. It comes from my, uh, love Mondays theme. Yeah. As you can see. So what would, what gets you up on a Monday
[01:01:56] Byron: morning environment?
[01:01:56] Byron: What gets me up on a Monday morning is the energy to drive this business. And I mean that, I don't mean that in a, you know, in a sarcastic way, but I do love what I do, right? And people say, we cannot believe your business is 18 years old because you look so energized. And I am actually really energized.
[01:02:17] Byron: So that gets me up on a Monday morning to go, right, we've got a senior leadership team meeting. How can we drive this business? How can we make sure that the team are growing? Obviously we've gotta grow the business financially as well, but also we are growing a global ingredient brand and we want to be the next vac.
[01:02:36] Byron: Uh, Hoover, sorry. You know, is that room being Hoovered? Is that top micro Freshed? Is that room Micro freshed? Is that room home? Freshed. So. That. Yeah, it really does. So you've got a
[01:02:47] James: global ambition in that respect.
[01:02:48] Byron: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. To infinity and beyond. Yeah.
[01:02:51] James: Well, that's exciting. I can see why that would get you getting Yeah.
[01:02:54] James: On the month. And then, and then the next question is from my interview book, why you 101 interview questions you'll never fear again? It's where do you see yourself in five years time?
[01:03:04] Byron: Wow. Uh, still heading up micro afresh, home fresh. Um, I'm hoping we'll have a much larger US presence at the time. Uh, I do love the uk.
[01:03:17] Byron: Um, the weather's a bit of a pickle. It's been quite good recently. But seeing myself as the head of a global ingredient brand,
[01:03:26] James: head of a global ingredient brand. The global ingredient brand. The global ingredient brand, that's right. I like that. That sounds better. The
[01:03:31] Byron: global brand for freshness.
[01:03:32] James: A global brand for freshness.
[01:03:34] James: Well, I, I wish you every success on that journey. And I hope we'll have the chance to talk again maybe in five years time and see how you'll progressing. We'll come back. Yeah. I hope so. Alright. Great talking to you by, Hey, thank you. And you too. Thank you for, thank you for coming in to talk to me.
[01:03:46] Byron: Thank you.
[01:03:47] James: Fantastic. That went off in sort of unexpected directions. I know how, from my briefing note, but I thought you had so many interesting things to say is that you
[01:03:57] Frankie: had like, a lot of it was unexpectedly like what we can learn from IES as well, which I, I like
[01:04:02] James: that part. Yeah. I thought it was very interesting.
[01:04:04] James: Well, I sort of went with what you were saying. I mean, because you said so many interesting things, I thought, well, I'll just pursue that line of inquiry. Yeah, yeah.
[01:04:10] Byron: It's good. It's good. Yeah.
[01:04:13] James: Was it okay? More than Okay. I thought it was really great. I mean, in fact you went and learned all these languages.
[01:04:18] James: Yeah. It's amazing as well.
[01:04:20] Byron: You still in shock. That's my, that's my, your third world moment. That's really good. I sat in a, I was in the, um, the Radison in Glasgow. Yeah. Went there for a hogmanay and this Danish family sat next to us. And they were cursing Scotland in Glasgow. Oh, in Danish. Were they, what did they not like about it?
[01:04:43] Byron: They said the people are ugly. I, I think that's more to the translation. Yeah,
[01:04:48] Will: go on.
[01:04:49] Byron: Yeah. They said the food is filthy. SH you know, but that's a direct translation. And they're Danish.
[01:04:56] I mean,
[01:04:59] Byron: so what did you say something? So at the end I just, uh, we were having breakfast and I said, uh, uh ah. And they said, yeah.
[01:05:06] Byron: I said, unschool, dansk. Which you'll know what that means. Are you Danish? Yeah. It means, excuse me, are you Danish? And they went, yeah, double take. They went, are you speaking Danish? I said, yeah. Why? That's priceless. Yeah. Yeah. I said, it's okay. Stays with me. But I've had that a few times 'cause I've got an ear for the languages.
[01:05:30] Byron: That's very funny. And I was in, um, we were in a, you must have to learn them that quick. Uh, yeah. We're in a costa in, um. Paddington, me and Amy, and there's these two young lads speaking Danish again. So I did the similar thing. I said, oh, I made it some ridiculous, you know, conversation. They could see them thinking, what's he on about?
[01:05:50] Byron: Then I spoke Danish and they were like, and they were footballers, actually, professionals.
[01:05:56] Oh
[01:05:57] Byron: yeah. And I said, I used to work for Echo. And they were like, because Denmark's a small country, it's 5 million people, so they're incredibly proud. Yeah. So whenever you said I worked for Echo, there was an, oh my God, echo.
[01:06:11] Byron: But with this conflict in Ukraine, echo wouldn't shut their Russian shops.
[01:06:18] James: Oh. So they've still got shops in Russia, so they've still got shops in Russia. So that's big, controversial, and the whole nation
[01:06:23] Byron: has turned against them. Oh, wow. Bizarre. Yeah, the whole nation in 18, so that's community.
[01:06:31] James: Then I guess.
[01:06:32] James: And then the community has decided to go in one direction. Echo is huge. Yeah.
[01:06:38] Byron: Yeah. But in Denmark, now that it's
[01:06:40] James: well known as a grid, like if you want good shoes.
[01:06:43] Byron: That's right. That's right. But in Denmark now if you say echo,
[01:06:49] James: so Frankie is the stuff I should have asked or you think I should follow up on?
[01:06:54] James: 'cause we could, we can do a couple of follow up questions if you want. Or while we've got Yeah, I think
[01:06:58] just for the safety, not six o'clock quite
[01:07:00] Byron: yet.
[01:07:00] Frankie: Um,
[01:07:02] Byron: I've heard that before for the benefit of the tape suspect is, so
[01:07:06] Frankie: if you, um, could just really explain very clearly like what the product itself is just so, and we can put it at the very beginning again.
[01:07:15] Frankie: So if you were going to like, go into a manufacturer and say like, it's this
[01:07:21] Byron: Ah, yeah. Yeah.
[01:07:22] Frankie: Okay. Um. And just so that they can kind of visualize it as well. So I
[01:07:27] James: should ask you, so what is micro fresh?
[01:07:29] Frankie: Yeah, yeah. Like what, what is the actual product? Yeah. How is it used? How do you sell it? Like got it. As a product.
[01:07:34] Frankie: Got it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[01:07:35] Okay. Alright. Um, Jane will ask question, was there anything else?
[01:07:40] Frankie: Is that, uh, yeah. And then just sort of, I, um, just a bit about like, um, at the beginning, um, talking about, you know, when you said like, about sustainability and textile waste and, and that, like what the causes of that are, like the, by reducing that, um, what impact is it gonna have?
[01:08:01] Frankie: Like, 'cause you don't really think about textile waste. You think about plastic and stuff like that. You do. That's right. You don't really think about textile waste. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
[01:08:10] James: Okay. Well, I'll ask you about Yeah, both of those. So, um, Barron, just for my benefit really, could, could you just explain what.
[01:08:19] James: Micro freshs is as a, as a product? Yeah. How it works, how, how people engage with it.
[01:08:25] Byron: Yeah, sure. So when I made the first micro freshs, that's a liquid that you spray. Um, and then when we got to other applications, so they, the, the, the manufacturers buy it is a liquid. We ship it from the UK to our overseas offices.
[01:08:39] Byron: We've got 16 all around the world. Then the manufacturers buy it locally. So you've got the liquid, you've got a concentrate that goes into textiles because that's a wet process when they're manufacturing. So you don't need all that water, basically. Mm-hmm. Uh, we then also have a powder version, a yeah.
[01:08:55] Byron: Powder version for powder codes onto metals and the pellet, which goes into plastics. So the four versions are a liquid, a concentrated liquid, a powder and a pellet. And
[01:09:08] James: this is all going into different manufacturing. That's right. Processes. That's
[01:09:11] Byron: right. To keep products fresh. That's right. So if it's plastic products that are non-porous, you would add the pellets, add the point of manufacture.
[01:09:19] Byron: So when you extrude the plastic, it's in the plastic
[01:09:22] James: and that stops sort bacteria, mold stop bacteria on things on the surface. That's right. On the surface. That's right. So it has a wide number of applications. And, and one of the important ones is obviously in fashion and clothes. Yeah. And, and we think a lot about plastic waste.
[01:09:39] James: It's come up on, on, on the podcast before, um, the problem with plastics. But there's also a problem with fabrics, isn't
[01:09:46] Byron: there? There is a problem. Yeah. Um, and the circular economy, if you go to any charity shop, there's a lot of clothing. So a lot of people take clothing or throw clothing away because it smells.
[01:09:57] Byron: So, oh, it wears out and it's, it's widely known that laundering wears fabrics. It just does. I mean, I saw the XEO of, um, pro and gamble on TV and he said, that's why we invented it. The two go hand in hand. So the less you launder, the longer the fabric lasts. You launder to clean fabrics, of course, clothing.
[01:10:18] Byron: I'm talking about bedding towels. So that's, that won't change, but you don't need to kill bacteria. If it's micro refreshed, so you don't need to go to the high temperatures. So you can actually cool. Wash at 20 or even 30. You don't need to go to 40 or 60.
[01:10:34] James: So that, that, that, that's if it's been micro refreshed, that manufactured.
[01:10:37] James: That's
[01:10:37] Byron: right. That's right.
[01:10:38] James: So you can, you can use it for
[01:10:39] Byron: longer and That's right. It's gonna last longer. That's right. You wash it lower temperature, it lasts longer, which means less go to landfill or well landfill and also to thrown away basically. So this is really good for sustainability. It's a proven, tangible sustainability benefit that's easily understood by the consumer.
[01:10:57] Byron: You don't need to kill bacteria. The only reason you wash it, the higher temperatures is to kill bacteria. 'cause you can get things clean at 30. Right. But in traditionally, people have washed at higher temperatures, even going back to boil wash. Sure. In the seventies, I think it was. But if you don't need to kill bacteria, all you need to do is remove the dirt.
[01:11:15] Byron: And that's done with gentle detergent and agitation. And it uses less power as well. A lot less power, less detergent, uh, less longer. And usually less water. Yeah. Well
[01:11:27] James: that's amazing. So it's sustainable in all sorts of different directions way it, it in
[01:11:30] Byron: that way. It's, it is. And I wanted to be a chemistry teacher because I thought chemistry is a bit of a, you know, pie in sky thing for a lot of kids.
[01:11:39] Byron: But one thing I've try and do with this business is to make it simple to understand. So micro, the micro fresh name has got symbol to understand tangible benefits, as I said. Uh, lower temperature, less water, less detergent, less energy. So fresh
[01:11:55] James: is easy to understand. Yeah. Micro means can't see it.
[01:11:59] James: Microscopic.
[01:11:59] Byron: Microscopic, yeah. So
[01:12:01] James: micro, fresh
[01:12:04] Byron: resh. We have a brand director that's ex and Saatchi. Right. Uh, he's on the board as I was telling you about, and everybody thinks he thought of the name 'cause it's such a cool name. But it was, I worked ATS and Saatchi once. Oh, did you? I'll claim it. You could claim it, but yeah, I be thought of it.
[01:12:19] Byron: I just thought it's clean and you can't see it. So micro fresh.
[01:12:23] James: Yeah. Yeah. It says what it does says what it does on the tin. That's, I mean, that's a, a good start in branding generally, isn't it?
[01:12:30] Byron: Yeah. And I know nothing about branding and I mean nothing. I just made it the name 'cause I thought it says what it does.
[01:12:37] Byron: And in time what's come round is it's proven to be a great easy to understand brand and next, when next first launch in 2011. The reason they wanted the name on the shoes was because they said, it just says what it is. So that was the tag that you were talking about? That's the swing tag. Yeah. Yeah. If it was, you know, Dixon anti-microbials, they'd have said, no, we don't wanna tag.
[01:12:57] Byron: 'cause somebody's got to then look at what that means. Yeah. Whereas Micro Freshs just says what it is.
[01:13:02] Will: Yeah. Brilliant.
[01:13:04] Byron: Okay.
[01:13:05] James: Thank you. Are you okay with that? That's brilliant. Yeah. Happy? Yeah. That's a good summary.
[01:13:12] James: We're rolling. Thank you, Byron, for joining me on all about business. I'm your host, James Reid, chairman and CEO of Reed. A family run recruitment and philanthropy company. If you'd like to find out more about Reed, Byron and Mike refresh, all links are in the show notes. Also, if you'd like to know how to switch your phone to black and white, which I've just done, and this is for an iPhone, go to settings, accessibility, display and text size, and switch color filters to on set yourself a challenge.
[01:13:48] James: And let me know how long you last in the black and white world in the comments. See you next time.
[01:13:54] Frankie: Yeah, that was good.
[01:13:55] James: Is that all right? Run
[01:13:55] Frankie: it through one. One more time. Slightly different. Now you know what you're saying.
[01:14:01] James: Thank you, Byron, for joining me on all about Business. I'm your host, James Reed, chairman and CEO of Reed, a family run recruitment and philanthropy company.
[01:14:11] James: If you'd like to find out more about Reed, Byron and Mike Refresh, all links are in the show notes. Also, if you'd like to know how to switch your iPhone to black and white, which I've just done, go to settings, accessibility, display and text size, and then switch color filters to on set yourself a challenge.
[01:14:32] James: Let me know how long you last in the black and white world in the comments. See you next time. Nice. Is that all right?
[01:14:42] James: Okay.
[01:14:46] James: Alright, ready to go. Rolling. More than 92 million tons of textile waste is produced globally every year, and mostly because bacteria is making our clothes stink. One British innovator found the fix and the world's biggest brands are buying in. Joining me today on all About business is Byron Dixon. The founder and CEO of Micro Fresh, an innovative.
[01:15:17] James: Joining me today on all about business is Byron Dixon, the founder and CEO of Micro Fresh, an innovative technology that eliminates the invisible mold growing on your clothes and furniture. In this episode, we discuss how the key to getting big brands to switch to your product, the steps. He, that's not right.
[01:15:39] James: We
[01:15:39] Frankie: discussed the key.
[01:15:40] James: It's got a how there, get rid of the how. I will. In this episode, we discuss the key to getting big brands to switch to your product, the steps he took to grow his customer base and what the UK can learn from the Scandinavians. Nice. Should I do it again? Run that. Run that through from the top.
[01:16:04] James: More than 92 million tons of textile waste is produced globally every year. And mostly because bacteria is making our clothes stink. One British inve, one British innovator, found the fix and the world's biggest brands are buying in. Joining me today on All About business is Byron Dixon, the founder and CEO of Micro Fresh, an innovative technology that eliminates the invisible mold growing on your clothes and furniture.
[01:16:39] James: In this episode, we discuss the key to getting big brands to switch to your product, the steps he took to grow his customer base and what the UK can learn from the Scandinavians. Yep. Is that all right? Yeah. Cool. Okay.
All about business is brought to you by Reed Global. Learn more at: https://www.reed.com
This podcast was co-produced by Reed Global and Flamingo Media. If you’d like to create a chart-topping podcast to elevate your brand, visithttps://www.Flamingo-media.co.uk