Alastair: [00:00:00] So welcome to PPE TV, the first episode for PPE for people. And we’re here today with Lee, the CEO, and we’re going to discuss how PPE for people even came about and where it is today and how you as a buyer or a seller can use it so, hi Lee. 

[00:00:30] Lee: [00:00:30] Hi Alastair

[00:00:31] Alastair: [00:00:31] how are you? And you, you are and have been all through the crisis, stuck in Thailand.

[00:00:36] I believe. 

[00:00:37] Lee: [00:00:37] Yeah. I’ve been here since mid January, so like seven months and I’ve just got a extended visa. So intensely I’m here for another year. Wow. 

[00:00:47] Alastair: [00:00:47] And the whole, and you’re running the whole thing from Thailand completely remotely. 

[00:00:51] Lee: [00:00:51] Yeah. Obviously I’m six hours ahead. So it was a bit difficult to get in sync with the team.

[00:00:56] So what I try and do is. Come eight o’clock UK time is I’m available with the team from about eight o’clock. So I’ll start conversations in Slack and start work with them. And then I’ll wake up to like late, even in, Prue cat time. So I have a good chunk of like four to five hours of like daily time spent with the team.

[00:01:16] There’s about eight of us at this minute ACE in the core 

[00:01:18] Alastair: [00:01:18] team. Quite useful in a way, because actually you get stuff done, but everybody’s every still asleep. 

[00:01:25] Lee: [00:01:25] Is it? Well, what happens is it tends to do a wake, my normal poo catch stuff in the morning. So I’ll, you know, I’ll go for breakfast, I’ll go to the beach, I’ll go the gym.

[00:01:34] So I’ll get my normal day. And then by the time the UK is waking up, I can get back to my apartment, and then start to work on PPA. 

[00:01:43] Alastair: [00:01:43] Yeah. And how did you end up in Thailand? 

[00:01:46]Lee: [00:01:46] well, I, I sold my last business at the end of last year. Yeah. And I was a little originally going to go on like a three month sabbatical, three month long holiday.

[00:01:55]and then obviously got stuck here, during Covid . So I had the chance to get on the last flight. And go back to England England’s was on lockdown. It was quarantine, it was pretty bad. and I was enjoying yourself. So, so you know, what, why, why go back to England? So I decided to take the risk and stay here then Thailand, when I’m locked down.

[00:02:17]but it was, it was pretty good because like now, as of like the 20th of July Thailand’s housing, any COVID cases in 57 days, any, homegrown Cobra case would be barred, the imports, people getting on flights and so on. So it’s pretty, it’s pretty much a rather case it now. So yeah, it was, it started the January state here and, 

[00:02:38] Alastair: [00:02:38] so you’re safer there as well.

[00:02:40] You’re actually safer there. Then back here. Here a big the UK, obviously. So you sold the business, you’re basically taking a holiday. You got stuck in Thailand. How on earth did you go from the beach and going to the gym to creating PPD for people? 

[00:02:59]Lee: [00:02:59] well what happens is like sorts of February. I was used to go back to the UK.

[00:03:04] In March of this year, I was going to start, you know, April this year I was going to start business with, with, friends. And, he was going to be an invested in friends, which, which is true. and that was going to be sort of the start of summer. This year, then Cobas opens a means of winning contact with each of them.

[00:03:22] And Duke was saying, see, in the stats of the Colbert’s infection rates and he’s like, it’s going to go crazy. and then I still have to, I try, I tried to get test kits from China and send them to the UK and send them to Thailand. And I was going to try to get a bit of a business going with test kits, not lots of profit as such on the test kits for, to try to help, you know, identify people who have got it and hard to, And so that was my way of trying to help with the, with the pandemic and took, who’s getting, you know, getting me connections within Scottish that’s H and M and ASAP, and also the UK NHS.

[00:04:00] And that was it. Yeah. So that was basically what we were trying to do to help with the pandemic, with the test kits. But then the test kits become a real hot potato in terms of. Do the, actually where to be done with the Chinese factories were getting slated and these multibillion dollar factories in China, and they were getting some bad press from like the European, co governments and so on.

[00:04:25] So yeah, it becomes very difficult to try to, I have an influence with test kids. So. We then decided to start going into PPA. 

[00:04:33] Alastair: [00:04:33] And was it fair criticism or was it just, there were some bad test kits, but actually they were fine and it’s just, it was just such a big unknown that people didn’t know what they were buying and were scared.

[00:04:44]Lee: [00:04:44] it’s still improvements. I think what it was is that the, the test kits that were coming out of anywhere, it wasn’t just China related issue. the way that the process is doing is quite you would, it basically breaks down the, the blood samples into bits of DNA, strums, and so that you can have to be CV at the antibodies inside the bloods on.

[00:05:05]so it was, I think it was new technology. It was, everything was quite rushed than the research except coming out was all like, you know, heat at the moments. So I think the, the, the technology works for getting the amount of data and analysis to then judge, whether it was actually real or not even today.

[00:05:26] I don’t know whether there’s a genuine antibody kit that can give you that. The information needs it’s that’s needed to like, you know, start a cohort, people into infected noninfected previously infected it’s it’s quite complicated. 

[00:05:42] Alastair: [00:05:42] So it’s just so new. It’s like, it feels like a very long time, but there’s not really, you know, it feels like months.

[00:05:49] I mean, you know, we locked down and. March the UK date of March the 16th. And that feels like such a long time ago now. I mean, it’s really extended the sort of the mental time frame, but in that timeframe, you know, the scientists have pulled out probably some quite amazing stuff. It’s just compressed for them compared to the normal years they would have, I guess.

[00:06:10] So you switched from test kits to PPE. Yeah. and you had some potential suppliers in China, and I believe you had people own the ground as well. Who could actually check the quantity is and the quality and make sure everything was good. 

[00:06:22] Lee: [00:06:22] I had backgrounds of working in China. So I’ve been to quite a few places in China over the last 15 years and doing QA and setting of factories and warehouses.

[00:06:31] So when went to, I mentioned about getting a PPA from China. I had contacts there. So I think at one point we had. Five Chinese people, on the ground checking the box, we use forwarders. So we got to the point where we had, like, we were building a supply chain all the way from China, all the way to the UK.

[00:06:51] And we had like a tremendous, input from like loads of people from like very high level  within the UK, like some blue chip companies, even government black people. And that’s where the government people. it was just that yeah. loads of loads of interest, everyone was trying to help get the supply chain set.

[00:07:10] So, so he was at one point, I’d say we have maybe a hundred volunteers willing to help with the supply chain, but it was so complicated. It was really. Really a nightmare to try to get a supply chain all the way from China to the UK, because what happens is the Chinese government then started up and restrictions and customs cleanings.

[00:07:31]about 5,000 suppliers went down to a hundred suppliers was called at the blacklist or the white list. It should say. So the white list was all the approved suppliers in China. And the blacklist was all the non-approved suppliers. So as we were Baton suppliers, they would get taken off the white list and put it into blacklist.

[00:07:49] So we have to consistently trying to verify suppliers to get access to all of these goods that I’m bringing into the UK. Then there’s the financial side, the letters of credit. And you get token, you know, tens of millions of pounds of kit that we will have to. Potentially then, or what’s going on less as a credit or TTS and it just got, yeah, it’d become quite a huge challenge, I guess.

[00:08:15] Alastair: [00:08:15] Yeah. Sorry. I guess financially the other issue is of course with the way these things are ordered and it was saying I’ll have a million pounds please was actually happening where they paying the full million upfront or a significant amount 

[00:08:28] Lee: [00:08:28] of it. Well, a normal deal from China. Normally you would find a supplier.

[00:08:34] You would then issue 50% of fruits and then 50% when goods are ready. So the majority of the deals you would have to risk a hundred percent of your money before the goods left China. and that’s it, you know, it’s a huge risk to people now that that’s a normal way of doing business, but, you know, for most people who deal with China, however, when you’ve got an explosion of, of buyers who needs it, who have never dealt with this type of financial system before and deal in Zydeco with China, it was really, I, you know, many nightmare scenarios were getting envisioned by these buyers in the UK.

[00:09:10] And most of them wouldn’t want to commit. A hundred percent of them are your friends to a company that they’ve never dealt with before. So it become a real stumbling blocks side together. Quality product from China into the UK and in, into the, to the fist line, response to Stefan responses to the NHS doctors clinics and so on.

[00:09:30] It was, it become a real huge problem. So we have genuine intentions of getting this was all nonprofit. So we have genuine intentions of getting quality products from China into the foot line, into the UK, but no one wants to spend money. It was, you know, it just, it just become a nightmare because there was a few nightmare scenarios of real stories where goods were getting held in customs in China or the wrong goods were getting shipped into the UK.

[00:09:58] And so there was just like this wildfire of suspicion and rumors and, and it just becomes impossible to do business just impossible. But 

[00:10:09] Alastair: [00:10:09] there must’ve been like, nevermind this, especially that would have been, and there were, Cowboys and horror stories galore at the time because obviously, you know, people are willing to write big checks for something they’re quite scared of take some risks.

[00:10:22] And I guess I can see the difficulties of getting government to actually pay up front. But I guess a lot of people would have been lots of, some people would have been burned because if you have 4,900 unregistered suppliers, but who can make similar products, China, that stuff is still heading to Europe.

[00:10:41] And yeah, nobody knows until it gets there. And even some of the reports that they do, even when you got it, they didn’t even, no, even those mosques in Turkey, very famously that the government bought weren’t even suitable. Is that right? 

[00:10:52] Lee: [00:10:52] It’s yeah, there was, numerous, Potter stories, I think, Italy, Italy, government test kits, not failed to, to test that the proper levels.

[00:11:01]I think Spain had similar issues with test kids. Yeah. Obviously there was rumors with, with taking suppliers, but it was, it wasn’t isolated to any one country or any one supplier buyer. It was, it was the wild West. And what we were trying to do is take out that wild West issue away from the buyers to help them by January.

[00:11:24] To help save people’s lives. you know, some of the stories, not weekends was, you know, governments, military, you know, taken ownership of, of goods, designated to go to a buyer, you know, like a hospital or a private company. And the government’s with literally. Steal those goods when the goods lands is on the plane, you know, when the plane landed on the tarmac at an airport 

[00:11:47] Alastair: [00:11:47] by so almost, 

[00:11:48] Lee: [00:11:48] yeah.

[00:11:48] Yeah, it was, it was going on numerous occasions. It wasn’t just one off, it become a free for all, you know, everyone was trying to save each other’s, you know, each slobs it was at. you know, if, if, if someone finds out about, you know, say like three and masks London in a certain airport and they had the military there, there was that there was occasions where those most people would go and take ownership, but that was good.

[00:12:11] So we crazy. 

[00:12:13] Alastair: [00:12:13] It’s amazing because what you’ve actually got, there is a situation where, every world uniting to fight this disease, governments also, however, they should work together. But really if you land a million, three or masks, we’re going to have them. And if you don’t want to give them to them, to give them to us, we’re going to take them.

[00:12:29] And that actually happened. 

[00:12:31] Lee: [00:12:31] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It definitely happens on numerous occasions. 

[00:12:34] Alastair: [00:12:34] There’ll be some reckonings after this one, though, because those stories are real and they’ll come out and some governments are going to be quite embarrassed. I think by what was the seam with the benefit of hindsight, won’t seem quite so, looks very selfish.

[00:12:48] Lee: [00:12:48] Yeah. Yeah. But, well, obviously, you know, with the year, what happens in, in, in, in Italy. So I think, it’s the, you know, really annoyed at the way that the EU handles. the, the protection of Italy. So you’ve got governments now, you know, I want to go with each other about the way that they should have dealt with things.

[00:13:06]and yet you’re going to have a, you know, governments getting accused of stealing, you know, people’s goods and, you know, on the time off of it, airports all around the world. And I’m sure this is only the tip of the iceberg. You know, we. We listened to these stories over like a, say a two month period, but then we backed out out of that.

[00:13:24] It was just getting too risky, the buyers of the want to send millions of pounds to our on network. And while we can understand why, so the stories that I’m telling you now, just the tip of the iceberg. So once all this is calm down, I’m guessing there’s going to be hundreds of stories. With billions of dollars, you know, getting 

[00:13:43] Alastair: [00:13:43] mentions and there’s a book in there for you.

[00:13:46] Lee: [00:13:46] Well, I don’t, I don’t know the mall, but I’m sure someone, you know, someone in these big supply chains knows all what was going on, but yeah, the wild West is definitely an app name that was getting bonded about Jordan. 

[00:14:00] Alastair: [00:14:00] Is that your trademark for you? But the wild covert wild West proper is on the high seas quite literally.

[00:14:08] Lee: [00:14:08] Yeah. There’s definitely a booth there somewhere. Yeah. 

[00:14:11] Alastair: [00:14:11] So, so where, how does the, so where are you now and how does the process work and who’s actually helping you now? Cause you said you had hundreds of volunteers. I know that’s now fewer. And the process is now more of a marketplace. Is that correct? 

[00:14:24] Lee: [00:14:24] So w what we’ve done is we’ve created a smart auction.

[00:14:29] So we’ve got a list of approved suppliers, the majority registered in the UK. So we’re focusing on the UK, and then we’re going to start whitening it’s Europe and America and beyond. So it’s a rebase auction site where let’s say I’m a care home. When I want 5,000 masks. I would put my audit queue, which is a request for quotes on the system.

[00:14:51] And up to 200 plus suppliers can then go in quotes for the RFQ. So me as the care home, I then log into the system and I can see a whole host of quotations any anywhere from. whatever the market price of, of the, the Musk is too below the market price to wipe up the market price. So everyone’s obviously got different supply chains.

[00:15:14] Some can do it at the most competitive price. Some of them can’t do it the most competitive, but it’s not just about price. It’s about. have you got C certification for that product? Have you got product liability, liability insurance for your company in case there’s any claim? also just like a rating.

[00:15:30] So has anyone raised it yet? Have you done any transactions on the platform before? So it’s 80 days. It’s the, this smart reverse auction has only been live for about two weeks. so it’s, it’s a case of yeah. And buys and buys and stuff that was into the system to create this momentum, which is where we are now.

[00:15:49] I think at this precise moment, I’m getting told that there’s 150 people live on the website. Well at this minute. So we’ve gone from having one RFQ two weeks ago. So, you know, the tens team we’ve got maybe 80 audit Hughes live at the science at this minute may be more, depends on how many of these hundred and 81 people live on the science and do an RFQ.

[00:16:11] But obviously we’ve got buyers and sellers, so they’re not all buyers, but it’s early days. What, we haven’t really done any promotion sites. So it’s going to be. No, it should be a really good platform. If you want to get the best possible price from all suppliers for all the major buyers. So all the major sellers in the UK, the buyers can go and get quotes within an hour.

[00:16:33] Within an hour, you put up a hundred quotations from a hundred approved suppliers that the product that you, that you’ll want to buy. So 

[00:16:41] Alastair: [00:16:41] I think there’s a few things to unpack there. there’s the supply side and this that you, when you said UK suppliers are all the suppliers on there just now. Oh, they are they, are they supplying into the UK or are they in the UK?

[00:16:53] Lee: [00:16:53] The majority of the suppliers in our platform are based in the UK and, supply in the UK, but I’m guessing they will supply for the politics of the world as well. But all platform is specifically built up this minute around UK registered suppliers, suppliers that have gone. limited companies in the UK and buyers registered in the UK trade and us companies or limited companies, but basically all these transactions will be predominantly UK based.

[00:17:24] Alastair: [00:17:24] So you’re actually in, in effect, not doing the validation itself into who is behind the company and et cetera, et cetera. But if they’ve got product liability insurance or they’ve got the C certificates, And there are, and you can obviously find them a company’s house and validate at least that then they can supply.

[00:17:40] And that’s it. The buyers in the UK don’t have to be living to companies though. So you could have a, you know, smoke, a small private care home can actually go on and say, you know, we want a small amount of mass, I guess, and the simpler, the suppliers, you do big volume stuff, cheap, really cheap prices.

[00:17:55] We’ll call it for that. Cause they don’t want to send, you know, 5,000 masks maybe. But somebody else will, it would be slightly more expensive, but you can get it tomorrow, et cetera. So there’s, you’ve got kind of three, three leavers, speed price and quantity Avenue. 

[00:18:08] Lee: [00:18:08] Yeah. Yeah. So we’ve got quotes on the system.

[00:18:11] Now  four, five items, 10 items that make up about 10 pounds, 20 pounds, but we’ve also got quotes in the system that, you know, arranging from 5 million to 10 million pounds. So this, this, this, you know, why it’s a variety of very small orders and really huge orders. Look, 80% of all quotes are gonna land somewhere between a few thousand pounds and say 2000 pounds.

[00:18:39] That’s going to be the sorts of average sorts of orders in the middle. So we’re trying to work out a way to handle a small orders in the best cost, effective delivery focused way, and then where you’ve got the huge orders, which are going to be directly with the factories and. And then they start to like, look at the lessons of credit and all of those big financial mechanisms needs for the big, the big orders.

[00:19:05] So yeah, just like, so the small, medium and large and 80% are going to be meeting more with the size. 

[00:19:10] Alastair: [00:19:10] And I guess this will sort it cause it’s all brand new. Right? So this is going to sort of self, I guess, because you should have. suppliers being able to start seeing, well, we’re not gonna, we’re not going to quote on anything below this volume or this price, so therefore you wouldn’t send them the quote for, you know, Alice’s 10 PFF, two masks.

[00:19:28]and then. You’ll get suppliers to say we are, we’re not cheap because we actually have it installed and we’ve bought it ourselves. Therefore, the can’t do the scale price, but then they can’t, they can deliver it to somebody in 

[00:19:38] Lee: [00:19:38] the next day. Well, we put an option on the platform now where a supplier can actually put in all the products that are, that we sell on the platform.

[00:19:47] I’ve got sentence. So you could say. these are the products that I supply and I don’t want to quote, I don’t want to be, no, I don’t want to be nosy. Any audit queue that is less than this quantity after this visit is for this particular product. So the suppliers who have got minimum order quantities can go into the platform and set the threshold level so that they don’t get bombarded with hundreds of quotes that they don’t want to be quoting because it’s too small.

[00:20:13] Where, on the flip side, you will have suppliers who focus on. High volume, low value orders who will then that will be their bread and butter. And they can say, yeah, I don’t want to be notified of anything, approve a thousands because it’s not my business. I want to, I just want to have all the small loads is, so we want to try and make that as easy as possible.

[00:20:33] But with, with, you know, web based platforms, everything is trial and error and iterate. And so we are on a daily basis getting feedback from buyers and sellers and we are changing and adapting the platform. I would buy our book until we find this like equilibrium, where we try and make as many people as happy as possible.

[00:20:54] You can’t make everyone happy obviously, but we’ll try and make as many buyers and sellers as happy as possible, but form so we can cover the majority view. 

[00:21:03] Alastair: [00:21:03] And it’s still quite amazing. Cause it’s like day 80 of this. Or since he started. 

[00:21:08] Lee: [00:21:08] It’s I think it was seventh of 80 7th of April is when we got going.

[00:21:13] So, yeah, 

[00:21:14] Alastair: [00:21:14] so you’re roughly day 75 ish and you’ve had two iterations. You’ve got hundreds of suppliers who actually accredited in some way, shape or form, even if it’s just, they’ve got product liability insurance, you’ve got buyers placing orders for millions of pounds. And it’s the 75. I’m trying to, I’m trying to imagine a, another start starts off.

[00:21:34] If you use that language, which in 75 days has got hundreds of buyers and sellers and is processing them from like a one pound 10 pound order to a million pound orders. It’s not, it’s not very common. 

[00:21:46] Lee: [00:21:46] No, no, no. Not at all. It’s, it’s probably the fastest thoughts of being involved in not being involved with this is my four to tech company startup as a, as a founder.

[00:21:56] And, I think. Oh, since then, since the 7th of April to now. We’ve had over a thousand buyers registered with the sites. And an average order quantity is somewhere between five to 10,000. So you times that by the thousand buyers, it’s, it’s, it’s in the tens of millions of PPE requested items. So, you know, for that to go from zero to tens of millions of requests is phenomenal.

[00:22:25] But, you know, it’s probably to do with the pandemic, you know, when are they  times strange times with, with the, with the agency and the threats of Coburns, it’s just, we we’ve been in the right place at the wrong time. If that makes sense. No one wants this to happen. We, we, we’ve just tried to help. We aren’t intention has been genuine, a hundred percent genuine.

[00:22:51] We’d been nonprofit for the first few months. We we’re still nonprofit. You know what we think we were going to have to adapt the strategy at some point, but our strategy is to help as many companies and people get genuine PPA, but as cheap, as possible, as fast as possible without getting ripped off. And that’s been our ethos, ethos.

[00:23:12] So I need from, from day one to where we are now 

[00:23:15] Alastair: [00:23:15] that everyone’s a volunteer. In the, in the, in the team. 

[00:23:19] Lee: [00:23:19] Yeah, everyone’s a volunteer at this moment in time. We’ve obviously got a limited company sets up now and the cost of the business has been funded by Duke. So took Scott as his founder, my partner, and an investor.

[00:23:32] So any cost associated it’s one of the business books been for instance from his own, his own cash. And if I do that’s the board 60,000 Musk’s himself out of his own money. And he was distributing master care homes in Litchfield and unsolvable beyond. So it’s, it’s, it’s all been born from a genuine need to help people.

[00:23:54] And hence that, you know, the name of the company. 

[00:23:56] Alastair: [00:23:56] Yes. And there’s no, I think I’m, and also professionalizing a little bit, finding some way to take some margins so you can actually have full time staff. Actually, it helps makes it more likely that the system would be just improve and get better. Cause there’s no reason of course, that this could not work in any European country.

[00:24:14] Cause you’re going to have suppliers that are covered Europe. You’re going to supply as a cover for the globe, some of whom you’ve already got. And then, then it becomes a point of how can you build the system or the systems so that it scales itself. Cause you could go down the road of, you know, you could get volunteers to translate it.

[00:24:33]volunteers in every country, you only need one expert, but countries will tell you what kind of, you know is product liability. You know, what, what is the equivalent in that country? and then of course it just grows itself. I guess, as long as you’ve got a core team, you can pay to help manage the process with the foam tears in a sort of far the Wright’s vision.

[00:24:52] Lee: [00:24:52] Yeah, we definitely want to scale. I think the, the, the concept of this minute is get the UK. Product market fit, which is a term, a terminology in startups where you get the product, right. That fits the market. we’re close. We’re close to getting that, that synchronization with the market and the product.

[00:25:10] Once we’ve got the UK market pretty much. Sorted and delivered on what we expect, then we can scale and, you know, across the world into your depends of America, where, how we do it in terms of the resources needs, and volunteers paid, it’s going to be a difficult one. Cause everyone, all the con all the countries globally.

[00:25:30] I’ve got different dynamics with the level of Colbert’s and the level of depth based and so on. So whether we could get volunteers in every country, I don’t know, but I think the idea is to go and raise investments, at some point. So that we can install scaling into different countries and help different companies, sorry, different countries get access to this platform to keep the price gouging down, to keep the quality he limits into the different countries as high as people.

[00:26:00] So, yeah, the plot, the platform is scalable, into multiple languages and multiple countries. How we do it. We don’t really know what this part is. 

[00:26:10] Alastair: [00:26:10] The unknown, the unknown roadmap. 

[00:26:12] Lee: [00:26:12] Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we know what we need to do. Who’s going to fund it and how it happens. We don’t know what this is, 

[00:26:20] Alastair: [00:26:20] but it can, but there’s no reason it can’t because I think you just touched something really interesting there, it stops the price gouging, and it means that you have a safe place to buy it.

[00:26:29] Because 

[00:26:31] Lee: [00:26:31] that 

[00:26:31] Alastair: [00:26:31] must’ve been a mad scramble for this stuff was in the care home sites and they must’ve bought it from just about anyone, whether it was any good or not. And to move it to a point where actually, if I can go here and it’s a credit, say it’s on the it’s safe and I’ll get it. And that will be ripped off.

[00:26:45] I think that’s the key thing, because remember some of the pricing. You showed me the beginning and the same mask was like, you know, 25 P per unit. If you bought 5,000 or two pounds 50, if you bought five of those, there’s some people lying in beaches today who have got a lot to answer for, I think. 

[00:27:02] Lee: [00:27:02] Yeah, it’s definitely, I’m priced couch and it’s definitely going to be looked upon, certainly by the UK government’s commander this year, what, once the panic is over, there’s gotta be some people potentially.

[00:27:15] Go into jail. Yeah. And I think they, I think they deserve to go to jail. you know, we talk about 10 times the normal value. And even though the supply chain, the cost of flights from the Asia into the UK, went up, you know, horrifically and the cost of the materials went up yet. The price gouging was way above the inflation rate of, you know, the cost of the supply chain.

[00:27:38] People would just, you know, maliciously putting the prices up. Just to get, you know, just to make more profit and more profit. So our system completely rebates is that all system goes from, you know, allowing people to, you know, to quote, allowing buyers to be ripped off by going to the market. This is our own internal market, which makes it a competitive, healthy, competitive place to get the best price.

[00:28:04] In fact, I’ve seen some of the quotations. Where, you know, on our platform that go from say, hypothetically, you know, three pounds for the Musk. Well, you know, down to, you know, ATP for the mosque, like for the inmates you five must, for example, where does those Musk think at the height of, Cobas in March and April and 95 masks were anywhere from like four or five, five pounds for a Musk.

[00:28:29] Alastair: [00:28:29] I saw them at 10. I saw like a Voxer 10 for a hundred quid. It’s just, 

[00:28:34] Lee: [00:28:34] isn’t it. Oh, yeah, we retail. Yeah, probably even more. It’s it’s, it’s crazy that, you know, I’m talking trade prices for like volumes of like, you know, 10,000, 20,000. It’s crazy. It was crazy. It’s calmed down a bit now. But, but anyway, all platform tries to strip out the, the players, 

[00:28:54] Alastair: [00:28:54] just to be clear.

[00:28:55] It’s not Joe, we’ve talked to it masks probably a bit too often. It’s not just masks. I mean, it’s, it’s any form of PP. 

[00:29:01] Lee: [00:29:01] Well, we we’ve got round about 25. Individual product skews on the websites at this minute. But to give you some idea, so 3m who everyone knows as a, one of the main players, they’ve got 5,000 individual skews for their PPE division, just 5,000.

[00:29:23] So you, then time’s up by the hundreds, PPE players, the Honeywells and all of them type of companies. You’ll probably look it up. I don’t know, a hundred thousand individual skews for PPA globally, maybe more, but that’s a minimum, a hundred thousand. So our platform is just focused on the core products.

[00:29:44] It’s going to scale. So we’re going to, we’re going to be looking to scale the PPA product range in accordance to the global market, and then allow all the distributors and resellers and all the supply chain to then add all of their products into this platform and create a global. Reverse auction platform for all of these PPE products in the tens of thousands.

[00:30:05] That’s 

[00:30:05] Alastair: [00:30:05] quite ambitious. He says, well, my goal is to build the single most largest PPE 

[00:30:11] Lee: [00:30:11] marketplace. Yeah, I think, yeah, that is the goal. The goal is to create a global PPA base auction platform for every PPI. Some not. Is needed by, you know, by consumers, business consumers. 

[00:30:26] Alastair: [00:30:26] That’s, that’s the big shift, isn’t it?

[00:30:27] It’s not just, you know, went from, I think that’s why we got told not to wear masks because there weren’t any for, for the NHS, but I think that’s the big shift. Isn’t it? It’s not just, you know, if you run a mom and pop a coroner shop, you’ll want a supply of mass to get fuel as they arrive at the shop because they will turn up and have forgotten them.

[00:30:44] And then they’ll still walk into the shop and then you’ve got anyone who’s visiting elderly parents or. Wants to get together. I mean, there is sort of this weird sort of dance right now between groups of people who can get together and not wear masks. And yet if you go to shop, you have to wear a mask.

[00:30:58] And I think that’s confusing some people slightly maybe, but I think you’ve got that. You’ve got the, so your, what you’d be seeing is we’ve got the key today. You’ve got the key components. People need masks, gowns, gloves, all that kind of stuff. And, and I, and I, as an individual, as a consumer can just go in there and buy, I want to buy a box of each of these things for my family.

[00:31:16] I can go into that. I don’t need to be. You know, in the, in the, in the health sector. 

[00:31:22] Lee: [00:31:22] Yeah. Yeah. Everyone needs masks. I think globally, everyone from whether it’s, you know, the man on the street to the, you know, to the hospital, it’s a, it’s both a consumer item and a business item that’s needed by everyone.

[00:31:37] Like he had in Thailand. I went to a cafe. A few days ago on this selling. there’s some hand sanitizer at the shop, the shop by the, you know, by the counter. And this is a cafe and this isn’t, this is not just an exception. Yeah. Everyone, even, you know, some restaurants, that’s the cell and masks. I can 

[00:31:59] Alastair: [00:31:59] absolutely believe it.

[00:31:59] I don’t see why they wouldn’t because you’ve got to wear one coincide. You rock up at Ted Baker or wherever. Why did you would not, if you don’t have one, you have to buy one and you can see that in America, you got that kind of, we’re not wearing mass brigade and people, you know, I saw a great thing or the guy put up a mirror, say these said, he’s restaurant.

[00:32:17] And he said, if you’re not willing to wear a mask, look here. And as an arrow pointing at the mirror and the mirror just had,  stupid, don’t come in and you get this the thing where people don’t want to wear them. I think the American situation, different people don’t want to wear them because of it, their sense.

[00:32:31] It’s like they’re being forced to wear them. And honestly, I just don’t think it’s needed. I know there’s certain people I know who don’t think it’s needed and some of them have been to the pub and think it’s all great. And it’s all normal. And for the rest of us, we think. Well, I wear the mask because I’m looking after other people, not because I’m looking after me and if we all wear one, that’s how it stops.

[00:32:52] And obviously your experience in Asia has been quite common. If you’ve got a cold or flu to wear a mask to stop you spreading it. Yeah. 

[00:33:00] Lee: [00:33:00] Well, I remember I had to do a visa run just before Cole was out to go to Malaysia to get a stamp. It might be easier to get back into Thailand. basically I have to, I was going to go for a week into Malaysia and as Cobra it’s getting worse and worse, basically all the countries are going into lockdown.

[00:33:18] So I got to get on the plane, go to Malaysia, and I literally got on the next flight back to Thailand and Malaysia, I seen it was, The, the Mars , which is the, the middle Eastern, flu virus and saws and covert. So Malaysia has been checking temperatures and looking for people that may be infected with multiple viruses.

[00:33:40]so, you know, essentially for years, and it’s the same as Singapore and Hong Kong. So that’s why everyone’s walking around with masks and all the major Asian airports waiting for cars. It’s because of saws on theirs, you know, they were on the radar for the last few years. 

[00:33:57] Alastair: [00:33:57] Yeah, I think we assume it’s coming, 

[00:34:00] Lee: [00:34:00] but what will the Epic did unlike, hence why a lot of these, a lot of these Asian countries, Malaysia, they COVID ratios are really low.

[00:34:10] So cause they had pre you know, they have prior experience with, with saws and weighs over the last 10 years or so where they, they already have systems in place. As I say, Thailand’s has an ARDS, a local. Colbert case for 57 days. And that was today. That was the news today. So Thailand’s got a grip of coping very well.

[00:34:30] And it’s the same in Vietnam, Singapore. 

[00:34:34] Alastair: [00:34:34] It’s cultural. They’ve been, they’ve adapted to it before. They’re used to it. They’ve got the systems in place and Europe and the rest of world. Just didn’t 

[00:34:43] Lee: [00:34:43] I guess. Well, the other thing, if you don’t, if you want, if you get cool, it’s not wearing a mask in Thailand, it’s a 20,000 bucks.

[00:34:50] Fine. which is 450 pounds. Yeah. Yeah. That’s a lot. Yeah. So the, the lows and the implementation of the laws in Thailand, or way, way bore to konijn than in the UK, the UK, everyone was basically doing what he wants. 

[00:35:11] Alastair: [00:35:11] We still are. I wouldn’t even tell you what the noise I could hear from the local pub 

[00:35:14] Lee: [00:35:14] last night.

[00:35:16] Yeah, 

[00:35:17] Alastair: [00:35:17] I think that it’ll come. If it comes back, especially the second wave, then it will get stricter because there cannot be any of this. I suggest you do this. If you’re going to do that, if you think is a good idea is going to change, isn’t it. And I guess that’s why PP for it was a great thing because.

[00:35:31] People will, will van 

[00:35:32] Lee: [00:35:32] all 

[00:35:33] Alastair: [00:35:33] as consumers need to buy it. Now, whether they buy it from PP for people is a moot point because to buy it from somewhere and every retailer that you were seeing out there, but the coroner shops and so on, why would they not have a whole section of gloves, masks, a hand, sanitizer, jails, all that kind of stuff.

[00:35:51] It doesn’t make. And also if you’re looking after elderly parents and all this kind of stuff, you know that you should have guns and all this kind of stuff, it just makes 

[00:35:58] Lee: [00:35:58] sense. Yeah. Yeah. Well, what we want to do is obviously we don’t, we don’t process the transactional on people. We want to be like the, you know, the moneysupermarket.com PPE market in order to reduce, reduce the prices, keep people honest, you know, have preapproved suppliers.

[00:36:19] So ultimately it’s. Yeah, it’s a, it’s a platform. If we want to be like the, the company that you go to to get, to get your quotation, whether you’re a small or even an individual audit or a huge organization, we keep that price competitiveness going. I can’t think of another platform in the UK and maybe globally that allows this type of.

[00:36:43] You know, literally hundreds of suppliers, quote, and feel for your needs, whether it’s five masks or whether it’s a million Musks you’ve got from the suppliers are all competing on what we’re going to add as well as a, an ability to rebids. So you, at this minute, I supply will give a bid before for your 10,000 Musk and then that’s it, the auction ends and then whoever wins, but we’re gonna even to create more competitiveness, we’re going to allow.

[00:37:12] Suppliers to reduce their bids, not increase their bids, but to reduce their best thing to eat, to make it even more competitive. So 

[00:37:20] Alastair: [00:37:20] you tell them that you tell them they’re out. So then they can actually go hold on a sec. Cause I have 5% and see if I stay in audit, why wouldn’t you automate that? We might just be simpler just to automate so that they can just send a bunch of rules.

[00:37:33] Lee: [00:37:33] W w create in the logic in the platform now, depending on like the average price, because obviously you, you, you can have somebody goes in at 50 PMs and so on comes in up five pounds a mask just for argument’s sake that you’ve got this huge average that this you’ve got this, but an average that doesn’t really represent the average because you’ve got these extreme prices, 

[00:37:55] Alastair: [00:37:55] the average bid, average sale price and the actual average purchase price.

[00:37:59] Cause someone’s going to buy them at fiber. Yeah. If there were 50 Peter Fiverr, but actually the majority of them are going to sit right down here, 50 PT, 75 P or whatever, I think at this outline of exclude the Outlaws. So now when I go out and buy 5,000, they don’t see that. I just see the ones that are closer to the reality 

[00:38:16] Lee: [00:38:16] as the, as the platform develops.

[00:38:18] And as orders increase through the platform, we’re going to get. Yeah, we’re going to have some clever AI in the box. Brown’s looking up the bikes and structures and getting the evidence. As you say, the actual page is price, not just the quoted price and it’s going to change. So the more, the more users that use the platform, the forever platform is going to get the more.

[00:38:39] The more accurate the data. So what we want to do is be like the price index sites for all the, of the UK. So if you want to know what the going price is off your P of PPA, then we’re going to have real time data on the home page. So allow everyone to see. Well, what the average price is, or whether it’s the smaller orders, the medium size, or there’s other large orders.

[00:39:00] So obviously, you know, prices are dictated by quantity, but we’re going to try and split it into the small, medium and large categories so that you know, what the, what the, but the price that you should be paying based on the data analysis that we do from all the buyers and sellers. 

[00:39:16] Alastair: [00:39:16] Well, that was fantastic.

[00:39:18] And a very interesting interview. Thank you very much. 

[00:39:20] Lee: [00:39:20] Yeah. Yeah, 

[00:39:22] Alastair: [00:39:22] that was, that was a really interesting first episode of PPTB. And thank you, Lee, for coming on Lee is to see of PP for people who is behind this TV station. As we call it, we’re going to be interviewing some buyers, some sellers, and also updating you visually with how the website works and new functions and features on the website to help make buying PP a better experience.

[00:39:42] That’s it for today. Thank 

[00:39:43] Lee: [00:39:43] you.