[00:00:37] Hello, good afternoon. This is Supply Chain Now in Spanish. Today we are with a very, very special guest. His name is Diego Oliveres, from the company Tipper, one of the founding partners of. It has an exciting history that we love. And well, before giving the floor to Diego I would like to give you a little context and tell you that Campers is a very young company of Spanish origin, with a purpose and social impact based on inclusion in which all the people who are part of it have some kind of disability. And well, hey, Diego, welcome to our podcast. Welcome to our. To our little hole. And well, eh? To our purposeful logistics focus, it is a pleasure for us to have you here. And to begin with, we would like you to tell us a little bit about your childhood, where you are from, where you grew up. And well, a little bit, a little bit about you.
[00:01:51] That’s good, so nice to greet you Nuria, and thank you very much to you for the opportunity you give me and for the invitation to be with you. Es. It is really a pleasure and as you have introduced me, my name is Diego Olivares, because I am now forty-one years old. I was born in September 1980 and I am a Canary Islander born in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. The thing is that shortly after I was born, my parents realized that when I was six years old, we moved to live in the city of Alicante, since we had family in that city. My grandparents on my father’s side lived there and Alicante was one of the five cities in Spain where there was an ONCE school. So my parents, to my taste with very good judgment, decided that although I would later join the school system, I would join the school system in quotation marks. Normal, because they really wanted my first education to be in an ONCE school, where they taught me to read Braille, to do my daily life activities, to learn how to make my bed, to be independent. Then, because we had family in Alicante and Alicante was one of the cities where there was an ONCE school, we moved from Tenerife to Alicante.
[00:03:07] And well, I already did my first education there. When I went to high school I went to a school with people without any kind of disability and to a mainstream education like all of you may have done. And when I finished I went into law. I have always been a person who has been a very poor litigation lawyer, always. I have never liked injustice, I have always liked to defend something that I thought was just. Then I thought that Law would be where I would feel more comfortable, but the truth is that two things appeared in my life at first that made me realize that justice was not as fair as I thought and I did not like it. I ended up disengaging a lot and then my great passion in this life appeared, which has been music. In fact, people were also very shocked that a blind man played the drums. I have been playing drums for 16 years, playing concerts all over Spain and trying to make that my job. And when I realized that it was very difficult to make a living from music and I was already at an advanced age, I had been stumbling around for many years and I needed to focus on something in which I could earn my living, even though it had not been the purpose I had had in mind for myself since I was a child, Well, I asked for the sale of the coupon to the ONCE because as a member I had the right to request it and well, I spent some time selling the coupon and as I missed music so much and I missed doing something in a group and I have always liked to contribute and feel part of a team and I always feel very good about lending a hand.
[00:04:54] So I decided to give it a try, why not? What was the soccer team for the blind in Alicante and I went to play on the team and there I met those who today are my partners in the Timber, because they were part of the technical team of the team. One was the coach and one was the team leader. And well, that’s where we met and that’s where it all came from, the idea of dyes, which I guess we’ll talk a little bit about later, and until now we are there embarked on the project and the adventure and trying to make this something very nice and that is our way of life and at the same time contributing something to society.
[00:05:38] Wow, wow, how amazing, eh? Well, going back a little bit to your past life experience what have you learned that you can apply now in your life like. As an entrepreneur.
[00:05:57] Well, in my life as an entrepreneur, I would always say that when I am asked to give advice, although that has to be done with a lot of humility, because I am not anyone to give advice to anyone. But if as you say, through my experience I always try to give two small groups of very brief advice in some when you are starting to undertake, that it is very important to have clear focus to dump all the energy and and work. Then it is also very important to be well informed and fight hard to sign up for all kinds of entrepreneurship contests or grants, because there are many more than people think and people often do not know it because they do not move around. And every entrepreneur starts with no resources and we have to take advantage of all the opportunities that exist, because there are many more subsidies and grants than people think. And then I also think it is very important to know how to change the focus. Sometimes when we undertake a project we have a lot of love for it because we consider it as a child and there are many times that we do not realize when something is not working and when we have to change the focus and change the course. So one has to know how to overcome that pride and self-esteem and know how to realize when one has to change something or change the course or leave it and start something else, because I tell you that there are times when we lose a lot of vital energy trying to take care of that child you have, who maybe needs a change of scenery.
[00:07:39] And then, when you are already in business, I also like to give three pieces of advice. The first is to have a very orderly routine and order in life, both work and rest, because it is as important to work as it is to rest. In other words, having order in life is very important. Then I think you always have to know how to surround yourself with people who know more than you, because I think there are always people who can contribute and help a lot and you can never be so arrogant to think that you already know everything. And then I also think it is very important to never stop recycling and training, because the world is very dynamic. The world is also much more. Every day there are new things. So, along the lines of the previous advice, I think you should always know that you can’t stop training and learning and learning and learning and learning and learning more and more about what you do. That’s the advice I would give people, basically unbelievable.
[00:08:41] Hey, tell us a little bit about your career path and what you did before you. Of course, nothing from the founding partners of tempera.
[00:08:54] Well, my professional career. The truth is that I tell you the truth. It’s not something to be very proud of, but even though I’ve never stopped doing things and I’ve always been very proactive and so on, but maybe not, I never took the right steps and my intention before I started college was never to do journalism. I would have loved it and I think I would have been very good at telling the news and being in all the trouble and I think I would have been good at it, but between the fact that in Alicante at that time there was no journalism at the university and then things were not good enough at home at that time to send me to study abroad and so on, I ended up going to law school. So my first professional activity was when I started at the university, I asked for the sale of the coupon in a modality that was called student sales, which they did during the vacations. Our school children gave us the vacations of the permanent salespeople, of those who were already permanent. So it was a way for us students to have our first work experience and at the same time earn some money. So, during my first two or three summers of my career. I did this and then it is true that when I tell you that I started playing, I tried to make music my way of life. In fact, besides the typical hobby projects and such. So I created a project that I think is the proudest I can be in my life, which was called Born to be Queen.
[00:10:27] I’m a very fanatic guy of Queen, Freddy Mercury’s band, and I think I’m the most fanatic guy in the world. But Dublin and my intention was my dream, was to be able to make a living from music with this tribute, being able to do concerts all over the world and such. And well, the project went very well. We played all over Spain, we even played at the annual Queen fan convention in Spain. We got our heads into something official, it was great. But well, music, fortunately, unfortunately, since it is not an individual thing like athletics or because you depend on so many legs, the project was truncated and I was tired of being so many years trying to move forward with something as difficult as music. And then I went back to the coupon sale, but not as a student or anything, but to try to get my permanent position. And as I got in parallel in the soccer team and met my colleagues, those who are currently my partners in Químper, then I joined them in the company and since mid-2018 until now, we are here in this adventure. But my professional experience has basically been focused on coupon sales and this because the music thing is good for me it really was work, but I mean come on either, it wasn’t Michael. Phil that well, of course it is.
[00:12:00] Great, I love it because tell me a little bit, what makes Tim’s team so special? What makes it so special?
[00:12:11] Well, look, Tim, as you said before, we are a company dedicated to the commercialization and design of sneakers. Our shoes are designed by blind people. In fact, I am one of the designers, although my role in day-to-day issues is director of communication. Well, and all our shoes are designed by blind people, logically for everyone. Please, you really have to help me spread the word, because there are many media with whom I get very angry, who say that these are shoes for the blind and as I always say, feet have no sight. So it can’t be. It is true that since they are designed by blind people, they have some features that make them inclusive for the blind, but logically they are shoes for everyone. And although we are very clear that we want to live on charity, on quality, always on quality and never on charity. Every time we make better shoes, all designed and manufactured in Alicante with recycled products. Truly the greatest strength of the tippex team is the social character of our company. We have 100 percent of our staff with some type of disability. I, for example, am blind. My fellow founders, Roberto, who is the CEO of the company, is a kidney transplant and our other partner, Aitor, has cystic fibrosis and all the employees that we have been hiring and we are already six in the company, because they also have some kind of disability and we want to continue fighting for this philosophy, to demonstrate that a company like this can be as profitable and successful as any other.
[00:13:51] And besides, to do our bit in the normalization of disability in the working world. We don’t like to talk about inclusion or integration, because there you are assuming that there is something outside. We like to talk about standardization. So I think we have to make disability a normal part of the working world, and that is what we are working on. And what is so great about our team is that we are very clear that what matters are our abilities and not our disabilities, that everyone is very capable and very capable of doing something and what we have to find is where to put the strength of those abilities and together we can make up for the disability or the lack that the other person may have. So the dyeing team really works as a family in which, as I said, we all make up for the shortcomings that the partner cannot do, and we hope to be a company with many workers and to be able to achieve this normalization of the disability.
[00:14:53] I’m sure it is. I love that philosophy. What has been the most important moment in your professional life?
[00:15:04] As for seeing us, as I was saying, I know that there is a moment that marked me a lot. In fact, I always get excited and all because we started in Alicante, the three of us are from Alicante. What happened is that in 2019 we were presented with a unique opportunity, because the most important business accelerator and incubator in Spain and one of the most important in Europe, which is Lanzadera, which is the business accelerator of Joan Ross, the president of Mercadona, took notice of our project and we were one of the projects selected to join the A to the accelerator. What happened is that, of course, in order to enter, one of the requirements they set was to move to Valencia to dedicate ourselves full time and put all our efforts into our project. So, of course, I had already been very disenchanted with music for many years, although I tell you that it was not my intention. When I was a child and I was making my future plans to dedicate myself to coupon sales, I realized that I had to settle down in whatever it was, that I had already invested a lot of time and had been lucky enough to be able to try what I had wanted. But it was about time I had to focus.
[00:16:21] Then I found myself in a very delicate situation because I had already been selling the coupon for two years and I did not know whether to stay in Alicante or try to get another year of work and get my permanent contract and at least not have to worry about a job anymore or face this adventure and leave everything from scratch again. I was 40 years old when I started and it took me a lot of time to decide and it was my mother who told me, “Look Diego, I think you should go without thinking. He tells you this because if it goes well it will take you away from working in the street, from being cold in the winter, hot in the summer, from being exposed to the street. It can be an incredible opportunity for you. And I said to myself, what if you don’t do well, what if you lose a year or two and go back to Alicante? And since you have the right to ask for the coupon sale as an affiliate, you would be back to where you are now. She was telling me that I think you should give it a try and it was my mother who really encouraged me and I went and thanks to that I am here now. I think that was an important turning point for me.
[00:17:26] Well, very good. Well, your mother was absolutely right.
[00:17:31] Totally.
[00:17:33] Hey, back to you, eh? Tell us where the name comes from and what it means, uncle and how it heals.
[00:17:43] I recognize that I could tell you stories that would make it all look beautiful and fool you, but not really when my partners put the name on it. It was simply a name they really liked. They did, they found it commercial and it was pleasing to the ear and aesthetically cool. And it is the name they gave it first before I joined the team, they were already making slippers, but without the social character that has dyes to ordinary slippers, as in Alicante is the land of footwear par excellence and they had always had an entrepreneurial mentality, as they had already tried to create a brand of slippers and the first name that came to them was Pampers, both with B. What happens is that there is a very famous brand in Spain that is a direct competitor of ours called Pompey. And of course, the two pes could be a bit misleading and confusing. Then they simply changed the first P for the letters until they found one that they liked sonorously which was a T and that was Timber. It stayed time and I have been asked if it means a time of people, if it means let’s go. I’ve been given so many ideas so I could say yes, yes, it’s true, but I’d be fooling you and no, it really doesn’t, it has no meaning. That’s the name they liked and it stuck very well.
[00:19:09] Hey, what is it? What is your role in time? What are you most passionate about?
[00:19:16] Well, my role began as a designer, because since the sneakers were designed by blind people, I was the one who chose the materials, the contrasts of textures, the whole thing. And what happens is that in the end it can be said that it is very seasonal, because of course, you launch two collections a year, spring-summer and autumn-winter, and twice a year you sit down to design. Then I took over the communication area and now I have also started the human resources area to manage it and myself. I am passionate about communication. I tell you, I am the one who attends the media when we are invited to give talks at universities or in social entrepreneurship forums. I am the one who does these things, writing press releases, well, everything that is communication and let’s see, with all the humility and modesty in the world. But I don’t think I’m bad at it. And it is something I love to do and the truth is that I am passionate about the communication branch. I like it very much. The truth is that it is something that I. I love it.
[00:20:23] How interesting! Hey, tell me, tell me something. How? How does a visually impaired designer work?
[00:20:32] Well, in our case it is really simple as they are designed to the touch. What we look for at all times is that each shoe has a story, which is the beauty of this, that they are not random materials, that each shoe takes you to a place, to a place. So, how do we do the design? It is very curious and people love it because first we get all the cards of materials that we can, which are those little pieces of cardboard that are glued to them. All samples or small remnants of the materials in each factory. Then what we do. We sit at a giant work table and while I play each material, my colleagues write down the reactions of what each material suggests to me. And once we have selected the ones we like or the ones that really tell us something, we try to combine them together so that the shoe has a story and is pleasant to the touch, in other words, so that everyone understands me. That the example is very clear. My favorite model is one that is called Green Forest and is made of green felt, that when you touch it appears as grass, as nature, as grass and the back of the shoe is made of recycled cork that has even the drinks that when you touch it looks like the trunk of a tree. So that slipper, when you touch it, immediately reminds you of a forest in nature. And then my colleagues are the ones who, depending on the season in which we are or the colors that are more fashionable or such, they put the colors of each model. But that’s the way it is with the design to the touch. He tried to make each shoe have a meaning other than this random thing and it’s like this. And that’s what it’s all about.
[00:22:19] How incredible that even
[00:22:21] Everyone would have to touch the models because there are bound to be many surprises.
[00:22:26] Wow! Well, I’ll tell you that I already ordered my times for Christmas and I won’t touch them and I’ll tell you later. Let’s see, let’s see what. That remind me of
[00:22:38] And they suggest me, of course.
[00:22:41] Hey Diego, we have read about your Team Cars project as an intrinsic part of your philosophy. I know that you have to support a lot of initiatives and I would like you to tell me a little more about them and what they are.
[00:23:03] Well, we support all the initiatives we can, as I said, we have that social character in which we like to be in the middle of all the mess in which we can contribute something and well, mainly ours. I would tell you that the most powerful actions so far have been to collaborate with the soccer team with Levante, which is one of the clubs in the First Division League that has its foundation. The Levante Foundation, in particular, is the largest school for athletes with disabilities in Spain and one of the most important in Europe. So, since we pursue somewhat the same objectives and we were born out of sports, the soccer team for the blind. We have already made two models for Levante in which 100 percent of the profits have gone to support the projects of adapted sports for people with disabilities, which also supports the foundation and even the second model served as a walking uniform for Levante’s first team players. And for us it was a source of pride that every time Levante, for example, went to play against Barcelona, against Real Madrid or against that they went to the stadiums of La Liga with the Tippex, because for us that was very, very big. But I think without a doubt the biggest milestone we have achieved to date is to have been able to be the brand that made the shoes worn at the opening and closing ceremonies. The entire Spanish delegation at the Tokyo Paralympic Games in these last Tokyo Games, all Spanish athletes paraded with Tim. And of course, for us who come from sports, there is no such thing and what we support is disability. There is nothing as important in the world that has to do with sport and disability as an Olympiad. So I would say that those have been like that. The two biggest things we have been able to collaborate with and do and do our bit.
[00:25:07] How incredible, how incredible! Well, I love it. Hey, and can you share with us a life lesson, either professional or personal, something that can help shape the entrepreneurs who listen to us.
[00:25:25] Of course, I would always say that it seems very obvious to me, but until one does not live it and does not agree with it, it is not really obvious that one always has to pursue and fight hard for what he/she wants, that I really believe that many times when we set limits for ourselves, which is not necessary to have a disability, you also often set limits for yourselves. And as I say, many times disabilities are only seen on the ID card, but there are other disabilities that for me can be worse than blindness, such as being lazy or being unpunctual, or being ill-mannered or untimed, or being rude or untidy. And I believe that this will be the same for people with and without disabilities, that we have to fight hard for what we want, that we cannot set limits for ourselves because there are some limits that life itself places on us that unfortunately cannot be removed, so what we have to do is to put all our effort and strength to remove those limits that life sometimes places on us, that we should not and cannot set for ourselves. And many of the limits are often fears and things that we put on ourselves. And as I said before, people should be very aware and very clear that what should always matter are the capabilities of the person and not the disabilities that everyone is capable of doing a lot of things and that is what has to be promoted and evaluated, I think.
[00:26:53] Of course it is, of course it is. I love that philosophy. Hey, what if you could go back in time and give your 20-year-old self some advice? What would it be?
[00:27:08] Well look, I’ve been doing a lot of analyzing lately and it would be clear to me that I used to be a person. I don’t know why. And look, I don’t like it at all when I tell it, but that I was the typical person who believed that things in order were a little bit established, that things had to be the way they had to be. For example, maybe I was the typical person that if I was in a relationship I can tell you that in 5 years you leave it and you think fuck, how am I going to take it back 5 years later? No, no, and I have realized that I don’t, and the truth is that it doesn’t go with my mentality, but I don’t know why I was like that. What I would say is that you always have to live in the here, live in the now, without neglecting of course, even if it’s trying to have a path, a path that you would like to walk on to at least go with a direction, but live in the here and live in the now and take the opportunities that all things happen for something that there is nothing pre-established that really is. And I learned it, who was going to tell me when I left music and asked for the coupon sale, who was going to tell me that I would have been living in Valencia for three years now and that one has to listen many times to his heart and not live so much with the head all pre-established. And that’s what I would say that people look at to summarize what people listen to themselves a little bit inside, that sometimes listening a little bit to what comes from inside, is where in the end the solutions and the solutions come out.
[00:28:43] Look inward, right?
[00:28:45] Yes, a little bit, yes.
[00:28:47] How nice, how nice! Well, Diego, hey, eh? Yeah, we’re just finishing up, eh? How can they? How can people connect with you, connect with dyes and learn more about you and all those who listen to us?
[00:29:08] Well, I have always said that personally, and I have always been the same person, since I was a child, I will lend a hand in everything I can, because we all have to be there to help each other, otherwise this society is going nowhere. Then to contact me, because if you do some kind of. I don’t know if you do diffusion or publicity of this. I don’t care if you gave my email or networks that I have put out there, or Instagram or Diego Oliveres. Just like that. It’s no fancy name for it. And anyone who wants something from me or just to comment something, to get to know me, well, it’s done. Of course it is. And in you, I as communication director always say the same thing. It is true that there is a lot of work here, a lot, a lot of work. But if we are also where we are, it is because our family, as I say, the eardrums give us all day long support and affection and help us to grow and be where we are. Then we. I always say that we are here for the people, that anyone who wants to contact us through our man networks, we will answer you immediately, we will assist you the best we know how, and by the way people will also take a look at the shoes, I’m sure they will like them very much. But come on, I’m really here for whoever wants it. I have no problem with you seeing my networks, my emails, no problem at all.
[00:30:30] Great, great. Well, thank you very much Diego, it has been a pleasure to have you here with us today and please. Well, let’s keep in touch. Thanks also to all who listen to us for. For your time. And well, we are seeing each other. Okay.
[00:30:53] Thank you very much, Nuria. To all the team and nothing, that everything goes great and for whatever you want I am at your disposal.
[00:31:01] Thank you. Hello, good afternoon. Here we are today for our Fyers and chat session with a very special guest from Vector, this guest is Diego Oliveres, he is one of the founding partners of the project. And well, for those who do not know it without pers is a project of passionate people who have dared to think differently, to dream without limits and focus on making reality what seemed impossible. Welcome Diego. Thank you for being here with us today. And well, uh, we are very happy to have you and I would love for you to introduce yourself, to tell us who Diego is. How did it all start with the Campers project and what is your purpose?
[00:32:05] Good Nuria, thank you very much for your words, for me it is a pleasure to be here on behalf of tippex. We also send you greetings and thanks from all our team. And well, in addition to what you have said, Diego Oliveres is a Canary Islander born in Santa Cruz de Tenerife forty-one years ago. I have always been most passionate about my two hobbies. It has always been the world of music and the world of soccer. I really like playing the drums and I’ve always loved soccer since I was a little boy and right now, I am the director of communication and designer of the company Tippex, which as you say, we are a brand that we are dedicated to design and market shoes designed by blind people and for everyone, in which 100 percent of the staff have some kind of disability and we want to continue growing under this philosophy to demonstrate that a company with these characteristics can be as profitable and successful as the most. And apart from that, to do our bit for the normalization of disability and of and for people with disabilities. The idea started back in 2017 and we as we are from Alicante, well, me although I am from the Canary Islands, I have been living in Alicante since I was six years old.
[00:33:26] So, Alicante being the land of footwear par excellence in Spain and my colleagues already being people with a huge entrepreneurial mentality. They in 2017 created a brand of sneakers but without any social character, ordinary sneakers of which there are many on the market. And to start trying to move forward with the idea, they created these sneakers. Coincidentally, they were part of the technical team of the soccer team for the blind in Alicante, acting as guide and coach, respectively. They and I signed up for the team as a player and one day they took the sneakers to a team training session to show us players and see if they would sell us any, because now that no one hears us, they didn’t sell a pair and they took them there to see if the team players would buy some sneakers from them. What’s up? They were very surprised by how we blind people saw the shoes by touching them inside, outside, bending them, seeing what materials they were made of, if it was one material or not, what the laces were like, and then they thought why not make a shoe designed by touch by the blind members of the team in which the eyes were not the only way to see the shoe.
[00:34:48] So, between the fact that I always like to help and that I like to be involved in all the trouble, I was one of the colleagues who helped them the most to create this model and it turns out that, well, we made a prototype and as the three of us were enrolled at the University of Alicante, coincidentally, there was a social entrepreneurship contest organized by the university in which we presented the project and they came up with the idea of why not pivot, why not make these sneakers designed by blind people for everyone. And they proposed me to be part of the team because of how well we had hit it off and how well we had worked together and so on. And then, since mid-2018, so Tim is known as he is now. But it is more and it is even more beautiful. When this happened, I didn’t know, for example, that they had any kind of disability. They did know that I had it, logically, because mine is very obvious, but one of them is a kidney transplant and the other one has cystic fibrosis. And when we realized this detail we said that since we had found three people with this condition working together, why not grow always hiring people with disabilities, precisely for that, to, to do our bit in normality, in the normalization of disability, not in the inclusion or because there you are already taking for granted that there is something excluded, but in that normalization and our goal to link it all and answer you is to become a reference brand of sneakers that we are known as a big brand of sneakers and that above all does something for society.
[00:36:31] Because now, even though we are making a better product every day, we are still known more for all the social aspects that are linked to dyes. So our purpose is to end up being a recognized sneaker company that does this great work and above all to get our. Our mission to give more and more jobs to more and more people with disabilities. Since there is still a lot of progress to be made in this sector. Today, three out of every four people of working age with some type of disability are. Capacity does not work or many times that these people can have a job. It also helps them regain the confidence and self-esteem they have often lost. So our mission is to get more and more people to help us spread the word that what really matters is our abilities, not our disabilities, and to be able to continue to provide a lot of work for these people. And well, that’s it, I’d say wow!
[00:37:30] Not bad. I love it, I love it. What a wonderful, inspiring project. And I am convinced that all those who listen to us think the same. And well, it is. It is incredible the work you are doing. Diego, thank you for being here with us today. Thank you for this time. I loved our talk. I have loved enjoying, sharing some time with you, you telling me everything, the history of the camper series and all that you do. And well, for those of you who are watching, thank you for joining us. If you enjoyed this interview and would like to hear more tips and lessons from leaders and social impact companies. Please be sure to press. Subscribe. Thank you.
[00:38:27] Many thanks to you.
