KeepCup creator Abigail Forsyth on building a business around reusing (not recycling)| #480

Abigail Forsyth is the inventor of KeepCup, the world’s first Barista standard, reusable coffee cup … and she’s on a mission to stop us from disposing of one million coffee cups every minute … of every day! It’s a very reusable episode 480 of The (award-winning) Small Business Big Marketing Show thanks to American Express and digital marketing agency Yellow.

A little bit more about KeepCup creator Abigail Forsyth …

When Abigail Forsyth and her brother Jamie started a cafe business in Melbourne in 1998, disposable coffee cups were starting to become an environmental problem.

Now, as you’re about to hear, they’re a major problem.

And that’s where KeepCups step in. KeepCups are those reusable coffee cups you see people bring in to your local cafe. So instead of using a paper coffee cup that’s lined with plastic and thrown away the minute you’ve got your caffeine fix, KeepCups get used over and over.

They come in all shapes and sizes, colours and can even be personalised with your company branding.

Abigail joined me from her Fitzroy headquarters where we talked about:

• Why she chose to close the cafes and pursue the KeepCup idea
• How she used leading baristas as influencers before social influencers was even a thing
• How she handles the proliferation of copycats flooding the market
• How she’s created an environmentally responsible supply chain
• And plenty more

Here’s what caught my attention from my chat with KeepCup creator Abigail Forsyth

1. It’s probably time for us all to take a look at all aspects of our businesses and make changes that will benefit the environment – ideas could include getting all staff a branded KeepCup, going paperless, carpooling to meetings.
2. I love the personalisation option KeepCup offers. Personalisation of particular products is becoming more and more common as technology makes it easier and easier. Remember that interview with Lana Hopkins from Mon Purse?
3. I loved how Abigail used baristas to get the word out. If you’d like to learn more about social influencers then take a listen to the interview I did with Jules Lund who’s started an influencer agency called Tribe.

“In today’s conversation about single-use plastics and going plastic-free, too often plastics are all tarred with the same brush. It’s not plastic that’s the problem, it’s how we use it.”
– Abigail Forsyth,
KeepCup

Abigail Forsyth Interview Transcription

Tim 

Abigail welcome to the small business big marketing show. 

Abigail 

Thank you very much. 

Tim 

It is awesome to have you here. And I’m really looking forward to this conversation. To kick things off. Can you quantify the problem that KeepCup is helping solve?

Click Here To Download Full Transcription

Resources mentioned in episode 480 of The Small Business Big Marketing Show:

• KeepCup’s official website
• Last week’s interview with RadioHUB founder Cooper Silk
• Interviews I’ve done with other product inventors:
  • Flow Hive inventor Cedar Anderson
  • Round beach towel inventor Victoria Beattie
  • Golden croughnut inventor Phillip Kuoch

This week’s Monster Prize Draw winner

Renata Ogilvie of pSquared … a Perth-based boutique communications agency.

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