706: Jay Hated His Plumbing Job - Now He Sells Beach Pools and did $50K in a Month
The Foundr Podcast with Nathan ChanShow Notes
Jay Haddad hated being a plumber. He lived for the weekends - free diving, waterfalls, surfing, the beach - and when he and his wife had their first daughter at 23, the outdoor life they'd promised each other suddenly got hard. On his first Father's Day, they bought some fabric from Spotlight, watched a YouTube tutorial on how to thread his mother-in-law's dusty sewing machine, and made a waterproof beach pool so their daughter had somewhere safe to play. Strangers on the beach kept stopping to ask where they could buy one. That was the moment Sunny Seekers began - with zero e-commerce experience and a first sewing attempt Jay describes as shocking.
In this episode, Jay is unusually raw about the whole grind: a year of failed fabric testing, three supplier disasters in a row, the brutal reality of a seasonal product, and the personal toll of three hours of sleep a night that nearly broke him before he learned to build sustainably.
What you'll learn in this interview:
How the product idea came straight from Jay and his wife's own friction as new parents - and why being your own target customer can be its own form of validation
The scrappiest possible start: a first prototype sewn on a borrowed machine, tested at the beach, validated by strangers walking past asking where to buy one
Why sewing in a circle nearly defeated them - and how the DIY version proved the concept before a single dollar went to a factory
The year lost to fabric testing: sourcing waterproof fabric on Alibaba, missing an entire summer season, and why Jay is still glad they waited to get it right
How he used Alibaba's "request for quotation" feature to find a manufacturer for a product nobody had made before - and didn't even know what search terms to use
The unit economics that made it a real business: fabric alone cost $130+ per pool in Australia, but a finished unit from overseas landed at ~$25 and sold for $115
Selling out the first 200 units in a month before Christmas 2024 - and the nagging question that haunted the whole next year: do people buy this after the holidays, or only as gifts?
Three separate supplier nightmares - loose threads on 200 units, a botched print at the wrong scale, leaking carry bags ironed shut by hand - and how he pushed through each one right before peak season
The Black Friday scaling playbook: starting at $10/day on meta, doubling ad spend as orders doubled, reaching $1,000/day, and hitting a record $50K month in December 2025
The hardest lesson of a seasonal brand: how post-Christmas ads got expensive fast, why he was left holding stock and no cash through winter, and what he changed about looking after himself mentally to survive the off-season
If you've boxed yourself into an identity - your trade, your job title, the industry you happen to be in - and quietly wonder whether you could build something of your own, this episode is for you. Jay had no network, no experience, and no idea how to sew. His story is a grounded reminder that the unglamorous grind of prototypes, supplier failures, and slow seasons is exactly what turns someone from "a guy sewing in the back of the house" into a founder.
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