The Trio behind the ‘Liquid Guard’
Payal Pooja, Avinit Narayan and Josua Mateiwai believe in helping provide our nation and its people a fighting chance against the current pandemic.
With their innovative mindset emerged a resilient sustainable solution that is Liquid Guard.
The company is a service-based business that provides antimicrobial coating services for businesses and consumers (B2B & B2C).
They focus on industries/ sectors/ infrastructures that is at the forefront of Fiji’s recovery efforts and strategy. This includes the tourism and support related sectors, health and medical ministry and the education sector.
The goal of the company is to support the tourism industry efforts in building the confidence and trust for tourists to return to Fiji. Ensure our children are safe going back to school and parents are rest assured that it is safe and support the COVID-19 frontline workers efforts to minimize the spread the virus in our communities.
The Team:
Co-founder, Payal Paddy is a young and enthuastic female entrepreneur. She is the co- owner and managing director of Elite Crystal Car Coating.
Co-founder, Avinit Narayan is a young entrepreneur that manages his family business. He is the owner of Enterprising Pacific Consultancy (EPC), specialising in the area of improving youth entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial ecosystems.
Technical Support officer, Josua Mataiwai is the Co-founder and Lead Consultant of Haya Development Consultants that specialises in providing business development consultancy services to start up’s. A young man with more than 10 years of experience working in the Accounting field and in the development world.
Below is an excerpt of an interview with the three young entrepreneurs: The product:
Liquid Guard is an anti- microbial surface protection coating which kills viruses, bacteria, moulds and fungi that come into contact with it. The product has been proven efficacy against SARS-CoV-2 and other enveloped viruses like Influenza A.
It is applied only once on a surface and stays effective for up to 365 days. It is globally manufactured by Nano-Care, a German based company. It is now available in Fiji and the Pacific under the registered name, Liquid Guard Pacific.
Our Target
Even though Liquid Guard is an ideal product for all sectors and industries, we decided that for the first year we will focus on fast-tracking the economic recovery plan for reopening our borders. In order to do so we have to work with the government to ensure we can build the trust in our healthcare, and tourism sector, to future visitors.
At the same time, we want to ensure our children can safely return to schools, and universities. The private sector is also in our radar, as we need them to ensure productive increase, jobs are retained and contribution to GDP maintained. By coating the high-risk surfaces in the below sectors will ensure the current issues faced by them below can be eliminated.
What was behind the introduction of this product?
With any product or service, proper research and development is key to its success. Unfortunately, in the pacific a lot of time products that do come in are based on low costs in mind first with poor quality, and with no consideration on the longterm health and environmental impacts. Pacific turns to be a dumping ground for global low-quality products. Very few companies base their foundation on ensuring their products are of exceptional global quality. Liquid Guard was our only choice for Fiji as we refused to introduce anything lesser.
Since Fiji’s 1st wave, our team has been researching on global best practices and what other developed countries been adopting to counter the spread of the COVID19 virus and build a sustainable long-term path to recovery. Why should Fiji be any different, after all we are considered the hub of the pacific.
Did you receive any funding from any organisation?
Unfortunately, NOT YET, as being a young entrepreneur and having organisations believe in your venture has never been easy and it’s not getting any easier with the economic impacts of this pandemic.
Despite having an exclusive distribution right over a proven global product. But this is all part of our entrepreneurial journey and we are here to stay as we believe that the benefits of our product to our nation out ways any barriers we may have to go through as entrepreneurs. We are self-funded at the moment
Development plans
For the next 6 to 12 months, the company’s focus is on supporting Fiji’s economic recovery efforts.
This includes providing anti- microbial coating service (B2B) and introduce the packaged Liquid Guard product in 25 ml bottles for the household market and be accessed through exclusive retail partners. This will be available by
the end of this year during the festive season.
Liquid Guard Pacific will also provide specialised capacity building and training workshops for the youths with a specific focus on training young women and girls. These trainings will be provided by world renowned specialists and trainers in the field of high-tech coatings and corrosion.
In addition, the company has overcome a lot of challenges to make this innovative business idea come to execution, therefore, as part of the company’s ethos in building up Fiji’s entrepreneurs, we will also provide support to the next generation of Fiji’s entrepreneurs through advisory support and outsourcing of certain Liquid Guard operations and functions.