nookworkspace.com
The entrepreneurial journey told by two students
Story written by Erica Sabbah
Growing up, my father preferred giving me Richard Branson audiobooks to listen to rather than Dr Seuss books. Both my parents are entrepreneurs, so becoming one myself was a natural evolution, not necessarily a decision I made. Being brought up by two people who work for themselves, I’ve always seen entrepreneurship as a norm. When most little boys wanted to become firefighters, I was set on entrepreneurship, learning as much as possible about anything and everything. But then came the time to build up credibility in my career. I worked as a management consultant at Deloitte and did a Master of Commerce at the University of Sydney.Five or six years ago, I’d seen that my friend who was working at Atlassian had these awesome booths in at work. I told my manager about them as I wondered whether we could get them in our office at Deloitte. But they were too expensive. They were made in Scandinavia and were about $16,000 each. That’s when I knew that I had finally found the problem I wanted to solve. I told my friend Will about the booths, and we immediately got to work. We built prototypes in our garage and talked to potential prospective customers about their requirements. It wasn’t a grand strategy to begin with, it was more about resolving this one small problem. We identified a need for more of these booths within Australian offices, so we tried to make them at a more affordable price. That is how Nook was born. Over time, through talking to more customers and learning about the problems they face when buying office furniture, we discovered that the problem Nook is trying to resolve is part of a larger narrative in the Australian office furniture industry. Traditionally, office furniture in Australia has been sold between middlemen who all take a cut along the way. With Nook, we flipped that model on its head and cut the middlemen out. One of the greatest challenges I face as an entrepreneur is the constant stream of new ideas coming out of my brain every day. Whilst staying on track can sometimes be difficult, I know I’ve entered an industry with strong potential. The booth was the perfect entry product for Nook to get to know the market whilst enjoying strong margins, but my vision spreads much further than that. More to come shortly. Watch this space…
Story written by Jack Manley
Cast your mind back to primary school. For those of us who grew up in Australia, it likely elicits fond memories of fruit roll-ups, handball, and the repetitive drubbing of ‘no hat, no play.’ Whilst many of us at that age aspired to be doctors, astronauts, or fighter pilots, I was a little bit different. I was eager to run my own business, a journey I recently embarked upon, and one of which I hope my ten-year-old self would be proud. Although, he’d be more excited with a few more zeroes! Having been raised by entrepreneurs, “I have always seen it as the norm,” and with a father who nurtured my curiosity through Richard Branson audiobooks, it was hardly a surprise when I made the leap.
“I’d seen that my friend … had these awesome booths at Atlassian,” they were the software behemoth’s latest investment in productivity; Scandinavian sound-proof booths to increase focus. Working for Deloitte at the time I thought they’d be an ideal solution for our raucous office, but “our manager basically said, ‘no, they’re too expensive’”. My manager wasn’t being unreasonable though, costing in excess of $16,000 each, they constituted a significant investment; a price I attribute to the simple fact that in Australia, “a lot of the office furniture is sold between middlemen.” I began to realise, the whole office-supply industry was overpriced and underdelivering, and nobody seemed to care.
Sensing an opportunity, I approached my friend Will Chambers in 2019 with a simple proposition, “there’s a need for more of these booths within Australian offices, can we make [them]?” It was an ideal partnership, “I’m not as passionate about the logistics side of the business, but Will is, that’s what he’s really passionate about.” Whilst Nook’s booths, manufactured from recycled plastics and priced at $6,500, are a viable business, they are just the beginning; “the booth was always our beachhead market” in our ambition to shake-up the office-supply sector. We chose the booth because it was novel, had Nook entered the market with a desk or a chair we would have “gotten lost in a lot of the other stuff.” By selecting a niche and listening to our millennial market, we’ve built relationships we can leverage as we expand beyond the office. For Will and I, it comes to one motivator, “Officeworks is a $1.5 billion company. There’s no real competitors to it.” Yet.