Sustainable sunglasses maker Good Citizens on sticking to your guns in business
The founder of sustainable eyewear company Good Citizens chose to ignore advice from venture capitalists to make his product less durable. The decision paid off.
When founder of recycled sunglasses company Good Citizens, Nik Robinson, pitched his startup to a venture capital investor, he wasn’t prepared for the response he received.
“The VC said ‘your product is TOO good’! He said this because if you sit on your sunglasses or do something to break the product like break the arm off, we will send you a new part that you can use to fix it yourself.
"The VC said doing free repairs is not good business — and the firm refused to invest in us,” Robinson told a gathering at the South By Southwest Festival in Sydney on Wednesday.
“But this is what we’re fighting for!”
Robinson was inspired to create products from 100% recycled plastic in 2018 after discussing the issue of plastic pollution around the family dinner table with his wife Jocelyne Simpson and two sons (then 8 and 6). This led to the formation of Good Citizens and plans to make sunglasses from used plastic PET bottles. Robinson chose to make sunglasses because one pair contains roughly the same amount of plastic as a single bottle — giving rise to the adage “one bottle makes one pair”.
