Dreaming big from smalls
Millions of people worldwide are affected by incontinence. Tao Lin talks to a Kiwi with a solution.
From alpine ski racer, to urban planning lecturer, to entrepreneur, Auckland man Mark Davey is not one to pass up a good opportunity.
His company Confitex, which makes fashionable incontinence underwear, is growing rapidly overseas and is just months away from an announcement about a significant American partnership.
Since showcasing at New Zealand Fashion Week in 2015, Confitex’s business has soared in the United Kingdom, which now accounts for 40 per cent of the company’s total revenue.
Davey’s personal philosophy is to take opportunities as they come and the chance to start up Confitex arrived as all good business ideas do: over a beer with a good mate.
They decided existing underwear options were lacking and after hearing stories from family and friends about the embarrassment and inconvenience of incontinence, Davey and his business partner took on the challenge of creating luxury, designer underwear for people with bladder control problems.
‘‘The stereotypical kind of profile of someone experiencing incontinence is this is something only our parents and grandparents experience. You have this perception that they’re sitting at home playing cards and that’s no longer what [they] are doing. They’re travelling, they’re working for longer, they’re wanting more out of life.
‘‘They’re no longer waiting room.’’
The mate-turned-business partner, is Frantisek Riha-Scott, the fashion brains of the business, and who Davey knew from his in God’s alpine ski racing days.
Between the ages of about 6 and 18, Davey was an alpine ski racer. He went to primary school in Ohakune in the central North Island and so had easy access to the snow.
He had aspirations to turn professional, but as he got older those ambitions changed and he decided to go to university.
He did not get into the architecture course at the University of Auckland so he did urban planning instead. He completed his doctorate, became a lecturer and then left a good, stable career to start Confitex.
There were many reasons he took that bold leap of faith, but mostly it was the chance to build something from scratch.
Davey grew up on a farm in the Waikato and his dad and grandad were always busy building something.
‘‘My weekends and time after school when I was growing up weren’t spent inside watching TV. I’d be out helping on the farm or building huts or building things. I remember building rafts and floating down a river we had on the property,’’ Davey said.
Davey and Riha-Scott built Confitex out of their own pockets, which taught them how to be smart with money and with overcoming challenges.
When they needed a factory, they spent one month on their own in China looking for the right one. Once they found it, they were faced with a huge language barrier: neither Davey nor Riha-Scott knew how to speak Mandarin or Cantonese and there were no English speakers at the factory.
‘‘You learn to read body language and you can make do. When there’s two people willing to make something happen you can work through the language barriers,’’ Davey said.
That agility and ability to solve problems has helped the company succeed overseas, Davey said.
‘‘We move at a different pace to [the competition] and we offer the market something very different.’’
We move at a different pace to the competition and we offer the market something very different