At A Glance

An off-the-grid trip around the world exposed Mike Smith to the vast severity of the world’s waste problem. The major culprit? Plastic. Read how Mike’s and Zero Co are setting a new standard for what it means to be a mission-driven E-Commerce company by offering sustainable personal care and home cleaning products, building community, and cleaning up the oceans.

‍Who is Mike Smith?

Meet Mike Smith, Founder of Zero Co!

About Zero Co

Based in Australia, Zero Co is on a mission to untrash the planet by making personal care and home cleaning products with 97% less plastic and using the proceeds to fund ocean cleanups. Zero Co’s sustainable product line includes body wash and lotion, shampoo, conditioner, laundry and dish liquid, bathroom and multi-purpose cleaners, and refillable containers and bottles.

Mike’s Entrepreneurial Journey

A seasoned entrepreneur, Mike sold his second startup, a wine making company, in 2018 and decided to take an around-the-world adventure with his now wife, Alyssa.  “The brief for the trip was to go and find the most remote pockets of wilderness on the planet,” he remembers. The natural beauty and wonder they saw was expected. The pervasive waste in these of-the-map areas, however, was not. “I was blown away by the amounts of rubbish,” he remarks adding, “this is a deep problem and there doesn’t seem to be enough people working on it.”

By the time they returned to Australia in 2019, Mike was on a mission to reduce the global waste problem. A new business plan was gestated based on 2 questions: How do we reduce the amount of single use plastic at home? How do we work to remove all the plastic that has made its way into the natural environment? Boots on the ground research took him to the supermarket. There, he saw people shopping the personal care and home cleaning aisles lined floor-to-ceiling with products in plastic containers. He reflects on his thoughts during this ‘aha moment,’ “I’m going to build a personal care and home cleaning company – we’re going to remove all the single-use plastic from packaging and use the proceeds from the sale of every single product to do ocean cleanup.” In March 2019, he started Zero Co.

A Company with a Cause

Zero Co operates with a 10 for 1 promise – for every product sold, the company promises to collect 10 water bottles worth of ocean waste. “In our first 4 years of business, we’ve removed the equivalent of 45 million bottles from oceans, rivers, and beaches around the world,” Matt points out. They currently have a full-time cleanup operation in Australia and throughout Asia and have done cleanups in North America, Europe, and the Middle East.

Leveraging E-Commerce as a Mission-Driven Business

Zero Co is a direct-to-consumer E-commerce company. This business model has been vital in building a direct, one-on-one relationship with customers. Mike elaborates, “We know our customers, what they are buying, what they like and don’t like. In a mission-driven business, it’s important to understand who your community is. And for us, we’re not just this company that’s making stuff and selling it to people. We’re trying to build this global company for people who care about the planet, and to make it better and protect it for future generations.” 

The Team at Zero Co

With a main office in Melbourne, Zero Co uses a hybrid model to manage its team. Based in Byron Bay, Mike oversees a staff of 15 who work in-office daily, and are supported by a remote staff in Sydney, and customer service agents and a cleanup crew in the Philippines.

The CX Philosophy at Zero Co: Be Good, Do Good

While many companies give a complicated definition of CX, Mike maintains a very simple, human-focused philosophy at Zero Co. He explains, “My approach is to think about the things that I do daily with the people who are closest to me and try to replicate those interactions with our customers. Just be a good person, be humble, vulnerable, inspirational, and when you can, be transparent.” Zero Co’s main goal is to build a community of people who care and who, in turn, feel as though they are being taken care of.

Building Community Where Customers Are Part of the Movement

Zero Co initially launched through a Kickstarter campaign. At the time, they had no real products, just a plan and driving question, “Do you want to be part of this journey and help us build this mission?” People answered with emphatic ‘yes’ – the campaign ended up being the largest and most successful one in Australia’s history with 8,000 customers helping to raise nearly $1million in pre-orders.

Two years later, Zero Co hit a growing point where it needed to raise money to move forward. An equity crowdfunding campaign was initiated and was received with record-breaking success. “We raised $5 million in 47 minutes from our customers,” Mike recounts. “Now we have 3.5 million customers who are shareholders of our business. It’s about taking our customers on the journey. The more we lean on these types of initiatives, the more powerful it becomes for us.”

Approaching Innovation as Relentless Pioneers for Sustainability

“One of our core company values is ‘relentless pioneers’ and we live and breathe this every day in our business,” Mike reveals. Consequently, Zero Co is a business focused on being at the absolute forefront of innovation in sustainability – they just launched the world’s first paper-based refill system for liquid personal care products. “We spent two years and hundreds of thousands of dollars developing this new technology. And we did it because we know that the future must be plastic free,” he says. Approaching product development and innovation as ‘relentless pioneers’ on a mission to make peoples’ lives better while saving the planet has resulted in Zero Co becoming one of the fastest growing direct-to-consumer brands in the personal care/home cleaning product sector in Australia.

Reinvesting For Growth

Zero Co is 100% committed to growth, which means Mike is reinvesting and “profitability is not even on our radar right now.” By growing and acquiring as many customers as possible, the company knows it’s helping to solve the plastic problem. Mike elaborates noting that every single Zero Co customer “is one more person not buying single-use plastic at the supermarket. Then every single sale that we make is 10 water bottles removed from the ocean.” Inspiring people to become part of the community, growing awareness, and finding a solution take precedence over drawing profits.

Goals for the Future

Within the next 5 years, Mike wants Zero Co to have removed a billion water bottles' worth of waste from the ocean (the company has removed 45 million to date). He understands that the business must continue to grow to meet cleanup operations goals. “We’re going to roll into retail in Australia, then launch into the UK early next year followed by North America while offering a bunch of new products.” He’s also excited for the ocean cleanup projects Zero Co has lined up for 2025 in Ghana, Africa, India, Serbia, Guatemala, and Central America.

Mike’s Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs

Mike’s advice to aspiring entrepreneurs who want to launch a business is “just start.” Often, people with an idea get caught up over-indexing their research, procrastinating, or succumb to the fear of failure before ever taking the next step. “You can never learn anything right? I’m still learning about my business and industry 4 years into it. But if I had waited until I learned everything, I would have never started.” He continues, “Be ok with getting stuff wrong and failing. Some of the best founders in the world fail all the time. I think that’s the founder superpower – you can deal with failure often and radically.”