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Born Scrappy
The go-to podcast for scrap metal exporters and traders
Born Scrappy
S13: Navigating ferro scrap movements with Atilla Widnell
In today's episode, I’m joined by Atilla Widnell.
Attila is the Founder and Managing Director at Navigate Commodities.
Navigate Commodities monitors commodity supply chains in real time through the use of satellites. This means they know what size stockpiles are in any yard at any time.
They can monitor production at steel mills, analyse metal flow in specific regions, and so much more.
In the show, we talk about why this info is helpful, how to stay ahead of the curve, how to use this info to make better decisions. Is this even legal? And so much more.
In today’s episode we talk about:
- Using data to drive decision-making
- Embracing technological change
- Why satelite data is so powerful
- Staying ahead of the curve
- If this data is legal
- And much more!
WHO IS STU KAGAN ANYWAYS?
25 years in the metal recycling game and still learning and growing...
I learnt from the best and worked my way up from yard labourer to Executive Director of Trading and Operations for the largest metal recycler in sub-Saharan Africa. Responsible for 4,500 employees, 85 sites, and the overall profitability of a multi-billion dollar operation.
I brought my breadth and depth of knowledge to bear and co-founded the fastest growing, most-loved, and most awarded metal recycling company in New Zealand. No small feat in a country where people are outnumbered 4:1 by sheep (spoiler alert: sheep don’t produce much metal waste).
I thought it was time that tech worked for our industry, so I took all of my experience as an operator and trader and leveraged that to build THE killer scrap app, Buddy. That’s right - built for scrappies, by scrappies.
Father of two crazy-awesome boys. Husband to Lisa. Under 9 rugby coach. YPO member. Lifelong learner. Mentee. Mentor. Chief dog walker. Committed Stoic. Undefeated dance-off champion.
COME SAY HI ON LINKEDIN
Hi, I'm Stu Kagan and welcome to Born Scrappy, the podcast for scrap metal exporters and traders. Join me in conversation with some of the most experienced traders and operators that have helped shape this incredible industry. In today's Recycled Materials Supply Chain Masterclass, I chat to Attila Widnall. Attila is the founder and managing director at Navigate Commodities. Navigate Commodities. monitors commodity supply chains in real time through the use of satellites. This means they know what size stockpiles are in any yard at any time. They can monitor production at steel mills, analyze metal flow in specific regions, and so much more. In the show, we talk about why this info is helpful, how to stay ahead of the curve, how to use this info to make better decisions. Is this even legal? And so much more. Now let's get into it with Attila. But first, intro. Hey Attila, how are you? Yeah, very well, mate. How are you doing? Yeah, awesome. And, um, great, great to catch up. We've been chatting beforehand now, just shooting the breeze, catching up. I haven't seen you in a few weeks, so, um. Always good chatting, man. I've been great. How have you been? Yeah, fantastic here. It's, uh, it's a national holiday here today. Um, so it's a little bit overcast, but, uh, yeah, it's been a really good lately. I'm just building out more data sets, playing around with tech in our data hub. Um, so yeah, uh, busy as usual. Well, you've lost us. You've lost us already, man. You've, you're really talking about data sets and tech. And I, I think this call is done already, man. Um, just kidding. Obviously we're going to delve deep into this, but as I'm going to try and keep it as understandable as possible. Attila, obviously you're in Singapore, right? So you, you mentioned it's a holiday there at the moment you're in Singapore. Give us a little bit of background on you because. Harry Seal from Atlas Commodities was on here on Born Scrappy. And he mentioned you and he spoke about you being the adopted Scrappy. You weren't necessarily born Scrappy. So just talk us through how you got into the metal recycling industry and what it's been like so far and what you're doing. Yes. It was a bit of a baptism of fire actually. Like, uh, so straight out of uni I was, um, I was meant to go into, uh, um, investment banking or as they say. In the UK and be an investment wanker, um, but, uh, you know, um, it was, I graduated just start just at the very beginning of the global financial crisis. And, uh, um, the bank I was working for in Newcastle in the United Kingdom was nationalized two weeks after I started the front office trading role. Um, so I had to go pretty sharpish and find a new job. And, um, you know, um, karma took me in direction of the metals and mining industry. Um, sort of still within sort of, uh, um, investments and so on. And so that's, that, that really began my exposure to the metals and mining industry, looking at, um, sort of mines, really random things like uranium deposits in the DRC and, um, you know, and eventually I wanted to specialize, um, in a, in a particular field. Um, and I started working for a boutique. Commodity research unit, um, in London and they, uh, they gave me the Ferris scrap portfolio to look after. Um, and that was, uh, 14 years ago now. The obstacle is the way out. We say, so you didn't know why there was a financial crash and you got thrown in this position and now look at you running, um, owning navigate commodities, um, changing the world, changing the way we receive data. Give me more on that. What is Navigate Commodities? Yes. I mean, it's Navigate Commodities has started off as an idea about visualizing data and information when it was first born, um, four years ago. Um, and it's, it's evolved over time. I mean, we failed so many times over the last four years with different business ideas and business models. Um, but we've kept on iterating. Um, each stage of the way to try and find something, um, that sticks and find something that gains traction with the industry, um, and actually provides value and that you can, something that can use to trade on, um, that actually contributes to PNL, um, not just sort of the talk, but actually helps. And so in that journey of the last four years, where we've iterated so many times, we've fallen into this sphere now of using. Um, satellites using vessel tracking data to be able to monitor the supply and demand of scrap and iron ore, coal, steel, but in real time, you know, tracking the flows, the mass flows of, um, ferroscrap, um, I'm not sure if we're still allowed to use the word ferroscrap, maybe recycled steel or recycled iron. So being able to look at, you know, what's being shipped out, short sea, deep sea, trans ship. Um, we even go as far detailed as tracking where the scrap has come from upriver. So like in Northern Europe, we're tracking all of the flows up the Rhine, the Moselle, the Saar, and where it's, where all of that scrap has come from, from the feeder yards all the way down into the deep sea docks or into the steel mills and the next products or services we're working on, I think, you know, um, as sort of, you know, You know, you've mentioned previous podcasts, Harry's mentioned, we're using optical satellite imagery. So it's, it's the, it's the stuff that you still to see online when they're taking pictures of certain assets, but we're using, we're starting to use that technology now to monitor the expansion and contraction in stockpiles. So sitting at. Deep sea ports or sitting at mills in Turkey. So I don't want to freak everybody out, but we're only looking at the sort of the major sort of, uh, areas like the big deep sea docks or the big steel mills. Not, um, not every single individual. Let's, let's go there. Like, like, let's work out where you can get to, but let's just go in there a little bit more. So you're saying that you're using satellites to be able to look at stockpiles. Of scrap metal of recycled iron, right at the major players yards. I'm guessing you're not doing the small to medium guys yet, but you're definitely doing the large players. The ones that I guess, um, influence the market, is that the main purpose here? Are you trying to help people, um, forecast? And identify opportunities in the pricing market. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's, that's what it all feeds back into, right? So it's never that we're actually picking on one particular big player, one particular steel mill, because when you're looking at this, um, this market globally, you're looking at the whole supply and demand picture. You're not saying, okay, I'm going to bully. You know, Sims, or I'm going to bully ward recycling and just looking at their yards and what their piles are and then publish that online. That's not, that's not the, um, the purpose of the tech, right? The purpose of the tech is to be able to say, okay, we're covering all of these yards, but is the UK as a whole. overstocked or understocked? Are the Turkish steel mills for recycled iron and steel overstocked or understocked? Why is that important? Because then you then get into understanding of are they net long? Or are they net short in their inventories? Because then that has a material impact on the price. And then stop, stop for a second. I'm going to do this all day. Explain net long and net short, like let's talk to the owner operators of a scrap company. They don't talk net long and net short. So. Explain what you're talking about and how it's affected. This is the investment banking side coming out now. Absolutely. So, okay. So long and short, so long is being overstocked. Okay. So you have, More material than your average, um, sort of week, month and whatever. Um, so a net short or should being short is that, you know, um, you have less material for, um, fewer times compared to your long term average potential, or maybe just don't have any tons in the, in the yard. Um, and so. That, that's what we mean by net long and net short, um, and seeing basically understopped or overstocked is effective. And the importance of that is it's a purely supply and demand, but we're trying the most basic one on one, right. It's for us to understand, is there going to be. More of a demand for the material that we have right now, due to the fact that somebody is natural, right? That's what we're saying. And that's what at the crux of it, what navigate commodities is able to help us with, am I right by saying that you are rights by saying that It's the first time anybody ever said I was right, which is fantastic. I'm going to show it to my wife. Um, and just teach her as well, just in case you beat me to it. Tell me something now. And I like to ask all the guests because you've been on quite a journey. You spoke about shit. You made a few calls and you know, what you were building originally isn't where you are now, right? What sort of. Mistakes. Have you made, or where did you have some serious learnings on your journey? So far, so many, so many, I mean, we're still, still failing at some things now, but you know, the, the, um, you have to, you know, the journey is being able to get up very quickly. And it's right again, that's self down. And I think, you know, the, the major one for me at the very beginning, we came in with this snazzy idea about data visualization, it was a new thing, but we just didn't have the data back then. So we were using the old data that the industry was custom to sort of like, you know, industry association data that was heavily lagged, customs data that was heavily lagged. And actually everyone has access to this kind of information. Yeah. Maybe in a, in an Excel file or PDF or whatever, but we thought, Maybe if we, uh, um, visualize this data, um, an interactive way and an immersive way, um, and price it cheaply or cost effectively, it would gain traction. Um, it did to an extent, but it wasn't as scalable. As I'd expected. So, you know, and one of our board advisors told us fairly early on. So it's more of a gimmick than it is a business model. And they said to us, you know, you've really got to think about, um, seriously think about building data sets because data is the new oil, um, or data was the new oil many years ago. And so the new oil now, what's the new oil, the new oil, I just, it's so difficult to keep up with what the new oil is. I don't know. Satellite technology. I hear. Good one. Good one. Navigate commodities. Bye now. Um, yeah. Okay. So tell me. Yeah. Um, I guess, where did you go to from there is obviously where you are now, or, or do you want to run me through a bit of that process? Yeah. I mean, so, so we started playing around with, um, um, so I mean, we were doing a bit of analysis, um, what we do our regular analysis on iron markets on, um, recycled steel markets. I'm still trying to wrap my head around not saying Ferro scrap. Um, But, um, you know, we were trying to, you know, um, up until we started Navigate, I was running a Chinese company and they were very data centric. They had all of this alternative datasets to be able to track, um, you know, all these weird and wonderful things in the Chinese iron ore and steel industry. But they were doing it manually. They had 3000 people across China doing all of these surveys. And collecting all of this data from industry, then they were anonymizing it, aggregating it, and then republishing it and selling it back to the market. And, um, you know, we, um, that, that those data points actually have a material impact on the iron ore price throughout the course of the trading week, um, on the futures on the Singapore exchange. And we thought if we can replicate some of this data, um, ourselves using tech, we might be able to sort of, um, Uh, front run the impact on the iron prices and understand what's going to happen before they publish their surveys. And that's when we started playing around with, uh, vessel tracking and tracking the flows of iron ore coming out of Western Australia, coming out of Brazil and going into China. And we built that data set. Um, so we were tracking those iron ore laden vessels sort of every, every day. And we actually got to like a 97% Correlation with customs data. So we knew that the data was working and then we were able to predict the movements of iron ore at the beginning of the week with, uh, You know, devastating accuracy, which was brilliant. And so, and then that's when we sort of rolled out to say Ferro scrap. that's when we rolled out to Ferro scrap. And again, it had, you know, um, you know, we're still working on the predictability aspect, but you know, the, the correlation with customs, you know, it's fantastic. it's almost one for one. And so that, that sort of began our journey into building out more tech for the. So how did you convince people to pay for this and who are you able to mention some of your clients that you have specifically in the scrap industry? Yeah, I mean, we work with all of the big dogs and sort of, you know, they've quite. I'm not sorry. I'm not a client. No, that's not true. You said all of the big dogs. I don't. Oh, sorry. Yeah. Everyone apart from Bourne Scrappy. Bourne Scrappy does not sell. Subscribe to never, we're not being paid for this service. Um, I mean, I think it's, I think it's okay to say, because I mean, it's on our website and, you know, um, we haven't gotten the NDAs with these clients, but I mean, you know, we're supplying data to the likes of EMR. Um, TSR recycling, um, you know, uh, Atlas, um, for example, um, and on the steel side, we're working with the likes of ArcelorMittal, um, Seltzer, um, so very big scrap recyclers, very big steel mills. Obviously the, the difficulty you write is convincing people to pay for this kind of data and tech, because it has never existed before. And these guys are the experts of what they do. And really you're, you're, you're selling a service or you're selling some information data that's, um, to people that are already the best that they can be, and, you know, the experts in the industry. Um, but the beauty is that Ferris scrap. Is such an opaque market and there is really no information, um, to provide more transparency because actually, you know, in the long run, when you have transparency, everyone makes more money when it's an opaque market. Yeah. You can make some short term speculative gains, but it's not sustainable. Um, so, you know, and that's where really, you know, maybe not for the big guys because they have sort of, you know, Um, information asymmetry through the markets, they know everything that's going on, but it's really the small, medium sized guys that, you know, they don't have that power. They don't have that access to that data or information in the market because they're so small. Um, and so this theoretically empowers them. To be able to understand it's like, Hey, you know, if I'm trading with this mill, how many cargos have they bought recently? Are they overstocked or understocked? Um, and so then it gives them an idea of like, okay, maybe I won't target this mill, um, this week, or maybe I'll target that mill this week. Maybe, you know, they haven't bought as much, so I might get better execution on this trade. And that's how the data is meant to be supportive, um, for, for the industry. Okay, so two things that stick out for me right away is one is Geez, I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall The first time you sold this to a scrap company like how you convinced a metal recycler to pay you money For data that tracks their own stockpiles and yet others as well. I mean, and also telling people, Oh, and by the way, I'm tracking your stockpile. Like I would have loved to just seen that, like, honestly, my passion in sales. And that would have just been the best day of my life to watch you. And to get that right is just insane, right? Were you successful off the bat or did you have some like crazy responses? It's. No, I mean, I must say, like, I'm actually so surprised, pleasantly surprised at how adopting Um, of the, the Ferris scrap industry was of this tech and this data. And maybe, you know, if we, you know, on a, on a primal sort of, um, level that it taps into that sort of curiosity and, Want to understand and know what everyone else is doing as human beings, that curiosity, that nosiness, right? Um, sort of who's, who's doing business with who, how much, when. Yeah, but you can't know what I'm doing. So that's what I find interesting. You want to sell me information on everybody? Amazing. You're not tracking me. Are you? That's like, that's what I love. Nobody wants you to know what they're doing, but they want to know what everybody else is doing. Exactly. Yeah. But I mean, but you know, it's, it's, it's an interesting industry. I mean, like, um, you know, let's, let's be honest. I mean, in the old days, people used to fly helicopters over each other's yards or sit outside each other's yards in the car. Right. Take a train. Take a train specifically to get to an area or go on a holiday or something, because it goes through scrapyards. I've heard these stories. Absolutely. So the data is important, right? So let me ask you, and I'm just going to say this again. I absolutely earn nothing from this podcast. Like I do not, Attila has not paid anything for this. I was in Singapore visiting a whole bunch of buyers for Buddy and I, Popped into your office to see you because we can become friends on LinkedIn. And you showed me this and I was blown away by the accuracy and how you could actually see, you literally said to me, who, which port do you want to go look at? Which scrap pile, who do you want to go? And I like named a few companies and you're like, bang, that is this pile right that they have right now. Right. So. Very clear my interest in this is very much. I really like you and I love what you're building. Okay, not the other way around I don't love you and like what they're building what you're building. Okay, don't get this wrong But I want to understand something and I don't think i've ever gone into this. So what are you actually handing over to the client? Do they have the ability? To use your, the tech you showed me where they can go anywhere in the map and go and zoom in through the satellite, or are you sending them data and refining it and kind of giving them outputs? Like I don't understand what you actually give them. Yeah. So we have a proprietary application where we sort of display. The data, and it comes back to that visualization story at the beginning. Right? So we eventually got there. We're using that tech now, but with, you know, our own proprietary data that we've built, it's, it wasn't the wrong idea. It just wasn't the right time for it. Now it's the right time with the right data. The data is just, you know, numbers and letters, right? So we just try to make it as accessible. Aesthetically pleasing way that you can, um, sort of go in and drill down into a particular yard or a particular steel mill, and it sort of, you know, lists out the routes of the vessels and what's left today, what's currently being loaded, you know, the name of the ship. So, you know, in our industry, Um, You know, typically a lot of people spend a lot of time on Marine traffic, checking out people's yards, zooming in, zooming out every day. And that's an incredible waste of time, not in a bad way, but it's just a waste of man hours. And, uh, you know, to be able to just click a refresh button and say, okay, right, these are the ships that are being currently loaded with scrap. These are the ships that have left today with scrap. This is where they're going to, this is what's arrived at the steel mill today. This is how much it's carrying. And so it just shortens that time horizon so that they can go right. Okay. I'm aware of. You know what my competitors are doing. I'm aware of what my clients are doing. And it just, you know, it does all that within seconds. That's, that's what scalable data in tech should be. Um, So when will you get to a stage in this would be my thinking is that you actually Send out reports on this. So where you say, based on this information I have, I'm not going to bore you with the stockpiles. I'm just going to tell you, here is the outcome because as a medium sized scrap company, I'm going, that would be great for me to subscribe to a weekly newsletter or something or subscription. And you say, This is what the stocks are at. Therefore, this is what the market should do. And then we can analyze how accurate you are. And if you're getting something above 85 percent accuracy, well, I mean, people are paying a lot of money if you can see into the future, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah. And that's, that's, I mean, a lot of, even you'd be surprised, even a lot of the big trading companies don't have a team of dedicated analysts, right. Um, so not even one hour sometimes. So it's our responsibility to. To not only build that data, visualize it, but also interpret it, um, for the industry and sort of say, okay, right. This is what's the data's telling us. And then, you know, this is what we expect to happen next based on the information. So actually we, like I like to tell, um, so some of our clients, you know, I actually try not to speak to the industry too much when we're, we're producing research because we get swayed by opinions and bias. So we look at all of the information. Development and prices development and trade stocks, you know, what's happening at the steel mill? Um, I think one thing we haven't mentioned is that we're also Monitoring the steel mills through thermal imagery as well So we can actually see the activity of electric arc furnaces and integrated steel mills all across the world Looking at the heat That's coming from the Coke ovens, the blast furnaces, the EAFs, the rolling lines, the slag beds, all that kind of jazz and being able to interpret that and put it in a succinct sort of, you know, 500 words, um, sort of report each week and say, right. This is what's happened. This is what we expect to happen next. And this is why. And yeah, I mean, that's, um, that's very popular, um, sort of piece of information that we put out. We don't charge for it as long as obviously they, you know, client subscribe to the data, then we do that. We give that service free. Um, and it's our way of helping to interpret the information because otherwise, you know, it's not. Just people just so busy in their lives these days and they don't have time to sit there. You said 500 words. I thought can you put in chat gpt and summarize it into 100? Like I don't even have the time to read that so great. I'll create an audio book for you I just use Chat GPT and it talks to me. So it's perfect. Um, it's when are you going to get arrested? Right? So when are you When are they gonna be like, hold on this guy's watching me and he's taking what I do and he's telling the world Like I'm calling the police, you know, somebody arrest this man. It can't be Um, legal, I mean, is it completely legal? I probably should have asked you that before having you on the show. Yeah. That's a knock on the door. Um, um, yeah, I mean, short answer. Yes. I mean, because we're using satellite imagery and satellite tracking of vessels and so on. Unfortunately, there's no privacy from space and international law applies, um, fortunately for you. Fortunately for us, um, you know, at the end of the day, it's not all touristic. Um, you know, we're trying to make a living out of this, you know, um, but, but at the same time support industry at the same time. So, um, but yeah, I mean, Interestingly, this kind of tech has existed in the oil and gas market, um, for probably 10, 15, maybe longer years. Um, and you know, metals and mining as a whole is just such a laggard industry and we're very slow to adopt tech and information and data. And so, you know, It's sort of, I wanted to do this and, you know, we saw it working devastating well in China, but they were doing it through people. Um, obviously I don't have that kind of wealth or money. Um, so we had to find a way to do it on the cheap and, um, on a way that could be scaled with just the five funds. Um, and, uh, And yeah, and like I say, this text existed in oil and gas, and we've just sort of, you know, copy and pasted the methodology into, into ferrous metals. So iron ore, scrap, coal, steel, and it's worked really well. So now we're just sort of on an education process because it's a bit of a slow burn because We're not used to this level of transparency as an industry. Um, and it's, it's really changing the mindset and helping the industry understand that actually, if you use this information, if you use this data, it's, it works out well in the long run. And yeah, I mean, in terms of, um. Legality, you know, I just, I just applied for and got my drone pilots license yesterday. Um, so I've been sort of, uh, you know, had to do a theory test took about an hour yesterday and understanding the laws of the UK civil aviation authority. And sort of understanding what we can and can't do when it comes to drones. And so, you know, that was the one thing we were looking at. Um, but according to UK law, we can't fly a drone within 150 meters of, um, sort of industrial premises or docks and so on. So that kind of kiboshes the, uh, um, the drone, the drone project we had had in mind. So that's why we're sticking to satellite images. I mean, I was going to ask you all about drones, right? Because you're not the first person that came up with this idea of getting the idea of getting information from above and getting data. I remember this is 12 years ago, maybe that's how long this has been going on for. Yeah. Well, there was a rural area of South Africa, up North in South Africa, quite rough, um, tough, tough people, tough farmers. And, um, we had a metal recycling yard there and our opposition. Invested in some sort of drone. And they were flying over because they had, they were technology guys. Like you, obviously they were like, I'm going to get data and I'm going to find out what our guys are doing. Anyway, my manager phoned to tell me that, don't worry, he shut it down. So, um, wouldn't surprise me in South Africa. So, um, he was quite proud. He was like, you know what? Like they were trying to find information, but don't worry. I've got it with me in the office now. So, uh, yeah, 12 years ago. The guys in South Africa were going with the same thinking as you. We'll get data from the skies. Yeah. I mean, one of the, one of the former managing directors of a big UK scrap recycling operation, you know, um, you know, back in the day when I was a lowly analyst, he was telling me that he'd, um, he'd hire a helicopter and just fly around the yards every few weeks, every couple of months, just to take an inventory check of his competitors. So. In one way or another, it's, it's always been happening is that this is just a more scalable way because then we don't have to rely on people. Um, you know, if we're sending around a drone pilots or, uh, um, someone to survey stocks, you know, it's, um, you know, people can be unreliable at times. And so, you know, we fall sick, um, you know, We've got things going on in our personal lives, just, it's just life. So this is a way that we use tech to scale. And generally speaking, it doesn't, you know, doesn't take a sick day. Um, so that's why it's, it's easy to you. You see, I think to myself, what you're saying now is quite right. The It's when, when metal is in your blood, but I don't mean it in a bad medical way. But when you literally want to set up a yard in a new area, or you want to check on your business in an, in an area, in a region, the first thing you do is drive around that area and you go and look at the other yards. Like you want to see if they've got customers outside, what they stockpile like, you want to see how they're attracting customers, like, Oh, I All of these sort of things, it's immediately what you do. So you're, you're at a, on a much higher level right now, and it's giving you information on the global, macro market Whereas if you could get to the stage where I don't need to get in the vehicle or get on a plane to go look at my yard in another town, whereas you can actually just go and look at the four scrapyards in my area, in my yard, around that town. They're all got extra stock or they've got no stock or they've got, geez, they've got a lot of trucks coming in and out there. They're pumping. Why is my yard doing so badly? That's hugely, hugely valuable. Will you get to that stage? Um, I mean, we really, we really kind of did, we did a big, uh, consulting project a couple of years ago, um, for a, a UK player that entered the market. And they, they wanted us to sort of choose an area of operation for them. It was, they gave us sort of three locations to validate, and we did it using sort of satellite technology. And they said, okay, right. We know that your competitors base here. Um, we know that you've got these manufacturing, um, plants here. So you're getting in prompt prime grades, um, so on from the, the car manufacturing industry. We did physical surveys, understanding sort of the grades of HMS that sort of flow into the yards in different areas. So like knowing that typically on the East coast, it's quite light scrap on the West coast. It's quite sort of heavy scrap, you know, in the North. Um, there's a lot of competition, but it's also poor quality. And so. We did all that, and then also using sort of, um, something called ArcGIS, which is also a sort of satellite based technology, understanding, you know, your catchment area, um, as well for the yards, you know, um, as the crow flies, or in Using the sort of, uh, roadmaps and saying, okay, based on an hour and a half away through local a roads, B roads, and so on, where is your maximum sort of catchment area? How, how does that overlap with your competitors? So where is the least competition? Where is the most competition? And actually. You know, we, uh, we made to recommend we, we had our two top picks. One was bought out by a massive player. And the second, um, you know, was our, uh, um, and they eventually took the, the second option and they've done exceedingly well from it. So, yeah. And so let's just talk about the commercial part of your business. Is everything behind a paywall? Do you give any sort of, uh, Data or any feedback to anybody else? Yeah. I mean, the, the, the core core data core services behind the paywall, um, in terms of tech, I would say, you know, as you know, how we fell in love with each other on LinkedIn, you know, the, the sort of whenever there's a self, bro, I see those heart shape eyes. It's really legit. Um, But I mean, um, any, we sort of, uh, there is, we put a sort of like freemium content on LinkedIn, right? So whenever there's something really worth talking about, like for example, the, the Baltimore bridge collapse, you know, so, you know, just making the data and the information open access for that kind of, in those kinds of events and saying, look, this is, um, what's happened, this is the impact on industry, this is what we expect to happen next, so, You know, it's events like that where you share the information and your thoughts, um, with the industry. So it can help them understand and help them overcome because like we said in the post, it's times like these where sometimes the market tends to overreact. And so, you know, you see that sort of situation and I think there's two scrapyards, big exporters in the area, um, Baltimore scrap, which is owned by Sims and you've got, um, um, I think Smith industries, um, Smith industries but helping the industry to understand. The immediate impact on supply and demand, because if it overreacts, then we might get a price spike, which is great for the scrap suppliers. Not so great for the steel mills. And so we're trying to be agnostic, right? We, we are here to help the fair scrap suppliers, but also here to help the steel mills as well. There's no, there's no lying about that. Are you independent? I mean, that's quite important. Are you independent? Because if you are representing or have investors that are incentivized to make the market go up, You obviously want to give certain data. So what's your position there? Yeah. I mean, so I'm, you know, majority shareholder of the company. Um, I own 80 percent of the company. Um, we have two private investors behind us that own, um, sort of balance of the stock one, you know, quite well from your school days to which guy I'm still a James. Back in South Africa. Um, you know, he's a, he's a close personal family friend. He runs a VC here in Singapore. And the other is again, one of our friendship circle, who's a Bitcoin millionaire. Um, so they have no sort of vested interest in the industry. We're, we're completely independent. We have no bias. Um, and so yeah, fundamentally. We're building tech and data to help. And so we have, yeah, no conflict of interest. I mean, that's, that is an important question as well. And, you know, it's something that our clients ask us all the time. You know, the, the cap table is published online in Singapore. So anyone who wants to see the genetic makeup of our cap table can understand who the investors are. So yeah, I think I don't think anybody's doubting what you say. And that's valid. I think we just wanted, I think it was quite important to, to bring up that you're not wanting it to move any certain direction or doubt. Yeah, I mean, obviously if you start getting investors from the steel mills, when the steel mills start investing in you, all of a sudden it's going to be, you know, get the price down. If you see Arslan Mattel's name on our cut table, then you might start scratching your head. Um, although you'll be celebrating I'm sure when they're on my yacht. Um, yeah, exactly. What, um, Attila, what background do you have? What Tech background you have. I mean, you came out and built a tech company that's disrupting an industry. Uh, what's your background? Absolutely. Sweet. F a no tech. It's comforting. So, you know, I had a, I had a sort of existential crisis back in 2015, when, you know, Ferris markets were in the toilet and I just sat there thinking, Christ, I need to reinvent myself because I think eventually analysis, research is going to, is going to die eventually because everything's going to become automated, tech is scalable, and again, you You know, um, don't need these overpriced sort of pompous, um, analysts telling us what's going to happen in the market when we're, you know, everyone seems to think that we're always wrong. So, um, it was really then understanding, trying to understand more about data. Cause I'm an, I'm an economist by trade. And again, as we said earlier, when it was meant to go into investment banking, um, sort of short, short, very short, two week career investment banking. Um, And so, you know, it was, it's really sort of back in 2015, 2016, sort of started, um, doing some self learning online, um, learning how to do some basic coding in Python, um, HTML, CSS, just to understand the language that those things are written in. So it's like learning French or Spanish or whatever, just understanding the basics, not that. I could build it myself, but I could talk to the team in, in their language because it's, you know, it's not only about how the message is transmitted, but also how it's received. Right. Um, so, you know, if you're speaking someone foreign language and you're speaking English at them, they don't understand, you know, that message is not going to be received. Whereas if you talk louder, it doesn't, isn't that better? I said, just gesticulating as well. Where's the airport? Uh, yeah. And so it was, I felt the necessity to try and learn that language, the basics of that language, and then I could take why new in commodities. And then transfer it to the team in their coding language and say, okay, we're good, because basically tech is just about being logical and understanding the logical flow of how data and all of these different endpoints are connected. Once you, once you sort of get that. It becomes so much easier. I mean, even, you know, layman's like me can do it. And I mean, I'm not the smartest guy in the room. I'm just a bloody hard worker, a grafter and a hustler. And so, you know, if I can explain that, um, what, what our industry is about to them and how those end points connect, you know, they do all the hard work. They do all the heavy lifting really. I'm indebted to the team. They're just amazing. Um, Are there any final takeaways from you for our listeners, something, some sort of practical, you know, how to's or tricks or trades or anything that they can take out from this? Yeah. I mean, I would just say, don't be fearful of change, right? Because the world is ever changing and you know, what, what may be strange and fearful of, you know, You know, this, this level of transparency, learn more about it. Um, don't fear it because you know, the world's getting smaller with all of this technology, all of this data, learn to embrace it from really, you know, what I love is that the first scrap industry have been early adopters of this data and this technology, not even, it doesn't even have to come from us, but they're willing to give it a chance, which is fantastic. And I'm actually quite surprised on the steel mill side, you know, they've been very slow. Um, to adopt, they're more fearful because they feel like they're being spied on. Um, and that's a common, um, sort of, uh, rebuttal that we get from industry. Um, and so, you know, don't, don't fear it, just embrace it, adopt it. I'm not, you know, you don't necessarily need to work with navigate. You can work with so many other companies, um, out there. And so just explore it. Understand it. Um, and then once you do adopt, um, you know, sort of new technologies, it makes your life so much easier and you can get so much done and it's, you know, you can spend your time doing more valuable stuff that contributes to your P and L that's, you know, that's a better return on your investment. I mean, who, who has enough time to sort of, you know, zooming in and out on marine traffic, you know, think about the amount of time you spend on the phone, talking to people about the market, understanding who's doing what, who's You know, I'm getting in a helicopter to go look at stockpiles driving around different towns to go and see what the stockpiles what's happening at this. It's like, I related to when we talk about technology and embracing it, I related to, I'm in my early forties, very early forties, to in case you were wondering, really early forties. Time has not been a good friend. 43. I'm in my really, really early forties. So it's kind of like, My parents, their, their age group, so depending on who, how old you are, but if you're in your forties, when your parents, when the internet came out. Like you've got some of them that embraced it and the others that just weren't willing to learn it, you know Look at that now and consider where we are now with technology With how incredible ai is and how it's really helping You know the exponential growth of technology and where we'll be in the next five years is crazy to just think about but If you're not embracing it right now, you will be left, left behind like my parents generation that didn't embrace the internet, there will be no difference. It'll be the same thing. When you look back, if you didn't embrace technology, expect yourself to be far behind in your fifties and sixties. Yeah, totally. Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's a, that's a good point. I mean, we get that quite a lot as well. That's another, another sort of, um, rebuttal we face is that, you know, if I subscribe to this data, then, you know, all of my competitors have got it as well. So yeah, absolutely. You're not wrong. But at the same time, if you don't, you're going to be left behind. You won't, and they will. Yeah, exactly. And they'll make, they know exactly what's going on in the market and you don't. And, um, you know, um, there's, it's a competitive disadvantage. Yeah. Um, don't be the one left behind. Exactly right on that note We're gonna call this to a close because we've gone for a good amount of time and we might have lost a few people On the way, but hopefully we've kept most we like to end with them. Who would you like to hear next on born scrappy? Oh my word. Great question. I should have prepared for this one Who's polarizing? You obviously don't listen to born scrappy if you weren't expecting that No, of course, this is now awkward. This is an awkward. I loved um, I loved amy's amy's podcast and harry's podcast. Um, I'm, just trying to think who who haven't you had? Um so far Uh, you know, I'd like to, I'd like to hear from, uh, Dennis Reuter, um, at, uh, TSR Recycling. So, you know, um, Dennis is a very, um, down to earth chap, incredibly well connected. He's, um, you know, um, former, um, president of the, uh, the Ferris crap division at BIR and obviously Shane, Shane's taken over now. Um, but yeah, I think Dennis is a great chap and has a lot to say and could share some amazing, um, insights and stories, uh, with the industry. Yeah, cool. I'll make sure to get ahold of him. It sounds good. Um, quick fire. Last few favorite movie or TV show? Oh man, Top Gun. One or two? Both. Love them. Wow. Okay. Controversial. Um, favorite book? Atomic Habits. James Clear. Very good. Great book favorite place to visit man being in Asia Seven places. Um, I would say either Paris or Barcelona. Cool. Good ones. Attila, it's been great having you on the show. Always lots of fun chatting to you. I'm looking forward to catching up again soon. Thank you for joining us. Absolutely. My pleasure, Stu. Thanks. Cheers.
