Building a Global Business from a Sunshine Coast Home

Full Transcript

Note: the following transcript was generated by AI and therefore may contain some errors and omissions.

Whether you’re doing export business or whether you’re doing domestic business, it’s the same requirement. Understand your customer, figure out what they need, figure out how you’re gonna deliver it to them and do it in a way that’s price competitive and better than anybody else.

Ben Amos (00:29.634)

G’day and welcome back to the Coast and Commerce podcast. I’m Ben from Innovate Media, the host of this show. And this show is all about sharing insight, inspiration and stories from Sunshine Coast business leaders to help you in your business journey as well. So one of those leaders I’m joined with here today is Tim Eldridge from Advanced Aquarium Technologies. Hey Tim, welcome to the show. Hi, good morning, good morning. So before we get into talking about what Advanced Aquarium Technologies do and some of the insights you can share for our audience here.

I’d just love to know who are you and what’s your story? What got you into where you are today? So my career began in the 80s. I started in the advertising industry.

in London and I moved around the world a little bit. I was in Hong Kong and I eventually ended up in New York working for Saatchi and Saatchi initially and then Ogilvy and Mather, two very well-known advertising agencies, doing international brand management and global advertising campaigns for companies like Procter & Gamble and IBM, Hewlett-Packard and lots of other.

Just a few that we might have heard before. Yeah. And whilst I was in New York, I met and married an Aussie. We had children in New York, but we decided to bring them up on the Sunshine Coast. So in 2009, we moved out here. So what was your background? Was it like where were you born and raised? Because it’s not an it’s not an American accent.

No, I grew up in a tiny, tiny village in the Cotswolds in England. Yeah, I thought it was your English accent. And actually, I think that’s one of the reasons why I love the Sunshine Coast so much, because I’m really a rural kid at heart, or certainly a regional economy kid. And I, after finishing school, went off and did a business degree, and whilst I was doing a business degree, I discovered marketing.

(02:20.69)

Uh, and, um, and so that was my kind of entry into the marketing world. And in fact, I had to do an internship and I got an internship as a junior OIC Mitsubishi motors in their marketing department in the UK. Okay. And through that work, I got to know their advertising agency. And at the end of my degree, the advertising agency offered me a job and I moved to London. Okay. Did you say OIC? Yes. What is it? OIC?

I’m not even sure. It’s just a phrase. Okay, I’ve never heard of that before. Anyway, so you were a junior oik. You’re no longer a junior oik, I assume. Not knowing what an oik is, but we’ll go with it. So take me to kind of moving into what you do now here in advanced aquarium technology. So, you know, before we get into that specifically, what is it about kind of marketing and advertising that, I don’t know, fires you up? Or what do you love about what you do?

Look, marketing is for me, it’s kind of like the most exciting aspect of business because it’s about innovation, it’s about understanding customers, it’s about delivering value, it’s about making a lot of business decisions that connect the dots between what people out in the market want, what you’re making, how you’re getting to them, pricing decisions, distribution decisions. It’s just the hub of everything.

And so it’s a very inspiring part of being in business in general in the marketing department. But also with regards to brand management and developing brands and building brands internationally, there’s a huge amount of creativity, there’s a lot of strategic planning, a lot of strategic decision making. So it’s just an incredibly interesting and challenging part.

of working in business and it’s something that I find really inspiring, very interesting. And you know, I’ve been doing it now for 40 something years and I’ve done it in a lot of different categories, you know, disposable diapers, shampoos, aquarium design companies and in a lot of different countries. And every day you have a different challenge and it’s exciting after 40 years to wake up in the morning and still kind of

(04:38.626)

want to tackle one of those problems. So yeah, I feel lucky that I found something that I really enjoy. Yeah, so generally when you think about marketing and advertising in like the proctors and gambles and the IBMs of the world, when you’re kind of suchy and suchy type advertising company versus the smaller companies, because I know you have done some marketing consulting with smaller businesses on the Sunshine Coast and medium sized businesses, and now you’re working within a, I guess small to medium business.

You know, certainly not an IBM of the world, AAT. So, you know, what’s the difference or and what’s the similarities between marketing in those different scales? You know, the nature of the problems that you have to solve are often very similar. The smaller and medium sized businesses having much…

more difficult set of circumstances though because they do not have the same resources as large companies. And I think one of the things that the general public doesn’t really appreciate is quite how much testing goes on in a large enterprise to try and figure out the right marketing solutions or the right promotional or brand strategy solutions and the right advertising campaigns and so forth. There’s an enormous

array of testing both in terms of messaging and development of campaigns before they spend millions and millions of dollars executing. And for a lot of mid-sized companies and small companies, it’s very difficult to be able to do that testing. So in many ways, the companies with the least amount of resources end up taking the highest amount of risk because they have to kind of…

go to market with marketing activity that hasn’t been as tested as rigorously as it would in large enterprise. And that’s an enormous difference that small and mid-sized companies face. Yeah, but I believe that’s a pro and a con, right? Like you could see it as a pro because you can move quicker as a small business, you can test things without million dollar budgets being at in play or at risk, right? And you can make mistakes.

(06:46.858)

Yes. Whereas the big guys really can’t make mistakes. Well, they probably don’t want to. They try not to. I think one of the, I’d look at it a slightly different way, which is what you do tend to get in large enterprises that you don’t get in small and mid-sized companies is the conservatism. And so there’s a lot of.

hesitancy in a big public company to do something that’s going to get criticized or do something that’s going to You know take you slightly off track and cause problems and so there’s an Inheritive nervousness or conservatism that mid-size companies and entrepreneurs Usually don’t have and it’s like now we’re gonna get to where we think is right and then we’re gonna go

And that can actually lead to more creative outcomes sometimes, so that’s quite exciting. Yeah, it is. So I want to pivot now to talk about business on the Sunshine Coast here and talk about AAT, because one of the things that constantly surprises me being in business on the Sunshine Coast is the businesses that I think sometimes fly under the radar. Like they’re doing amazing, you know.

world changing things in some cases, which, you know, from right here on the Sunshine Coast, the people would never know is a business that’s based on the Sunny Coast. And, you know, I think AAT when I first came across Advanced Aquarium Technologies was one of those for me, one of those moments where I was like, and you guys do this from here, you know, you’re based here on the Sunshine Coast. So for people that haven’t heard about Advanced Aquarium Technologies before, I will say, I think generally, you guys have been a bit more

visible on the coast in the last few years. I’ve seen you winning Sunshine Coast Business Awards just recently, like I think a couple of days ago as of recording this, you won another one from the Sunshine Coast Business Awards. And that visibility does get you out there, but I think you’ve flown under the radar for years. You’re still doing amazing stuff. So tell us about Advanced Aquarium Technologies. What do you guys do and what is this stuff that’s happening under the radar here? All right, so Advanced Aquarium, let me say that again.

 (08:58.258)

So Advanced Aquarium Technologies is a leader in a very specialized industry. It’s a very unusual industry. We design and construct and operate major public aquariums around the world. And we have to unpack that a little bit because you kind of skip through that sentence real fast. We design, build and operate major public aquariums. And there’s actually a…

a lot of different businesses all amalgamated into one AAT. So during the design phase, what we’re really doing is servicing a couple of different kinds of customers. It could be a business that a group of investors who have come together to put an aquarium into a new country or a new region or town, and they’re trying to figure out what kind of aquarium do we need in this particular city? What theme is it gonna have? How are we going to work with an architect to get something that’s iconic

and drive tourists. So that’s for the creation of a new aquarium, but we also do an enormous amount of work working with existing aquariums around the world who are interested in doing refurbishments or expansions or some kind of renovation and introduce new exhibits and new features and so forth. So two very different kinds of design work, new aquariums and improving existing ones.

And a lot of that involves working with architects as well, because sometimes an architect somewhere in the world will be commissioned to build a new aquarium building, but they don’t actually have the expertise necessary to understand how the building needs to work to be an aquarium. And so we’ll collaborate with those architects to get everything put together. So the design phase is in its own right of business. That’s doing design work all the way through from the conceptual stuff and the theming into detailed construction and production drawings and getting everything ready to go ahead.

to start the development of the construction work. During the construction phase, there is an enormous amount of very specialised equipment in an aquarium.

(10:55.322)

One of the biggest systems is the water treatment systems, as the public would refer to it. We refer to it as the life support systems because getting that water biology and water chemistry right and the condition of the water is ultimately all about keeping those animals happy and healthy. And so we manufacture an entire range of life support system equipment and a single life support system for an aquarium can cost many millions of dollars.

Beyond the water treatment systems, you have an awful lot of concrete tanks that have to be waterproofed. So we make waterproofing membranes that we install into the aquariums to keep the water where it’s supposed to be. Important. One of the single most iconic aspects of an aquarium, of course, is those…

big acrylic windows. So we have a very unique license with the company out of Germany to manufacture plexiglass windows and tunnels and domes for aquariums on an enormous scale. These windows are truly colossal and just to illustrate the point.

We opened a new aquarium in Vietnam last year that we had been working on for several years, and it’s got an aquarium window. The main window in there that we were commissioned to build and install is something in the order of nine meters tall. It’s about 26 meters wide. It’s one of the thickest windows that’s ever been made. It’s about 780 millimeters thick. And it’s…

the weight of this window is in the order of 220 tonnes. So these are truly colossal structures that are completely transparent and they have to be installed with an enormous amount of specialist knowledge and skill, which we bring to the party. Just to clarify that, because I think if I’ve got you right here, that 26 metre wide, nine metre tall window, there’s no pillars and seams visible, right? No, we can’t ship the window to site that size.

 (12:58.724)

a series of smaller sections at our manufacturing facility in China. And then we, when I say smaller, I think each one was in the order of about 26 tonnes. Still massive. And we ship those to the site. And then using a range of extremely specialised techniques, we bond them together to form a single structure without any obvious pillaring in between them. That’s incredible. Yes. OK, carry on. So big windows. Big windows.

There’s one of the most important aspects of an aquarium also is we want the animals to feel at home and If they feel at home Then they behave normally they feel comfortable. They’re relaxed. It’s good for their well-being And to do that we have to create hyper realistic habitats for them to be in inside the aquariums and so these are These are artificial habitats, but they have to be so

so authentic to the animals that the animals feel chill and are happy going about their life as an animal in these tanks. So we create all of that theming and some of the theming structures are also very huge. We have a team of artists in our factory who create plants and all kinds of

 (14:27.351)

And part of the job that rockwork and theming has to do is also present to the public as a beautiful breathtaking underwater scene. And…

This is really important and we recognize fully that, you know, here on the Sunshine Coast, there’s an awful lot of people who have the great opportunity to be able to go scuba diving and snorkeling anytime they want to. But there’s a lot of people around the world who have never been underwater to see some of these tropical scenes. And so we’re trying to create a vision that people in inner city areas around the world can get a glimpse into the under the undersea world. Yeah.

Yeah, it’s incredible. And you know, if you, if you are watching this episode on YouTube guys, you will hopefully include some photos here. You’ll be able to see some of the incredible stuff just to get a visual of what we’re talking about here. So you guys do all of that stuff as well. You’re not really outsourcing any of that. You’ve built a team or, you know, actually let’s, let’s get into that a little bit, but take me back to the founder of the company though, first, because I do want to recognise John who founded this company, CEO and founder is CEO, correct? Yes. Good.

that right. So tell me a little bit about his story if you don’t mind sharing that. Well John’s story is fantastic. I mean John’s an inspiration, he’s the driving force of the company, he’s the engineer in chief, he propels us forward relentlessly every single day and he was a kid that grew up on the Sunshine Coast and fell in love with the ocean and spent an awful lot of time as a teenager offshore.

hanging out with underwater animals and fell in love with the ocean and fell in love with underwater marine systems and decided that was a way for him to make a living and initially he was actually involved in the capture of animals for aquariums and there’s a lot of techniques that we use to make sure that that’s done in an appropriate way.

(16:33.174)

But he had a spot of luck, I suppose, really, because the Malulabar Aquarium opened, and here on the Sunshine Coast, so John went over there, had a chat to them, and got a job working at the aquarium, and learned all about life inside an aquarium as an employee, and eventually decided that this was something that he really wanted to double down on, and there were some opportunities for him to become involved in some major…

construction projects in China. So he moved to China for a while and worked in Guangzhou and Shanghai on the construction of two major aquariums in those markets. And that was kind of what led really to the birth of AAT because John realized that, he saw very quickly that there were gonna be a lot more of these aquariums built around the world. And he wanted to get involved in that and had a lot of experience by that stage, both working in an aquarium.

but also seeing how to construct them and started to develop a lot of point of views on or points of view on what kind of equipment would

how to make the equipment that was going into the aquariums better, how to build them in a better way. And that slowly sort of morphed into the development of the range of products that we have now and the techniques that we use. And in fact, John and I have talked in the past about the fact that, you know, it’s not just about technologies, it’s also about techniques. And a lot of what we do and makes us special is having the skill and technique knowledge about how to construct things on

in an aquarium, it’s a very, very specialized skill. And so, yeah, so, you know, 20 something years ago, John essentially built the company or began AAT as it is today. And as you say, we’ve now got pretty much, not all of the services and capabilities that you need, but the vast majority of them are all under one roof with us. And I know I haven’t really even talked about the third stage of it,

(18:43.266)

our operations service as well because oftentimes once we finish the aquarium we are required to hang around for a bit afterwards and continue to service those aquariums and in some cases we will be commissioned to carry on being the outsourced partner.

for the operation of the aquarium for years after the aquarium’s actually open. Yeah, okay. And as you say, all of that is under the one roof, well, effectively two roofs, right? Because you do have your operations base here in the Sunshine Coast, and you do have large manufacturing warehouse that…

owned by AOT in China as well. So is it the two roads? Am I missing something there? Yeah, well actually, it’s four or more now. So we have, as you say, our headquarters is here on the Sunshine Coast. This is where we sort of coordinate everything that happens around the world and especially the management of leads and projects. Our main manufacturing

We have also got an operation in the Philippines, which is primarily a drafting operation. So we have a big team of drafters in China who work with our design department on the development of all the drawings. A single aquarium can produce hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of drawings of all kinds of different kinds of drawings.

that are required for construction and manufacturing. So that team in the Philippines does that work under the guidance of what we do from Australia. And then a few years ago, we decided that we would open an operation in America. And so we now have an operation in Houston, Texas also.

(20:29.514)

And that’s the sales center as well as the fabrication and customer service center as well. So a lot of the acrylic that we manufacture in China will go to the states and then our team in Houston, Texas can fabricate.

the acrylic panels to whatever the American market requires. So that was a very big and important expansion for us. American customers made it very clear to us during the research that we were doing some years ago that they were pretty excited about the opportunity to work with us. But the American market had a very strong point of view that if you want to do business with us, you have to have boots on the ground here. So, yeah, we put boots on the ground.

There you go. So definitely, you know, from a Sunshine Coast base reaching now a global market, you know, so you’ve got projects in the middle East, you mentioned Vietnam, you know, in China and everywhere, right through Europe as well. Like there are, there are aquariums all over the place that AAT have been, have been a part of either refurbishing or building.

So I’m interested to explore with you some challenges of being based on the Sunshine Coast and reaching a global market. But first I wanna go to some benefits. So, what do you say, what do you believe are the positives? Whether it’s something that John’s mentioned to you or from your own perspective, like why be on the Sunshine Coast? You could be based in New York, right? You could be based somewhere that has, I don’t know, prestige, Sunshine Coast is great, don’t give me.

Don’t get me wrong, but why Sunshine Coast? What are the benefits of being here? Well, I think the most obvious one of all for the employees who are here is they are living in one of the most spectacular places in the world. And I think every single one of us who works on the Sunshine Coast, whether that’s for AAT or any other company, feels that way.

 (22:19.506)

So that’s a big plus. And if we have roles that we want to offer to new employees who aren’t on the Sunshine Coast, in many cases, the idea of moving to this part of the world is a very attractive proposition for people, and particularly if they’ve got families. So it’s a place that’s very compelling from an employee standpoint.

The other thing is that we’re not very far from Brisbane and Brisbane’s got a very strong international airport and Australia and Queensland actually is closer to Asia than the rest of Australia. So to be able to get into a lot of the Asian markets from here is very doable. And so it means the access to the burgeoning Asian market is an…

you know, very doable from Australia, and in particular from Queensland. And, you know, we do have this factory in China and John, who we were talking about earlier, is regularly jumping on a plane and going up to our operation in China and coming back and it’s all very, it’s not a difficult thing to achieve. We’ve also got, you know, pretty good ports here down in Brisbane. So getting products in and out of port is not that hard.

And we’ve got some really talented people in Australia. And there’s a lot of…

very smart people in all kinds of different fields. Particularly in the zoo and aquarium industry, there’s a lot of very talented individuals. But also, we employ architects, we employ project managers, we employ a wide range of different skills. In fact, we’ve probably got a more diverse range of skills under one roof than most companies. And a lot of that talent is available in this country. So from a positive standpoint, those are some of the themes that spring to mind.

(24:16.464)

100% and obviously John growing up here on the Sunshine Coast being able to make that decision to Stay where he grew up and to in his hometown and but also to build a company that is able to service the globe is Is absolutely achievable here on the Sunshine Coast But I imagine there are some challenges to you right so you know what are some of the challenges that? particularly with the idea of exporting you know and in your business, it’s not you’re not exporting like

you know, things that you make here, you know, sending them off and selling them overseas or you’re exporting knowledge and, and skill sets and, you know, all of that. But you are, I mean, you do build querums in Australia, but most of your jobs are international, right? So as a, as a business based on the Sunshine Coast, but exporting to a global market, like what are some of the challenges that, that you face and how do you overcome them? So

 (25:14.218)

The, it’s interesting because I think video conferencing took off big time during COVID for many companies around the world. We had been using video conferencing since long before then, but clearly one of the big challenges that you have is the ability to make quick, fast, immediate and meaningful interactions with customers and prospects and stakeholders all over the world is vital.

And so you have to be great at video conferencing. And you have to have a team that is extremely flexible about its time. And I think one of the things that we’re most grateful for is the fact that a lot of our team members are willing to do…

video conferences with customers around the world at all manner of times of day and night. Getting everybody together for a global meeting is a difficult thing but that’s true actually wherever you are in the world. So we our operation the sun really never sets on our operations and it never really sets on our work.

So in the mornings early in the mornings, we can have chat to America The Middle East comes online sometime in the afternoon Europe towards the evening and you just have to cherry-pick You know how you’re gonna plan your time How you’re gonna plan your meetings to work for all the time zones and get to all the people that you need to get to? so we’re very good at all that and And and a big thank you, you know often goes to the team for their flexibility And we have to be very flexible with the team

and respect their family time because we have people who are doing phone calls with them in the Middle East or Europe late at night or very early in the morning. We just have to be very conscious of that all the time and the impact it has on our employees’ lives, which we try to be. I think the thing about video conferences that…

 (27:12.122)

Yes, you can have all those meetings and you can do a huge amount of work using technology to supplement the face-to-face meetings.

but there really is nothing quite like having a face-to-face meeting. And one of the things about working from the Sunshine Coast is if you are servicing global markets, you know, face-to-face meetings are terribly important and you just have to have a business model that enables you to get on those airplanes and go and…

build meaningful relationships with stakeholders all over the world. You have to make the time available, you have to make the budgets available to be able to support that kind of work and that’s vital and we do that too. I think any global company that’s doing

delivery work has to be exceptionally good at logistics and exceptionally good at shipping and coordinating the delivery of lots of different things from lots of different places in a coordinated way. And so you have to have exceptionally good logistical capabilities, which AAT has. And that’s vital. And it’s particularly vital when, you know, it’s not just

materials that we’re shipping to site. We’ve, you know, some of these aquariums have got thousands of fish in them, in some cases hundreds of thousands of fish, and so we have to make sure that everything is all lined up so that the animals arrive and are cared for and all the facilities are in exactly the right condition for the arrival of the animals so they can go through quarantine and introduction into the tanks.

 (28:58.314)

with tremendous care and appropriate treatment. So yeah, those are some of the themes I would say. Being exceptionally good at managing time zones, being exceptionally good at video conferencing, but also knowing that it’s the real world relationships that matter most and of course global logistics. International marketing has changed a lot. International brand management and international business management facilitated largely by the internet.

is so much different, of course, to when I started my career. And I think that you, like anybody who works in marketing at will understand that authenticity is everything, adding value through marketing is critical. So you’ve really got to be deeply conscious of what customers, what kind of customers information.

what kinds of information customers are looking for and make sure that you’re putting that on your websites. So that when customers are out there looking for whatever information they’re looking for, they’re gonna find it on your site. And I think quality content is essential. And that’s how you’re gonna make contact with a lot of these people around the world. Yeah, so I think, you know, a lot of what you talked about there, a lot of the…

nuances of exporting and reaching a global market could apply to a small exporting business, you know, with one or two people or just a solo founder, you know, trying to get their thing or their knowledge or their product into global markets.

right up to the big guys as well, right? I think it’s the same challenges just maybe at a different scale, would you agree? Yeah, I think so. But again, I mean, you do have to really empathise and sympathise for the mid and small businesses because they don’t have the same resources that a large enterprise does. And when I started in my career many years ago, a marketing team on a famous brand was actually very small. You could…

 (31:07.438)

Procter & Gamble was, and may well still be, one of the world’s largest advertisers throughout the bulk of my career. But if you went into a brand team in the 1980s,

less than half a dozen people were needed to manage some of the most famous brands in any country. Whereas today you’d have you know a larger team just working your social media component and so international brands marketing teams are now very big teams. And yet the same expectation is placed on mid-size businesses was like well you’ve got to be driving all that content you’ve got to be on the front foot you’ve got to be responsive.

Um, and that’s a lot harder to do when you don’t have as many people working for you. Yeah. I think that’s, that’s very true too. That’s reality of it as well. So, um, just in kind of enclosing here, the other thing I wanted to recognise with AAT is, and maybe it’s just my assumption, but I particularly over the last few years, you guys have seemed to focus on some of the more, uh, national or within Australia based, um,

awards or recognition as well. And I’m interested, you know, we talked about you flying under the radar for so many years and, um, you know, maybe that’s just my perception of it. But, um, you know, recently you’ve, uh, you, you’ve won an exporting award. Was that a Queensland or? We were well over.

Over the last 20 years, since before I joined the company full time, the company has always participated in local and state based and in some cases national competitions. Yeah. And so it’s not necessarily a new thing. And we’ve been a finalist in many competitions for a long time. I think…

 (33:01.894)

In 21, we had a particularly successful year on the Sunshine Coast. We were we won in the best construction company, the best export company, and we won the overall best business of the year. And just this weekend past, we got two out of those three again. Best construction company, best export company. And so that was a source of great pride. And we’ve also been a finalist in the Queensland Premier’s export award competition a number of times.

And they’re important to us. We do them because we’re very conscious of the fact that whilst the bulk of our business is overseas, we’re also very conscious of the fact

We do have a local brand and that local brand is important and we have done some work on that over the last few years And it’s important because we do have meaningful relationships with government agencies in Australia Both at state and local and federal level and we also have people that we want to hire in those local brands are important We also have suppliers that we want to do business with And your local brand is important to your supplier relationships as well So it is something that we’ve worked on and yeah

I think there probably has been a bit of a boost in our profile as a result of that. Yeah, cool. Well done. Thanks for sharing that. So just as a final note here, Tim, I’m interested just from you personally being in the work that you’ve done, whether it be now with AAT or prior in your years of experience in advertising, marketing and business development over the years, what would you say to a Sunshine Coast based business of whatever scale who’s thinking, can I be based here?

and reach a global market with whatever it is I do. What would you say to them, I don’t know, to encourage them or what’s your message? Well, I think our company is a living proof that you can do that. The number one thing about being a successful exporter is in many ways I think no different to the number one thing about being successful within a domestic market, which is you’ve got to understand your customer needs.

 (35:14.046)

and you’ve got to match and meet those needs better than anybody else does. And that doesn’t change whether you’re doing export business or whether you’re doing domestic business. It’s the same requirement. Understand your customer, figure out what they need, figure out how you’re going to deliver it to them and do it in a way that’s price competitive and, um, and better than anybody else. Uh, the rest is logistics. Yeah. Simple.

Yeah, just logistics, building giant aquariums. Well, it’s more complicated to do it in multiple countries at the same time. Yeah. But at the heart of it all, that’s what it’s all about. Yeah. You do have to back yourself a lot more. And I think that one of the things that John’s very famous for in our company is he does generate a vision of what he wants to achieve, and then he will drive it to completion. And having the…

having confidence to believe in yourself and to look at your strengths and know your weaknesses too. But be confident enough to get out into the world and say no, you know what we deserve to be there. And we’re going to put ourselves out there. And if you’ve got a quality product, you will yield some results. I love it. That’s great, Tim.

One last thing, I know I said that was the last thing, but this is my last thing. I’m interested with AAT, what have you got coming? Can you share anything? Like are there some exciting projects that you can say that are about to come online or is it all hush hush?

Yeah, look, there’s always some exciting stuff. I can’t do a big reveal, unfortunately, but I will, Ben, I will absolutely make sure that you’re the first person to know when we go public. But we are actively working on finishing up a new aquarium in Taiwan. We’re actively working on a new aquarium in Bahrain. In fact, I had a photographer in that aquarium last week in Bahrain taking photographs, and I’m looking forward to seeing those any day now. And that’s going to be opening later this year as well.

 (37:23.252)

we’ve got some extraordinarily innovative projects going on in Saudi Arabia but unfortunately until they all go public I can’t really talk about them. Well I do know for a fact that you do have a lot of great images, great photos and stuff on your website and you can go on like if people are interested after hearing Tim’s story and obviously through Tim John’s story as well with Advanced Aquarium Technologies go and check out their website check out what they’ve got going on you’ll be amazed about some of the stuff that you guys

doing around the world. So thanks for coming on and sharing your insights, Tim. This has been great. Oh, it’s such a privilege. And thank you very much for having us. Awesome. And for you guys watching and listening, if you’ve enjoyed this episode, hit subscribe, hit subscribe on YouTube or on the podcast player that you’re watching it on or listening to it on would be the better way to say that. And then you won’t miss the next episode. See you in the next one. Bye.