PART OF THE PUZZLE

Cork entrepreneur, Noel May is responsible for introducing MBTs and Flexifuel Converters for cars to Ireland. He tells Niamh Mac Sweeney what inspires him to initiate such products here and why he regards himself as a problem solver.

Entrepreneur Noel May

Sales of MBTs, the physiological footwear distributed by Cork-based MBT Ireland, are breaking all records, with more than 100,000 pairs sold in three years, since their introduction to the Irish market by entrepreneur Noel May.

Solving Problems

MBTs (Masai Barefoot Technology) were developed in Switzerland in the early 1990s by Swiss engineer Karl Müller, who was looking for a solution to his own back, knee and achilles tendon problem. Classified as a Medical Device by the EU, MBTs have a positive effect on the whole body. The multi-layered sole simulates natural walking on uneven ground, reducing pressure on the knee and hip joints and activating neglected muscles, that tone and shape the body.

Before May got involved with MBT he was running his own computer company based in Cork and Atlanta. In 2003 he put the company up for sale and began to look at other opportunities that appealed to him. Coincidentally at the time he himself was suffering from lower back pain and had been recommended to get these special footwear to help him. The MBTs were a great help to May but when he began to actually to tell other people that they should get them, he realised that they weren’t available in Ireland. Quickly he decided this was something he would like to be involved in.

Conscious Vision

After the computer business May was determined the next business he would be involved in would do people some good and also that it would do the environment some good. “I was looking at health and medical related issues. I wanted to do something completely different. I had been in IT for 25 years or more and I felt I wanted to use the experience I had in other fields and to push myself in another direction,” May reveals.

He negotiated with the company in Switzerland to distribute MBTs in Ireland both north and south and then later negotiated to handle Spain. At the end of 2003 an agreement was reached and May began selling MBTs in Ireland in 2004. In three years there has been an overwhelming success to the product. May attributes this success to the word of mouth recommendations that the product gets. “We spent a lot of effort and time getting what we call opinion leaders on board, the media and physiotherapists, chiropractor medial doctors and sports people, who were themselves able to relate their experiences from a professional point of view and therefore lending the product a lot of credibility. We also had a lot of positive user stories where people wrote to us and allowed us to publish their information,” he explains.

Educating The Masses

In the first year May spent a considerable amount of time telling people what MBT’s could do and educating the medical community and sports trainers to become familiar with MBT’s. In the second year he began to open up into the retail area and now in the third year the product is widespread with currently 160 outlets around the country selling the product.

According to May he sells about 5000 MBT’s a month but expects that to grow later in the year to 6500 a month. “Our attitude is that everybody above the age of 20 should have a least one pair of MBT’s because it is so beneficial to their long-term health and fitness,” he says.

Flexible Fuel

May is now turning his attention to a new product, which he says will have very positive benefits to the environment. The AutoFFV Flexi Fuel convertor enables most cars to run on any mix of petrol and ethanol, which can reduce CO2 emissions by up to 70%. “Two years ago I began to investigate bio fuels and I spent some time in Brazil investigating how they had developed their bio fuel industry, because they are the leaders in the world in this area. They produce bio-ethanol from sugar cane and they are able to do it at a relatively low cost. About 40% of the fuel in transport in Brazil is bio-ethanol, which is massive. I came across a company in Brazil that needed funding and needed help in exporting. We concluded a deal with them at the end of last year to buy 50% of their company and also to take on responsibility for exporting in Europe for their product,” the entrepreneur explains.

The Benefits

AutoFFV Flexi Fuel convertor is an electronic devise that plugs into the car computer and on to the injectors in the car. It enables the car to become a flexible fuel vehicle where you can mix it to any degree of either petrol or bio-ethanol. May says, “it means that people can choose if they want to save greenhouse gases and save money then they can convert their car at a relatively low cost. On average a car will save up to three tonnes of CO2 a year by converting and using this product.” May expects petrol to increase in price and admits that at present petrol is much more volatile in price than bio-ethanol. “We hope that the government incentives by lower or eliminating the VAT on bio fuels to have the differential much greater so that there are much more people using bio-fuel. We are providing one part of the puzzle, which is the ability to convert their car relatively inexpensively,” he says.