Dresden is an affordable and accessible modular eyewear system that turns the existing optics industry on its head (no massive price tags, almost always on-the-spot turnaround, highest quality glasses and optometry service). They are available online as well as having stores in Sydney and Melbourne. Their frames are made from 100% recyclable and recycled materials, using lenses of the highest quality – Zeiss.
Bruce was tired of the fragility, expense and waiting time involved with the purchase of prescription glasses, and was determined to find a better way to do it. Dresden’s ultimate plan is to have multiple trailers travel around the country to bring accessible eye health services to the bush and regional areas of Australia. The Dresden Trailer’s regional tour will launch on the east coast in February 2017, in conjunction with Vision Australia to do this.
Tell us about Dresden.
Dresden turns a whole bunch assumptions about business on its head. In one of our retail outlets we can make for a customer off the street a brand new set of prescription glasses with high-quality lenses in under 10 minutes for $49. Nobody else can do that, anywhere. Plus we put a 10-year warranty on the frames that we manufacture ourselves in Australia. We’ve brought a completely product-service system to the optometry market that seeks to do just one thing – make your life simpler.
What inspired you to start Dresden?
I couldn’t understand why a pair of prescription glasses cost about the same as an iPhone. I was also perplexed at why the industry engendered so little loyalty from customers and was so transactional given it wasn’t particularly a whim that I needed prescription glasses, more of a necessity. I met up with Jason McDermott, a fellow myopic who was also confused as to why he had held on to a pair of glasses with really scratched lenses because the thought of going back to the store he got them from scarred him so much. Together with an amazing team we set about re-designing the glasses experience from the ground up. We decided to call it Dresden because this city in Germany had so many stories to tell about how the marriage of art, craft and manufacturing can produce a daily thing of beauty.
Tell us about your career and background.
I remember my Uncle whenever he saw me at family gatherings used to ask what my 5 year plan was and my answer was always the same, my plan was not to have one. My education really started when I ended up at the age of 23 living in Istanbul with my partner Cath for a couple of years. After scoring a job at the Istanbul Film Festival I went on with Cath to organise an Australian Film Festival in Istanbul that was a fly by the seat of your pants experience. Back in Australia I bounced from working on a science education program for a University to a stint in the advertising industry before landing a role as a member of the new Sustainability Unit within the NSW State Govt Department of Planning. As a tight-knit team we brought in Australia’s first statutory online planning tool and all learnt a hell of a lot in the process. Having experienced the limitations of Government I teamed up with Nic Lowe and in 2003 we launched Newtown CarShare, which went on to become GoGet. GoGet now operates in 5 cities in Australia with over 80,000 subscribers accessing a network of vehicles by the hour or day. Following on from GoGet my career high point is working as a bus driver for Sydney Buses and getting to help people see better with Dresden.
Describe a typical day for you.
Sounds like a cliche but no day is typical. That may sound exotic but it’s more a product of having too many balls in the air and a resistance to being too organised. Sometimes I think it allows me to be nimble and take advantage of an opportunity that pops up on given day, other times I think it’s just me avoiding some crappy task that just needs doing. I don’t have an office and hate meetings for the sake of meetings. A good day for me is plenty of large free blocks of time to work or nut out problems that can’t be answered with a google search.
What advice do you have for those wanting to start a business?
Why haven’t you started yet? You need to really make that first sale and have your first real customer, not a family member or friend but a complete stranger. You really learn everything from your customers. Other than that it would be to do it with someone else because it’s tough and someone needs to have your back. The best businesses are the ones with a new model which also makes them the hardest because they involve a change in how people do things, which takes a lot of education, passion and patience. Lastly if it feels like a job you may as well be working for someone else, make it fun by not taking 80% of everything too seriously.
What’s next for you, and Dresden?
We’ve got a crazy ambition at Dresden to take Australian manufacturing to the world. In the short-term this means commercialising our use of innovative materials we use to make our glasses from including discarded fishing nets to other waste plastics. In the longer term our modular eyewear system should work for other humans and we’re particularly focused on the 1 billion plus people who need but currently don’t have prescription glasses outside of Australia.
