Andre Borell: Shark Stop wetsuits

A little over three years ago I interviewed Andre Borell, director of Envoy: Shark Cull, a hard-hitting documentary highlighting the archaic shark mitigation systems employed by the Australian government throughout Queensland and New South Wales. The doco, narrated by Eric Banna, was initially aired exclusively on Stan and three years down the line has a much greater global audience through many other popular media streams including Netflix. 

During today's episode, I grab an update from Andre and an excellent insight into his latest project, the Shark Stop wetsuit. Now, in its second round of funding, the Shark Stop wetsuits were originally designed by surfer Haydon Burford, who wanted to find a wetsuit similar to the impact protection for motorcyclists via Kevlar. Through his research and development, he created what we see now as the bite-resistant wetsuit Shark Stop. 

Tested by Flinders University on board the Rodney Fox vessel, Andre shares the impressive results and findings, so join me as we delve deeper into the creation, those results, the progress of the business, and the opportunities available for investors seeking to make a change. Please enjoy.

Links:

Watch on The Scuba GOAT Podcast: YouTube channel

Sharkstop website: https://sharkstop.co/

Investment details: Birchall website

Flinders University: Peer-reviewed report

Social links for Andre:

Instagram

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction & Post-surgery reflections
• 3:04 Shark Stop and Real-Life Testing
• 5:56 Impact of the Documentary
• 9:09 Political Landscape and Change
• 12:11 The Illusion of Shark Nets
• 15:02 Government Accountability and Media Influence
• 17:46 Recent Shark Incidents and Public Perception
• 20:54 The Economics of Shark Control Programs
• 23:59 Alternatives to Shark Nets
• 26:58 Legal Restrictions and Transparency
• 27:33 Minke Whale Expedition - Join Matt, Nicolas & Martin
• 29:55 The Journey to Shark Bite Protection
• 30:20 From Concept to Commercialization
• 32:10 Challenges in Startup Growth
• 34:47 Innovative Testing Methods
• 38:51 Understanding the Science Behind the Fabric
• 45:40 Pricing and Market Positioning
• 48:41 Sustainability and the ‘Worn Wear’ system
• 50:56 Investment Opportunities and Future Plans

Transcript

 Matt (00:00)

sounding mint. So, second time lucky. Yeah. How does the other fella look? I can see you now. Yeah.

Andre Borell (00:01)

Ripper. Good. Second time lucky.

It's nasty hey It looks so bad Yeah, it was so weird for like the first week after I had this cut out It was fine like no bruising no swelling nothing now all of sudden it's gone It wants to swell and it's pooling around my eye and oh my god. Yeah, I look like I've just had a UFC title fight to be honest but Yeah, it is what it is I apologize

Matt (00:21)

Yeah.

Hahaha

Yeah, it'll sort itself out, suppose. And yeah, just keep it nice and clean and take your time on it, Mine's...

Andre Borell (00:45)

I'm into, I'm into, I've to go into town tomorrow to have the stitches out. And then I'm probably, I'm assuming I'm going to need some antibiotics for this swelling. I don't know, but I'm going to duck to the pharmacy and get that cream that you recommended as well. yeah.

Matt (01:01)

Yeah,

it works a treatment. mean, what am I now? Nine, 10 days after surgery and it's all almost healed up. It's covered over and I don't have any kind of restriction of movements anymore. So, it's pretty good.

Andre Borell (01:15)

Yeah, I don't know why this

has been like this. Maybe because I slept on it. I don't know. I don't know. I think face is a bit of a weird one. They did warn me they're like, face can bruise weird, heal weird, like it's just a tricky spot. anyway, yeah.

Matt (01:20)

Could be, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

I got hit by a car years ago and cut all the top of my eye open, maybe two and a half, three inches long. yeah, was, again, much the same as you, it felt like I'd been in a UFC title fight, but it took, well, maybe a year for the repair to occur. And I think that the face is just a place that takes so long because it's so delicate. Even the dudes that are...

Andre Borell (01:35)

Oof.

Jeez. Whoa.

you

Yeah, yay.

Matt (02:01)

standing in ring and beat the shit out of each other, they're still gonna get cut up and it takes time for all the material underneath to heal as well.

Andre Borell (02:05)

Mm.

Yep, it makes me, before I wasn't too fussed, like whether they got it all or not. When it happened, I was like, if I gotta come back and get more cut out, so be it. Now I'm like, please have got it all. I wanna do this. I don't wanna do this again a second time, cause we missed a bit. So we'll see.

Matt (02:19)

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, crossed for you, I've got some, before we go any further, I've got some slightly good news for you.

Andre Borell (02:27)

Thanks.

yeah? Do tell.

Matt (02:33)

Yeah,

was having a message chat with Christina Zanotto the other day, back and forth, because she's going to come on the show again in the not too distant future. And I mentioned that I might end up getting my sticky mitts into shark stop at some point in the near future. And would she be interested in slapping it on and testing it out with the reef sharks of the Caribbean? And she said, well,

Andre Borell (02:40)

yeah.

Matt (03:04)

If you end up climbing on board with it, then let me know and we'll look at what we can do. And that'll be her and her husband, Kevin. They're always in the water with them. So there's a possibility we can have some real life testers for you.

Andre Borell (03:09)

Okay, cool.

Awesome, awesome. I have heard with the chainmail too, I didn't think of this in the last conversation we had, but I have heard from some shark feeders too that chainmail can have a bit of an unintended side effect, which is sometimes their teeth will get caught and the shark will freak. one guy in the Bahamas told me he'd had a shoulder dislocated or something from a shark being caught in it and trying to get away. So I forgot to mention that last time we spoke about this, but I don't know.

if she's ever experienced that or if it was a bit of a tall story or what. yeah, teeth won't get caught in this if that is an issue.

Matt (03:56)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that'd be interesting to get her feedback as well, especially seeing as she's, she's named the mother of all sharks.

Andre Borell (03:58)

Cool.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, she was one of the first people I've learned about, found about, yeah, heard about in this space when I first started getting involved in the shark world. She was one of the, her and Val Taylor, think are like, geez.

Matt (04:22)

Yeah, yeah. think, well, I actually think Christina uses the same chainmail that Val used. Or at least the same company.

Andre Borell (04:27)

Yeah, probably. There's only one or two brands

that do it, I think. Yeah, they've pretty much got the market covered, so yeah.

Matt (04:32)

Yeah, yeah, cool as. All right, round two, ding ding. Let's have a little catch up from the last time we were on the show, which was probably three years ago now, think, isn't it? When did Envoy Sharkcall come out?

Andre Borell (04:49)

It came out coming up four years ago, to be honest. So yeah, probably three and a half years ago or something like that. Yeah, time flies. It honestly feels like a year ago or something. But yeah, I'd say it must've been about three and a half years or something like that since we last spoke or in this format. Yeah.

Matt (04:54)

wow.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Because I think we, in this format, yeah. I

think that was the, yeah, we did the podcast as the movie was coming out, the doco was coming out. Okay, so why don't we have a little bit of a catch up on how things are once the doco came out? What was the fallout or the reaction?

Andre Borell (05:14)

Hmm.

Yeah, sure. How long have you got? No, I'll try and keep it snappy. I'll try and give it snappy and give you the short version. So it did pretty well in terms of like awards and things like that. And it ended up on some good streaming platforms in the UK and the US. It was on Discovery Plus, which is their streaming platform. It's now merged with Max, which is HBO Max, because some merger that happened, I forget now off the top of my head who merged.

Matt (05:31)

Hahaha

Andre Borell (05:56)

Then in Australia, it was on Stan. Now that the Stan's exclusivity is over, it's also on Netflix here, which is really cool. Yeah, so it got out to important, rest of the world is kind of on Amazon Prime video where you can rent it, iTunes where you can rent it, that kind of thing. So it kind of got out there, it got everywhere. We got a lot of positive feedback to it. But we didn't make it for awards and we didn't make it for positive feedback. We made it

to sort of spark change. It was actually what I wanted to achieve from it. And that is sort of happening, but sort of not. So there's definitely more public support for the movement to modernize these shark-culling programs in New South Wales and Queensland. There's definitely more opposition to them. There's definitely, you can see a shift, but politicians are far more stubborn, risk averse, perceived risk averse.

in terms of making changes and slow moving than I anticipated. So three and a half years later, there's a lot of momentum behind it, but actual tangible changes, we've only seen little baby steps, which is kind of disappointing. But I feel it coming. I think we're almost at a point where these programs cannot continue as they are. And we will, yeah, see them.

Matt (07:01)

Yeah.

Andre Borell (07:22)

the culling parts of these programs end and instead focus on modern solutions that actually keep people safe from sharks rather than a placebo effect and the programs will move into the 21st century. I hope, I think.

Matt (07:40)

When's the, just for people outside Australia, the way that the governments, local governments are run here is that the seats are held for four years, I believe it is, and they have to be re-elected. So that would lead nicely into my next question of, is there change coming? Are we due, I'm not massively au fait on the political front, but are we due?

a shuffle at all that would maybe spark some more interest of people trying to get their foot in the door politically.

Andre Borell (08:15)

Yeah, sure. we've seen we've seen elections basically in in the two states since the film has come out. Both parties that were in lost. So we now have a new government in both states that it happens. So New South Wales went from a liberal government, LNP government, which is the more right wing for those that aren't from Australia and aren't familiar. They're more right leaning. They lost and Labour got in, which is the slightly more left leaning, although

Matt (08:28)

Okay.

Andre Borell (08:45)

be honest, two parties are not that distinguishable from each other in a lot of ways. the opposite happened in sorry, yes, the opposite happened in Queensland. So the labour lost and liberal got in in Queensland. What we're seeing is it doesn't actually have that big of an effect. It doesn't matter what party you're from and what party is in power.

the decision makers behind these programs are still a little bit cowardly and just don't want to do what needs to be done. What all the consultant reports say, what all the scientific reports say, what all the scientific committees say. So it doesn't matter if you're from so far, and I hope someone proves me wrong soon, doesn't matter if you're from the left or the right party in Australia. When you're in that hot seat and you're the fisheries minister or the premier or whatever it is.

and you're the one that actually has to pull the trigger on making some updates and some modernizations to this program, you decide it's just not worth the perceived risk. So that's disappointing, but there'll come a time where that just isn't tenable anymore. You can't just ignore science and ignore the environmental impact and ignore the ineffectiveness of this program for any longer. They'll just be forced to make a decision soon. So.

Matt (10:00)

Hmm.

Andre Borell (10:02)

Yeah, it's not like one particular election outcome would change the game. Sometimes change is good, but change for the sake of change, I guess. Not necessarily that one party that's fully in our favor is going to come into the mix.

Matt (10:08)

Mm.

Yeah, yeah. I think one of the words I picked up on there was the perceived protection that shark nets give. And it is a perception. It's, you know, it's a placebo really, isn't it? Because it's a very small net in a very big ocean. And as we've spoken about before, it's effectively ringing the dinner bell for anything that's out there for people that are...

Andre Borell (10:47)

Yeah, absolutely. You've got baited

hooks. You've got baited hooks. And then not only do you have baited hooks, you then have things getting hooked on those baited hooks or things tangled in shark nets. So the shark nets aren't baited per se, but once they catch something and there's something dead or dying in there, then in effect they are baited. So yeah, you've got this program, like not too far from the breakers that is baiting the area.

And that's just insane to me. We have a lot of evidence that that brings sharks in that sharks feed on those caught dead and dying animals. And yeah, it's just it's it's a placebo, but kind of worse. There's actually I don't think is actually an appropriate word for it because a placebo just doesn't work. Right. Whereas this doesn't work, but has unintended side effects and negative consequences as well. So

Matt (11:14)

Hmm.

Mm. Mm.

Andre Borell (11:41)

a mate of mine is a pharmacist. was like, is there a name for that? A placebo that actually does bad stuff? I couldn't think of one. Anyway, yeah, it's certainly got serious, serious negative aspects to the program. But unless you go and do a deep dive on this topic, watch my doco or do five years of research like I've done, you don't get that. Like you don't get just how absurd this program is. You just see some buoys or some buoys out there.

And you assume it's some sort of device or barrier that keeps sharks out there and you assume it works because you assume the government's competent and doing the right thing. So that's the hard part. Like once people understand what the program is, it's very, very, very few that still think it's a good idea. Like, I mean, single digit percent. And usually they're just people who have views really baked in and just

Matt (12:23)

Hmm.

Andre Borell (12:41)

just want to kill stuff and it just, yeah.

Matt (12:44)

Yeah. it's, excuse me. There's also the, you know, the fact that the people that are in government will just, as we've witnessed, ignore pleas to, you know, focus on the subject and maybe create change. And I can't even imagine how many emails that you've had back and forth and very few responses from the government I've seen. And I get involved with sending

emails as they come up with such as yourself and then the Australian Marine Conservation Society they do it as well and it's just your standard return of reply email and we'll get back to you and six months later they're still not going back to you and they just hope that you're going to disappear and do nothing yeah yeah

Andre Borell (13:35)

Yeah, which and to

be fair, which a lot of people do, you know, and I don't mean to, I don't mean to make this sound negative. It's just a fact of life. But a lot of people do watch a documentary or whatever means they learn about this issue through get fired up about it, take a couple of actions and then that's it. And I get it. Life moves on as you've got pressures, know, interest rates are up, foods are up like,

Matt (14:01)

Hmm.

Andre Borell (14:04)

life is life is hard, right? I get that people take a few quick actions and then move on. I totally get that. But that's what they're counting on. They're counting on that you send an angry email or sign a petition and then and then don't do much more. So and that's really why we've stayed involved in this space post documentary is is it it became clear that there are other organizations have been working on this a longer than us and and be a very competent don't get me wrong.

Matt (14:15)

Hmm.

Andre Borell (14:32)

but they're the minority, they're not the majority. So it became clear to us that someone really needs to stay involved here, grab this by the scruff of the neck and kind of not give up till it's over to support those other organizations that are already doing that. So yeah, hence why we're still here really. I would have loved to have made the documentary and solve the problem and move on with life, but yeah, nearly four years later here, still talking about it, still fighting the same battle, but...

We're not going anywhere. We won't kind of give up till it's done. So yeah.

Matt (15:06)

Yeah, no,

Good on you, mate. Good on you. I'll tell you what we haven't touched on as well is when you sit and think about why a government would be slow and you think of the concept of protecting their own jobs and wanting to stay in power and the fear of being that man or woman that says take him out and someone gets chomped. But there's wider issue to this as well because the

the contracts that come from these nets being in the water are bringing in an astronomical turnover of money, they?

Andre Borell (15:49)

Yeah, they're not insignificant and they're quite cushy contracts as in compared to if you're a commercial fisherman trying to make a living off that, this is like the plum gig compared to that. You literally go out a couple of times a week, rebait some hooks, check some nets. It's near home. know, most of these contractors live in the canals, the canal systems of the Gold Coast, the Sunshine Coast or wherever it might be in Queensland, probably the same in Sydney.

They walk out their back deck onto their pontoon, they jump in their boat, they do a few hours work checking these programs, checking these these pieces of equipment. You know, they drag some dead stuff out, they go dump it offshore, then they go home. It's a plum gig and it's serious money too. Like we just looked up the contract contracts in Queensland and just for one region, one contractor, it's almost 10 million bucks that they're getting paid over the span of the contract. That's not per year, but over the span of the contract.

And then you've got to consider that you've got five, six, seven contractors in a state. Like some serious money being spent on this thing. And there's some contractors, fishermen, making some serious, serious money off this for not much work compared to other things that they might do for a living. So that's certainly lucrative. And in terms of your point earlier, politicians being maybe fearful of making that change in case someone gets chomped.

Matt (17:00)

Hmm.

Yeah.

Andre Borell (17:17)

I mean, the reality is they already are at protected beaches. Like there's shark bites at beaches with shark nets. There's shark bites at beaches with drum lines. That's already happening. the reality is, the reality is different from the perception. However, the media would jump on that narrative and they won't acknowledge that there was shark bites happening at protected beaches while the nets there.

Matt (17:46)

.

Andre Borell (17:46)

they will

just probably crucify whoever's decision it was to remove them and blame it on that decision, even though that's completely disconnected from reality. It's nearly a hundred shark bites between New South Wales and Queensland at beaches, to use their terminology, protected by shark nets and drum lines. So those bites are already happening, but they're fearful of how the media will spin it if it happens post removal, which I get that.

Matt (18:14)

Yeah.

Andre Borell (18:16)

because the media probably will do that. But there's a way to message it correctly. And I think that involves a mere culper of sorts of kind of being like, we've realized this doesn't really work. This is how many bites we've actually had at protected beaches already. It's doing all this harm for absolutely no good. We think it's time to move on. But it's not a realistic approach for politicians, I think. Very unlike. You'd need a real backbone to be able to do that.

Matt (18:46)

Yeah, there's not many of them swinging around, is there?

Andre Borell (18:49)

No, not in those halls of power, definitely not.

Matt (18:52)

No. was the young lady that got killed last week, week before. Yeah.

Andre Borell (19:01)

At Bribie last week yeah Charlize Zmuda

I believe yeah yep

Matt (19:05)

Yeah, was that a protected beach? Yeah. 18.

Andre Borell (19:08)

Yep, 18 drum lines at that beach and the drum lines are, if

I'm EIGHTEEN and if I'm remembering correctly, that beach is quite close to North Stradbroke Island, right? And I know the North Stradbroke drum lines well, because if you go out to dive at, I forget the name of the dive site, but you get mantas there, right? Then you have to go around the headland to get to them. And when you go past the headland, you go past a bunch of drum lines.

Matt (19:14)

Wow.

Hmm.

Andre Borell (19:35)

and they are so close to the beach. Like these things are supposed to be 500 meters from shore to lessen that risk of attracting sharks to the shore. But because of the depth profile there, there's a very quick drop off. Like it goes deep quick and they can't set nets or drum lines in deep water. So they have to position them a bit closer at North Strattie, a lot closer actually to the beach so that they're setting them in 10 to 12 meters of water. Anyway, they are terrifyingly close to the beach there.

Matt (19:41)

Hmm.

Andre Borell (20:04)

scary close. And I believe, don't quote me on this, but I believe Wurrum, which is Bribie Island, which is where the tragic accident happened, is similar. They're like concerningly close to the beach there, which yeah, anyway, and we had been irrespective of how close drum lines are to the beach or not, we'd been asking the government for quite some time. Look, all your data, your spreadsheet shows that there's a lot of, you know,

Matt (20:04)

Hmm.

Andre Borell (20:33)

animals getting chomped in half, just the head left after being entangled. Is that bringing sharks closer? Is that, you know, is feeding sharks in the area really a good idea? Is that actually elevating the risk profile? We've been asking that of the government for a long time. We first raised it in documentary. Since then, I've stayed on their case about it. I asked them about it.

Matt (20:47)

Mm-hmm.

Andre Borell (20:54)

last year literally like I sent the email by sheer coincidence I sent the email like a day or two before someone got bitten at a heavily drumline beach at Bagara which is Bundaberg and then I'd followed up again and followed up again and my most recent follow-up was I don't know a couple of months ago I think before what happened at Bribey Island so they just completely ignore me though because they know they don't have a good answer to it they know there's no good answer to

Matt (21:17)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Andre Borell (21:21)

hey, you're baiting beaches and you're feeding sharks at these beaches, as in when they come to predate on things that are already caught, what reassurance can you give us that that's not heightening the risk for beachgoers? And I just don't have an answer to that. So they just don't answer me. And now they look stupid because I'd been raising the alarm for a little while and there's been two incidents of two protected beaches in the last year. So yeah.

Matt (21:37)

Yeah.

Andre Borell (21:49)

Yeah, if you can tell my frustration coming out and I sound a bit cynical, I apologize, but I've been dealing with these people for quite some time now, but through the production of the documentary and then since the documentary. So all in all, it's probably, I don't know, five years that I'm involved in this space, not including the interest I had in the space beforehand. So I've dealt with these people so much and I've seen their absolute BS responses so much and I've seen what their real agenda is, which is covering their own ass, not actually protecting people at the beach.

Matt (22:04)

Yeah, and having a one way.

Andre Borell (22:19)

I've just seen it so much. am I am a bit cynical and if that's coming through, yeah, I apologize. But if you'd been doing this for five years, as into listeners not to worry you to Matt, you would probably be you would probably be just as cynical and and it's not unwarranted cynicism. It's it's genuinely just such an archaic program. And it needs to move with the times but it won't because no one has a backbone.

Matt (22:28)

Yeah

That's it. mean, there's so many ingredients in this mix that it makes it virtually impossible at the moment for it to change because of those people who are stubborn and without backbone. But even when we're talking about the fishermen that look after the nets and the drum lines, if they were gotten rid of, then there would be the argument that there would be a lot of loss of income for everyone involved. However, they don't have to lose income. They can just re-skill.

and change the direction of rather than putting a hook in the water, learn how to use a drone and win the contracts that way.

Andre Borell (23:20)

Yep,

absolutely. Use some of the money you're saving, the millions and millions of dollars you're gonna save every year to reskill these people and give them a different job. Fine. I mean, they might not want it. They might love being out there on the water and killing stuff, I don't know. But you can at least offer it and have a retraining program and an upskilling program and give them just different jobs. Protect beaches, actually protect beaches in a more modern way. And they can learn that, like for sure.

Matt (23:29)

Hmm.

there.

Yeah.

Yeah, the dude down at Bondi with his drone up all the time, he's living proof that it works. You know, the footage that he's capturing all the time is marvelous.

Andre Borell (23:55)

Yeah.

Well, and also the,

so I know the stats very well right now because we're just in discussions with the council there at the moment. I know the stats very well right now around Randwick City Council. So Coogee and Cronulla I believe it is. And you look at the stats there, you look at how many sharks that the drones have spotted.

You look at how many tagged sharks have pinged on the listening station there, which then sends a warning that there's a shark in the area to the SharkSmart app in New South Wales. You look at those stats and they've gotten hundreds of pings and they've spotted quite a lot of sharks. And then you look at the shark nets, they haven't caught a target shark there for years. Literally, not a single thing that you're trying to catch.

has been caught for the last few years. It essentially means you have 100 % bycatch rate in that particular council area at those particular beaches. Yet all these other technologies seem to be doing their job quite nicely. yeah, yeah, it's crazy.

Matt (25:00)

And

just to clarify as well on the bycatch bit, bycatch for anyone who might be a little bit confused is animals that are caught in the nets that aren't on the targeted list of dangerous sharks, et cetera, that they want to keep out of the area. So that could be anything from other sharks to loggerhead turtles and dolphins. And more commonly known globally now is the humpback whales that constantly get caught in them.

Andre Borell (25:31)

Rays, they catch so many rays. I've got all these images that we obtained by Freedom of Information that the contractors take of their catch. Yeah, like little piles of rays, like probably just 10 piled on top of each other. Yeah, turtles, dolphins, you name it. It's literally not catching a single thing it's meant to and just destroying, just destroying the ocean. Yeah, they really are blunt instruments.

Matt (25:45)

Hmm.

Andre Borell (26:00)

Sharknets. Drumlines are a little bit more targeted. They have less bycatch to be fair. Still a terrible idea, don't get me wrong. But they're a bit less of a blunt instrument. But sharknets are a joke. This so blunt at all. Peter Wish-Wilson, who's a Greens senator, federally, he ran a whole Senate inquiry on this topic back in 2017. You know, he refers to them as

Matt (26:08)

Hmm.

Yeah.

Andre Borell (26:27)

as weapons of mass destruction and I agree like it's all they do that all they do is just kill everything in the area that happens to swim into it and hope pray that some of that something might have been a target shark there hasn't been a target shark in the Sydney Nats the whole Sydney metro area hasn't been a target shark caught there for years years so yeah

Matt (26:31)

Yeah.

Hmm. Yeah, yeah. And the unfortunate thing is it's

where we can't see it, can we? So if it's not seen, then it becomes oblivious in everyday life. If all this was occurring on a high street and everyone saw it every day, then there would be change, for sure. Yeah.

Andre Borell (26:58)

Absolutely.

Yeah, imagine

if we had a program to catch and kill, I don't know, dingoes in the middle of Sydney, right? Let's say there was dingoes and they were deemed to be a risk and we're setting dingo traps in the middle of Sydney. Just imagine that, not catching a dingo for years, but catching dogs, cats, birds, like, like.

Matt (27:22)

All the bin chickens.

Andre Borell (27:26)

you would be like, what are we doing? This is the dumbest thing. This is the dumbest thing that I could possibly dream up. Why are we doing this? But because it's 500 meters offshore and it's very hard to document, it's very hard to get your message out there, they get away with it. For now.

Matt (27:35)

Hmm.

Well, it's actually illegal

to go near the nets as well, aren't they, when they're deployed? They come with weighty fines. I think John O was telling me, sorry, I think John O was telling me it was like either 12 or $20,000 fine if you're caught within 20 meters of the nets.

Andre Borell (27:46)

In Queensland it is. Yeah, New South Wales...

It used to be that's just for going in the exclusion zone. So that's a new law or newish law. They put that in place about 2018, 2019, just while we were in production. So that was annoying. That made it very, much harder for us to get the footage we need to get. But yeah, it was 26,000-ish when the first fine, when the fine first came into place. And then, but those fines go up with inflation. So it's over 30 grand now.

Matt (28:07)

huh.

Andre Borell (28:29)

Just for being within 20 meters, just for being within 20 meters. We're not talking about having a dive knife here and cutting something loose or sabotaging equipment. We're talking about being within 20 meters, the 30 gram fine. That's how bad, that's how bad they don't want this program seen. Because you used to be able to go up, film whatever you want, as long as you didn't release an animal, you could kind of get away with it. But...

Matt (28:30)

Well.

Yeah.

Andre Borell (28:55)

Yeah, that was still harmful to them. So now they put this 20 meter radius around them, is, which is, yeah, it's a gag order. Fundamentally, it's a gag order is to stop you swimming out or me swimming out and documenting bad stuff and then putting that out to the world and it makes them look terrible. That's all it is. But they don't have that in New South Wales. In New South Wales, it's only it's only illegal to mess with the equipment basically. You can still swim up and document stuff in New South Wales. So yeah.

Matt (29:05)

Yeah. Yeah.

Gotcha.

Okay, interesting. Well, that's the net update for sure. Drum lines as well, obviously. Now, I was scrolling a couple of weeks ago now and came across an advert for a new wetty called Shark Stop. And obviously, I'm intrigued, so I click on the link and start looking through the website. And lo and behold, whose face do I see? But, Andre's.

So I've reached out and obviously it was... Yeah, he's not been beaten up on the website. But yeah, that's why we're talking again now, having a nice... Conveniently, it's like three years on from when we first talked about the Sharknets and it was good to get an update and then introduce the Shark Stop as well and...

Andre Borell (29:55)

A less swollen and bruised version of this face.

Matt (30:20)

This is where I hand over the range to you buddy and you can explain where it's all come from and how it comes about.

Andre Borell (30:25)

Yeah, sure. it actually, the documentary essentially led to me being involved in this business. So when the film came out, I was doing a lot of PR, a lot of interviews, a lot of press, that kind of thing. And one journo that I'd done an interview with was like, hey, I just interviewed this fella down from Byron kind of area, Lennox, that has invented this shark bite resistant fabric, like wetsuit fabric. You should talk to him. And

I, by coincidence, I had just seen Dr. Charlie Hauvornir's or Flinders University, I can't remember, post something about a bite resistant neoprene maybe a few weeks earlier, whatever it might have been. So it kind of, I had seen that post and gone, wow, what a great idea. That is really cool. And then by sheer coincidence, this journal is like, hey, I just interviewed this fella. His name's Hayden Burford, the guy that invented this. You should have a chat with him.

So ended up having dinner with Hayden and his wife and some of his kids and so on and talking about it. Long story short, ended up investing in the business. So he had a fabric. This fabric had been tested in the laboratory by Flinders University, Dr. Charlie Huveneers and some other scientists. It had also been tested in the field on real actual white sharks. They bit down on this fabric and shook it around. And the results were...

really encouraging, like significantly better than normal neoprene, streets ahead of normal neoprene. So I was interested, he was at basically at the stage of had the fabric, but no wetsuits yet. So I made an investment into that business to help him commercialize it, bring it to market because a fabric that is good in theory,

but no one can wear to protect themselves is not gonna help anyone. I felt this was a product that needed to be brought to market, needed to be taken into the real world. yeah, basically invested, helped him commercialize it, helped him run a Kickstarter campaign to launch the business proper, I guess, turn it from an invention into an actual business.

Um, and from there, I kind of stayed out of it for a while. Uh, but, Hayden's, uh, Hayden's, was late seventies then he's 80 now. So at one point, maybe 81 anyway, at one point, the conversation came of like, there was a lot of challenges through the Kickstarter campaign. I should say too, there was, there was, um, we were working with a manufacturing partner that, that in hindsight wasn't the best choice. And we had a lot of problems, some upset customers cause they were waiting a long time for wetsuits. Um,

So there's a lot of challenges and Hayden was like, hey, can you run this? I've run businesses before. So he was like, hey, can you take this over? This ain't for me. Yeah, so I jumped in. I kind of spent the next year or so sorting the business out, moving manufacturers, improving the wetsuit design a little bit, iterating it, better quality, things like that. Yeah, and then here we are, kind of.

fixed the business, guess, laid the ground. And that's not, I'm not having a go Hayden there. That is just the nature of a startup. And especially when you're doing something that's never been done before in the world, that there's gonna be problems, right? So I'm not, I'm not having a dig at all here, but yeah, I spent the next while fixing the business, moving manufacturing, fixing the designs, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

And now kind of we are doing a fundraise at the moment. So we're selling shares, people can invest in the business. We need to raise a capital to then go take us to the next level. Running a business like this, doing something that's never been done before ever is expensive. In the early days, it burns cash. So yeah, we're doing a fundraise at the moment to give us a new influx of cash for the next round of R &D. We're gonna develop a bunch more wetsuits.

to maybe develop the fabric a bit more as well. You can always improve on it, both the protection it gives and the flex. It's good now, don't get me wrong, but there's always room for improvement, so on and so forth. So yeah, at the moment we're just doing it, which is the ad you saw. We're doing a crowd source funding is the technical legal term. We're doing a crowdsourced funding round via virtual, which is a platform that specializes in running these CSF rounds for businesses.

Matt (34:43)

Mm-hmm.

Andre Borell (34:47)

And yeah, bring some new investors in. I'm really excited about what that will do in terms of community as well. So not only bring the investors in for their money, but essentially having like a hundred or a thousand ambassadors out there that actually have a slice, have a stake in this too. And then, yeah, I want to get on with growing this and turning it into what it can be, which is, think, a revolutionary game changing product. We've done proof of concept now, now it's time to grow.

Matt (35:21)

Hayden came up with this material. Are you allowed to share how he came up with this material, how he designed it, is it a sneaky-beaky secret in a mix?

Andre Borell (35:29)

Yeah, we can talk about it in

broad strokes for sure. So the idea basically hit him when he was sitting at the kitchen table with his partner, Liz. And there had been a cluster of shark bites in that Lennox area. This is back like 2017-ish, I'm not sure if you recall, but it really rocked the community. And they were both sitting there and I don't know exactly how the conversation went. Obviously I wasn't there, but something to the effect of, hey,

you know those Kevlar motorcycle pants, why isn't there like a wetsuit version of that? Why can't we protect people from shark bite? And that was kind of the light bulb moment. And from there, there was heaps of like testing and prototyping and trying different fabrics. Kevlar, it was deemed was no good. It's not that good in water. It's not that flexible. Although it does have good puncture resistance and it's very strong. They use it in bulletproof vests, for example.

it wasn't really suitable for a wetsuit application. So it was just trying, trying, trying, trying, eventually got to something that seemed good. And that's when Flinders University was planning to do some testing. So I've got into the testing. In terms of the actual technicality of it, I'll just give the 60 second version. So most wetsuits that you wear will have a layer of what they call laminate on the inside and the outside of the actual neoprene, of the actual rubber itself.

So the outside, the laminate might be what you've got camo printed on or color printed on if you've got a colored wetsuit. It's a very, very, very thin layer. No protection at all, obviously. It's just there to take color and to protect the neoprene a little bit because you can rip rubber, cut rubber with like a fingernail or a sharp edge very easily. And on the inside, you might be familiar with laminates maybe being fleece or something like that. If you've got a five mil or a seven mil wetsuit that's maybe got a bit of fleece lining.

That's the laminate. So essentially the approach was get rid of both those pieces of laminate and replace them with basically two layers of one on the inside, one on the outside of a really, really, really strong, but still flexible. This is the challenge. Textile, like do basically a bite proof textile that goes either side of the neoprene. So that's a long and short version. That's what it is. It's puncture proof. So

designed to stop teeth getting through if there is a bite, but it's also cut and tear resistant as well. Meaning if there is a little bit of puncture from a shark tooth going in and then the shark shakes, that serrated tooth won't completely open the fabric up because it's also cut resistant and tear resistant like it would obviously in neoprene. Neoprene, mean, teeth are going to go through like a hot knife through butter in the first place. And then if that shark shakes, like it's the wetsuit doesn't stand a chance and

you're right under that. yeah, the idea is to stop sharks getting through to the arteries, the main arteries in the arms and legs, because that's what people die from in shark bite incidences is blood loss. So if we can stop teeth getting through to the main arteries, and we can stop catastrophic blood loss and hemorrhagic shock, can hopefully save lives.

Matt (38:25)

Yeah.

Yeah, No, it's a fantastic concept. with the testing that Flinders University has done, I think mentioned previously was done with Andrew Fox on the Rodney Fox team down in South Australia. Can you go into or tell us about how they did the testing down there?

Andre Borell (39:15)

Yeah, absolutely. So there's been two batches of testing now. after I invested there had only been one, but there's now been a second batch of testing. basically, again, without getting too technical, I'm sure we can link maybe the scientific paper in the show notes or something like that, or even just on our website, there's a science page that explains all this. So I won't get too technical here, or we might put people to sleep, but they can go and look for more information. So in short, we don't test it on a mannequin.

Matt (39:32)

Mm.

Ha ha ha ha ha.

Andre Borell (39:44)

Because to get a shark to bite you need to bait something you need to put blood and guts and charm in something in order to Get a shark to bite and do your test bites. You don't want to bait a human-shaped object that would that No scientists would want to do that coastal communities would get pissed off at that It's just not a good idea because you may then habituate that shark It would probably take multiple exposures to habituate a shark but still the point is you don't want to risk

potentially habituating a shark to a human shaped object being food. So they're not tested on mannequins. They are tested on basically on a giant rectangle, a pillow, I guess would be the right way to describe it. And in that pillow for the first batch of testing was a pressure plate. So you could bite barf, measure bite force and quantify that. And obviously some sort of stimuli to get the shark involved, interested.

So that's the first batch of testing and yeah, the fabric far exceeded the neoprene. The second batch of testing, I believe they did away with the pressure plate and they instead put a board in there with foam on top of the board, basically to resemble soft tissue, skin and soft tissue. And then again, a pillow of our fabric over the top. So that time rather measuring bite force, they measured the damage to the foam underneath the fabric to...

to basically see how well it would protect a material that is somewhat soft tissue-like. Yeah, and again, that one's been done on white sharks and tiger sharks. There's also plans for bull sharks as well, but that's not published yet. So they're still going through the process of peer review and publishing in a scientific journal. So that one we won't be able to link in the show notes, but long story short,

Matt (41:34)

Okay.

Andre Borell (41:42)

far exceeds neoprene in terms of protective as you would expect, neoprene is gonna give you close to zero protection, far exceeds neoprene. And in terms of the new one, the second batch of testing, sorry, where they're measuring what sort of damage might be still coming through or conversely eliminated from something that resembles skin and soft tissue.

it completely eliminated like serious and catastrophic damage completely completely. Again, read the full paper for the full results because there's more nuance to it than that. But it really good at that there is still minor damage that comes through. But we're talking about hopefully, you know, lacerations. If the bite force is strong, could be a broken bone, sure. But the catastrophic damage is what we're trying to avoid. You don't want a shark getting all the way to your femoral artery if it's your leg.

and bleeding out. That's what kills people.

Matt (42:41)

Yeah, yeah, I'm just looking at the science right up now. I can't believe I missed this, to be honest. Yeah, I'll have a really good look at that, because they just...

Andre Borell (42:49)

Yeah, it's like, I remember, I remember that,

yeah, go ahead.

Matt (42:54)

No, no, okay, okay.

Andre Borell (42:56)

I was just going to say the bite force of

what it can withstand is it impresses people sometimes. on, you know, I believe about the median was about 900 Newtons that this from a single tooth, from a single tooth, 900 Newtons is what this fabric can withstand with some results up near 1200 Newtons. So.

Now bite force is people see that and then they see, you know, they go on Google the bite force of a great white shark or something. And I think the number that pops up on Google's maybe 4,000 Newtons or something. People who want to be cynical, because there's always some go, aha, it's like, it's, but their bite force is higher than what it takes to get through. But what you need to understand is that 4,000 Newton or whatever the number is, bite force is distributed across however many teeth there are, how many teeth are making contact.

Yeah, as long as more than four or five teeth are making contact, protection is looking good as being able to hold up. yeah, it's pretty, some pretty incredible numbers and some pretty impressive fabric, that's for sure.

Matt (43:58)

Yeah, it's gonna be a

Yeah, it's gonna be a rare day when there's a sharp bite with a single tooth, isn't it?

Andre Borell (44:08)

Yeah, some sort of

hillbilly shark or something it's only got only got one tooth. Yeah, no, it's going to be distributed across well, depends how much of the jaw is making contact to be honest, if it's the whole jaw, it's going to be distributed across a lot of teeth. Yeah. But again, even if a tooth does make its way through this is the part to reiterate and then the shark is being aggressive with you ragdolling you, shaking you, which is how they act with prey with certain sharks anyway.

Matt (44:13)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. No, that's fabulous.

Andre Borell (44:38)

the damage to the fabric will stay isolated to the tip of that tooth coming through as opposed to completely opening the whole thing up like a can opener. So yeah, it's impressive stuff. It's impressive stuff. It doesn't turn you into Iron Man. It doesn't turn you into Superman. It doesn't mean you can go out there and poke a great white in the gills and agitate it and then stick your leg in its mouth and you're gonna walk away without even needing a band-aid. That's not what the product is.

the product is to reduce the catastrophic damage, catastrophic bleeding, which is what will kill you in a shark bite most of the time.

Matt (45:12)

Yeah, yeah.

No, impressive, And I just had a quick look on the website, obviously. And we've got, I think the first thing we should talk about actually, before we look at the different types of wetties, is the price point. A lot of people are gonna jump at a price point and go, ooh, that's a lot of pennies. But when you think about what it's doing, it's not actually a lot of pennies, is it?

Andre Borell (45:20)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yep.

Yeah, I mean, we're kind of in this no man's land, I feel at the moment on price point where we're more than a premium wedding, not that much more, but more than a premium wedding, but way less than chain mail or something that other people who are intentionally interacting with sharks might be wearing. So I do feel we're a little bit in this no man's land. I would love, don't hold me to this, because there's a million variables that'll go into this, but I'd love to get it down into premium wedding price point territory. That's what I'd love to achieve.

Matt (45:47)

Hmm.

Andre Borell (46:09)

that some of that will come with, first of all, it's just very expensive fabric. This Miracle textile that we use as our laminate basically is super expensive, right? Then you got to turn it into a wetsuit. Now that's also super expensive because by design, this fabric is like near on impossible to cut and near on impossible to sew and near on impossible to work with because it's so tough. So you've got the cost of the textile being insanely high like.

orders of magnitude more than normal laminate that you have on normal wetsuits, then these wetsuits take longer to make by orders of magnitude because of difficulty in cutting, sewing, blah, blah, blah. So you've kind of got compounding costs there that make our cost to make one of these like pretty damn high. To be honest, our margins, you know, right now I'd love them to be higher, but I don't want to push the price point any higher.

Matt (46:50)

Mm.

Andre Borell (47:07)

So really, with volume, I'm hoping some of this might change. At the moment, when we do a manufacturing run, we do 200 wetsuits. That's the MOQ, that's the minimum water quantity with our current manufacturer. We do 200 wetsuits. I'm hopeful that when we grow and we're doing 2000 wetsuits at a time or whatever number, that the cost will come down because it's obviously a lot easier to make.

Instead of making 50 yards of this bite resistant textile, you make 500 yards, that should bring the cost down. Instead of making 200 wetsuits and setting a whole production line up and just making 200 of them, you're spitting out 2000. That should bring the cost down. yeah, price point is, I'd love it to be lower, but it is what it is now. We're certainly not making bank off that. Yeah, but...

Matt (47:58)

Mm-hmm.

Andre Borell (48:01)

For people who have sharks on the brain or are genuinely in very sharky areas, I think it's a price point that you can definitely justify. Taking people's, not taking people's personal financial situations into account, it's not something that is completely unaffordable to the average Aussie, put it that way.

Matt (48:12)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

Yeah, yeah. And just on that price point as well is that you have the warnware system as well. Should we delve into that one a little bit as well?

Andre Borell (48:41)

Yeah, the one way system, great, great pickup. So it's an idea we, let's say borrowed off Patagonia. I don't think they mind us. I don't think they've mind us using it. Other brands do it too. It's just Patagonia where I saw it first. Cause they're all about environment and minimizing waste. So I don't think they might. But basically it's a system of if something gets returned ill fitting or whatever it might be, that can't be sold as a new product again, right? So traditionally,

traditionally often that will go to landfill. And there's a huge amount of waste, even someone that's, you know, just wants to move on from that wetsuit they've got, get another one maybe, like they've used it a few times but want to get rid of it, that would have to be sold in the secondhand market, something like that. So the warnware system basically is us accepting returns of new or as new suits and reselling them at a discounted price. So it reduces waste.

Matt (49:29)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Andre Borell (49:39)

which is fantastic. It gets maybe people into our product who can't afford that price tag we were just talking about. It just has so many upsides. It's a pretty good system. So have a look on one where we don't have every size and every design, obviously, because it depends on what we might've had returned or whatever the case may be. But yeah, if you're lucky enough to find the design you want and the size you want.

and the size you want in one way. It's a great way to get in at a cheaper price.

Matt (50:12)

Yeah, and even if your size isn't available at the time, you can always message the company and leave your name and your size that you're waiting for, as and when one comes up on the radar, they can ping you an email and let you know.

Andre Borell (50:24)

Yeah, we might even do a formal waiting list type thing where you can fill out a form and say, I'd like this. I'd like this size and style. And when we have one come in, we can contact you straight away. But yeah, for now, just email us if that's something you want. But we might build a little bit more of a sleeker system than that soon.

Matt (50:27)

Yeah.

Yeah, happy days man. So find the people that are interested in possibly wanting to invest in shark stock. That's all done through the Birchhall website, isn't it?

Andre Borell (50:56)

It's all done through the virtual website. they have an Australian financial services license. They're basically licensed to run this kind of fundraising round. They act as an intermediary. And yeah, so if you go to virtual, it's B-I-R-C-H-A-L, you go to the virtual website and you'll find us on there as one of their active campaigns. And yeah, there's a whole bunch of, obviously you wanna do your due diligence before making any sort of investment decisions. So we have an offer document on there that

Matt (51:02)

Hmm.

Andre Borell (51:25)

gives you the full picture of the business as to where we're at, financials, everything basically. It's a very transparent approach. You have to be very transparent to do a raise like this, obviously to protect consumers. So the offer documents on there, our constitution is on there, as in company constitution is on there. Yeah, go check it out, have a look. If you're interested in something like this, it'll be open till the, believe 21st of Feb.

Matt (51:40)

Hmm.

Andre Borell (51:53)

So yeah, go check it out, but it's all through virtual. And yeah, you can invest I think as little as 250 bucks, I think is the minimum. And yeah, yeah. And then the maximum is, so if you wanna do over $10,000, you need to be what's called a sophisticated investor. That's a legal term. Basically you need to meet certain criteria to prove that you're a sophisticated investor.

Matt (51:54)

Hmm.

Is that all?

Mm.

Andre Borell (52:23)

if you want to do over 10 grand but virtual will explain all that to you.

Matt (52:28)

Yeah, it surprises me, know, someone wants to invest in something, but you've got to prove that you're that you can invest because you're sophisticated.

Andre Borell (52:36)

but you've got the cash. Yeah, like shouldn't the cash be

proof that anyway, yeah. I just went through this process actually, because virtual was running another raise, quick tangent, virtual was running another raise for this solar company that are doing solar tiles. So they basically fit seamlessly into your tiled roof. So yeah, I wanted to invest in that and the whole sophisticated investor thing annoyed me at that point. It's a little bit of.

Matt (52:42)

Yeah.

Andre Borell (53:01)

seems like a little bit of bureaucracy that doesn't need to be there. It is a legislative thing, not a virtual thing. So I'm not criticizing virtual here, but yeah, yeah. It's just, you basically get a certificate from your accountant to say you earn over either this amount of money or you hold assets over this amount of money or whatever it is. There's a bunch of criteria. Accountant can write your certificate, but it seems weird to me. Like, why do I have, if I have the money and I want to invest it, why do I have to prove that? Yeah, anyway, here's what it is.

Matt (53:30)

Yeah.

Yeah, anyway. So yeah, fingers crossed we'll get someone or many people come along and want to invest in the Shark Stock websites. Superb. Okay, mate, have we covered everything?

Andre Borell (53:47)

we have covered everything I wanted to talk about, we wanted to talk about in our pre-chats I think. So yeah, that's pretty much, yeah, I think so.

Matt (53:48)

I think we have, we? Yeah.

Yeah.

Happy days. All right, mate, well, I'll let you get back to what looks like a gorgeous backdrop behind you and get on with your day. I'm going to do some editing, more editing.

Andre Borell (54:10)

Awesome. Thanks for having

I hope I didn't waffle too much. I hope there's not too much editing for you to do. Fantastic. No, was good to chat. It was good to catch up. We might see around at either in your neck of the woods or maybe at a diving show or something like that.

Matt (54:26)

in fact, yeah, because you're going to be down at Bondi, aren't you, in March?

Andre Borell (54:31)

Ocean Lovers Festival, yeah, potentially for Envoy for the campaign. We are definitely there. We have a booth confirmed, but for Sharkstop, we're still a maybe. I just emailed them the other day to see if there's a booth still available. So we may be there for Sharkstop as well, I'm not too sure. But yeah, might see you there. not, yeah, I mean, you messaged me before when we were setting this up, you asked about ADEX Singapore too, right? Which, yeah, I...

Matt (54:36)

Yeah.

Hmm.

Yeah.

Andre Borell (55:00)

have lived in Singapore for the last five years, still haven't been to an ADEX there, but yeah, we'll see each other around the traps. yeah, anyone else that was listening too, if you see us somewhere, A, we'd love to have you invest if you believe in the product, but B, if you just see us around the traps, come say good day.

Matt (55:04)

Yeah.

Happy days. Awesome sauce Okay, thank you very much for listening folks and bye for now.