Welcome to the Jazz Shapers Podcast from Mishcon de Reya. What you are about to hear was originally broadcast on Jazz FM, however, the music has been cut due to rights issues.
Elliot Moss
Welcome to Jazz Shapers with me, Elliot Moss, bringing the shapers of the business world together with the musicians shaping jazz, soul and blues. My guests today are Rob Abrahams and Rob Green, two Robs for the price of one, Co-founders of COAT, the climate positive paint company. I never thought I'd say that, but I just did. Having met while working as marketing interns at BMW, as they say, basically washing posh cars for a year, the friend's careers took them in different directions with Rob Abrahams marketing luxury brands and high growth tech, and Rob Green, a project manager at Sherwin Williams, the largest paint company in the world. But having spent their 20s and early 30s moving house and seeing many half-used paint pots, haven’t you seen some of those too, and the paint industry's lack of care for the environment, Rob and Rob saw an opportunity to challenge the status quo, make paint more accessible and sustainable. Launching COAT in 2020, they put money raised from friends and family towards a little unit in Camberley, a couple of paint machines and some stock, and then they began experimenting. COAT is the first BCorp certified, climate positive paint company, with raw materials all sourced in the UK, and their water-based, low-toxin, low-odour COAT range, made entirely to order, avoiding waste and overproduction. Rob Abrahams, Rob Green are here with me, looking at me straight in the eye, and it's great because they're just both called Rob, so I can get it completely wrong and no one will know anything, but you and I, we know, the three of us know. We know the right ones.
Rob Green
Absolutely, thanks for having us along.
Elliot Moss
Absolute pleasure. So that is the voice of Rob Green.
Rob Abrahams
Hello.
Elliot Moss
Hello, and this is the voice of Rob Abrahams.
Rob Abrahams
Rob Abrahams, yeah.
Elliot Moss
Excellent.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
We always fight over which is the other one.
Elliot Moss
Who is the other one? Yeah, who's Rob 1 and Rob 2?
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
It just depends.
Elliot Moss
Who leads on what?
Rob Abrahams
Good question. We kind of cut the cake in half really well, so I'm sales and marketing, and you're operations and paint. That's kind of how it's been since the start.
Rob Green
From day one on the whiteboard, cut it in half, and that's what we enjoy, and that's what we've sort of stuck to, isn't it?
Elliot Moss
Was it two mates looking for an idea, or was it an idea that found two mates?
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
Okay, interesting. Yeah, so I mean, we've been friends for a long time, and you know, throughout the years, you always have those conversations in the pub, don't you? What could you look at? How could you like try something out? And I think it's just a bit of serendipity coming together at the right time is when we actually sort of chose to take the plunge with COAT. Um, it was the first one that felt like both of our skill sets made sense, but we've kind of discussed other stuff, but.
Elliot Moss
What other stuff have you discussed? Do you remember?
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
I mean, there's quite a lot.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
In varying levels of seriousness.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
I think probably both of us throughout like school life and university have always done bits and bobs on the side, so a bit of, you know, whether it's selling products, setting up websites, whatever it might be. Um, so we always had that little bit of, I guess, that flair and interest in business.
Elliot Moss
Yeah.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
I tried to replace the CV that's what I was doing before.
Elliot Moss
And what was the idea?
Rob Abrahams
It was called off paper. So the idea, it was a very big lofty idea, which I still stand by, which was that CVs are a terrible way to represent a human, right? But we still use them, bits of paper, whatever. So I decided it should be all about psychometric profiling and kind of matching people to companies. It was big. I couldn't quite make it into a thing, but COAT, because you were kind of, we were looking at different things and painting our houses and all these kinds of things. It was the first one was like, you know, paint. I know sales and marketing and growth makes sense.
Rob Green
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
So there was, it sounds like there was openness between the two of you to do something. And then timing is really important in this, right? Because if you, Rob G.
Rob Green
Yes.
Elliot Moss
Were, were, and you were in the paint business at the time, if you happen to be really into it, but then you, Rob, and the other side, Rob A, were like, well, yeah, that's great but I'm really loving what I do, so this wouldn’t have happened. So was there a magic little moment? I mean, obviously you said, let's try and do this, but why was it right for both of you in that moment?
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
Well, it was born out of the personal experience of going through the colour choice and paint buying process. Um, so both of us were going through our first homes, renovating, sort of starting young families and just didn't enjoy the experience that we were having going into retailers. And at the same time, back then, 2020, you could, you know, get a sofa the next day. You could get your Deliveroo in half an hour but...
Elliot Moss
Ah, the heady days of COVID.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
Yeah exactly.
Elliot Moss
Was this just when the pandemic had started?
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
It had started.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
Yes.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
We, we didn't launch until the sort of end, so September 2020, but we started working together like Q2, middle of the year, mid-pandemic.
Elliot Moss
It's a paint company. So just give me the, give me, but I, I, I have, I don't think I've, I've interviewed many people that have founded paint companies, but this is, it's with a difference because two, two young people, you are young, well you're ish, two young people, young families going through that whole thing. And then you've created something that you couldn't find in the market. Just give me the, the description of COAT from your own mouth. Do you both say the same thing? Are you both highly polished?
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
It's a good test.
Elliot Moss
Let's go for Rob G first.
Rob Green
For us, it's curating that, that experience. So it's such a personal thing, choosing colour and creating, you know, the space in your home, which is what we, what we went through when we first trying to, you know, to renovate and create a space for our, for young family, that we really wanted to help people curate that experience and make it easier for people. And we find a lot of our customers just, just don't have the time or find it difficult to visualise. So that was the area where we thought, do you know what, COAT can step in here and, and really help people inspire and go on that decision-making journey to find the colour that they like and then live it and love it. So that's what a lot of our customers are getting out of COAT is just a real great feeling and experience that they can live with.
Elliot Moss
And where do both of your design aesthetics come from? Because if you do go to the website, it doesn't look like, you know, you're not, you're not looking, you don't look like a manufacturer. You look like someone who is part of the design experience.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
And I, you know, even your, again, I, I'm massively into typeface. Your typeface is interesting.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
Yeah, very deliberate from day one.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
Thank you.
Elliot Moss
Very, very interesting. I don’t know what it is, but you can, you can tell me unless you've made your own one.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
No, it's a bespoke one.
Elliot Moss
It is a bespoke one, right. So I couldn't quite place it, which is why, because it's bespoke. But even just your, it's, there's, it's very open. You're, you've thought about space, which again, websites, which normally sell stuff are full of stuff. This is the opposite.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
I think that's kind of the point to what Rob was saying about, describe us as a paint company. We don't think we sell paint. So the idea of selling paint is, you know, you go to a store and you grab a tin of something off the, off the shelf. We realised quite early on, and I think based on our own experience, that people are buying something, they're looking for something else, you know, they're looking for a feeling or, you know, they've been inspired by something. There's an aspirational side to building a home. So we treat the business much more as a lifestyle brand than a paint retailer. There are plenty of paint retailers, but I think if you're buying COAT, you're looking for something different. Otherwise just go down to the store and grab one off the shelf.
Elliot Moss
And then the colours, all these colours and the names of them, where does all the, the ideas come from? Is it from you, Rob G., Mr. Product?
Rob Green
Yeah. So the, the, the colours from, come from a combination of like trend analysis. And generally our feeling of the team, we've got such a supportive and amazing group of people that we've, we've all brought together that have joined us on the journey and we've come with us some really talented people that help us on the colour decision making. And then once we've got that selection, we've gone through, we've done the testing. We've got this colour palette that we love in some really useful scales that make it easy for people to choose. Yeah. Then you go to the naming and the question that people are always asking is, how do you name these?
Elliot Moss
Yeah.
Rob Green
And that's just a bit of fun to me.
Elliot Moss
Well, I remember just talking, as you were talking, I was thinking about Thea Green, who's the founder of Nails Inc., who I had on the programme a while ago. And it was that, so how do you know what the trends are? How do you know what the colours are? What about the names? And it was, she said, we don't know, we just sit around and we kind of, we know and we have some fun.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
Exactly.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
It's kind of the same for us. I'd love to say it was really scientific, but most of the time it's just, these are nice and we play around with stuff. We have data. So if you want to make it more analytical.
Elliot Moss
If you want to pretend it's empirical.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
If you want to pretend, there's a bit, there is a bit of that in there.
Elliot Moss
But actually it’s, but the trend thing, is that from internal, inside the team? Or do you have people coming from outside?
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
Internal. Yeah. So we rely on our instincts an awful lot and just looking at, you know, social media, the environment. Um, the data point is interesting because we sell direct to customers. Customers tell us a lot of if we're missing stuff or if they're looking for something that we haven't got. So there is an element of, you know, being DTC, we get that feedback the other way. So it's a combination of, I think that and, yeah, gut instinct.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
The names are just, you know, what we feel this colour does for you or what resonates with us and what we know will resonate with our customers.
Elliot Moss
You start sounding like sommeliers though, you know, oh there's a whiff of…
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
I know, I do think that.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
But it's okay.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
We try to step out of the…
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
We're winging it basically.
Elliot Moss
I'm not judging you, it's okay.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
No, no, a couple of glasses of wine into the naming, like it's not…
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
And it's a badge of honour for the team, isn't it?
Elliot Moss
And then there's obviously one big thing in this, which is the sustainability piece. Where does that come from apart from being a good idea from a business point of view, which I'm not meaning to sound cynical. Is it from something deeper than that for the two of you?
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
I think it's a personal experience of going through corporate life and then having children and then being, you know, really interested to starting afresh, starting a business from scratch. You have, in a way, the luxury of being able to set the foundations right to begin with. So just being able to bring those morals in from day one and we could happily stand in front of anyone and answer any question about the business because we've given it that stable footing. So sustainability was important for us from the very start of COAT. And it wasn't there in the industry. So it was something that we really wanted to push on with and bring others with us to be able to challenge and make sure that the paint industry is moving in the right direction.
Elliot Moss
I'm going to tease out a bit more about that because I think that's exactly it. It's also being the number one pusher of a new way of making paint. Much more coming up from my guests today, Rob Abrahams and Rob Green. They're not in the paint business. They're in the lifestyle business, I think we've just decided. They'll be back in a couple of minutes to talk much more about that. Right now, though, we're going to hear a taster from the Mishcon Innovation Series, which you can find on all the major podcast platforms. Lydia Kellett invites business founders to share their practical advice and industry insights for those of you thinking about starting your very own thing, maybe you'll be talking in a pub later about doing your own thing too. In this clip, we hear from Paul Beastall, CEO of HutanBio, a technology company aiming to decouple long-distance transportation from fossil fuels with HBX, their zero carbon biofuel.
You can enjoy all our former Business Shapers on the Jazz Shapers podcast and you can catch this programme again if you pop Jazz Shapers into your favourite podcast platform. My guests today are Rob Green. I'm looking at Rob Green. Yes, good.
Rob Green
Hello. Hello.
Elliot Moss
Hello. And I'm looking at Rob Abrahams because he's the other Rob.
Rob Abrahams
The other one.
Elliot Moss
The other one.
Rob Abrahams
Am I officially the other one now?
Elliot Moss
You are now.
Rob Abrahams
That's happened.
Elliot Moss
I think that's happened.
Rob Abrahams
It's fine.
Elliot Moss
Just that, there you are,
Rob Green
Let's mark it here.
Elliot Moss
When, when you chat to the team, they'll be like, ah, finally. You've put a voice to what we've been thinking. Uh, they are the Co-founders of COAT, the climate positive paint company. So, let's talk about being climate positive. What's the problem with the reputation paint has?
Rob Green
I think it's been around for a while. So, this idea, there's two parts to it. The product part so the paint itself and this idea that, you know, back in the 90s, there was a lot of oil-based and solvent paints that everyone can probably relate to, kind of that strong smell you get when you've painted the space but high levels of what we call VOCs, a volatile organic compound. So, there's a product side of it. And then the side that we, we really leaned into, beyond having kind of clean products, was essentially how it's made and distributed. So, we saw that as kind of the biggest, biggest opportunity to change and improve how the paint industry operates. So, going from, you know, millions of litres of batch produced stuff being shipped around to, to locations all over the place into we will make it when somebody orders it. And we've stuck with that from the start. So, really cutting out mass production, a bit like fashion, over production.
Elliot Moss
Yeah.
Rob Green
Over distribution, flipped that on its head.
Elliot Moss
And when you were experimenting in the early days, was that always in the back of your mind? Other Rob?
Rob Abrahams
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
Was that because there's one thing experimenting and playing and there's another thing saying, but actually when it comes to delivery of this, we're not going to be making massive production line volumes of this stuff.
Rob Abrahams
Yeah, that was critical for us to be able to ensure that we could run a zero waste process and made to order, but at scale and be able to scale that and grow it quickly.
Elliot Moss
That's quite tricky, isn't it?
Rob Abrahams
It was tricky.
Elliot Moss
How do you do that? I mean, do you have a factory where do you not own the factory, but you use other people's?
Rob Abrahams
No, so we have our own facility.
Elliot Moss
Oh okay.
Rob Abrahams
Where we support that. And it's just, it's grown with the team. We've always been planning ahead.
Elliot Moss
You've got your own factory.
Rob Abrahams
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
That's like saying you've got your own zoo. I mean, that's fun, right?
Rob Abrahams
It is very fun.
Elliot Moss
Is it? Do you know what I mean? Do you ever kind of look and go, we've got a factory. We make something. I mean that’s.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
It’s quite new. We outsourced it for a while and we just insourced it quite recently.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
And we always say earlier, it's a roller coaster. So yeah, absolutely. Like the journey of the founders.
Elliot Moss
The highs are highs.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
Highs are highs. And then there's always challenges.
Elliot Moss
I want to come to that as well, but, but the, it's just the notion of suddenly, you know, when I worked in my first career in advertising, I used to walk around factories. in fact, a Mercedes factory and you get to see the cars being made. You go, oh, look, now they're using the goose feathers to polish it at the end of the production line. I found it really exciting and I'm not scientific at all. I just enjoyed the experience.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
Yeah, I mean we just love, we love products.
Elliot Moss
But it's yours.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
It's our background as well.
Elliot Moss
It's actually yours though. And then it taking that joy of the experimentation at the beginning and then going and asking family, hello, we'd like to raise some money. What was that like? How did you explain to grandma? Whose grandma was on the cap table?
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
My grandma was on there.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
No, she wasn't.
Elliot Moss
I mean grandma on the cap table, that's a thing. What did you say to grandma?
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
She's the best investor. She's the only one that's ever said to me, I don't want it back, basically.
Elliot Moss
I trust you. I don't want to know. What a great shareholder.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
But no, incredible and, um, so there's, I think, 23 of our, you know, brothers, sisters, mothers, grandparents.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
Friends and family.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
Friends and family with, with money in. So it's a reasonable amount of pressure um.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
But it's a massive motivator as well, isn't it?
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
Do they ask you like a lot, you know, if you go for tea or something, you go, hey, how's it going?
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
Yeah, we update them all the time.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
I mean, obviously, they still support us and we speak about it regularly and to have that from essentially a pitch deck, you know, in lockdown one, for them to be able to support us in that way.
Elliot Moss
Why do you think they did say yes?
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
I think we were convincing.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
They must have been quite mad.
Elliot Moss
I love how in front, Elliot, we were convincing. We've got a good story. We're building a business. What do you mean? But was there an element of, well, it's Rob and his family and it's Rob and his family? Was it that?
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
I think so.
Elliot Moss
Or do you think they actually saw something a bit more than that?
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
I think they saw what we saw in the idea, like the conceptual thing of paint still sold loads online. Nothing else is. It's moving in this direction. Like, I think, I think people got that. I think my grandma just wanted to support us and be kind. But no, I think they saw the business. But then they also saw two people that knew each other broadly inside out with complementary skill sets going, we're going to leave our jobs and do this and that, I think that probably convinced them more than anything, I'd say.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
Yeah I agree.
Elliot Moss
I'd be convinced by that too. You mentioned Rollercoaster, I think Rob.
Rob Green
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
Rob G and I've read some funny stuff and watched a few interviews about, you know, palettes of paint sitting outside of your house and all the other things.
Rob Green
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
Tell me about the first big hit, low hit for you, Rob G.
Rob Green
Wow. First big low. First one. I think it probably was around in the early days where we were literally doing everything. So, um, you know, producing the product, shipping it out, having the customer service conversations, you name it. Um, as well as trying to bring those first customers in um.
Elliot Moss
Was it just overwhelming?
Rob Green
It was, it was a lot. It was exciting, um, but also having like a very young family at the time and it was…
Elliot Moss
How old were the kids at the time?
Rob Green
I think at the time they would have been, my son would have been two. Yeah, so really early doors then.
Elliot Moss
And was your partner, um, supportive?
Rob Green
So supportive. Has been all the way through. I think all of our family, we've been very lucky that we've had that like supportive network. Um, but yeah, I think it was palettes of paint being dumped at the side of the road next to Rob's house on a bank holiday when we had customers waiting for their product and it had been totally moved to the wrong place.
Elliot Moss
What does it trigger in you when that happens? When you see this outside and you think, I'm trying to be a professional, I'm a founder, I'm running a business and that's outside. I have no idea how I'm going to move it.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
That was just like, I don't know how to deal with this. I can remember looking at it.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
I think it's a bit of our superpower. Those things happen, not that particular thing.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
Yeah.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
These challenges turn up all the time and resilience. We've definitely learned a lot of resilience all the way through. So you just get on with it. I think in that instance, we literally, um, called a mate who had a van and we just sorted it out.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
We handballed it into the back of a van on a one-way street. Yeah, yeah, I remember that.
Elliot Moss
And do you think looking back on both of your lives, that actually you've been preparing for this for a long time? Were there things in life that happened to you? Looking at Rob A now.
Rob Abrahams
Yeah.
Elliot moss
That you go, oh, actually, yeah, maybe that wasn't the very first time I had to deal with something awful.
Rob Abrahams
I think in hindsight, yes, but I wouldn't have said it was something I'd ever thought about really. But clearly, to do this job and the resilience part and the kind of flex… right mental agility, all that kind of stuff, definitely must have learnt that from somewhere. But then both of us had quite traditional, if you want to call it traditional, you know, go to school, go to university, do a business degree, get a grad job at a big company. Like we both kind of went through the traditional steps, which you don't always see from entrepreneurs that kind of, you know, drop out of uni and go and do it. So I think we put a lot of value on learning the corporate role, you know, how to behave, how to talk to people.
Rob Green
It was key how to talk to people.
Rob Abrahams
Yeah, we talk about it as a corporate education. So we had that, which probably gave us more structure to the way we did things. Later on. Um, nothing prepares you for just quite how much stuff there that's thrown at you. And still now, that's really hard.
Rob Green
Yeah, yeah. Bouncing from HR, to commercials, to legal, so whatever it is.
Elliot Moss
And you still find the joy because obviously there is that stuff.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
That's the fun, yeah. That's the fun.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
The variety.
Elliot Moss
Right.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
Like for me still, the variety, the projects we can take on the control and having still daily such a significant impact on the business and our direction. Yeah, that's the fun that we can work on together and we can control that and take it forward.
Elliot Moss
And the fun of being located in Soho as well, by the way, which I've just learnt. That must be quite a lot of fun. Final chat coming up with my guest today is Rob Abrahams and Rob Green. And we've got some Ezra Collective for you too. That's in just a moment.
That was Ezra Collective with No One's Watching Me featuring Olivia Dean. And by the way, that is Rob Green's song choice. We've got two songs because there's two Robs. Normally we only give you one. But again…
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
That’s very kind.
Elliot Moss
We are spoiling you. Well done, Stuart. Stuart, the spoiler. Stuart, producer. Amazing. Rob Green, why did you choose that song?
Rob Green
It's a bit of a COAT soundtrack now. So yeah, we, we’ve, um, a lot of it is sort of loosely jazz inspired, but, uh, also quite sort of chill out as well. Um, so we always have that on.
Elliot Moss
So when you're in the office.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Elliot Moss
In the office. And the vibe, again, we're talking about what I started with, which is you're a paint company, Rob, but there is a vibe.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
There is a vibe.
Elliot Moss
So why is vibe and story and brand important? Obviously, we started off saying we're not a paint company, we're a lifestyle company. How does that work in the world of actually experiencing it as the consumer?
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
Yeah. Yeah, this idea that we sell paint. Clearly we sell paint, you know, that's how we make money, but it's always been much more than that. And everything from, you know, where. where we put the office in Soho and what kind of talent and creative energy that creates to the product itself, to the marketing initiatives, like giving models empty paint tins at London Fashion Week, and just doing things that paint companies wouldn't traditionally do to kind of pull ourselves out of that world and position ourselves as, yeah, thought leaders, trend, I don't like the word trendsetters, but kind of be front of mind as an interesting brand with a story to tell, rather than just another tin on the shelf. That's how it should feel when you, when you buy from COAT.
Elliot Moss
So it's not quite you're a fashion brand, but essentially you're a brand that's important in the world of design.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
Yeah, I think so. Yeah. And we're so agile with our colour development. We change our palette all the time. We do edits with influencers. We're doing a cool one in a couple of weeks with Margate House. You know, Margate is a great, cool, up-and-coming creative hub, you know, we're tapping into that, creating some colours around it, telling stories there. So I guess it is like a fashion brand in that sense. I'll flip that around and say we, we focus on timeless colours. So we don't do, you know, bright pinks. If you look at the kind of colours we do, we don't do flashy stuff. We do stuff that's going to…
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
It’s not garrulous.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
…sit well in UK lighting.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
Yeah. It's meant to live. It's meant to go on a journey.
Elliot Moss
There's obviously a couple of other posh brands I can think of in the world of paint. I'm not saying you're posh, but all the brands that, you know, aren't your regular Dulux, and that's Dulux is obviously probably the market leader still in terms of percentage of market. Those colours, and you've got, you know, colour consultants, and I even know the name of the colour consultant at one of your competitors because that person is quite famous.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
Okay.
Elliot Moss
Um, is that the space you're in, or is it something slightly bigger than that?
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
Yeah, we want it to be a bit more democratic.
Elliot Moss
Okay.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
And be able to help people make those decisions or be on hand to support them to do that. So I think that posh heritage was not what we resonated with, that's not our background. That's why we wanted to create COAT to bring something different. So making the online experience and that decision-making journey easier and supportive so that anyone can hopefully go on that with us and help them to visualise it because I'm not a very visual person.
Elliot Moss
Are you not.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
I need that support myself.
Elliot Moss
Okay.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
Um, which is sort of one of the initial sort of, I guess, problems that we're trying to tackle.
Elliot Moss
Well, yes, and I think that fits in with that radically open thought I read about somewhere when I was reading about you two. It does feel like even the brands that I'm alluding to, without mentioning, I mean, how clever is that? Without mentioning that they do feel a bit more elite. And so is that, is that what's going to happen over the next few years, Rob? Is that what you're going to do? You going to continue to democratise having a lovely home because why shouldn't you?
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
I hope so. Yeah, that's kind of what we... So the product quality is great, but we looked at, we looked at existing players and went we think luxury has changed, even the word luxury itself kind of makes us cringe a bit, but it's gone from kind of status-driven, slightly elitist, slightly kind of there to much more democratic, humble, sustainable. It's another big part of it. But yeah, our view is we don't have colour consultants. Our entire customer service team is trained in colour psychology and colour theory that will talk to anyone on the phone when they want it. So it's a difference in how we've productised that and how it lives in our business.
Elliot Moss
I've really enjoyed talking to you two. Thank you.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
We appreciate you having us on.
Elliot Moss
It's really, it’s really cool and as I said, I've mentioned the website a few times. If I don't say something, it means I probably don't think it's very good. I've mentioned it because I think it's really fabulous.
Rob Green / Rob Abrahams
Thank you.
Elliot Moss
And I think you are, you’re genuinely presenting your wares in a very, very different way. Just before I let you disappear, we've had yours, Rob Green.
Rob Green
Yes.
Elliot Moss
Because you got in there first. So the other, for now, you're back to the other one, Rob Abrahams.
Rob Abrahams
Yes.
Elliot Moss
What's your song choice and why have you chosen it?
Rob Abrahams
So it's Talk to Your Daughter by Robin Ford and it's kind of a special one to me. I lived in New York for a little bit, jazz clubs in Greenwich Village, like there's some really indulgent guitar solos in there that just, you know, when music kind of takes you somewhere, that song for me does that every time.
Elliot Moss
Robin Ford with Talk to Your Daughter, the song choice of Rob Abrahams, one of my Robs today, Rob Abrahams and Rob Green, the Co-founders of COAT. We don't sell paint. We help people create the lifestyle that they want. A lovely way of thinking about what they actually deliver in their business. Starting a business means you can set the foundations right and it's why they have believed so heavily in putting sustainability at the heart of their business. And finally, having a corporate education and the fact that they learnt so much through their bigger corporate roles that they've now applied as founders in their own business. Great stuff. That's it from Jazz Shapers, have a lovely weekend.
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