Ooshky – Scott Deas Shares the Story Behind His Unique Whisky Accessory

Welcome to the bring your product idea to Life podcast.

This is the podcast for you if you're getting started selling products or if you'd

like to create your own product to sell. I'm Vicki Weinberg, a product

creation coach and Amazon expert. Every week I share friendly,

practical advice as well as inspirational stories from small businesses.

Let's get started.

Hi. Today on the podcast, I'm speaking to Scott Deas. Scott

created and sells a unique whiskey water pourr called Ooshky.

It's basically a water drop shaped jug that combines the function of a bulb

dropper and a pipette, which lets you add water to your whisky by adding either

a splash or a drop. Scott sells these direct to

consumers through his website and Amazon. He also does wholesale and

at the time of recording, he has Ooshky stocked in about 20 shops. However,

we recorded this a few months before. You're listening to it now. So

I really hope that that number of shops has gone up in that time because

Scott has such an amazing, unique product and he's going to talk

to us all about it. He explains how he came up with the idea

for Ooshky, how he created his prototypes, how they're

manufactured now, and he also talks a lot about the challenges of

marketing a product that's so unique that people don't know what it

exists and possibly don't even know that they need it. So that's all really

interesting. Oh, and he does all of this while working a full time

job as well. And he speaks a lot about the challenges of being a

startup while having a job, how he manages his time and

tasks, how he prioritises what he does, and importantly, what

he stopped doing in order to make time for both. So,

as you can tell, we covered a lot in a relatively short space of

time. This is a great episode and I can't wait to introduce you to

Scott.

So, hi, Scott. Thank you so much for being here. Yeah, thanks for having

me. Hi. You're so welcome. Can we please

start with an introduction to yourself, your business and what you sell?

Okay. Yeah, I'm Scott, Scott Deas.

I've got a business called ishke,

which is basically a small

ceramic jug for adding water to whiskey. That's the

main product that I sell.

The name comes from the scottish Gaelic word ooshky,

which was for water, as the product is for adding

water to whisky. Amazing. Thank you. And what

inspired you to create your ishke? Yeah, so it's

funny, it's a long journey, but, yeah,

basically I kind of got fed

up I like to drink whiskey, and when you add water to whiskey, it really

opens up the flavors and kind of can enhance it.

Um, so, yeah, I kind of got sick

of using a big old milk jug to add water to my whiskey. And a

lot of people just use the tap or use like a teaspoon and things like

that, but I just wanted a small jug, really, for myself. That's kind of

how it started. And then, um, I happened

to through my work, and so my, my

main sort of job as a, as an engineer, and through that I

discovered a website which could 3d print things

in ceramic. And so that just kind of got my brain

kind of worn and I wanted to create this jug. So I decided I wanted

to be shaped like a water drop. And that was really the goal. And

the idea was to create this and give it to my, a couple of people

as gifts. So I gave one to my dad and one to my younger

brother, and they both loved it. And then

my younger brother said to me, you know, and

I really love the fact that when you cover the hole, you can control how

much water comes out, which was brilliant because it

wasn't actually something I had thought of myself. It just kind of was a bit

of a happy accident. So it was really nice. And I think once I

realized that and sort of showed it to a few more people, I kind

of realized that maybe this was something that I could

try. So, yeah, I mean, it was quite a few

years between that and actually deciding to make it into a business,

but, you know, that's kind of where it came from. Oh, brilliant. Thank you so

much for sharing that. And when you said at the beginning it was a long

journey, I mean, I think most journeys are, aren't they, really?

I think very few people I speak to get their product developed

quickly. It often does take some time. And it's so

interesting as well that you created it for yourself, first of all, without

thinking of it as something you could sell. Yeah, yeah. It was

just like I say, I really, I was just.

Because I'd find a site where I could have something just made as a one

off in ceramic. I was just like, oh, what can I make? And that was

kind of what came to mind. So, yeah, and then,

yeah, it just kind of grew from there. Did you say they 3d print

in ceramic? Oh, I've never heard of that. Yeah, I know. And

it's. It's not very common, and the company actually stopped doing it.

I think it was costing them too much. But, yeah, as far as I know,

it was a ceramic powder, which they then fused together

to create the clay model. And then it went through the usual process of

being wired and then glazed. So the final one.

So, yeah, so the first few prototypes were

ceramic, but it was great because I meant that I knew that

it was something that would work and then it was just a case of finding

someone who can make it. Yeah, that makes

sense. And so that was your designs, weren't they? That they

were printed from? Yeah, so, yeah, I created the

designs in 3d, just using 3d

cards. I don't. I know some

ceramicists do it that way, but not always. A lot of people just create the

first one by hand, so. Yeah, but

that's just what I was familiar with. So that was the tools I had and

that's kind of how I did it. Oh, that's really good, though. And what

about now? So how. How do they get made nowadays? Yeah,

so they're. They're all made from, um.

It's a ceramic process called slip

casting. So I have them have molds

and they pour in liquid clay, and then as that

dries, that creates the wall thickness and then they pour out. And it's quite a

common process. But there's, um. Although

it's using a mold to get the shape, it's all finished by hand, so there's

a lot of trimming needs to be done. You have to cut off this sort

of excess clay and then they're

glazed and then there's a little logo on the bottom as well. So it

kind of goes through the firing process a few times. And,

yeah, they are all handled.

Handled with care. And how

easy or difficult was it to find someone that could do that for you? Because,

I'll be honest, I know you say that the process is fairly common. I haven't

heard of that. And I thought you were going to say you had someone who

sat there and made them by hand. Although I do know there's a lot of

crafts involved in them. Yeah. How did

you go about finding someone that could produce these for you?

Yeah, so it was a. That was probably the hardest part. And

I kind of. I thought it would be easy because I was used to working

with suppliers from my other job.

I kind of knew how to approach people and get quotes

and things like that. The problem was finding someone to make it, and

I am. I was really. I was really keen to have it made in

Scotland because it's to do with whiskey. I thought that would be great

if this could be made to Scotland. But a lot of the

sort of pottery houses and things, a lot of it's just either their

own stuff or it's like hand thrown things.

So then I eventually found a company down in England, down in

Stokendrant, which is like the ceramics capital of the world, they say.

I worked with them for a while, but, um,

yeah, it didn't work out and we couldn't. Couldn't quite get the shape right with

them. So, um, we decided, you know, I think that we're finding

the shape is quite challenging. So it is quite,

um, probably difficult to, to achieve. So then,

um, just because I was just wanting to start out and I was just wanting

to get the product out there and see how it did. I used the contact

that I had already out in the far

east, and they made one

up and sent me a sample and it was perfect. I couldn't believe the

quality. And it's funny, because when you

talk about far east, a lot of people just assume that it's mass

produced and really cheap. But it wasn't the case. The price was pretty similar to

the one in the UK because it is a slow, handmade process.

So that's where it started. But since then I've been,

um. I'd kind of continue to look for suppliers and I've found somebody

now in stock on Trent again. Uh, and, um.

Yeah, they're, they're making it now. So they, they are now made in the

UK, which is nice to say. Um. And,

uh, yeah, I think a lot of. A lot of stockists and stuff, they

do, they do like that aspect of it. Yeah. And well done for

persevering that as well. It sounds like it's quite challenging to get it made in

the UK. And then I think to add on top of that, this was during

the pandemic as well, so it just added more delays on it as well in

terms of getting samples. And when you're dealing with sort of

chinese companies, or I think they were in Taiwan, there's always

a time delay and getting messages back and forth, so it just lengthens the

process. Whereas when you're dealing with people in the UK, it's so much easier to

just pick up the phone and move. And so.

And you're right, all of these things do add time. And as you mentioned

earlier, you're doing this around your day job as well.

Yeah, that's right. So, yeah,

I'm a mechanical engineer and I do that four days a

week and I used

to do that full time as a permanent company,

but now I work for myself. But actually,

the reason I went to four days a week was to allow myself that day

to work on this. And that's been really good.

But I was kind of thinking about it before when

I was preparing for this that I remembered,

although I work for myself now, so I've got the flexibility to shape that even

when it was full time. It's actually something that everybody can request,

is a flexible working policy with the government. And if you've been working

somewhere for six months or more, you have the right to request

reduced hours or just changing your,

your working shape. So that's what I did. I think I originally compressed my

hours and dropped a few. So rather than

doing a 38 hours week, I was doing 35, I think it was, but over

four days. So, yeah, it kind of, that kind

of gave me that extra space just to do that. And now I'm working

for myself. I do contract work. It means that I can kind of

fit in bits and bots here and there, but I do try and be quite

bounded and do most of the work on the Monday. That's my day off.

My day off, my day, my day on

Ishke. And I just find that that kind

of helps. Yeah. Just

stop it from overrunning into other aspects of my life, as

small businesses can do. I guess. It's really hard to

manage your time. How are you sort of

best, how are you using your time now and how has that

changed? Because I think that, I'm sure it's evolved. You know,

as business owners, we all get better at how we manage and use

our time, especially when we have limited time.

What's your advice around that? Yeah, I think I'm

still learning with that one.

I think the main thing I've sort of learned to do over the past couple

of years is, is to really try and

focus on what's important because, you know, I've got, I do have

quite a creative mind and I'll get ideas for things, and before I know, I'm

looking into the next avenue for the. Or

the next thing I want to do and, you know, kind of losing sight

of the here now. So I think what I try and do is, you

know, I've got, I've got a to do list and I try and

just really be quite.

Yeah, just quite focused on how I spend my time.

I try and allocate a certain amount of time each week to doing pr.

I've got, I run the website myself and designed that myself. So,

yeah, I kind of have to keep an eye on that and obviously process

nurtures as well. But, yeah, I kind

of, yeah, just have to be quite disciplined. But

that's not my strong point. But it seemed to be getting better.

It's like you say, it's like it's always a process. I think. I think all

of us could, you know, when we look back in a year, but what we,

you know, we might think now it was doing quite well in a certain area,

but when we look back in a year's time, we'll still. We still had a

way to go. What about, is there anything that you don't do

anymore? I'm just being really. I'm just being really curious. Is there anything where you've

kind of come to realization? Actually, it's not that important. I could stop doing

that. Yeah, actually, I

did start off doing. I spent a lot of time on Instagram

trying to build a following on there.

And I still use it from time to time. I still try and,

yeah, if I create a new video and things, I will try and put it

up there or I'll maybe do a few stories

of trade show and things like that. But I think what I realized

was that a lot of my

sales weren't coming from Instagram. And

it's one of those tricky things. Whereas I know that brand awareness, you know, building

that brand and getting people to know about a product, it's not always

about sales, you know, because, you know, it can

take time to introduce it, especially something like this where nobody's even

heard of it or seen it before. It's quite foreign to some

people. But, yeah, I think what I realized was, because

I did have limited time, I was better to spend that time

focusing on my website and my CEO for that.

And, yeah, just making sure that when people search for

whiskey gifts or whiskey water jug, that I kind of come up near

the top. And,

yeah, I kind of. I've got a little. There's a wee box

on my checkout where people can say how they heard of me. And then

also you get, like, your analytics of the website, and I can see that most

of my traffic is either directly to the website or from

Google or other search engines. So it kind of. Yeah,

it just became clear that, okay, maybe it's nice to have a

nice instagram, and I do have plans to do that. I have

plans to kind of spruce up a bit and things. But, you

know, at this point, it wasn't that important to me. So,

yeah, that was something I probably let go of. I think that's really

smart because as you say, you've only got so much all of us have only

got so much time and I think you can, you can end up spreading yourself

too thin and not doing well at anything.

I had the same when I had my products business where I was selling on

so many different marketplaces, but actually there were only two

that were generating what I would call a decent number of

sales. And really, and obviously I did this over time, but really

what I should have done so much sooner was go, do you know what? I'm

just going to focus on these two. And everywhere else, I either can sit dormant

or I close them or whatever, but I was almost putting more

effort into the things that weren't working than the things that were working,

which looking back now, is just crazy. Yeah,

I think sometimes I could probably do with taking that step back and just

kind of evaluating, and I think that's something I'd start

doing. At the start of this year, I decided that this year I was going

to focus more on my wholesale because I do I have it

in, or I had it in maybe ten shops last year

and I realized that, you know, that was

always going to be part of my strategy for the business, was to get into

shops because especially places where there's lots of tourist activity and

things, because I knew that just exposure

to the product would really help. So, yeah, so

the start of the year, I went to a trade show and by doing that,

I kind of doubled the number of shops I'm in. And I

in the process of updating the website so that there's a wholesale

section. So it's much clearer for people to

contact me and kind of find out how to get involved and become a stockist.

That makes total sense because I think yours is such a great gift product. I

can definitely see it in gift shops and that kind of thing,

particularly in Scotland, I guess, or anywhere. And also places that sell whiskey.

Yeah, exactly. It just makes so much sense, I don't know, like a distillery or

something, to have them in the gift shop. Yeah. So there's a few

distillers of it, there's a few sort of

tourist places and lots of gift shops and a few whiskey

shops. It does seem to cover quite a

few markets. Yeah, that all sounds really

good. Coming back to what you say in a moment ago about sort of

needing to look back and maybe not always knowing what the best thing to focus

on, I guess, you know, it's when you're starting

a products business, if it's the first time you're doing it, I guess it is

such a steep learning curve, isn't it, because there's so much you don't know and

you don't know that you don't know it either, if you see what I mean.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. I think I was quite

naive to the whole thing, to be honest. I think I thought,

you know, that once, as long as it was out

there and people could buy it, then it would sell itself. And I quickly realized

that that wasn't the case and I needed to kind of push it. And also

I had to spend some money on doing that, which I hadn't really

or hadn't realized how much that would cost, actually.

Not just like, I don't do too much advertising. There's one magazine

that I do advertising now and again because

it does seem to make a difference, but just even to like get

access to sort of good quality pr links and things like that, your services

and things. So. Yeah, but it's

definitely, I'm realizing how important that side of things

is just to get the brand awareness out and it is

working. You know, it's like I'm. And I am seeing things sort

of starting to. Starting to change as well. That's really

good. And I totally agree what you say about that. You're the second person this

week who said to me, oh, I thought, you know, I had a product that

was there and people would come and buy it. And I think

that, yeah, it's really easy to underestimate the amount of

work you have to go in. Like getting a product ready to sell

and having something physical you can sell, I think, is actually just a really

small part of it. There's so much involved, isn't there, in actually

talking about your product and getting people to find your product.

Yeah, I think. I think that's the big challenge, is getting people to find it

because especially if they don't know that it exists or like, doesn't. Like, you know,

it's not because it wasn't. Although I was releasing a product

in an industry that existed and I was, and there are other things out there

for doing what this does. You know, it's

still different enough that people wouldn't know to

look for it. So then it's, how do you get it to them? That kind

of thing. I wanted to ask you about that, actually, because

obviously it's an original idea. Nobody else, as far as I know, is selling

something similar. So as you say, it's not something people are widely looking

for. How are you getting in front of people? What are you

doing? Yeah, so, I mean, I basically,

I've been trying lots of different things to see what kind of works.

So, yeah, in the early days, I did a couple of markets and I did

some whiskey festivals and things. And, um. Yeah, kind of

like what you were saying earlier, things that have dropped those. Those are some of

the things I don't do anymore, mainly because I realized that although I

did get a good number of sales from it and it does give exposure,

I just find it took too much of my time and it was quite exhausting.

So. So then I kind of, you know, I tried

things like Facebook advertising.

I find Google Ads are really successful, and I think because they're

related to search terms. And let's be honest, the first thing I do when

I'm looking for something or even looking for ideas is I go to Google and

I'll type in a few words. So I find that that's the best place.

I think having the. Having things on social media definitely helps.

I think. Yeah, just having a presence

so that if people do sort of stumble across it, then you can find it.

But, yeah, I find the social media media adverts

actually do. You do seem to reach a lot of people, and then

I'm kind of. I've noticed there's definitely been an increase in word of

mouth. So people who've bought it mainly for

gifts, and then they've then either bought more or they've told somebody else about

it and that kind of thing. So, yeah, a bit of that kind

of organic sort of word of mouth sales

as well is always good. Yeah. Yeah, I can

see that really working because I think yours is the type of product that when

someone finds it, because it is so unique, you want to tell people, yeah,

yeah. It's something you want to share. You know, you must have that feeling where

you buy something and it's. You've never seen something like it before and you tell

everyone because it's so different. And I think that's something your product's definitely got

going for it. I wonder, in terms of marketing as well, for what it's worth,

if sort of thinking about what products

people are looking for that aren't as good as yours and kind of

almost targeting people looking for those, if you see what I mean. Yeah,

yeah, definitely. And I think that's what I've tried to do with Google, but I

think I kind of forgot to say. One of the main things I've been doing

the past year or so is focusing on trying to get into

magazines and doing pr, particularly the

Christmas gift guides. So I had quite a bit of success with that.

And I feel just because it's a time of year where people are just

looking for gifts is such sort of broad kind

of coverage as well, that a lot of people do see it, and I

think that's really helped. So, yeah, I kind of did have listened to the,

the podcast you had with PR dispatch, and

so, yeah, that's kind of the stuff I've been doing.

That'S really good because, yeah, I think you're right. Yours is a sort of product

that's so unique, and everyone's looking for unique gifts, aren't they?

Because we've all got that person in our life that's really hard to buy

for, and I think your product is great for that person that has

got everything. Because they won't have one of these. Not yet, anyway. Yes,

exactly. Yeah. Because it's funny because I kind of always

tell people, you know, it's because there is, there's a huge market of

female whiskey drinkers, which a lot of people discount, and

I think it is great for that. But

the thing about shops and stuff is they love that this product

is something that you can get for a guy who you don't know what to

get, really, because it's like, you know, if, you know, they like whiskey and they

like to take water in their whiskey and it kind of falls into that nicely.

Um, so, yeah, it is for everyone, but it does do particularly

well for that gift. Gift for him.

And, you know, until we spoke, I don't know much about whiskey. I don't drink

whiskey, so. I didn't even know you added water to whiskey until. Until we were

introduced, Scott. So that's really interesting, too. Yeah, it's definitely a personal

preference, and it'll depend on the whisky as well. Some, some whiskeys,

particularly the stronger ones, they do better with a. With a little bit,

but yeah, if you go to any sort of whiskey tasting, they'll always have a

rental we a bit of water, and they'll kind of encourage you to try it

neat and then try it with, with a bit of water and just see the.

See the change. And then again, just experiment and find

the level that you like. Hopefully in time, when they're doing that,

they're using an ooshky to add the water. Yeah, exactly. That'd be lovely. That'd be

the goal. Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Scott, for

sharing your story and all of the advice you've had. I've got one final

question before we let you go, if that's okay, which is what would your number

one piece of advice be for other product creators. Yeah. So

I think as a small business, and I don't, I

don't know what the term for it is, but if you're just a one man,

one person business like myself, I think it's really important to trust your

gut and your instincts because

there's been so many times where I've kind of maybe delayed making

a decision or I've kind of sought advice from people. And

I think if I'd. If I just trusted myself a bit more in

the beginning, I maybe would have done things a bit quicker or

I wouldn't have wasted time doing some things or.

Yeah, just kind of, you know, I

created the product, I know who it's for and I know how

I wanted it to look and I want the website and things to look. So

I think just having that belief in

myself at the beginning would have been really

good. I mean, obviously it is good to get outside opinions and

advice and stuff like that, but I think just, yeah, just

trusting yourself a bit more. Yeah, that's really good advice. Thank

you. Thank you so much. Scott, thanks very much.

Thank you so much for listening. Right to the end of this episode, do remember

that you can get the full back catalogue and lots of free resources on my

website, vickywineberg.com. please do remember to rate and review

this episode if you've enjoyed it and also share it with a friend who you

think might find it useful. Thank you again and see you next week.