The kings of Castle (Street)
And the salaryman into celery, man
Cam Leigh, left, and Angus Syme on Castle St, Dunedin, on an overcast Wednesday morning. Photo: Hamish McNeilly/part-time weather dude
I had a few mates who were budding entrepreneurs when I was a student at Otago.
And by ‘budding entrepreneurs’ I mean, they were cannabis dealers.
These guys no longer deal, or even smoke cannabis, but their loans were certainly paid-off faster than most.
But the new generation of budding entrepreneurs are something else entirely.
Enter Angus Syme and Cam Leigh, both 22.
Just three years after starting their business in Dunedin, the two former Scarfies are eyeing a $1 million turnover.
The duo came-up with a business idea to supply beds to fellow students.
Their plan involved buying 30 second-hand beds from graduating students and reselling them to ‘‘all of our mates arriving here on Castle St the following year’’, Syme, a finance graduate, said.
For $200 those students about to go flatting for the first time would have a secondhand queen-sized bed delivered to their flat on the day they arrived in Dunedin.
‘‘We thought we were the kings of Castle,’’ Leigh, an accounting graduate, said.
The pair would test the beds and clean them-up, but quickly realised that original business idea was not scalable.
Angus Syme, left, and Cam Leigh. Photo: Supplied
Approached by other students while doing their deliveries, they began to look at the feasibility of supplying new beds, using $5000 from the secondhand bed enterprise to launch Flat Pack.
That led them to offshore suppliers where they sourced pocket-spring mattresses, which were compressed, vacuum-sealed and put in a box.
That was important because they could put 500 of those boxes into a single shipping container, making it easy to deliver to flats, alongside another box for the frames.
Flatpack Co, with a basic mattress and frame costing $699, was on its way.
‘‘It is the whole direct to consumer model, we barely have any overheads,’’ Syme said.
It also proved popular, selling 1200 products in the first-year-alone, followed by 1600 in the second-year, and now 2000 this year.
Angus Syme, left, and Cam Leigh. Photo: Supplied
While those first three years focused largely on selling beds to the student markets in Dunedin, Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland, now they wanted to change that up, Leigh said.
Over the last six months the duo, who graduated from Otago in 2021 and moved to Tauranga, had researched other age demographics, after experiencing a surge of interest in the 20-30 year-old bracket.
That was partially driven by former students, who had used the company while studying, and also their social media campaigns.
‘‘Now we are trying to build and move Flat Pack as a brand to this YoPro (young professional) space, and really target this bedroom furniture space,’’ Leigh said.
That meant the company, which started with them as university students, would be there when they went out flatting and entered the workspace.
‘‘We want to be the bedroom furniture company for 20 to 30 year olds,’’ Syme said.
It is a far cry from when the pair spit-balled the idea while at Cumberland College, a hall of residence.
Now their annual revenue was likely to hit the $1 million mark this year: ‘‘we are just trying to grow topline’’, Leigh said.
‘‘We’ve gone quickly from $5000 in the bank account to . . . more than that.’’
I was fortunate to spend three amazing years in Japan.
Among its many quirks was the adaptation of foreign words, with one my favourites being ‘salaryman’, (サラリーマン, sararīman) for a male white-collared worker who gets paid a ‘salary’.
In Dunedin we have our own version. Take a look.
Unedible but thief-proof celery. Photo: Hamish McNeilly’s Garden Show
I snapped these pictures a few months back, and finally got around to calling the man in the below picture: William Cockerill.
The man in the above picture: William Cockerill. Photo: Hamish McNeilly
Cockerill, a founder of Octa Project Management, said there used to be a gardening club connected with his building, the former National Bank on Princes St, and they were involved in putting in window boxes.
‘‘So I decided, because I do gardening, that I would plant flowers on the main street.’’
And he had, for decades.
While in the depths of a Dunedin winter it proved too difficult to grow flowers, he turned to something suitably stoic.
William Cockerill tends to his silverbeet. Photo: Me
‘‘I decided to grow vegetables.’’
But that wasn’t enough, Cockerill said.
He also needed to grow a hardy vegetable that was munter-proof (my words), as drunk people had a tendency to pull them up.
That tended to coincide with big rugby matches at the now defunct Carisbrook (another win for Forsyth Barr Stadium!!!).
One season he lost 17 silverbeet plants at the hands of drunken green-fingered revellers.
‘‘I never saw them around, so I never knew what the hell they did with them.’’
But celery, due to its root system, was a lot harder to pull-up, Cockerill said.
Was it edible though?
No, he said.
‘‘They are completely polluted.’’
He was tempted to leave a sign by the window boxes stating ‘‘if you cleaned the windows you wouldn’t eat the plants’’.
Cockerill said he received nice comments about the plants ‘‘from the most unlikely people’’.
‘‘Makes it worth it.’’
Indeed.
Now for the hotly contested Tweet of the Week and I’m giving it to my colleague Paul Cully with this gem.
Love it. I hope you got the front row seat, Paul.
Here is a recent video of paua and cray diving. I would love to do it but I’ve written too many stories about shark attacks in Dunedin to ever do this.
Looks amazing though.
And thanks again for reading this far. The Mish ticked over a special milestone this week, so something is working.
As always, please email me with any story ideas to hamish.mcneilly@stuff.co.nz.
Enjoy the song of the week while you write me that email.
It is No Time For Your Kind by The Bats, off the album Silverbeet. Thanks for the recommendation, Phil!