These days, having your phone go flat on a night out can effectively leave you stranded.
Not only can you not contact your friends or book a ride home, often times it is also where all your credit cards are stored, meaning even booking a taxi is out of the question.
There are many people that know this dreaded feeling all too well, with 22-year-old Bailey Page being one of them.
The young Sunshine Coast man found himself in this exact position three years ago when his phone died while trying to order an Uber home following a night out with friends.
Having already parted from the group and with no method of contact or payment, Bailey was forced to walk the nearly 15km home in the early hours of the morning.
“The next day I got online and looked for a small power bank that didn’t need a cable and looked through all the biggest power bank companies here in Australia and then furthered my search globally and found nothing like it,” Bailey told news.com.au.
After coming up empty, the then 20-year-old decided if he couldn’t buy it, he was going to have to make it himself.
Over the course of the next 13 months, he learned everything there is to know about powerbanks and made contact with a manufacturer.
The young Aussie created three different prototypes, with the third model being what the product is today, a lightweight, cableless charger that can be used on iPhones, AirPods and iPads.
He patented the design in Australia and New Zealand and officially launched the world-first product and his business Zip Zap in August 2021.
And it didn’t take long for things to take off, with business really booming after Bailey hired a local Sunshine Coast PR company to promote the new chargers.
The publicity saw Zip Zap gaining traction, but Bailey said it was his appearance on Sunrise’s “Plugapalooza” segment promoting small businesses during the pandemic that really kicked things into gear.
“I was fortunate enough to go last out of the five other people and got two minutes of airtime, resulting in 1600 sales all across Australia,” he said.
Within six weeks, Zip Zap chargers were sold out, seeing the young entrepreneur rack up more than $100,000 in sales.
Two years on and the business is continuing to go from strength to strength, with Bailey now receiving inquiries to sell globally.
“These inquiries have come from the UK, USA, all throughout Europe, South Africa, Middle East and even throughout Asia,” he said,
This is one of Bailey’s major dreams for Zip Zap chargers, with the 22-year-old lodging his global patent a few months ago.
“This year’s goal is to sell internationally all across the world, especially in the US. But I hope one day a massive company like Amazon or Apple will see the value in my product and consider buying it to add to their product range,” he said.
“They simply don’t have anything like this and I believe it would be of significant value to them as we’re really taking ownership in the cableless market.”
Being a business owner at such a young age, Bailey has encountered his fair share of difficulties, including people assuming he “doesn’t know what he is doing” purely because of his age.
He encouraged young people thinking of starting a business to just “back yourself and always have a go”.
“You never know how great an idea can be until you commit yourself to the hardest part of business – actually starting,” he said.
“Once you’ve overcome the hardest challenge of just starting, you learn all about business day to day.
“There are no right or wrong answers on how you should start a business, what works for someone else doesn’t mean it will always work for you and vice versa.”
As a society, Bailey believes that people should be encouraged from a younger age to “dream big” and take on new challenges.
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He said, while tackling a new challenge like starting a business is not easy, it was something one could succeed at if they are willing to put in the effort.
“My journey has never been just success. I’ve had plenty more bad days than good, however the persistence of working through those tough times is what got me to where I am today,” he said.
“If there’s one thing you can take away from my story, it’s that I had no tech background whatsoever, I didn’t know anything about business, products or marketing but through self-teaching myself from YouTube and Google searches, anyone can do it.”
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