Eureka 441: Finnmark Sauna

0:15You're listening to Eureka on Monocle Radio, brought to you by the team behind the entrepreneurs, the show all about inspiring people, innovative companies, and fresh ideas in global business. I'm Tom Edwards. Jake Newport is the founder and CEO of Finmark Sauna, a company bringing proper Finnish sauna experiences to the UK. What started as a personal project for his own health has grown into a busy business with a team of more than 40 people and clients at home and beyond. From hand-built saunas to supplying the right tools and materials for others to do it themselves, Jake and his team are helping to change the way people think about sauna culture.

0:54So how do you recreate the authenticity of Finnish saunas abroad? Well, here is Jake with more on how the journey began.

1:10Everything started about 10 years ago. I was spending quite a bit of time in Finland and during that time going to sauna regularly. And the big thing I discovered that sauna in Finland was very different from what was happening in the UK. So in the UK, a lot of hot, dry boxes in hotels and spas that we all know very well, that a lot of people just tolerate for 10 minutes after a workout in some sort of Victorian flagellation that, you know, this must be good for me because it's uncomfortable. And obviously in Finland, it's completely the opposite. Sauna is this enjoyable, relaxed experience that's there to share with others or by yourself over the course of several hours.

1:48at the time I'd had a traumatic spinal injury and it was phenomenal for pain management reducing inflammation and it was just something I really wanted in my life and so I set about trying to build a wood-burning sauna here in the UK and what I was finding was 10 years ago none of the companies from Finland and the Nordic countries really had much representation here a lot of the brands were either cheap Chinese brands or there was a couple of brands that were heavily influenced in the pool and spa industry, but I kind of saw them as part of the problem rather than the solution. And just kind of came into this space with all the passion and enthusiasm of bringing authentic sauna experiences to the UK, what sauna is supposed to be.

2:28And coupled with the hard work of the grassroots movement of the British Sauna Society, which 10 years ago was, you know, 10 of us in someone's backyard talking about how great this sauna experience was, to cut till now, the whole ecosystem that's built around it, It's its whole movement. It's in the press. It's all over the place. You know, I bump into people who are already talking about sauna before I mention even what I'm doing. We have now 42 staff working both here now in the UK and setting up what we do internationally. And the whole business was originally built around import, distribution and retail.

3:04We have a projects arm that does high end bespoke installations. We have our e-commerce arm, which gives everybody who wants to build their own sauna equipment and materials. and everything that you need is there available, generally in stock ships next day. And then we have a trade arm. So because we have a lot of those distribution rights from Finland and the Nordic countries for the whole of the UK, we sell a lot to the trade because we realise we can't be every sauna and we want to essentially be able to support independent sauna builders. In fact, it solves the problem for them, which is generally speaking, their order volumes are so small, the lead times are so long and their buying power is so weak.

3:43that by buying through us as a distributor, it's in stock ships next day at a more cost-effective price point and the support is there on hand.

3:58We're seeing the wellness market in the UK growing a lot. It's often difficult for us to separate what growth we're making as a company through expanding our market share in different areas. and a lot of the old guard, those people who used to fit those hot dry boxes, are businesses that are moving into retirement. So we're gaining market share there, but also the wellness market internationally, particularly in the United States, Canada, the UK, Norway, the UAE and Japan are absolutely booming. So, you know, our growth as a company has been really, really strong. And that's been compounded by the fact that we're a family business.

4:38So I brought my brother into this and we've worked tirelessly for the last decade and reinvested every penny. But I think all of those things you hear a lot of entrepreneurs talk about, you know, giving your all, being really enthusiastic. We do what we do because we love it. So we have a podcast, for example, where we bring industry thought leaders from around the world into our podcast studio. We show them our whole facility and we talk about, you know, there might be an author or there might be an operator or who owns a sauna. so you know we do all those things because we're really passionate about it we don't sit there and go oh we should have a podcast because it'll be good for sales and marketing we do it because actually we really love all the people in this space you know we want to learn about it i've been in this space 10 years and i'm still learning so much and there's a lot of great mentors in this space but the real key to success i think and a lot of people overlook this and maybe get hubristic about it is a huge part of this is about being in the right place at the right time and I couldn't have foreseen sauna would have become what it is today in the UK.

5:39At the time, I just knew that I liked that experience. And as I say, if I cut to 10 years ago, in the first meetings of the British Sauna Society, which we've been involved with since the start, it was like 10 people in somebody's backyard who were just sauna enthusiasts talking about, wouldn't it be great if these things happened? And then behind the scenes, We've all been out there spreading the good news as sauna evangelists. And even the Finnish Embassy and the Finnish Institute, for example, putting on events. So the South Bank Centre had that rooftop sauna. A lot of health benefits research has come out over the last five to ten years about how good sauna is for reducing outside illness and dementia risk, improving cardiovascular health and essentially helping people's longevity generally.

6:25All those things in isolation, they're nice little perks to the market. it. But all of this good news and all this positivity means we're part of a bigger movement. So I often see in some of my friends who are entrepreneurs, you've got to be careful not to get too hubristic about the idea that, you know, I've made such a success, I must be such a great businessman. Because I think the amount that you can actually influence the success of your company, regardless of what anybody else says, I reckon, you know, that determination, working late nights, inspiring your staff, you know, working thanklessly and going through those difficult times, that makes up for actually a small part of the pie chart and that the real success behind it is, you know, incremental movement growth that can happen around you as well.

7:16At the moment, the sauna industry is still heavily under-regulated. So one of our sort of foundation points has been since the get-go that our focus is always around the safety of the install so making sure that even if you're building it yourself and you're looking for advice and things like that that simple things like minimum safety distances to combustible materials that sauna heaters have are often overlooked things like the materials used in the build so you know one of the things we see used a lot is just regular sort of kingspan style pir insulation board well when that gets hot it off gases hydrogen cyanide for example and loads of volatile organic compounds and there's products that release a lot of formaldehyde we only work with pir that's heat safe up to 200 celsius for example or we you know we'll only work with materials that are form free formaldehyde free we hold ourselves to much higher standards than anybody else needs to and often in this industry because we sell a lot to the trade we know that a lot of the operators what people are kind of able to make in terms of margin.

8:22And the reality is nobody's really getting rich in the sauna industry. There's a lot of very passionate people who are doing this because they love it. And if people are getting quotes for things and there's a big price delta, you know, if it looks like they're getting a bargain, there's a reason for it. And my advice to anybody is, you know, they don't have to get through us. They could get through one of our many trade customers that we're very big on supporting, but ask key questions. And some of those questions could be, how is this going to be ventilated, insulated and vapor sealed. Make sure that they've got a good idea of actually how the structure should be built.

8:57If you're getting answers that are like very dismissive and saying well a sauna doesn't need ventilation, do a quiet u-turn because actually it's a critical part of a good sauna build. People don't have to buy from us but I'm a firm believer that any good company should be focused on education first and I'm also a believer that an educated customer ends up choosing us anyway because the level of knowledge from our side any sale is a technical sale we're providing that solution we're working out what's the the right install or what's the thing that you need rather than just trying to force the product on someone

9:43that was jake newport the founder and ceo of finmark sauna and you can learn more by heading to finmarksauna.com. And that is all for this episode of Eureka. Special thanks to Tom Webb for his steamy reporting this week. We'll be back at the same time next week and do look out for the Entrepreneurs available every Wednesday. Eureka is produced by Laura Kramer with audio editing by Jack Dewars. You can listen again and find out more about the show at monocle.com. If you'd like to get in touch with the team, email Laura on lrk at monocle.com I'm Tom Edwards, goodbye and thanks for listening to Eureka