00:00:00
Speaker 1: G'day everyone, welcome to Conversations. Don't you love a story of redemption? Don't you love a story where somebody starts off young and they have a hard time, they're not particularly good at school, they get busted out of school several times and they make their way in the world with an uncertain future, but all of a sudden it clicks and they slowly build a company that becomes successful and multiplies and they end up employing lots of people. being very successful. And today's guest is one of those guys, Clayton Sheehan. He is the owner of Kick-Ass Products. Now, Kick-Ass sounds a bit crude, doesn't it? But that's the name of the company, Kick-Ass Products. Design, manufacture, engineer, premium power solar and camping equipment for people who love getting off the grid. And he's back in Australia for a little while. Clayton Sheehan, welcome to the program. How are you?
00:00:53
Speaker 2: Graeme, thanks for having me in. Great to be here in Adelaide.
00:00:56
Speaker 1: You're an Adelaide boy.
00:00:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, originally from Adelaide and grew up in Mount Barker and dad was in Plimpton. And so I spent my time traveling between both of those places.
00:01:06
Speaker 1: Where do you live these days?
00:01:08
Speaker 2: I live on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland and I spent about six to eight weeks there. And then also in Dongguan, China, which is near Shenzhen and Hong Kong.
00:01:19
Speaker 1: You tell me that I have to pronounce the name of the company Kick-Ass and you advertise with 5AA so people would hear the ads. Is that how you say it?
00:01:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, I say kick ass.
00:01:31
Speaker 1: With an enthusiastic inflection to it. So what do you do? I mentioned briefly what it is, but tell us about the company.
00:01:39
Speaker 2: So we specialize in really making people comfortable, I say. We supply power solutions for four-wheel drives, caravans, anyone who's going off-road and off-grid. And power is the center of the whole thing. Once you've got power, you can be comfortable. You can have lighting, air conditioner, refrigeration, which is important for the beers. And so you think about if we turn the power off here in the studio, everything would stop working. So that's what we do.
00:02:06
Speaker 1: It amazes me that you can do that. I know we've got solar power and it's been around for a long time, but you can actually get help. How long can you sustain yourself off grid?
00:02:17
Speaker 2: Well, until you have to come back and do another conversations with Cornsy, I'd say.
00:02:21
Speaker 1: Do you do it? Do you go off-grid yourself? Yeah, of course. Do you still go camping?
00:02:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course. Yeah, we get out, especially in Queensland, we get up to Fraser Island and we do trips with the team, a lot of campouts, and I still love it as much as when I first started.
00:02:35
Speaker 1: We'll come back to today, but we've got to go back to yesterday and the day before, this kid who didn't, as I read a bit of your bio, you didn't really fit. School wasn't for you. You got kicked out of school a few times. Is that partly mythical?
00:02:52
Speaker 2: Well, I had fun there. I think just the teachers might not have had as much fun with me, but no, certainly I was thrown out of most of the schools in Adelaide in the beginning.
00:03:02
Speaker 1: Well, let's examine that. What was your first school?
00:03:05
Speaker 2: Well, I think it started in kindergarten, actually. And that was up in Mount Pleasant. And mum always tells me that they were trying to calm me down. I had too much energy. And they put a boxing bag. And it was never violent. They installed that for me. And instead of boxing, I climbed up and pulled it down and rode it down, crashing to the ground.
00:03:24
Speaker 1: So Mount Pleasant, that's a beautiful part of the state. Is that where you grew up?
00:03:30
Speaker 2: Oh, just when I was young. Dad was a stockman with elders. And so I started there and then moved back to Mount Barker and went down to Mount Barker Primary School.
00:03:39
Speaker 1: So they identify that you've got too much energy when you're a kid. I guess it's ADH, Attention Deficit Disorder. Was it ever diagnosed as that?
00:03:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it was quite popular to be diagnosed as a disorder back in the time. I think these days now, you know, a lot of the young people want to be diagnosed. It's a cool thing. Would you believe it?
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Speaker 1: I understand that. But so did they... try to treat it in any way or handle it in any way?
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Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, back in the day, they put you on the dexamphetamines and that was never quite right. They're putting kids all the time on the tablets, trying to make them fit inside the box.
00:04:16
Speaker 1: And you had to take the tablets?
00:04:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I did it for a while, but it was never really much help. I think it's different things for different kids. I always say that if you're smart and you can look outside the box and you've got ADHD, then you have the ability to Use it as a superpower. And I think trying to medicate that is a mistake. I think some other kids, it might be helpful for them.
00:04:39
Speaker 1: I'm just not sure. I mean, it's so hard when you're in kindergarten, this is diagnosed, and you're moving to different schools. And in your words, you got kicked out of, I don't know, how many schools? When did they get kicked out? How did mum and dad handle that?
00:04:53
Speaker 2: Well, I think it was entertaining for them. I mean, I never was a fighter, never fought, never did anything like that. Actually, one of the stories I tell quite often was, You know, we had a teacher that was a little bit boring and I pulled apart one of those Christmas cards that would play happy birthday and took the electronics out of it and installed it in the drawer. And then every time they opened the drawer, it played happy birthday, couldn't work out where it was. And then out I went, rinse and repeat.
00:05:19
Speaker 1: Just because of that?
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Speaker 2: That and then, you know, on the way out, I had a calculator in the pencil case and I set the alarm for five minutes. So once I was outside... I knew that that would go, and then they'd have to find that.
00:05:31
Speaker 1: So what age do you pull apart like a Christmas card? How old were you then?
00:05:37
Speaker 2: I must have been like kind of 12 or 13 that I was doing that.
00:05:41
Speaker 1: So was an interest in electronics always present?
00:05:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you know, I didn't realize until I'd been thinking more about the story because I thought the Christmas card thing was just a prank. But then as I've thought more about it, I used to hang out at the Tandy Electronics store in Mount Barker. just hang out there and help customers. I didn't work there, but I'd be there. And I think it all really started with CB radios. I thought that listening to Dad's CB radio was amazing and all these voices coming through and how it worked and who they were.
00:06:09
Speaker 1: Dad had a CB radio? Yeah. Was it a truckie or was it?
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Speaker 2: No, he was up in Panola as a stock agent and I'd see the green lights kind of glowing in the dash and I could grab the microphone and ask for a radio check. And I got obsessed with it, you know, and then up at mum's house in Mount Barker, I started, you know, building antennas myself and the roof looked like a science experiment gone wrong and the neighbours would come over and tell mum, can you kids stop transmitting? We can't see the TV screen. It's all got squiggly lines through it. So I'd turn it down and then wait till they calmed down a bit and crank it all back up again.
00:06:43
Speaker 1: So you were like a ham radio operator.
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Speaker 2: I couldn't afford that back then. It was just an old 27 meg radio connected to an old car battery on a charger.
00:06:53
Speaker 1: And the antenna, was it like a transmitter? Am I right?
00:06:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, a big antenna that you could point in the direction that you were talking, but I'd made it out of aluminium. I mean, mum's house, these were gigantic antennas up in Mount Barker. And so it was quite an interesting house as people came.
00:07:10
Speaker 1: Past, that's for sure. But that's intriguing, man. How many kids are that smart? Were your friends interested? Did you have... you know, people who collaborated with you?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I used to have mates up the road. I mean, this is before, and I think a lot of people, you know, a lot of people probably listening to this will remember, but this is before there was online chatting and mobile phones. You'd get on the CB radio and you'd chat. And something that used to really amaze me is that when the weather was right, you'd be able to hear people coming in from Kangaroo Island or Norfolk Island or sometimes overseas. And so I used to sit up there trying to tune in.
00:07:44
Speaker 1: So it's like our age, people our age can remember CB Road, but they're normally a facility for truckies. Did you tune into the truckies as they're cruising along highways?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I did. And to be honest, I used to harass them a bit too. I used to sing songs about them and rile them up because I wanted someone to talk back. So I used to rile them up and get them a bit aggro and have a bit of fun with them.
00:08:08
Speaker 1: Get them aggro. Yeah. So you obviously like to make mischief.
00:08:14
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, 100%. That's why I ended up out of school. As I said, no fighting, just making mischief and having a bit of fun and probably constantly bored and looking for a challenge.
00:08:24
Speaker 1: I can't imagine. Normally kids get kicked out of school because they're violent. The teacher can't handle them anymore. But just being mischievous, sure, there must have had to be more than that. Are you downplaying that? No, no, not at all.
00:08:36
Speaker 2: Just constantly distracting the class. And to be honest, I mean, even in the office today, I'm the CEO and founder. But my exec team, you know, they make sure I don't have too many coffees before I come into the office because, you know, I come in there and create a hell of a hullabaloo when I come in and get everyone excited. And, you know, I kind of see it as I come in nowadays and I use it as a superpower. I get everyone excited, get them distracted, set the mission. But if I stay in the office for too long, no one gets anything done. And I guess that's what happened with the kids at school.
00:09:06
Speaker 1: Enthusiasm, though, is a much underrated quality. It's such a powerful weapon in any industry. So is that probably your strongest strength?
00:09:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I always think about it and I always look for it in staff, too, is relentlessness and resourcefulness. I think it's just that, relentlessness and, yeah, having too much energy, as they say.
00:09:27
Speaker 1: Clayton Sheehan is my guest, folks, the owner, founder of, I'm going to say it, Kick-Ass Products. I don't want to say it, but Kick-Ass Products. Here's my guest. It's a story yet to unfold. Back shortly. Welcome back, everybody. My guest on Conversation is Clayton Sheehan. Clayton's the founder of Kick-Ass Products. It's a company that designs, it engineers, it manufactures premium power, solar, camping. You can go off-grid with him. You can lose yourself if you like. And he sounds like a really smart guy. Well, he obviously is a really smart guy, but as a kid, he was very... distracted at school. He got kicked out of several schools. Your mum and dad broke up when you were young. How old was that? How did that impact on you?
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Speaker 2: I was around the age of three or four. I mean, in terms of impact, of course, I think for everybody it's difficult, and especially... For me, I mean, mum was very, very quiet and artistic and dad was quite out there, you know, so I was kind of then split between the two of them.
00:10:25
Speaker 1: Dad played a bit of footy.
00:10:27
Speaker 2: Dad played a bit of footy. That's right. Actually, I remember when he was in Panola, I used to crawl around under the bar and pick up all the coins that fell out of all the fellas' pockets and collect cans actually up there. Did you play yourself? No. It's a funny thing. And I'm ashamed to say it to you, but I actually don't follow sport at all. I try. It's amazing.
00:10:48
Speaker 1: Your dad played league footy. No, he played footy for Norwood. Did he play any league games?
00:10:52
Speaker 2: No, no.
00:10:53
Speaker 1: But he was at Norwood. You'd think it would flow down, wouldn't you?
00:10:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, much to his disappointment. I mean, I was right into music. And so he'd be listening to the cricket on the car stereo. And I'd be asking if he could put, you know, Happy to be Stuck With You by Huey Lewis, you know. And then when my son was born, I tried to force him to play piano. And no, he loves sport. So dad and him were up this morning. at 4 a.m. watching the soccer.
00:11:19
Speaker 1: You know, music is an important part of your life. And how did that develop and what influence was there that inspired you?
00:11:27
Speaker 2: Well, it was funny because one of my mates, we used to muck around with CBs together. His dad was a truck driver in Mount Barker and he had a heap of Kevin Bloody Wilson albums.
00:11:37
Speaker 1: Kevin Bloody Wilson. One of my great interviews, one of the great conversations, half of which we had to bleep out.
00:11:44
Speaker 2: And so we used to listen to that, and I thought it was a bit naughty at the time. So you'd kind of push the play and the record button and take a copy of that on a cassette. And so I grew up kind of thinking that he was hilarious and listening to his songs. And eventually, I think a really important part of this story is I ended up at a school in Adelaide, the end of the road for kids like me, called Bowdoin Brompton.
00:12:06
Speaker 1: I haven't heard of that school. When you say kids at the end of the road, what? What sort of kids are you talking about?
00:12:14
Speaker 2: Well, when you don't fit into school anymore, you have to go somewhere in Australia. You know, you can't finish school until I think you're 15 or 16. So Bowdoin Brompton was developed for kids. And I must say, you know, behaviorally much worse than me. I mean, I was just the king of distracting the class. And so I ended up there and one of my teachers, Chris Brandwood, he was the deputy principal at the time, played in bands in Melbourne and he was the music teacher and soon discovered that I had a talent for playing guitar and And I knew all the Kevin Bloody Wilson songs and he wanted to kind of step that up a little bit more. And yeah, so I started playing guitar and that's where the..
00:12:52
Speaker 1: Tell me he didn't let you play Kevin Bloody Wilson songs at school.
00:12:55
Speaker 2: Well, there's a funny story with that too because I was in the schoolyard and I was playing Kevin Bloody Wilson and the principal came over and she wasn't happy at all. She said, you can't be doing this here. And I was heading back to time out there.
00:13:08
Speaker 1: We should point out at this stage, if you haven't heard Kevin Bloody Wilson... The lyrics are about as obscene as you can possibly get. But I hesitate to say it. They're incredibly funny. So the principal comes over. She's a lady. Yeah. And hears the words and quite rightly said, look, this isn't appropriate for school.
00:13:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, she wasn't happy. But I was sitting there with Chris and he said, look, you're right. But, you know, this kid knows every single album from his first album and every song right through to his latest album. And so he gave me credit and supported me. And he's still in Adelaide. We have a wine together. from time to.
00:13:42
Speaker 1: Time so you what stage did you get to with your guitar playing.
00:13:48
Speaker 2: Well from there it was interesting because i was at the adelaide train station and there was a busker playing a bob dylan song and i only realized this recently that there was a transition from listening to the lyrics learning to listen to lyrics through kev songs now i'm listening to the bob dylan song so i started getting into bob dylan and paul kelly and all the singer songwriters.
00:14:08
Speaker 1: Um Bob Dylan wins a Nobel Prize for literature, basically. Yes. Because if you listen to his lyrics, I mean, you think, how on earth did he compose them? How did he assemble them? So you become a Bob Dylan fan or a..
00:14:21
Speaker 2: Massive Bob Dylan fan. I actually did a Bob Dylan tribute show when I was a kid. I did a Hank Williams tribute show. I did a Bob Dylan tribute show at the, I think it was the Highway Inn. And so, you know, I was putting all this stuff together then.
00:14:33
Speaker 1: At what age? 18. My gosh. Yeah.
00:14:36
Speaker 2: And had a band, a... Texas swing rockabilly band here as well called the Western Heirs so this whole music thing it saved me.
00:14:44
Speaker 1: At 18 years of age you're compiling and performing these tribute shows.
00:14:50
Speaker 2: Yeah I mean it I think it was you know all this energy that I had when I was young it just it wasn't directed anywhere I had nowhere to direct it and when I found music all of a sudden I had something to put all of the creativity and never-ending ideas into and yeah started bringing people together and the Bob Dylan thing I started making friends and I always had friends that are a lot older than even to this day most of my friends are 60 to 70 years old and um so I made a lot of friends through that and then we put it all together and said hey let's do a birthday bash for Bob Dylan and you know we filled the room we had about you know 80 or 90 people there and um yeah it was it was fantastic.
00:15:29
Speaker 1: Okay so you're putting on these tribute shows what happens next.
00:15:33
Speaker 2: Well, I walked into Tandy Electronics because I used to hang out in Mount Barker at the store up there. And I went in and asked if he had a job. And he said, we don't have anything going. And I said, well, can you give me your product manuals? I'll take them home and read them and I'll bring them back tomorrow. So then I just came and started serving customers and putting the products on the counter and telling the guys to process them. So I ended up working in Tandy and Gawler Place. And I realized..
00:15:56
Speaker 1: So were you getting paid at Mount..
00:15:59
Speaker 2: In Mount Barker, I was just a kid. I used to hang around and just be a little pest and help all the customers out. And then, you know, when I came down to Adelaide, because dad was in Plimpton, I used to do the same thing. And eventually I just started working there until they gave me a job, really. And I learned a lot about customer service and, you know, people would come in. If we didn't have it, I'd call the other store up the road and tell them to put it behind the counter. And so that's A lot of pranks and a lot of hilarious activities. And that kid in a candy shop there, I mean, he used to send a remote control car up the road with $ 5 attached to it to the local shop and send a meat pie back. And, you know, we're doing all these shenanigans.
00:16:39
Speaker 1: So where does it lead? I mean, I can't get the connection between this kid, this musician, and then someone overseas who all of a sudden starts his own business so when do you break out from the kid working at Tandy's.
00:16:55
Speaker 2: Well the bit about Tandy's was up the road from Gawler Place there was a car park and I used to after work take the guitar park there and I started busking in the Rundle Mallies to sit on the chairs and started out playing Bob Dylan and Kevin Songs and Paul Kelly and I was doing all right but I realized this is where the brain that I have could help out and I started making up songs about people so when people would walk past I'd sing about their hat or their beard or make up a song about this and that. And the money started flowing in and my accounting method was how heavy my pockets were. And so I used to go busking in the mall and working in Tandy's.
00:17:31
Speaker 1: So you can make up a song about somebody walking past.
00:17:34
Speaker 2: A hundred percent. And I did that. And, um, and then I started a music night up in, and this is actually where the business thing all kicked in. So I'm busking and I'm up in Sterling playing out the front of the Woolworths and in Rundle Mall working in Tandy's.
00:17:47
Speaker 1: So how much a week would you earn busking?
00:17:50
Speaker 2: I'd probably, I'd normally just go out on the weekends. I found that when people were coming down from Rundle Street through Rundle Mall to Hindley, that was the best time of the night. So I'd turn up in the end at about 11. And they'd just start emptying their wallets on their way through to Hindley. This is before credit cards. People had cash. And, you know, I could make $ 200, $ 300, $ 500 a night, and a lot of girls would throw their phone numbers in the guitar case at the same time.
00:18:17
Speaker 1: Well, that's the job. We need to take a break. Clayton Sheehan is my guest, folks. It's got nothing to do with his business that he runs so successfully at the moment, Kick-Ass Products. We'll get to that after the break, back shortly. Welcome back to Conversations, everybody. Look, if you just tuned in, we're having a lot of fun in the studio with Clayton Sheehan. Clayton is the founder and the owner of Kick-Ass Products, a company that manufactures and sells power, solar, camping equipment for those people who like to get off grids. But it's an interesting story because he was a kid with ADHA who was probably never diagnosed and had a love of music and taught himself to play guitar, then worked free in Tandy's Electronics. He got a job in Tandy's Electronics and then would busk in the Rundle Mall. Sounds like a lot of fun, but there's not a lot of future in it, is it? So what's the next step for you? Because we're still a mile away from owning this company, which is now so big.
00:19:18
Speaker 2: Well, I end up running a big music night at the Albert Mill Restaurant, up in the Adelaide Hills. I started getting my kind of business. I realized I could put things together. And so we put a show on at a fine dining restaurant up in the Adelaide Hills. And you could pass a bottle around and you could do a song or you could do a poem or you could do whatever you want. And we ended up packing that out on a Wednesday night. And we did that and had a lot of fun up there. The characters, and we know in Adelaide, all the different characters.
00:19:43
Speaker 1: Why never heard of it? Why would I have never heard of it? Was it well known?
00:19:47
Speaker 2: Maybe you were there in such a good time you forgot.
00:19:51
Speaker 1: You wouldn't think that we didn't think to go to nan for a night out though you know on a wednesday night must have been local surely.
00:19:57
Speaker 2: Well the story was that that i asked the owner what his quietest night was i said no point making it busier on a busy night and we had the place filled people were coming from all over all over south australia actually up there and then As all Adelaide boys do, I'd never been out of Adelaide. So it was time to move on. And where do you go? You go a long way away to Melbourne.
00:20:18
Speaker 1: You went to Melbourne.
00:20:20
Speaker 2: And so.
00:20:21
Speaker 1: Picked up the car or?
00:20:23
Speaker 2: Patched up the, sorry, picked up the Mitsubishi Magna and off I went with the guitar in the back and ended up working in the Telstra store. But once again. Fitzroy Street in St Kilda out the front of the 7-Eleven with the guitar was a lot more profitable than working anywhere.
00:20:40
Speaker 1: So you just pick up and busk.
00:20:42
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:20:42
Speaker 1: It's as simple as that.
00:20:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, met a friend at a party and we'd go there out the front of the nightclub and there'd be fights out the front and people would be coming out at night, you know, the girls freezing in the middle of winter and we'd be singing about them all. But I mean, as you know, in Melbourne, the winter kicks in and it gets a bit miserable. So it was time to leave.
00:21:01
Speaker 1: And where'd you go then?
00:21:02
Speaker 2: Back to Adelaide. And we stopped in Mount Barker. We had the old Magna. There was a place out in, it was like a salvage yard. And we bought two big pickle drums that they'd make pickles in, put them on the roof rack and cut the end off one of them, put two swags in them. And then we head across to Nullarbor.
00:21:20
Speaker 1: To do what?
00:21:21
Speaker 2: Well, we decided if we could busk out the front of the, at the 7-Eleven, we could stop at the pub and talk to the public and say, hey, mate, listen, can we put a hat around? And if you think we've made it worth the night, put a bit of money in and, that turned into a, this is how much we want and a room. And then we were getting referred on and the trip across around Australia kind of began in the Magna with the swags on top.
00:21:43
Speaker 1: So where did the inspiration for your company kick in?
00:21:47
Speaker 2: It wasn't very comfortable in the swags and you know, the 12 volt background, I went to the camping stores and I remember it was hot and I saw a 12 volt refrigerator. I'll never be able to afford something like this.
00:21:59
Speaker 1: But like a, One you put in the car, fridge you put in the car.
00:22:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, fridge you put in the car. And so I was kind of looked at that and looked at how all the battery systems worked. And I thought, okay, this is interesting.
00:22:10
Speaker 1: Why was it interesting?
00:22:12
Speaker 2: Well, I just, with the batteries connected to the CB radios before the battery could power the old CB that I was playing around with. But now it can power a fridge and power lights and a fan and all these different things when we were traveling around. But at the time I couldn't afford them. So that was more of just a seed that it planted in my mind. Yeah. And so as we stopped at that shop and then we went traveling around, we ended up in Monkey Mire up in Darwin and playing in the casinos and the nightclubs up there, put a band together, call it undercover.
00:22:43
Speaker 1: You rock into town and you put a band together. It's not as simple as that.
00:22:48
Speaker 2: Well, we went, actually, along the way, we stopped at Kalgoorlie and we decided I'd just go to the newspaper and make a big story about ourselves. I mean, we were just buskers, but, you know, Melbourne duo hits town and went to the Kalgoorlie newspaper and got gigs all over the place.
00:23:01
Speaker 1: So the newspaper wrote an article about you? Yeah, yeah.
00:23:05
Speaker 2: And so I kind of did that. And then when we were heading across from Kalgoorlie, the Magna hit a washout. and you know, the swag went flying and all the rest of the stuff that we, the PVC pipe with the fishing rods that all went flying. And we bought an old FJ45 Land Cruiser, affectionately named Charlie and actually named my son after him in the end. And we, we drove that up, up, up, up north, up the West coast and broke down along the way. And that's how I started getting into the four wheel drives actually. And, And fixing that thing up every time we stopped, the power steering broke or the alternator failed or a myriad of other things.
00:23:47
Speaker 1: Did you fix it or did you need to get the Toyota specialist to do it?
00:23:51
Speaker 2: Well, I didn't know anything about cars, so I had to work it out. I used to have to go into the automotive shops and buy the books and everything you need to know. So I'd pull it apart and fix it and needed more money. I'd go busking and get a few more gigs. So we'd be stuck in town for a while and meet a few characters. And when we made enough and fixed it off, then we went across the Gibb River Road and then eventually ended up in Darwin.
00:24:15
Speaker 1: But you still haven't told me the inspiration for the company, the next step, perhaps, of establishing the company.
00:24:23
Speaker 2: Well, that happens kind of next. So I have a backpacker that I meet along the way, Maggie.
00:24:29
Speaker 1: Maggie.
00:24:30
Speaker 2: Maggie.
00:24:31
Speaker 1: Rod Stewart wrote a song about Maggie.
00:24:34
Speaker 2: Wake up, Maggie.
00:24:35
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:24:37
Speaker 2: And so she ended up on the tour and in Darwin, and she went back to Germany. I was going to go see her, but then I got the phone call. Hello, Daddy.
00:24:47
Speaker 1: Hello, Daddy.
00:24:48
Speaker 2: She was saying, you're a daddy. I'm pregnant.
00:24:51
Speaker 1: Maggie's pregnant.
00:24:52
Speaker 2: Maggie was pregnant then, yes.
00:24:54
Speaker 1: She's back in Germany.
00:24:55
Speaker 2: She's gone back to Germany, and I was going to visit her anyway, but I'm definitely going to visit her now.
00:24:59
Speaker 1: So Maggie rings you and said, you're going to be a father.
00:25:03
Speaker 2: Correct.
00:25:03
Speaker 1: What's the emotion like then?
00:25:06
Speaker 2: I better do a good job of this. And yeah, so I stayed another month and made a little bit more money to support myself. And off to Germany I went and didn't speak any German. Her whole family only spoke German.
00:25:20
Speaker 1: So what's the reaction from her family? She comes home, she's pregnant with your child and you're effectively just a busker who bums around Australia. What sort of reception did you get from her mum and dad?
00:25:31
Speaker 2: I think when I dug up their front yard and planted a veggie garden and went and bought a blow-up pool and installed it in their backyard, they were a bit shocked at first, actually. Look, we had a lot of fun. They were traditional German parents, but in the end, they're in the swimming pool in the backyard and- Eating the vegetables. And eating the vegetables. And I dragged the couch out the back and the neighbors were over, so- We have a very close relationship to this day.
00:26:01
Speaker 1: What sort of vegetables did you plant?
00:26:03
Speaker 2: Anything that would grow huge. It was all a very formal garden, and I thought I'd just grow huge zucchinis and pumpkins. It was Germany, so I'd just mess with the neighbours.
00:26:13
Speaker 1: But you're still no closer to establishing your company.
00:26:16
Speaker 2: There was a bit that happened before it. So what happened next was it was winter, and I'm sitting down in the cellar and drinking the hefeweizen wheat beers. And starting to play was the early days of eBay. And eBay was an auction website back then. And I was buying stuff for the old FJ45 because that ended up back at mum's house in Mount Barker. So I was hoping that at some point we're going to come back and jump in.
00:26:46
Speaker 1: So you're in what part of Germany? What city?
00:26:49
Speaker 2: It was near Heidelberg, a little town called Speyer.
00:26:52
Speaker 1: Okay. So mum's back in... Mount Barker.
00:26:56
Speaker 2: Mum's back in Mount Barker with Charlie the cruiser.
00:26:59
Speaker 1: The broken down cruiser. So you're buying stuff for that and sending it home to mum. Yeah.
00:27:03
Speaker 2: So at night I'm staying up and I'm finding this and that and sending it back and, you know, filling mum's house up because, you know, I'm starting to, I put together another Bob Dylan tribute show actually in Germany that goes better than expected.
00:27:17
Speaker 1: It's better than expected.
00:27:18
Speaker 2: Much better than expected. I mean, all the people that loved Dylan were lawyers and doctors. And so I'd get invited back to their corporate functions. And I was learning German at the time. So I'd be funny in German. And so when I came home, that's when I'd sit on the computer and buy all these bits and pieces and send them back to mum's. And so it all really started. I was always obviously a computer geek. I love computers and found it all fascinating. And there was a hot water heat exchanger. that used the hot water from the engine to make a shower. And an old bloke in Queensland made it. So I called him up and said, mate, would you mind if I put this on eBay for you? I'll handle the customer service 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You just ship them to the customers. And he said, righto, that sounds fair. And I woke up the next morning. I stayed up for about nine hours listing it on eBay and rewriting all the description. And I'd sold five by the time I'd woken up.
00:28:11
Speaker 1: So what percentage of that did you get?
00:28:14
Speaker 2: He sold them for $ 267. 50 shipped to any customer in Australia, and I sold them for $ 356.
00:28:23
Speaker 1: Okay. You had to buy them for that price? Well, he just paid you the difference.
00:28:27
Speaker 2: It was drop shipping, so I'd send him the order, he'd send it to the customer, and then after we'd shipped out about 10 of them, I'd pay him for them. So no stock, just customer service.
00:28:38
Speaker 1: We need to take a break because bigger things happen. Clayton Sheehan is my guest, folks. The company's called Kick-Ass. Yes, I said it. I didn't want to say it, but it's called Kick-Ass. It's been called other things. Kick-A-double-five. Was it not at one stage?
00:28:52
Speaker 2: Well, actually, it actually started out called Australian Direct. Kick-Ass came later. So I needed a business name then, and we called it Australian Direct.
00:29:01
Speaker 1: We'll take a break. We'll cover that when we come back. Back shortly, folks. My guest on Conversations today is Clayton Sheehan. Clayton is the owner, I guess, managing director of Kick-Ass Products. It's a company that sells solar and camping gear. And you've got to listen from the start because it's an intriguing story of someone with obviously an entrepreneurial mind. He meets his backpacker in Australia. She goes home, rings him later and says, I'm pregnant. He moves to Germany. You learn to speak German. How do you do that?
00:29:33
Speaker 2: I was in a shop and there was a Learn German 30 CD set back when CDs were around. So I'd listened to the 30 CDs and within about four weeks I was speaking German.
00:29:46
Speaker 1: Can you still speak German?
00:29:47
Speaker 2: Ich kann jetzt sehr gut Deutsch sprechen.
00:29:51
Speaker 1: There must be something about your brain that's wired differently to mine. But anyway, so this bloke selling, what were they? hot water services out of a..
00:30:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was called a heat exchanger. So it made hot water from the vehicle's coolant system.
00:30:07
Speaker 1: So he sells them for $ 250. You ring him and say, look, can I sell some? You sell them for $ 350 effectively and you're selling them successfully. Why were you successful and he wasn't?
00:30:18
Speaker 2: Well, and I think this comes out in the story of how Kick-Ass evolved because every time a customer called me, if the product description on the website didn't have the information, I'd add it straight away. You could call me 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So if somebody sends an email in, I just call them straight away. And, um, and I got excited. I got excited. And, um, then we came back.
00:30:43
Speaker 1: Someone rang you.
00:30:43
Speaker 2: I just got excited that all of a sudden I've gone from busking to ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching. And I was loving talking to the customers too. Cause remember I was in Germany and, you know, it'd be good. Hey mate, I'm heading around the Kimberleys and I'm, you know, and, and cause it, Because I took calls all the time. A lot of them have a few drinks and we'd have a chat and then I'd sell them, you know, more and more.
00:31:05
Speaker 1: But you're still selling something that somebody else is making, aren't you?
00:31:08
Speaker 2: Correct.
00:31:08
Speaker 1: So you're just an agent. Is that effectively it?
00:31:11
Speaker 2: That's right.
00:31:12
Speaker 1: When does it become your company? When do you start manufacturing yourself and how do you do that? How do you go about that?
00:31:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, we start off the heat exchanges and then I fly up to the Sunshine Coast and do ever cool fridges. And he said, mate, look, we can't deal with online people. So I flew up anyway and told him I was there to see him. He said, I told you that we... And I said, well, while I'm here, let's do a video. So he became one of the biggest sellers of the Evercool fridges in Queensland.
00:31:37
Speaker 1: So he didn't want you to sell them online, basically.
00:31:40
Speaker 2: Well, he was concerned for his dealer network and trying to do the right thing by them. But I said, look, I've come all the way here. You can at least let me do a video. And I'd rehearsed it like I did with the Tandy manuals. And he was blown away and he goes, right, I'll give you a shot. So we're selling the fridges and we're selling the heat exchanges and we're working together with a lot of other Australian companies. But what was happening is I was taking the phone calls. There was a picture on the website of an old gum tree with a phone box saying, call us 24-7. And I was talking to the customers and then I was calling the suppliers and going, listen, we need to change this. We need to do that. And they'd say, thanks, mate. We'll have a think about that.
00:32:16
Speaker 1: Thanks, but no thanks.
00:32:18
Speaker 2: And I decided I need to make products that are better. I need to take this feedback and turn it into something. and I need to make products that, you say it.
00:32:27
Speaker 1: Kick-ass. Exactly. I didn't want to say it. Folks, if you look up the definition of kick-ass and AI, it pretty much says that's what it is. So now you've got to go about manufacturing. Do you have to go to the design? You've got to design. You've got to source products. You've got to manufacture. So which was the product you started with first?
00:32:53
Speaker 2: It was a folding solar panel. We were selling these. You take a solar panel that had a hinge in the middle and you'd fold it out and put it in the sun. But the ones I was selling at the time, the zip would break off and the hinges would snap and everything, trying to keep the cost down. So I put a backpack on and headed over to China and put every nut, bolt, zip, bag, But how.
00:33:16
Speaker 1: Do you do that? I mean, where do you know whereabouts in China you go? Who do you speak to? How are you received? You can't speak Chinese. Maybe you can.
00:33:28
Speaker 2: I can now, actually. Just relentlessness. I just turned up. I had no idea, but I had a mission.
00:33:36
Speaker 1: Which city did you fly into?
00:33:37
Speaker 2: Qingdao, which is famous for the beer. And I flew in.
00:33:41
Speaker 1: Why? You didn't pick it because of the beer. Is it a manufacturing center or a?
00:33:46
Speaker 2: Back then, you'd look online, you'd find a supplier, and I found a supplier up there to work with. Very, very green, didn't know what I was doing. But I turned up, and luckily she, Cathy, worked together with her father, and she was in sales. And I just said, look, we need to go and visit the hardware stores. We need to find the stainless steel hinges. We don't want rust. And we went to the bag manufacturer.
00:34:08
Speaker 1: So you're asking them to manufacture this product to your specifications?
00:34:11
Speaker 2: Yes, to my specifications.
00:34:13
Speaker 1: And how long did that take?
00:34:15
Speaker 2: I was there for about... two or three weeks, and I was watching the entire process from start to finish. And when I was finished, I was very proud. I mean, it made it easier then to make a video about a product because we were the first to put videos into eBay. Before that, it was only text. So you could actually watch a video. It'd be, hi, it's Clayton, and I'd like to show you our solar panel. And because I designed it, I was passionate about it and knew it intricately. And so people would really, I feel like, connect.
00:34:41
Speaker 1: How do you go into business with people who speak a foreign language? Obviously, you The daughter, Kathy, did you say her name?
00:34:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
00:34:48
Speaker 1: She spoke English?
00:34:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, she spoke English, yes. So I worked together with her very closely.
00:34:54
Speaker 1: So it goes from solar panels to what?
00:34:56
Speaker 2: Solar panels, and then we started getting into our own range of batteries, and then we designed our own fridge. So I actually went over there. We were making the camping fridge. So I went over there and designed the fridges, and the same thing. I'd been selling them, and I'd been listening to what the customers were saying.
00:35:11
Speaker 1: But you hadn't been selling your product, had you?
00:35:13
Speaker 2: No, we were selling other people's products. But I was getting frustrated, right? Because the customers are telling me all this stuff. And, you know, a lot of businesses are disconnected from the customer, but I was taking the calls. And then I'm designing the products around the feedback of the customers. So, you know, I remember being in the factory with a dB meter, measuring the sound of the fan, knowing that at nighttime people need to sleep and, you know, just really taking attention to all the details. And then I'd make a video about why I made the fridge.
00:35:39
Speaker 1: That's amazing. And how did your price compare to a competitor?
00:35:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, we were super competitive because we were online. It was a lot of bricks and mortar back then. I mean, e-commerce was coming up. I think a lot of people in the camping and four-wheel drive industry were not so much tech head geeks like me. So I kind of had this cross between being a..
00:35:59
Speaker 1: But your product's not really known. How did you gain the confidence of a potential client?
00:36:06
Speaker 2: Well, that's a great question because one of the biggest things that I did was I made a video that was an hour long called the ultimate dual battery system video. And back when 12 volt was done by, you know, automotive electricians and it was like this kind of mystic art of how to get this system installed in your four wheel drive. I taught the customers absolutely everything I knew about the battery systems and the fridges and told them how to do it all. And that's when it all changed. They started calling saying, we've watched your video. I couldn't believe it. It was an hour long. We've watched your video and we want this, this, this, this and this.
00:36:41
Speaker 1: The factory that's making your products in Qingdao is making all of these and doing them to your specifications.
00:36:48
Speaker 2: Correct.
00:36:49
Speaker 1: So there's always a bit of scepticism about Chinese products. How did you ensure the quality is what it should be?
00:36:58
Speaker 2: I was there all the time. and working very closely with the suppliers. And I think something very important to say is I met my wife, Ella. We've got a beautiful daughter together, who's four. She was a sales manager, and she always tells the story of when I went in there, I wanted a product. And she said, look, the product functions really well. And I said, yeah, but it's ugly. And she said, well, yeah, but it works well. And I said, well, if you had the choice between an ugly product husband and a good looking one, which one would you choose? And she said, fair enough.
00:37:28
Speaker 1: I went for the ugly ones.
00:37:30
Speaker 2: Oh, she chucked me.
00:37:32
Speaker 1: You've introduced Ella. What happened to Maggie, your German girlfriend?
00:37:35
Speaker 2: Well, so Maggie and I, you know, I was a bit younger then and, you know, we didn't work out. But here's the interesting thing. We're all amazing friends. I was just in Bali with Maggie, her father, mother, my son, my wife from China, Ella's mum and dad. And my daughter. And I had both the dads in bintang shirts. So happy family.
00:38:00
Speaker 1: It sounds like it. And your son from, is your son living in Germany or?
00:38:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, my son lived a little bit in Germany. He's actually in Adelaide at the moment. And he's studying in Hong Kong doing business finance and admin. So he's like a non-square head finance bro, I'd like to say.
00:38:16
Speaker 1: Okay. So obviously you can't always rely on other people manufacturing it. You manufacture yourself nowadays. So what was the quantum leap to do that?
00:38:27
Speaker 2: Well, you asked the question earlier about China and people's perceptions on China. And you need to be on the ground. China's an amazing place. It's the leader in technology. Tim Cook from Apple says, we're not there because it's cheap. We're there because this is where the engineers and the technology is. And so I decided we needed to be there. So we opened our sourcing development where we design and develop. our office doing all of that, and now we have a factory. We actually assemble our own battery packs in our factory. We've got about 65 staff in China now.
00:39:01
Speaker 1: You employ Chinese staff?
00:39:03
Speaker 2: Yes, wholly foreign-owned.
00:39:04
Speaker 1: Amazing.
00:39:05
Speaker 2: And that gives us control.
00:39:07
Speaker 1: Is it difficult to do? Do you have much interference from government?
00:39:11
Speaker 2: Surprisingly, not at all. In fact, the government came and gave us $ 10, 000 the other day because we're doing a great job in employing people. So there you have it. And so it's fast, it's fast moving. And for me, the pace is amazing. We can come up with ideas, we can ideate, we can create, we can test them, we can make it all happen.
00:39:31
Speaker 1: So look, as we're speaking in July, 2026, you've just opened your store in Adelaide. So tell us how many, which, which number store is that?
00:39:40
Speaker 2: So Adelaide is the 11th store and it's super special that it's in my hometown. It actually from Busker to coming back here and opening a store. And if you go there, by the way, there's a, I've put a Chesterfield couch there for, it's called, after my dad Rambo, you can sit on the couch and find him there. So we've opened our 11th store and we're rolling out a lot more now with the factory in China, designing, developing and manufacturing, 150 staff in Australia and growing. And actually it was so touching for me when I turned up at the opening on Saturday, it was just the 18th, it just passed. And we had a line going for miles.
00:40:15
Speaker 1: I couldn't even- People waiting to get in.
00:40:17
Speaker 2: I couldn't believe it. Couldn't believe it. Actually, I teared up a little bit, to be honest, just a little one, but to go, wow.
00:40:23
Speaker 1: You still play guitar?
00:40:24
Speaker 2: I do. I do. Most often around a campfire these days.
00:40:30
Speaker 1: So what's next?
00:40:31
Speaker 2: Well, next is just to keep going where I'm actually flying directly. There's flights to Guangzhou now, straight out of Adelaide. So we're going to fly over to Guangzhou. We're meeting a customer from Germany. The products that we design and develop now, we're also working with other brands and And we do all the back of house designing and development. So we're meeting them and growing internationally, rolling out more stores in Australia and kicking ass.
00:40:54
Speaker 1: It is a great story, Clayton. Just this kid who couldn't hold down a spot in school. He kept getting kicked out of school, backpacked around Australia, busked everywhere around Australia. And now owns this company, which is progressing so dramatically. And I'll say the name. I don't want to say it, but you say it. It's Kick-Ass Products. Yeah. Clayton Sheehan, thank you so much for joining us.
00:41:17
Speaker 2: Cornsy, I've got to say you're a pretty kick-ass bloke, mate. It means better than average. Well, thank you very much.
00:41:26
Speaker 1: Clayton Sheehan was my guest, folks. Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 1: G'day everyone, welcome to Conversations. Don't you love a story of redemption? Don't you love a story where somebody starts off young and they have a hard time, they're not particularly good at school, they get busted out of school several times and they make their way in the world with an uncertain future, but all of a sudden it clicks and they slowly build a company that becomes successful and multiplies and they end up employing lots of people. being very successful. And today's guest is one of those guys, Clayton Sheehan. He is the owner of Kick-Ass Products. Now, Kick-Ass sounds a bit crude, doesn't it? But that's the name of the company, Kick-Ass Products. Design, manufacture, engineer, premium power solar and camping equipment for people who love getting off the grid. And he's back in Australia for a little while. Clayton Sheehan, welcome to the program. How are you?
00:00:53
Speaker 2: Graeme, thanks for having me in. Great to be here in Adelaide.
00:00:56
Speaker 1: You're an Adelaide boy.
00:00:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, originally from Adelaide and grew up in Mount Barker and dad was in Plimpton. And so I spent my time traveling between both of those places.
00:01:06
Speaker 1: Where do you live these days?
00:01:08
Speaker 2: I live on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland and I spent about six to eight weeks there. And then also in Dongguan, China, which is near Shenzhen and Hong Kong.
00:01:19
Speaker 1: You tell me that I have to pronounce the name of the company Kick-Ass and you advertise with 5AA so people would hear the ads. Is that how you say it?
00:01:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, I say kick ass.
00:01:31
Speaker 1: With an enthusiastic inflection to it. So what do you do? I mentioned briefly what it is, but tell us about the company.
00:01:39
Speaker 2: So we specialize in really making people comfortable, I say. We supply power solutions for four-wheel drives, caravans, anyone who's going off-road and off-grid. And power is the center of the whole thing. Once you've got power, you can be comfortable. You can have lighting, air conditioner, refrigeration, which is important for the beers. And so you think about if we turn the power off here in the studio, everything would stop working. So that's what we do.
00:02:06
Speaker 1: It amazes me that you can do that. I know we've got solar power and it's been around for a long time, but you can actually get help. How long can you sustain yourself off grid?
00:02:17
Speaker 2: Well, until you have to come back and do another conversations with Cornsy, I'd say.
00:02:21
Speaker 1: Do you do it? Do you go off-grid yourself? Yeah, of course. Do you still go camping?
00:02:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course. Yeah, we get out, especially in Queensland, we get up to Fraser Island and we do trips with the team, a lot of campouts, and I still love it as much as when I first started.
00:02:35
Speaker 1: We'll come back to today, but we've got to go back to yesterday and the day before, this kid who didn't, as I read a bit of your bio, you didn't really fit. School wasn't for you. You got kicked out of school a few times. Is that partly mythical?
00:02:52
Speaker 2: Well, I had fun there. I think just the teachers might not have had as much fun with me, but no, certainly I was thrown out of most of the schools in Adelaide in the beginning.
00:03:02
Speaker 1: Well, let's examine that. What was your first school?
00:03:05
Speaker 2: Well, I think it started in kindergarten, actually. And that was up in Mount Pleasant. And mum always tells me that they were trying to calm me down. I had too much energy. And they put a boxing bag. And it was never violent. They installed that for me. And instead of boxing, I climbed up and pulled it down and rode it down, crashing to the ground.
00:03:24
Speaker 1: So Mount Pleasant, that's a beautiful part of the state. Is that where you grew up?
00:03:30
Speaker 2: Oh, just when I was young. Dad was a stockman with elders. And so I started there and then moved back to Mount Barker and went down to Mount Barker Primary School.
00:03:39
Speaker 1: So they identify that you've got too much energy when you're a kid. I guess it's ADH, Attention Deficit Disorder. Was it ever diagnosed as that?
00:03:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it was quite popular to be diagnosed as a disorder back in the time. I think these days now, you know, a lot of the young people want to be diagnosed. It's a cool thing. Would you believe it?
00:04:00
Speaker 1: I understand that. But so did they... try to treat it in any way or handle it in any way?
00:04:06
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, back in the day, they put you on the dexamphetamines and that was never quite right. They're putting kids all the time on the tablets, trying to make them fit inside the box.
00:04:16
Speaker 1: And you had to take the tablets?
00:04:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I did it for a while, but it was never really much help. I think it's different things for different kids. I always say that if you're smart and you can look outside the box and you've got ADHD, then you have the ability to Use it as a superpower. And I think trying to medicate that is a mistake. I think some other kids, it might be helpful for them.
00:04:39
Speaker 1: I'm just not sure. I mean, it's so hard when you're in kindergarten, this is diagnosed, and you're moving to different schools. And in your words, you got kicked out of, I don't know, how many schools? When did they get kicked out? How did mum and dad handle that?
00:04:53
Speaker 2: Well, I think it was entertaining for them. I mean, I never was a fighter, never fought, never did anything like that. Actually, one of the stories I tell quite often was, You know, we had a teacher that was a little bit boring and I pulled apart one of those Christmas cards that would play happy birthday and took the electronics out of it and installed it in the drawer. And then every time they opened the drawer, it played happy birthday, couldn't work out where it was. And then out I went, rinse and repeat.
00:05:19
Speaker 1: Just because of that?
00:05:20
Speaker 2: That and then, you know, on the way out, I had a calculator in the pencil case and I set the alarm for five minutes. So once I was outside... I knew that that would go, and then they'd have to find that.
00:05:31
Speaker 1: So what age do you pull apart like a Christmas card? How old were you then?
00:05:37
Speaker 2: I must have been like kind of 12 or 13 that I was doing that.
00:05:41
Speaker 1: So was an interest in electronics always present?
00:05:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you know, I didn't realize until I'd been thinking more about the story because I thought the Christmas card thing was just a prank. But then as I've thought more about it, I used to hang out at the Tandy Electronics store in Mount Barker. just hang out there and help customers. I didn't work there, but I'd be there. And I think it all really started with CB radios. I thought that listening to Dad's CB radio was amazing and all these voices coming through and how it worked and who they were.
00:06:09
Speaker 1: Dad had a CB radio? Yeah. Was it a truckie or was it?
00:06:13
Speaker 2: No, he was up in Panola as a stock agent and I'd see the green lights kind of glowing in the dash and I could grab the microphone and ask for a radio check. And I got obsessed with it, you know, and then up at mum's house in Mount Barker, I started, you know, building antennas myself and the roof looked like a science experiment gone wrong and the neighbours would come over and tell mum, can you kids stop transmitting? We can't see the TV screen. It's all got squiggly lines through it. So I'd turn it down and then wait till they calmed down a bit and crank it all back up again.
00:06:43
Speaker 1: So you were like a ham radio operator.
00:06:47
Speaker 2: I couldn't afford that back then. It was just an old 27 meg radio connected to an old car battery on a charger.
00:06:53
Speaker 1: And the antenna, was it like a transmitter? Am I right?
00:06:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, a big antenna that you could point in the direction that you were talking, but I'd made it out of aluminium. I mean, mum's house, these were gigantic antennas up in Mount Barker. And so it was quite an interesting house as people came.
00:07:10
Speaker 1: Past, that's for sure. But that's intriguing, man. How many kids are that smart? Were your friends interested? Did you have... you know, people who collaborated with you?
00:07:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, I used to have mates up the road. I mean, this is before, and I think a lot of people, you know, a lot of people probably listening to this will remember, but this is before there was online chatting and mobile phones. You'd get on the CB radio and you'd chat. And something that used to really amaze me is that when the weather was right, you'd be able to hear people coming in from Kangaroo Island or Norfolk Island or sometimes overseas. And so I used to sit up there trying to tune in.
00:07:44
Speaker 1: So it's like our age, people our age can remember CB Road, but they're normally a facility for truckies. Did you tune into the truckies as they're cruising along highways?
00:07:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, I did. And to be honest, I used to harass them a bit too. I used to sing songs about them and rile them up because I wanted someone to talk back. So I used to rile them up and get them a bit aggro and have a bit of fun with them.
00:08:08
Speaker 1: Get them aggro. Yeah. So you obviously like to make mischief.
00:08:14
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, 100%. That's why I ended up out of school. As I said, no fighting, just making mischief and having a bit of fun and probably constantly bored and looking for a challenge.
00:08:24
Speaker 1: I can't imagine. Normally kids get kicked out of school because they're violent. The teacher can't handle them anymore. But just being mischievous, sure, there must have had to be more than that. Are you downplaying that? No, no, not at all.
00:08:36
Speaker 2: Just constantly distracting the class. And to be honest, I mean, even in the office today, I'm the CEO and founder. But my exec team, you know, they make sure I don't have too many coffees before I come into the office because, you know, I come in there and create a hell of a hullabaloo when I come in and get everyone excited. And, you know, I kind of see it as I come in nowadays and I use it as a superpower. I get everyone excited, get them distracted, set the mission. But if I stay in the office for too long, no one gets anything done. And I guess that's what happened with the kids at school.
00:09:06
Speaker 1: Enthusiasm, though, is a much underrated quality. It's such a powerful weapon in any industry. So is that probably your strongest strength?
00:09:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I always think about it and I always look for it in staff, too, is relentlessness and resourcefulness. I think it's just that, relentlessness and, yeah, having too much energy, as they say.
00:09:27
Speaker 1: Clayton Sheehan is my guest, folks, the owner, founder of, I'm going to say it, Kick-Ass Products. I don't want to say it, but Kick-Ass Products. Here's my guest. It's a story yet to unfold. Back shortly. Welcome back, everybody. My guest on Conversation is Clayton Sheehan. Clayton's the founder of Kick-Ass Products. It's a company that designs, it engineers, it manufactures premium power, solar, camping. You can go off-grid with him. You can lose yourself if you like. And he sounds like a really smart guy. Well, he obviously is a really smart guy, but as a kid, he was very... distracted at school. He got kicked out of several schools. Your mum and dad broke up when you were young. How old was that? How did that impact on you?
00:10:10
Speaker 2: I was around the age of three or four. I mean, in terms of impact, of course, I think for everybody it's difficult, and especially... For me, I mean, mum was very, very quiet and artistic and dad was quite out there, you know, so I was kind of then split between the two of them.
00:10:25
Speaker 1: Dad played a bit of footy.
00:10:27
Speaker 2: Dad played a bit of footy. That's right. Actually, I remember when he was in Panola, I used to crawl around under the bar and pick up all the coins that fell out of all the fellas' pockets and collect cans actually up there. Did you play yourself? No. It's a funny thing. And I'm ashamed to say it to you, but I actually don't follow sport at all. I try. It's amazing.
00:10:48
Speaker 1: Your dad played league footy. No, he played footy for Norwood. Did he play any league games?
00:10:52
Speaker 2: No, no.
00:10:53
Speaker 1: But he was at Norwood. You'd think it would flow down, wouldn't you?
00:10:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, much to his disappointment. I mean, I was right into music. And so he'd be listening to the cricket on the car stereo. And I'd be asking if he could put, you know, Happy to be Stuck With You by Huey Lewis, you know. And then when my son was born, I tried to force him to play piano. And no, he loves sport. So dad and him were up this morning. at 4 a.m. watching the soccer.
00:11:19
Speaker 1: You know, music is an important part of your life. And how did that develop and what influence was there that inspired you?
00:11:27
Speaker 2: Well, it was funny because one of my mates, we used to muck around with CBs together. His dad was a truck driver in Mount Barker and he had a heap of Kevin Bloody Wilson albums.
00:11:37
Speaker 1: Kevin Bloody Wilson. One of my great interviews, one of the great conversations, half of which we had to bleep out.
00:11:44
Speaker 2: And so we used to listen to that, and I thought it was a bit naughty at the time. So you'd kind of push the play and the record button and take a copy of that on a cassette. And so I grew up kind of thinking that he was hilarious and listening to his songs. And eventually, I think a really important part of this story is I ended up at a school in Adelaide, the end of the road for kids like me, called Bowdoin Brompton.
00:12:06
Speaker 1: I haven't heard of that school. When you say kids at the end of the road, what? What sort of kids are you talking about?
00:12:14
Speaker 2: Well, when you don't fit into school anymore, you have to go somewhere in Australia. You know, you can't finish school until I think you're 15 or 16. So Bowdoin Brompton was developed for kids. And I must say, you know, behaviorally much worse than me. I mean, I was just the king of distracting the class. And so I ended up there and one of my teachers, Chris Brandwood, he was the deputy principal at the time, played in bands in Melbourne and he was the music teacher and soon discovered that I had a talent for playing guitar and And I knew all the Kevin Bloody Wilson songs and he wanted to kind of step that up a little bit more. And yeah, so I started playing guitar and that's where the..
00:12:52
Speaker 1: Tell me he didn't let you play Kevin Bloody Wilson songs at school.
00:12:55
Speaker 2: Well, there's a funny story with that too because I was in the schoolyard and I was playing Kevin Bloody Wilson and the principal came over and she wasn't happy at all. She said, you can't be doing this here. And I was heading back to time out there.
00:13:08
Speaker 1: We should point out at this stage, if you haven't heard Kevin Bloody Wilson... The lyrics are about as obscene as you can possibly get. But I hesitate to say it. They're incredibly funny. So the principal comes over. She's a lady. Yeah. And hears the words and quite rightly said, look, this isn't appropriate for school.
00:13:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, she wasn't happy. But I was sitting there with Chris and he said, look, you're right. But, you know, this kid knows every single album from his first album and every song right through to his latest album. And so he gave me credit and supported me. And he's still in Adelaide. We have a wine together. from time to.
00:13:42
Speaker 1: Time so you what stage did you get to with your guitar playing.
00:13:48
Speaker 2: Well from there it was interesting because i was at the adelaide train station and there was a busker playing a bob dylan song and i only realized this recently that there was a transition from listening to the lyrics learning to listen to lyrics through kev songs now i'm listening to the bob dylan song so i started getting into bob dylan and paul kelly and all the singer songwriters.
00:14:08
Speaker 1: Um Bob Dylan wins a Nobel Prize for literature, basically. Yes. Because if you listen to his lyrics, I mean, you think, how on earth did he compose them? How did he assemble them? So you become a Bob Dylan fan or a..
00:14:21
Speaker 2: Massive Bob Dylan fan. I actually did a Bob Dylan tribute show when I was a kid. I did a Hank Williams tribute show. I did a Bob Dylan tribute show at the, I think it was the Highway Inn. And so, you know, I was putting all this stuff together then.
00:14:33
Speaker 1: At what age? 18. My gosh. Yeah.
00:14:36
Speaker 2: And had a band, a... Texas swing rockabilly band here as well called the Western Heirs so this whole music thing it saved me.
00:14:44
Speaker 1: At 18 years of age you're compiling and performing these tribute shows.
00:14:50
Speaker 2: Yeah I mean it I think it was you know all this energy that I had when I was young it just it wasn't directed anywhere I had nowhere to direct it and when I found music all of a sudden I had something to put all of the creativity and never-ending ideas into and yeah started bringing people together and the Bob Dylan thing I started making friends and I always had friends that are a lot older than even to this day most of my friends are 60 to 70 years old and um so I made a lot of friends through that and then we put it all together and said hey let's do a birthday bash for Bob Dylan and you know we filled the room we had about you know 80 or 90 people there and um yeah it was it was fantastic.
00:15:29
Speaker 1: Okay so you're putting on these tribute shows what happens next.
00:15:33
Speaker 2: Well, I walked into Tandy Electronics because I used to hang out in Mount Barker at the store up there. And I went in and asked if he had a job. And he said, we don't have anything going. And I said, well, can you give me your product manuals? I'll take them home and read them and I'll bring them back tomorrow. So then I just came and started serving customers and putting the products on the counter and telling the guys to process them. So I ended up working in Tandy and Gawler Place. And I realized..
00:15:56
Speaker 1: So were you getting paid at Mount..
00:15:59
Speaker 2: In Mount Barker, I was just a kid. I used to hang around and just be a little pest and help all the customers out. And then, you know, when I came down to Adelaide, because dad was in Plimpton, I used to do the same thing. And eventually I just started working there until they gave me a job, really. And I learned a lot about customer service and, you know, people would come in. If we didn't have it, I'd call the other store up the road and tell them to put it behind the counter. And so that's A lot of pranks and a lot of hilarious activities. And that kid in a candy shop there, I mean, he used to send a remote control car up the road with $ 5 attached to it to the local shop and send a meat pie back. And, you know, we're doing all these shenanigans.
00:16:39
Speaker 1: So where does it lead? I mean, I can't get the connection between this kid, this musician, and then someone overseas who all of a sudden starts his own business so when do you break out from the kid working at Tandy's.
00:16:55
Speaker 2: Well the bit about Tandy's was up the road from Gawler Place there was a car park and I used to after work take the guitar park there and I started busking in the Rundle Mallies to sit on the chairs and started out playing Bob Dylan and Kevin Songs and Paul Kelly and I was doing all right but I realized this is where the brain that I have could help out and I started making up songs about people so when people would walk past I'd sing about their hat or their beard or make up a song about this and that. And the money started flowing in and my accounting method was how heavy my pockets were. And so I used to go busking in the mall and working in Tandy's.
00:17:31
Speaker 1: So you can make up a song about somebody walking past.
00:17:34
Speaker 2: A hundred percent. And I did that. And, um, and then I started a music night up in, and this is actually where the business thing all kicked in. So I'm busking and I'm up in Sterling playing out the front of the Woolworths and in Rundle Mall working in Tandy's.
00:17:47
Speaker 1: So how much a week would you earn busking?
00:17:50
Speaker 2: I'd probably, I'd normally just go out on the weekends. I found that when people were coming down from Rundle Street through Rundle Mall to Hindley, that was the best time of the night. So I'd turn up in the end at about 11. And they'd just start emptying their wallets on their way through to Hindley. This is before credit cards. People had cash. And, you know, I could make $ 200, $ 300, $ 500 a night, and a lot of girls would throw their phone numbers in the guitar case at the same time.
00:18:17
Speaker 1: Well, that's the job. We need to take a break. Clayton Sheehan is my guest, folks. It's got nothing to do with his business that he runs so successfully at the moment, Kick-Ass Products. We'll get to that after the break, back shortly. Welcome back to Conversations, everybody. Look, if you just tuned in, we're having a lot of fun in the studio with Clayton Sheehan. Clayton is the founder and the owner of Kick-Ass Products, a company that manufactures and sells power, solar, camping equipment for those people who like to get off grids. But it's an interesting story because he was a kid with ADHA who was probably never diagnosed and had a love of music and taught himself to play guitar, then worked free in Tandy's Electronics. He got a job in Tandy's Electronics and then would busk in the Rundle Mall. Sounds like a lot of fun, but there's not a lot of future in it, is it? So what's the next step for you? Because we're still a mile away from owning this company, which is now so big.
00:19:18
Speaker 2: Well, I end up running a big music night at the Albert Mill Restaurant, up in the Adelaide Hills. I started getting my kind of business. I realized I could put things together. And so we put a show on at a fine dining restaurant up in the Adelaide Hills. And you could pass a bottle around and you could do a song or you could do a poem or you could do whatever you want. And we ended up packing that out on a Wednesday night. And we did that and had a lot of fun up there. The characters, and we know in Adelaide, all the different characters.
00:19:43
Speaker 1: Why never heard of it? Why would I have never heard of it? Was it well known?
00:19:47
Speaker 2: Maybe you were there in such a good time you forgot.
00:19:51
Speaker 1: You wouldn't think that we didn't think to go to nan for a night out though you know on a wednesday night must have been local surely.
00:19:57
Speaker 2: Well the story was that that i asked the owner what his quietest night was i said no point making it busier on a busy night and we had the place filled people were coming from all over all over south australia actually up there and then As all Adelaide boys do, I'd never been out of Adelaide. So it was time to move on. And where do you go? You go a long way away to Melbourne.
00:20:18
Speaker 1: You went to Melbourne.
00:20:20
Speaker 2: And so.
00:20:21
Speaker 1: Picked up the car or?
00:20:23
Speaker 2: Patched up the, sorry, picked up the Mitsubishi Magna and off I went with the guitar in the back and ended up working in the Telstra store. But once again. Fitzroy Street in St Kilda out the front of the 7-Eleven with the guitar was a lot more profitable than working anywhere.
00:20:40
Speaker 1: So you just pick up and busk.
00:20:42
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:20:42
Speaker 1: It's as simple as that.
00:20:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, met a friend at a party and we'd go there out the front of the nightclub and there'd be fights out the front and people would be coming out at night, you know, the girls freezing in the middle of winter and we'd be singing about them all. But I mean, as you know, in Melbourne, the winter kicks in and it gets a bit miserable. So it was time to leave.
00:21:01
Speaker 1: And where'd you go then?
00:21:02
Speaker 2: Back to Adelaide. And we stopped in Mount Barker. We had the old Magna. There was a place out in, it was like a salvage yard. And we bought two big pickle drums that they'd make pickles in, put them on the roof rack and cut the end off one of them, put two swags in them. And then we head across to Nullarbor.
00:21:20
Speaker 1: To do what?
00:21:21
Speaker 2: Well, we decided if we could busk out the front of the, at the 7-Eleven, we could stop at the pub and talk to the public and say, hey, mate, listen, can we put a hat around? And if you think we've made it worth the night, put a bit of money in and, that turned into a, this is how much we want and a room. And then we were getting referred on and the trip across around Australia kind of began in the Magna with the swags on top.
00:21:43
Speaker 1: So where did the inspiration for your company kick in?
00:21:47
Speaker 2: It wasn't very comfortable in the swags and you know, the 12 volt background, I went to the camping stores and I remember it was hot and I saw a 12 volt refrigerator. I'll never be able to afford something like this.
00:21:59
Speaker 1: But like a, One you put in the car, fridge you put in the car.
00:22:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, fridge you put in the car. And so I was kind of looked at that and looked at how all the battery systems worked. And I thought, okay, this is interesting.
00:22:10
Speaker 1: Why was it interesting?
00:22:12
Speaker 2: Well, I just, with the batteries connected to the CB radios before the battery could power the old CB that I was playing around with. But now it can power a fridge and power lights and a fan and all these different things when we were traveling around. But at the time I couldn't afford them. So that was more of just a seed that it planted in my mind. Yeah. And so as we stopped at that shop and then we went traveling around, we ended up in Monkey Mire up in Darwin and playing in the casinos and the nightclubs up there, put a band together, call it undercover.
00:22:43
Speaker 1: You rock into town and you put a band together. It's not as simple as that.
00:22:48
Speaker 2: Well, we went, actually, along the way, we stopped at Kalgoorlie and we decided I'd just go to the newspaper and make a big story about ourselves. I mean, we were just buskers, but, you know, Melbourne duo hits town and went to the Kalgoorlie newspaper and got gigs all over the place.
00:23:01
Speaker 1: So the newspaper wrote an article about you? Yeah, yeah.
00:23:05
Speaker 2: And so I kind of did that. And then when we were heading across from Kalgoorlie, the Magna hit a washout. and you know, the swag went flying and all the rest of the stuff that we, the PVC pipe with the fishing rods that all went flying. And we bought an old FJ45 Land Cruiser, affectionately named Charlie and actually named my son after him in the end. And we, we drove that up, up, up, up north, up the West coast and broke down along the way. And that's how I started getting into the four wheel drives actually. And, And fixing that thing up every time we stopped, the power steering broke or the alternator failed or a myriad of other things.
00:23:47
Speaker 1: Did you fix it or did you need to get the Toyota specialist to do it?
00:23:51
Speaker 2: Well, I didn't know anything about cars, so I had to work it out. I used to have to go into the automotive shops and buy the books and everything you need to know. So I'd pull it apart and fix it and needed more money. I'd go busking and get a few more gigs. So we'd be stuck in town for a while and meet a few characters. And when we made enough and fixed it off, then we went across the Gibb River Road and then eventually ended up in Darwin.
00:24:15
Speaker 1: But you still haven't told me the inspiration for the company, the next step, perhaps, of establishing the company.
00:24:23
Speaker 2: Well, that happens kind of next. So I have a backpacker that I meet along the way, Maggie.
00:24:29
Speaker 1: Maggie.
00:24:30
Speaker 2: Maggie.
00:24:31
Speaker 1: Rod Stewart wrote a song about Maggie.
00:24:34
Speaker 2: Wake up, Maggie.
00:24:35
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:24:37
Speaker 2: And so she ended up on the tour and in Darwin, and she went back to Germany. I was going to go see her, but then I got the phone call. Hello, Daddy.
00:24:47
Speaker 1: Hello, Daddy.
00:24:48
Speaker 2: She was saying, you're a daddy. I'm pregnant.
00:24:51
Speaker 1: Maggie's pregnant.
00:24:52
Speaker 2: Maggie was pregnant then, yes.
00:24:54
Speaker 1: She's back in Germany.
00:24:55
Speaker 2: She's gone back to Germany, and I was going to visit her anyway, but I'm definitely going to visit her now.
00:24:59
Speaker 1: So Maggie rings you and said, you're going to be a father.
00:25:03
Speaker 2: Correct.
00:25:03
Speaker 1: What's the emotion like then?
00:25:06
Speaker 2: I better do a good job of this. And yeah, so I stayed another month and made a little bit more money to support myself. And off to Germany I went and didn't speak any German. Her whole family only spoke German.
00:25:20
Speaker 1: So what's the reaction from her family? She comes home, she's pregnant with your child and you're effectively just a busker who bums around Australia. What sort of reception did you get from her mum and dad?
00:25:31
Speaker 2: I think when I dug up their front yard and planted a veggie garden and went and bought a blow-up pool and installed it in their backyard, they were a bit shocked at first, actually. Look, we had a lot of fun. They were traditional German parents, but in the end, they're in the swimming pool in the backyard and- Eating the vegetables. And eating the vegetables. And I dragged the couch out the back and the neighbors were over, so- We have a very close relationship to this day.
00:26:01
Speaker 1: What sort of vegetables did you plant?
00:26:03
Speaker 2: Anything that would grow huge. It was all a very formal garden, and I thought I'd just grow huge zucchinis and pumpkins. It was Germany, so I'd just mess with the neighbours.
00:26:13
Speaker 1: But you're still no closer to establishing your company.
00:26:16
Speaker 2: There was a bit that happened before it. So what happened next was it was winter, and I'm sitting down in the cellar and drinking the hefeweizen wheat beers. And starting to play was the early days of eBay. And eBay was an auction website back then. And I was buying stuff for the old FJ45 because that ended up back at mum's house in Mount Barker. So I was hoping that at some point we're going to come back and jump in.
00:26:46
Speaker 1: So you're in what part of Germany? What city?
00:26:49
Speaker 2: It was near Heidelberg, a little town called Speyer.
00:26:52
Speaker 1: Okay. So mum's back in... Mount Barker.
00:26:56
Speaker 2: Mum's back in Mount Barker with Charlie the cruiser.
00:26:59
Speaker 1: The broken down cruiser. So you're buying stuff for that and sending it home to mum. Yeah.
00:27:03
Speaker 2: So at night I'm staying up and I'm finding this and that and sending it back and, you know, filling mum's house up because, you know, I'm starting to, I put together another Bob Dylan tribute show actually in Germany that goes better than expected.
00:27:17
Speaker 1: It's better than expected.
00:27:18
Speaker 2: Much better than expected. I mean, all the people that loved Dylan were lawyers and doctors. And so I'd get invited back to their corporate functions. And I was learning German at the time. So I'd be funny in German. And so when I came home, that's when I'd sit on the computer and buy all these bits and pieces and send them back to mum's. And so it all really started. I was always obviously a computer geek. I love computers and found it all fascinating. And there was a hot water heat exchanger. that used the hot water from the engine to make a shower. And an old bloke in Queensland made it. So I called him up and said, mate, would you mind if I put this on eBay for you? I'll handle the customer service 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You just ship them to the customers. And he said, righto, that sounds fair. And I woke up the next morning. I stayed up for about nine hours listing it on eBay and rewriting all the description. And I'd sold five by the time I'd woken up.
00:28:11
Speaker 1: So what percentage of that did you get?
00:28:14
Speaker 2: He sold them for $ 267. 50 shipped to any customer in Australia, and I sold them for $ 356.
00:28:23
Speaker 1: Okay. You had to buy them for that price? Well, he just paid you the difference.
00:28:27
Speaker 2: It was drop shipping, so I'd send him the order, he'd send it to the customer, and then after we'd shipped out about 10 of them, I'd pay him for them. So no stock, just customer service.
00:28:38
Speaker 1: We need to take a break because bigger things happen. Clayton Sheehan is my guest, folks. The company's called Kick-Ass. Yes, I said it. I didn't want to say it, but it's called Kick-Ass. It's been called other things. Kick-A-double-five. Was it not at one stage?
00:28:52
Speaker 2: Well, actually, it actually started out called Australian Direct. Kick-Ass came later. So I needed a business name then, and we called it Australian Direct.
00:29:01
Speaker 1: We'll take a break. We'll cover that when we come back. Back shortly, folks. My guest on Conversations today is Clayton Sheehan. Clayton is the owner, I guess, managing director of Kick-Ass Products. It's a company that sells solar and camping gear. And you've got to listen from the start because it's an intriguing story of someone with obviously an entrepreneurial mind. He meets his backpacker in Australia. She goes home, rings him later and says, I'm pregnant. He moves to Germany. You learn to speak German. How do you do that?
00:29:33
Speaker 2: I was in a shop and there was a Learn German 30 CD set back when CDs were around. So I'd listened to the 30 CDs and within about four weeks I was speaking German.
00:29:46
Speaker 1: Can you still speak German?
00:29:47
Speaker 2: Ich kann jetzt sehr gut Deutsch sprechen.
00:29:51
Speaker 1: There must be something about your brain that's wired differently to mine. But anyway, so this bloke selling, what were they? hot water services out of a..
00:30:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was called a heat exchanger. So it made hot water from the vehicle's coolant system.
00:30:07
Speaker 1: So he sells them for $ 250. You ring him and say, look, can I sell some? You sell them for $ 350 effectively and you're selling them successfully. Why were you successful and he wasn't?
00:30:18
Speaker 2: Well, and I think this comes out in the story of how Kick-Ass evolved because every time a customer called me, if the product description on the website didn't have the information, I'd add it straight away. You could call me 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So if somebody sends an email in, I just call them straight away. And, um, and I got excited. I got excited. And, um, then we came back.
00:30:43
Speaker 1: Someone rang you.
00:30:43
Speaker 2: I just got excited that all of a sudden I've gone from busking to ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching. And I was loving talking to the customers too. Cause remember I was in Germany and, you know, it'd be good. Hey mate, I'm heading around the Kimberleys and I'm, you know, and, and cause it, Because I took calls all the time. A lot of them have a few drinks and we'd have a chat and then I'd sell them, you know, more and more.
00:31:05
Speaker 1: But you're still selling something that somebody else is making, aren't you?
00:31:08
Speaker 2: Correct.
00:31:08
Speaker 1: So you're just an agent. Is that effectively it?
00:31:11
Speaker 2: That's right.
00:31:12
Speaker 1: When does it become your company? When do you start manufacturing yourself and how do you do that? How do you go about that?
00:31:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, we start off the heat exchanges and then I fly up to the Sunshine Coast and do ever cool fridges. And he said, mate, look, we can't deal with online people. So I flew up anyway and told him I was there to see him. He said, I told you that we... And I said, well, while I'm here, let's do a video. So he became one of the biggest sellers of the Evercool fridges in Queensland.
00:31:37
Speaker 1: So he didn't want you to sell them online, basically.
00:31:40
Speaker 2: Well, he was concerned for his dealer network and trying to do the right thing by them. But I said, look, I've come all the way here. You can at least let me do a video. And I'd rehearsed it like I did with the Tandy manuals. And he was blown away and he goes, right, I'll give you a shot. So we're selling the fridges and we're selling the heat exchanges and we're working together with a lot of other Australian companies. But what was happening is I was taking the phone calls. There was a picture on the website of an old gum tree with a phone box saying, call us 24-7. And I was talking to the customers and then I was calling the suppliers and going, listen, we need to change this. We need to do that. And they'd say, thanks, mate. We'll have a think about that.
00:32:16
Speaker 1: Thanks, but no thanks.
00:32:18
Speaker 2: And I decided I need to make products that are better. I need to take this feedback and turn it into something. and I need to make products that, you say it.
00:32:27
Speaker 1: Kick-ass. Exactly. I didn't want to say it. Folks, if you look up the definition of kick-ass and AI, it pretty much says that's what it is. So now you've got to go about manufacturing. Do you have to go to the design? You've got to design. You've got to source products. You've got to manufacture. So which was the product you started with first?
00:32:53
Speaker 2: It was a folding solar panel. We were selling these. You take a solar panel that had a hinge in the middle and you'd fold it out and put it in the sun. But the ones I was selling at the time, the zip would break off and the hinges would snap and everything, trying to keep the cost down. So I put a backpack on and headed over to China and put every nut, bolt, zip, bag, But how.
00:33:16
Speaker 1: Do you do that? I mean, where do you know whereabouts in China you go? Who do you speak to? How are you received? You can't speak Chinese. Maybe you can.
00:33:28
Speaker 2: I can now, actually. Just relentlessness. I just turned up. I had no idea, but I had a mission.
00:33:36
Speaker 1: Which city did you fly into?
00:33:37
Speaker 2: Qingdao, which is famous for the beer. And I flew in.
00:33:41
Speaker 1: Why? You didn't pick it because of the beer. Is it a manufacturing center or a?
00:33:46
Speaker 2: Back then, you'd look online, you'd find a supplier, and I found a supplier up there to work with. Very, very green, didn't know what I was doing. But I turned up, and luckily she, Cathy, worked together with her father, and she was in sales. And I just said, look, we need to go and visit the hardware stores. We need to find the stainless steel hinges. We don't want rust. And we went to the bag manufacturer.
00:34:08
Speaker 1: So you're asking them to manufacture this product to your specifications?
00:34:11
Speaker 2: Yes, to my specifications.
00:34:13
Speaker 1: And how long did that take?
00:34:15
Speaker 2: I was there for about... two or three weeks, and I was watching the entire process from start to finish. And when I was finished, I was very proud. I mean, it made it easier then to make a video about a product because we were the first to put videos into eBay. Before that, it was only text. So you could actually watch a video. It'd be, hi, it's Clayton, and I'd like to show you our solar panel. And because I designed it, I was passionate about it and knew it intricately. And so people would really, I feel like, connect.
00:34:41
Speaker 1: How do you go into business with people who speak a foreign language? Obviously, you The daughter, Kathy, did you say her name?
00:34:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
00:34:48
Speaker 1: She spoke English?
00:34:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, she spoke English, yes. So I worked together with her very closely.
00:34:54
Speaker 1: So it goes from solar panels to what?
00:34:56
Speaker 2: Solar panels, and then we started getting into our own range of batteries, and then we designed our own fridge. So I actually went over there. We were making the camping fridge. So I went over there and designed the fridges, and the same thing. I'd been selling them, and I'd been listening to what the customers were saying.
00:35:11
Speaker 1: But you hadn't been selling your product, had you?
00:35:13
Speaker 2: No, we were selling other people's products. But I was getting frustrated, right? Because the customers are telling me all this stuff. And, you know, a lot of businesses are disconnected from the customer, but I was taking the calls. And then I'm designing the products around the feedback of the customers. So, you know, I remember being in the factory with a dB meter, measuring the sound of the fan, knowing that at nighttime people need to sleep and, you know, just really taking attention to all the details. And then I'd make a video about why I made the fridge.
00:35:39
Speaker 1: That's amazing. And how did your price compare to a competitor?
00:35:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, we were super competitive because we were online. It was a lot of bricks and mortar back then. I mean, e-commerce was coming up. I think a lot of people in the camping and four-wheel drive industry were not so much tech head geeks like me. So I kind of had this cross between being a..
00:35:59
Speaker 1: But your product's not really known. How did you gain the confidence of a potential client?
00:36:06
Speaker 2: Well, that's a great question because one of the biggest things that I did was I made a video that was an hour long called the ultimate dual battery system video. And back when 12 volt was done by, you know, automotive electricians and it was like this kind of mystic art of how to get this system installed in your four wheel drive. I taught the customers absolutely everything I knew about the battery systems and the fridges and told them how to do it all. And that's when it all changed. They started calling saying, we've watched your video. I couldn't believe it. It was an hour long. We've watched your video and we want this, this, this, this and this.
00:36:41
Speaker 1: The factory that's making your products in Qingdao is making all of these and doing them to your specifications.
00:36:48
Speaker 2: Correct.
00:36:49
Speaker 1: So there's always a bit of scepticism about Chinese products. How did you ensure the quality is what it should be?
00:36:58
Speaker 2: I was there all the time. and working very closely with the suppliers. And I think something very important to say is I met my wife, Ella. We've got a beautiful daughter together, who's four. She was a sales manager, and she always tells the story of when I went in there, I wanted a product. And she said, look, the product functions really well. And I said, yeah, but it's ugly. And she said, well, yeah, but it works well. And I said, well, if you had the choice between an ugly product husband and a good looking one, which one would you choose? And she said, fair enough.
00:37:28
Speaker 1: I went for the ugly ones.
00:37:30
Speaker 2: Oh, she chucked me.
00:37:32
Speaker 1: You've introduced Ella. What happened to Maggie, your German girlfriend?
00:37:35
Speaker 2: Well, so Maggie and I, you know, I was a bit younger then and, you know, we didn't work out. But here's the interesting thing. We're all amazing friends. I was just in Bali with Maggie, her father, mother, my son, my wife from China, Ella's mum and dad. And my daughter. And I had both the dads in bintang shirts. So happy family.
00:38:00
Speaker 1: It sounds like it. And your son from, is your son living in Germany or?
00:38:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, my son lived a little bit in Germany. He's actually in Adelaide at the moment. And he's studying in Hong Kong doing business finance and admin. So he's like a non-square head finance bro, I'd like to say.
00:38:16
Speaker 1: Okay. So obviously you can't always rely on other people manufacturing it. You manufacture yourself nowadays. So what was the quantum leap to do that?
00:38:27
Speaker 2: Well, you asked the question earlier about China and people's perceptions on China. And you need to be on the ground. China's an amazing place. It's the leader in technology. Tim Cook from Apple says, we're not there because it's cheap. We're there because this is where the engineers and the technology is. And so I decided we needed to be there. So we opened our sourcing development where we design and develop. our office doing all of that, and now we have a factory. We actually assemble our own battery packs in our factory. We've got about 65 staff in China now.
00:39:01
Speaker 1: You employ Chinese staff?
00:39:03
Speaker 2: Yes, wholly foreign-owned.
00:39:04
Speaker 1: Amazing.
00:39:05
Speaker 2: And that gives us control.
00:39:07
Speaker 1: Is it difficult to do? Do you have much interference from government?
00:39:11
Speaker 2: Surprisingly, not at all. In fact, the government came and gave us $ 10, 000 the other day because we're doing a great job in employing people. So there you have it. And so it's fast, it's fast moving. And for me, the pace is amazing. We can come up with ideas, we can ideate, we can create, we can test them, we can make it all happen.
00:39:31
Speaker 1: So look, as we're speaking in July, 2026, you've just opened your store in Adelaide. So tell us how many, which, which number store is that?
00:39:40
Speaker 2: So Adelaide is the 11th store and it's super special that it's in my hometown. It actually from Busker to coming back here and opening a store. And if you go there, by the way, there's a, I've put a Chesterfield couch there for, it's called, after my dad Rambo, you can sit on the couch and find him there. So we've opened our 11th store and we're rolling out a lot more now with the factory in China, designing, developing and manufacturing, 150 staff in Australia and growing. And actually it was so touching for me when I turned up at the opening on Saturday, it was just the 18th, it just passed. And we had a line going for miles.
00:40:15
Speaker 1: I couldn't even- People waiting to get in.
00:40:17
Speaker 2: I couldn't believe it. Couldn't believe it. Actually, I teared up a little bit, to be honest, just a little one, but to go, wow.
00:40:23
Speaker 1: You still play guitar?
00:40:24
Speaker 2: I do. I do. Most often around a campfire these days.
00:40:30
Speaker 1: So what's next?
00:40:31
Speaker 2: Well, next is just to keep going where I'm actually flying directly. There's flights to Guangzhou now, straight out of Adelaide. So we're going to fly over to Guangzhou. We're meeting a customer from Germany. The products that we design and develop now, we're also working with other brands and And we do all the back of house designing and development. So we're meeting them and growing internationally, rolling out more stores in Australia and kicking ass.
00:40:54
Speaker 1: It is a great story, Clayton. Just this kid who couldn't hold down a spot in school. He kept getting kicked out of school, backpacked around Australia, busked everywhere around Australia. And now owns this company, which is progressing so dramatically. And I'll say the name. I don't want to say it, but you say it. It's Kick-Ass Products. Yeah. Clayton Sheehan, thank you so much for joining us.
00:41:17
Speaker 2: Cornsy, I've got to say you're a pretty kick-ass bloke, mate. It means better than average. Well, thank you very much.
00:41:26
Speaker 1: Clayton Sheehan was my guest, folks. Thank you for joining us.
