About Richard Hazell and 365-drills porsadrill & porsablade brand of tile drilling and saws for very hard tiles
365Drills
| Drilling
holes sorted!... Tile drilling specialists 365-Drills are the international manufacturer
of patented PORSADRILL diamond holesaws cores & bits to drill perfect holes
in very hard bathroom tiles plus exotic stone like porcelain granite and marble.
Patent GB2434558 |  |
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About Richard
Hazell and 365 Drills ® |
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365Drills was set up by Richard Hazell. He is married to Phillippa and Fay is his daughter. They live near London. Richard said "Even in the teeth of this recession we have grown our business because we have strong brands and the right people in place. We are in good condition because our products make sense and represent great value. With the grant of the patent in full we are ready to grow further but will invest our money wisely having no debt and tight control on our operating costs."
.Back in 2005 tile drilling options were:
Tile retailers refused to accept returns because porcelain is a specialist product. Further, they offered no useful solution or tools to deal with hole drilling and said to try elsewhere. The first step: Having experienced the problem first hand Richard decided to do something about it. Background: At the age of 13 Richards father decided to build a house from scratch. The family moved to Hertfordshire and set about turning a plot of earth into a home. At that age picking up and learning skills is easy. Richard spent most of his time after school hanging about on site watching and helping the trades. Fast forward to age 34. Richard bought and gutted a house taking five years to complete it using many of the skills he had witnessed twenty years ago. It was during the construction of his own home the difficulty of drilling tiles identified itself. By reverse engineering the problem a number of things were noted. Diamond is the only material tough enough for stone so everything in contact with the tile surface had to be made of it. The most costly part is the center pilot. Amazingly competitor systems use carbide pilots with a short life but with a fatal flaw. To prevent burn out they require elaborate water cooling systems with jets to continuously pump water over the drill tip (and of course the floor).
Center pilots caused more problems than they solved so the eureka moment was to remove it and design a new way to hold a core. Richard's idea was for a drill plate to control the core from the outside and he explained the concept to his friend Andrew Goodman. Andy owns GMTools and offered CAD software used to design injection moulds. The
prototype stage
. Inventor of the patented diamond core tile drill system Richard Hazell Commercial opportunities [Patent filed 2005] GB2434558 IPC23B49/02; B23B49/00 Worldwide 25-1-06 Application Number GB20060001484 20060125 Published 1 8 2007 at espacnet.com (Note fully granted July2011)
The first point the patent attorneys raised was an issue of ownership. Because Andrew volunteered his time, input, software, machinery to aid the invention he was classified as a Co-inventor. It was the testimony of true friendship that when asked if he wanted to share he declined. A short contract was drawn up by HLBBShaw and for the cost of £1 Andrew signed over his rights to the intellectual property, copyright, design rights and patent.
The
route to market Once the patent was filed Richard began the marketing approach to the retail sector. His career was in the pharmaceutical industry from the age of 16 to 38 and so he knew nothing about retail. To begin with Richard wrote and designed his own online website and shop. Sales were instant and to this day continue to drive revenue which funds the offline marketing campaign to the retail sector.
Six members of 365 are shown with two tile training staff from PTS in Harlow Richards wife's income now paid the mortgage and bills while he began his gamble to bring the kit to retail. In mid 2007 the 365 team attended the trade show "Tile and Stone Show" to raise the company profile and have some fun too! As you can see from the shots above everyone seems to be enjoying getting the brand NOTICED. But would the tile industry take us seriously?
Dragons Den - Series 5 [2007] 365-Drills pitch In July 2007 the owner of 365Drills Richard Hazell pitched the idea to TV show BBC Dragons Den. Initially the investors were wary but one of the dragons, Peter Jones, tried it and agreed it worked really well. Deborah Meadon loved the idea so much she offered help with free industry contacts.
The downside of the pitch was the level of investment and equity on offer. None of the Dragons was prepared to part with £100000 for 10% and so no deal was agreed. The BBC decided not to broadcast the pitch in series five because it had too many other ideas, so the public have yet to see diamond drilling on TV. But true to her word Deborah Meadon has come up with a powerful range of distribution companies willing to bring the kits to the retail market this year. And she did it for free!
Peter Jones with Richard Hazell trying the Porsadrill tile drill system The Distributor.. ! - Reaching large Retail Outlets - Arctic Products In June 2008 Richard Hazell signed a deal with Arctic products for UK distribution of Porsadrill
Richard Hazell and Nigel Stokes of Arctic Products. In
the next marketing stage we are approaching the serious high street retail outlets
like Jewsons, Travis-Perkins, Topps-Tiles, B&Q, Homebase, Wicks, Bathstore
as well as other large companies like PTS Plumbing, Jack Pennington, Amec Construction,
Toolbank etc with the fully developed drill kits. The objective is to provide
volume sales of this system placing it within easy travel times for our customers.
Richard & Nigel at the National Institute for retailers event UK Production for volume sales We have invested capital into elegant packaging solutions. And now have full time teams of packing operators, engineers, production supervisors and warehouse staff able to produce large volumes in short periods of time. We are fully UK based so jobs go to UK people. We also source and purchase UK materials and maintain our own UK equipment. We do not export production abroad. But we do export our kits abroad bringing revenue back in.
Richard Hazell at one of the packaging lines for 365Drills Porsadrill producing tile drills for very hard porcelain
Tile Drill kits coming off the packing line conveyer at the 365 drills factory. The future "Our drilling kits make life easier for installers and one day the retail market will agree with us".
There is a great team at 365 and we really care about our customers and product. We are still on our journey and I wish I could tell you we achieved our objectives of reaching the retail market. But the path is not easy. There have been some successes but plenty of knock backs. We are willing to learn, very hard working, and given time confident we will succeed. We are always ready to listen to any advice or tips. If you can help PORSADRILL, the product or have improvements then we would love to hear from you." The highs and the lows of striking out The biggest high was definitely testing the prototype. We took it off the machine and tried it (on of all things) a glass window in the door of the factory tea room. I pressed it against the glass and the plate gripped with force and within an instant. So I spun the diamond core. It scribed a perfect hole into the glass thus vandalizing the window! But in those early seconds I knew we had a winner. The lows are with the retail industry. We have been let down by so many large companies who invite us to come and to share our information about sales and technical information. Then instead of placing orders they refer back to established suppliers and ask them to copy us. Small businesses produce 60 per cent of commercial innovations in the UK and it vital to the country's economic success that their ideas are supported, not stolen. Two years ago there was nothing in the market and what annoys us the most is to see crude alternatives instead of this elegant and simple value for money solution.C R PRESS RELEASE 365Drills provide value for money with Porsadrill Current trends have changed in kitchens and bathrooms as tastes become grander! Materials used in construction of tiles have become much harder as the size increased. CURRENTLY there is genuine difficulty drilling very hard porcelain tiles. Existing methods require an industrial diamond drilling rig costing hundreds of pounds. Due to the increasing popularity of the hard tile market there existed a gap in the market for a low cost alternative. 365Drills produce an "all in one solution" for £50. Known as the BFKMX or Bathroom Fitters Kit it consists of 2x6mm 2x8mm 1x16mm 1x30mm 1x40mm and is designed as a total installation solution. The range is enhanced with 37 other sized kits in the £30 to £50 bracket giving installers a choice between industrial systems at a premium price or the new lower cost systems. The developmental breakthrough came when 365drills replaced the pilot drill with an inexpensive guide plate which purpose is to hold a diamond crown steady and prevent its slip on any type of tile. Removing the pilot eliminates cost but also the need for a water feed. Jetting water to a drill site is messy but without a pilot to cool means a significant reduction in the quantity of water needed. This saves time for the installer and keeps the installation site dry. Retailers can benefit from this system too. Short life kits ensure installers return for replacement kits plus additional sizes and of course other items at the outlet. In fact a lot of installers who own expensive rigs supplement their equipment with the cheaper kits for one off sizes and jobs. Each pack is bright, vibrant with contents highly visible to customers. Packs take up little footprint, have comprehensive instructions, a user friendly look and are simple and obvious to use. In contrast industrial rigs look complicated, have many additional extra parts and the initial outlay is a barrier to purchase. Installers often worry about capital equipment being stolen from site, van or night storage so limit spending to essential items. The loss of a 365drills kit is more a nuisance than a capital outlay. Installers also appreciate the kits are priced at a quantifiable cost that can be added to a customers invoice and a fixed cost that can help price up a job. Presenting the kits as a consumable item to clients increases their profit per job and allows the pricing of jobs to be done with accuracy. 365drills Becomes the newest member of the TTA [Sept 08]
In September 2008 365DRILLS became the newest company to be accepted into the TTA. References were provided to them as well as full disclosure of company ethics, trading, finances and strategy. The company has been trading for three years and has exceeded the requirements to become an approved member of the association. In 2008 the company sailed through a probationary period a period where membership can be revoked but everyone at 365-Drills was confident this trial period would fly by and that we would continue to fly the TTA banner on site and paperwork. Extra note: Posted Feb-2011 (three years on) Having identified our marketing priority spend during this harsh recession we have decided for the moment that we will not renew our membership for 2011-2012.
Direct Selling "off the page" with The Sun, Mirror, Daily Mail. Early 2009 in a very tough year we embarked on direct selling via newspapers and their "off the page" ad formats. We completed a full colour page and launched to 3.2million readers in the early part of the year. The objective was to drive demand from the ground up. Retailers were not accepting new products and resistant to marketing as the credit crunch bites. However we will continued our marketing in 2009 and the push toward the retail and volume end of supply In 2009 We were finalists in the TTA award for the product most likely to help the tile industry. Having tried off the page ads we realized our product is too niche market, the ad is too expensive for that kind of readership and our price points are too high for that type of market. Nothing ventured nothing gained... So marketing is concentrated on lower cost ads in specialist tile building and plumbing magazines. Some ads in the glossy home building mags. And exhibitions. July 2009 saw a fantastic editorial in the Professional Builders Mag.
Thanks to the guys at the mag for this ! this is helping boost our brand which has now been stocked by Corgi We've Moved. Our factory which was in Christchurch in Dorset has reached its limit so you will now find us in Worksop near Sheffield. This move allows us to be more efficient in our packaging and lets us work with bulk demands without upsetting any residential neighbors with our compressors essential for the tamper proof packaging we make for the retail stores. We now have the capacity and staff to run 24/7 if demand calls for it! October 2009 we are seeing exports increase due to the weak pound which is good. We are exporting from our UK factory to Australia, Spain, Norway, Ireland and Malta. October 2009 and Phillippa decided back in Christmas 2008 that life as a Finance Director is not everything. Having spent the last 4 years supporting Richard in his quest to get this product in front of retail buyers Phillippa believes itstime for her to do something that she wants in life.
Phillippa as of Oct 2009 (and in Red Dress at the TTA Awards Dinner...) Its a girl.
Richard & Phillippa Hazell out celebrating 6 weeks after the birth.... Update Feb 2011 Travis Perkins owned tile retailer TileHQ agree to stock PORSADRILL and now hold the bathroom fitters kits and the 6mm and 8mm sizes,
Click here to access the stock and their website SKU91075 | SKU910751 | SKU91074
Tile HQ is part of the Travis Perkins Group As you can see with PORSADRILL established both online and in a few independant retailers there is a secure base for us to start pounding on the door of big hitters. The fight to get their attention just got serious! Feb2011: We've Moved Again. Our factory which was in Worksop and nicely settled was sold with all the other units and land on the site for demolition. Given a few months notice to quit we quickly scoured the market over the Christmas period and found a lovely unit in Retford (near Sheffield). We are moved in and all stock is up and running. NO effect on our customers. It was a pain because we had to pay out for removals, electrics and of course the agro and disruption to us but we are now settling in for the next 6 years until 2017.
June2011: Its been a hot start to the year and we have been working hard through the recession. Retail are still shy of us because they struggle to sell their own products let alone any new innovation. But we continue to enjoy strong exports especially to Turkey and the Internet sales are good too. Existing retailers place regular healthy orders but otherwise the recession I think we can beat. July2011: OK a bombshell to report. The factory we coshared went bankrupt and we have been told to move. I have had to find a new factory and this time have decided to do production closer to my own home. Found a superb location and unit and we managed to move the machinery down within a week. Back in production AGAIN but what a pain to have to spend time effort and money on this. I am told that it is simply the sign of the times. But I am pleased to report that we no longer share resources. Its just US in OUR unit. Nobody else to worry about. When the shutter comes down each night that's it ! Its a great feeling. Good News: In the summer of 2011 FULLY GRANTED PATENT ON PRODUCT GB2434558 More here Autumn we have taken out a huge publicity campaign in mags to announce the patent and the fact we are still out hear. If retail buyers were just a bit braver and took a chance on Porsadrill they would see its actually a toolbox essential for tilers and plumbers. The only thing stopping them is this fear of the new during difficult times 2012 Well the year is off to a great start. Online orders are surging, demand from our UK distributor (Arctic Products) is healthy and online exports abroad is growing from our 24hour internet site. Jan2012 Orders for the Olypics are surging in London so the Smart car delivery fleet are proving worth the investment. We can get drills into central London in less that 2 hours from our factory for a fixed delivery fee of £50
Feb2012: We are in the semi finals for the UK "Export For Growth..." prize competition at the UKTI or UK Trade & Investment. Hoping the credibility will help if we are lucky enough to win. Hoping to bring some great people on board soon to deal with Export markets which is a real timing coincidence. Hope that goes well. May 2012 and we have decided to revise the bathroom fitters kit so that the smaller drills are seperated and also so they do not rattle so much in the pack.
July 2012 and we are in the middle of an exciting trial with 9 branches of Tile Depot (with the possibility to roll out to all 20 branches) with the PORSADRILL range.
Managing Director Danny Steptoe contacted us and asked us to work with the Tile Depot something we are very proud to agree to!
To Be Continued..... |
