- 8 months ago
Suzie Betts has just been crowned World Number One sports product start-up, at the ISPO in Munich, Germany.
The Melbourne Mum-of-three founded her Boob Protect product in 2018, after sensing a coming crisis- the lack of protection for female athletes, just as female sport was starting to boom.
About 60% of Aussie Rules and Rugby League female athletes receive knocks to the breasts. Only 10% of those injuries are reported to medicos.
Trauma to the breast tissue can have catastrophic consequences.
Suzie is on a mission to make women and girls safe while playing, and raise awareness.
The Melbourne Mum-of-three founded her Boob Protect product in 2018, after sensing a coming crisis- the lack of protection for female athletes, just as female sport was starting to boom.
About 60% of Aussie Rules and Rugby League female athletes receive knocks to the breasts. Only 10% of those injuries are reported to medicos.
Trauma to the breast tissue can have catastrophic consequences.
Suzie is on a mission to make women and girls safe while playing, and raise awareness.
Category
đ„
SportsTranscript
00:00uh hello and welcome to sports cutting edge pairing sport through innovation is what astn
00:15does the australian sports technologies network and we have for our final show of 2025 an absolute
00:20superstar performer of australian sports tech susie betts the founder of boot protect who's
00:26just come back from germany at the top sporting startup awards for 2025 and susie won the whole
00:33thing so an award winner about to join us on the show uh but before that shall we pay a little
00:39homage to our friends at daily motion pro and thank you very much to our sponsors today's show
00:43proudly sponsored by daily motion pro sports broadcasters clubs federations this message
00:49is for you daily motion pro is the most complete video suite for sports broadcasters clubs and
00:55federations helping you stream on every screen grow your fan base and monetize your content
01:01backed by ai driven features designed to engage fans and supported by expert teams it delivers a
01:07high performing and immersive video experience with over 400 million active users per month
01:14and a network of 5 000 partners dailymotion pro is a trusted provider across the sports landscape find
01:21out more at pro.dailymotion.com and as i say award winner fresh from the flight back from germany
01:30actually fresh from a really bad dose of influenza a so you've come off your deathbed to join us on
01:36the show susie betts thank you very much for your time oh thank you for having me and yes i am off the
01:41deathbed yeah are you feeling better because a lot of people i've been speaking to have been crook and
01:46they say it's the worst they've ever been sick like so you brought something back from munich yeah
01:51how are you feeling oh look last week was terrible really like did not get out of bed i've still got a
01:58lingering cough so please excuse me if that breaks out but no i feel good i did my first bit of exercise
02:04this morning so i'm back so you from munich you brought back influenza a and two massive awards
02:11congratulations uh martin schlegel the the chair of astn called me the other day and i had a couple
02:17of missed calls i thought jeez this must be something's urgent and he said you got to have
02:20susie betts on the show you got to have susie susie and then he told me the story about you and what
02:26you do and i was oh my god we do need to have susie on the show so now you're on the show so um you
02:31went over to the ispo brand new awards in munich the largest startup competition for sports products
02:38anywhere in the world so when we're talking about actual physical sports products in sports tech
02:42we talk about a lot of ethereal tech products programs data this is the tangible product and
02:48you couldn't come up with a more important product boob protect which is absolutely sensational what
02:53you're doing so we're going to get into your whole backstory but i just want to start on this so you
02:58go over the biggest sports products competition in the world you're flying the aussie flag you're up
03:04against literally every other product in the world and you win the overall competition and you win
03:09your specific category of performance body and mind um susie how did it feel to go over there you've got
03:16a startup that you've begun the journey with about seven years ago in melbourne and you're there on the
03:22world stage and you win the whole competition how did that feel it was really surreal actually um
03:29um it was really exciting and it was a really actually fun thing to do i don't love getting up
03:36and talking about myself or about things but it was actually great and what was really clear as we went
03:44through all the different rounds was how niche everything else was and i wasn't and i sort of
03:49fitted into every category so i was like you know what i could win this because i am for whatever sport
03:56they're talking about i fit into it so um you know that was it was really exciting i sort of
04:03i mean because i've been on death's door i haven't thought about it as much as i should have but it's
04:08nice to revisit it now well bloody earth we've got to do that for 40 minutes so this is we're going to
04:13make up the lost time and reflect on your success i'll tell you what you have you've had a bloody good
04:172025 you're also the victorian recipient of the 2025 australian awards for excellence in women's
04:24leadership that's not a bad one either congratulations well thank you i yeah that
04:29was a surprise that one um it it wasn't a surprise when i went to do my um to accept the award and
04:35realized um that it was on the 15th floor at the rsv club and i hate heights so i left
04:42i went back downstairs because it was like you know we the rsv club that 15th floor it's like
04:51all glass and i'm walking sideways in there and i'm like i just can't stand up on a stage and give
04:57a speech here i'm see you later i'm out of here bye and someone else to do it for me i hand them my
05:03speech yes but thank you that was um exciting as well all right so we're going to delve more into
05:08your award-winning success but let's go back to where it all began so um can you tell us in your
05:14own words 2018 you had a personal experience that led you on the journey you're on now um can you take
05:20us through that please susie sure thing so i found a lump in my right breast and went to see a breast
05:27cancer surgeon um the beautiful dr chantelle thornton who is amazing and when i was there she said have you
05:34ever received a trauma i'm like i don't know what are you talking about she goes well did you ever
05:38did you play sport and i'm like yeah i played sport she said did you get hit in the boobs i said not that
05:43i remember um but so what happened or what she was trying to say is you know that you can get a a
05:52sorry a trauma to the breast being a young girl flat chested teenager that obviously you get the
05:57hematoma but later in life it can revisit as in fat necrosis and so to find out the difference
06:03between fat necrosis or cancer and the data shows or the research shows you can't get
06:09cancer from a trauma to the breast which is good to know um is that they mimic breast cancer cells so
06:16you won't know what it is till it's basically removed so i'd had i had um what did i have i had
06:22imaging i then had biopsies and then then had surgery to find out that those lumps were fat necrosis
06:28so that actually got my mind really ticking because i played netball and tennis so they
06:34weren't you know contact i don't remember getting a hit and i had two daughters who were playing
06:40basketball and afl which are high contact sports so then i said do you get hit in the boobs and they're
06:46like stupid question mom of course we do so then i was like okay what's going on here what what is
06:53there available on the market and at the time everything that had been um you know that was
06:59available and it was limited were garments and they were garments like a vest with some padding
07:04they're pretty archaic looking pieces of crap and very restrictive heavy um they didn't fit make
07:12girls feel agile they felt it was you know sweaty hard to keep in place most of them had been created by
07:19a man who thought that we had you know two boobs that were exactly the same size and exactly the
07:23same level which you know we clearly don't um so then you know we went you know well going back a
07:31step we were looking at what research there was available about breast injuries and at the time
07:37it was extremely limited and most of it had come out of the college system and it was sort of scary as
07:43well that one in two girls were getting breast injuries which were being ignored no one's actually you
07:48know recording that these injuries are taking place and they're not even getting treated um
07:55did you want to ask me a question no no no absolutely no no it's just fascinating what
07:59you're saying um i can't remember even where i'm up to so what we did know because of what had been
08:06created in the past and wasn't working as i said was you know something heavy and we needed to create
08:12something that would be complementary to what girls already had being a crop top or a sports bra
08:18needed to be light needed to move with their body um needed to be not way not way a lot um needed to
08:25be in specific cup sizes because we've all got different sized boobs and basically create something
08:31that was easy and adaptable like a mouth guard or shin guards now no one ever wanted to wear a mouth
08:36guard when you know that first came out but they knew they knew they had to now and also you know i was
08:43always like hold on a sec we've got cricket boxes and guys you know won't go on the ground without
08:49them but what i do know now is cricket boxes are made out of the same plastic as lego so they crack
08:54they sweat and there's no way a guy wouldn't wear it absolutely um there had been some research done in
09:021994 by a woman called lejean lawson who actually had done uh the research into the best um material that
09:12would create a sort of disperse force impact on the breasts and it turned out to be polyethylene so
09:18that's where i headed down the track with what we were looking at needing to do and it's moldable and
09:24you can do it in different shapes and sizes and all that stuff as well so that is what we ended up
09:30creating um with the help of physios athletes um you know everyone that we needed to get the right product
09:40to and with um and they are actually like people say oh they're a bit hard they have to be a bit
09:46hard to encapsulate your breast in their natural shape so they only weigh uh 15 grams each insert
09:53that's a medium pair one insert and they are about two millimeters thick so they're really
09:59thin and they move with your body when you move but they are snug and they're protecting
10:04those beautiful little babies yeah gotcha well uh and just from the statistics as you say there's a
10:11study it's a 2020 study of female afl and rugby players and as you say 58 had experienced a breast
10:17injury at community level that's at 26 for afl 40 for rugby and less than 10 of female athletes
10:26report their injuries to coaches or medical staff according to a study from from 2018 so i dare say
10:31that's potentially still indicative of where it's at now so susie just on that note in terms of the
10:37under-reporting of injuries to the breast being you know nine out of every 10 go unreported according
10:44to that study i mean how important is it that you know women and girls feel empowered to be able to
10:49speak up and say hey look this has happened how big is that and sort of i don't know if there's a
10:54stigma about it or just wanting to you know how do you sort of help i dare say what you're doing is
10:59helping to shift the mindset around that yeah well yeah but i was really surprised at how
11:06how resistant people have been because any one it hurts getting hit hit in that area but i think
11:13we've been so you know girls are you know they're playing the sport that were boys were playing so
11:19they're pretending they're tough they don't need to be tough and it is all about the education piece
11:23that's been the hardest bit i suppose to publicize out of anything is that you know injury is real
11:30it's long-term it's got long-term effects and we know now that it's even affecting um breastfeeding so
11:38you know there's so many reasons that we need to protect our boobs but unfortunately it all comes
11:43back to that why why do i need to do that and in as i said with the cricket box no one's asking why
11:49they're just like no way is that getting hit so you know that's been the hardest thing and i suppose
11:56creating why we were also a grassroots entry point it's to create that habit early on so to you know
12:03we are creating a new category so getting it in there early like you would the mouth guard making it
12:10as normal as possible that they then won't play without it because once they wear it they realize
12:15that any force impact you can't actually feel anything so they then it actually increases their
12:20confidence they play out of their skin because they're not flinching to protect parts of their
12:26body that they don't even know they're protecting totally and and in terms of that susie as you say that
12:32that's one of the major obstacles you had that that you know shifting the mindset around it and
12:37what have you found the most successful way of doing it i know you've got a lot of elite athletes
12:42that are using your product is that role modeling a big part of it where you know you're shifting
12:47attitudes in that way that if the superstar playing aflw or nrlw is doing this well i will too is that
12:54helpful oh look it's definitely helpful for you know having influential women who are you know saying
13:01we need to protect that area but a lot of the time we don't even know they've got them on because
13:06you can't see under them and that is to help open the door for the younger girls but like you know
13:13we've had clubs and leagues reach out and buy them for their whole teams which has been amazing but
13:19it's not enough they need to do more they need to do the best education pieces and they need to make
13:25it not you know girls are embarrassed to talk about their boobs and it just shouldn't be it needs to be
13:30just like we're talking about your elbow whatever it's just a part of it it's just part of the kit
13:35hundred percent and it is interesting those conversations around you know physical safety
13:41and as you say that you know obviously um people want to be tough and all this sort of thing and
13:46you know from the men's side of it you know wally lewis nrl legend he is now dying as a consequence of the
13:54head knocks he received and he's been really open saying that men need to stop having so much bravado
13:59and need to be more aware of you know the impact of head trauma so it is sort of trying to relax the
14:06shoulders a bit around obviously in sport everyone's trying to put on the bravest face possible but
14:10having these sort of open conversations obviously so powerful and and good on you for leading the
14:15charge with this susie because i could only imagine that having that biopsy back in 2018 and waiting for
14:21those results that must have been like absolute trepidation yeah well weirdly enough i was never
14:29stressed about it for some reason it just didn't cross my mind i've had three lots of surgery in
14:34my right breast and one in the left so i'm tested every six months and it's been the same thing every
14:40time so new lumps don't they appear all the time yeah you know which is actually but no i've never ever
14:47had that feeling oh my god you know no i haven't i don't know maybe it's my personality and i think
14:53because my surgeon is so good i knew whatever it was it was early so you know she was going to get
15:00it no matter what and it was never anything scary so you know i've got a very very good surgeon and
15:05that's i suppose the most important part having people you trust who are onto it you know it's like
15:11the um what do you call it the the test for the over 50s the number two test you know yeah you know
15:18i like all that stuff having colonoscopies all that that's normal that's you know and just it's
15:24just having someone really good who's just onto it and i'm recalled as i said every six months i have
15:28imaging so the last lump i got i then had to have an mri which is not fun the first one i crawled out
15:35of that back in 2018 where you actually face down that far down with your boobs in two holes
15:43a uh what do you call the contrast die in your arm and you've got to lie there for 40 minutes and not
15:48move muscle and it's really scary in that instance no one told me what they were doing so then i hopped
15:54out and i went into the waiting room because what are you doing i said going home yeah going home
16:00uh shout out to dr chantelle was it dr chantelle your daughter she's amazing yeah she's a very
16:08very amazing doctor very nice hello yeah uh very very nice um so all right so yeah you have that
16:15experience you you're inspired to do something about it which is just a magnificent thing and in
16:21terms of when you said that early stage where you're conceptualizing it you're doing the different
16:25research to try and bring okay this is the right product take us through that journey take
16:30us under the hood a little bit of where you're trying to put together that perfect product which
16:34now you've got how'd you go about it from a science angle well look i was i was working with obviously my
16:41manufacturer who'd worked in that sort of area before doing you know polyethylene um materials and
16:50look a lot of it i mean it just really sort of fell into place because we really had nothing to base it
16:56on so it was through the different avenues of the research as i said we knew we wanted to be
17:01polyethylene we knew that you know it needed to be two pieces not one because of what had been around
17:08and what had sort of failed failed in my eyes and what you know like they were sitting on shelves they
17:15weren't moving they were um you know it just wasn't something that a female was gonna wear so every
17:23when we brought those pieces to the girls and said okay you've got two pieces and some of them
17:28might be a bit i don't know where it is and then they put it in then they got a whack and they're
17:33like oh hold on i'm going for more so a lot of them start punching each other in the boobs because
17:38they realize they can't actually feel anything really yeah wow i wish you had some boobs just i could send
17:45you a pair yeah yeah earn another lifetime susie in another lifetime i'll be able to use the product
17:52but um well and and how big's the shock absorption aspect so it's not just a barrier but it's actually
17:59absorbing the shock how important is that it disperses it so yeah yeah so it's actually because
18:04of the way that the i don't even have one near me at the moment um it because of the polyethylene
18:10the force impact actually disperses throughout the insert so yeah it's pretty pretty cool like it's
18:19i mean we don't have the measurement of it as in um through like the universe you know like a phd
18:28what do you call it like a i'm with your study yeah yeah study because you know those things are
18:33very expensive for one and also my mum was head of the melbourne university physio school so she's got a
18:39lot of peers in that area but they're all doing the acl so we're working with a biomechanics um
18:45institute well breast biomechanics uh department of university in the us sorry not in the us in the uk
18:52who we're actually going to get all that data so our data has been real time people on the field
18:58wearing the product we don't advertise it's word of mouth so it's we've got over 4 000 athletes around the
19:05world wearing our product just because they know when where they're on that they work yeah bloody
19:12oath and and in terms that as you move forward with the business i mean i'm guessing you could have
19:16multiple uses for this not just with sport whether it's people recovering from surgeries or injuries
19:23or whether it's out or older age uh women these different things i'm guessing there's a lot of scope
19:29yeah so we had in covert too we had a lot of frontline workers reach out so nurses um ambulance
19:38officers who were you know their bodies were being put on the line obviously through you know picking up
19:45people or there was also the violence aspect of it too yes we've had um police officers under their
19:52yeah a body armor um the military so we've had a lot of conversations outside of sport which every
20:02day is presenting something new it's really bizarre like i had this earlier this year i kept getting
20:07this one place that was ordering them every week and then i reached out they were actually a special
20:14school so there was one kid who kept wanting to bite the boobs so all the women had to get
20:19it breast protection so there's no biting because his teeth would slip yeah yeah yeah yeah well that
20:27just goes to show there's literally so many different applications for it and and in so many different
20:32crucial ways obviously it's so crucial it's very cool um all right so you come up with the product
20:39you're getting it manufactured we're talking sort of 2019 2020 sort of times how did you go to market
20:45take us through that aspect well so the day our press release was due to be um to go out was the day
20:51covid was announced so it was march 2020 or 2021 2020 yeah excuse me so um we basically were put on
21:02hold and uh i would have been really naive back then in any way because i actually thought i was hitting
21:08totally the aflw market and i was going through clubs so we'd be we'd become an afl licensed product
21:17already that had happened and then we were sort of told you know yeah we'll help you get you the word
21:22out blah blah so we were you know going down that route now my husband was a real estate agent so he
21:29was pretty much one of the first businesses to be closed down remember all that agents couldn't work
21:34so i also had the problem of like presidents and stuff not wanting to speak to me on the phone
21:39and they you know and so my husband would ring up being an old you know ex footballer and he'd say
21:46you know they talk old football shop and then he'd say have you heard about boob armor at the time which
21:50it was yes and i know and then it'd be he'd have that conversation but then because we were in covert
21:56and we didn't know how long we were going to go a lot of those people we never ever spoke to again
22:01because they lost their roles clubs a lot of those clubs folded so we did at that end of that year
22:07then change our model to retail and we're in rebel sport so we're in a number of different stores
22:15rebel sports power interstort around australia um but the biggest in hindsight we're probably a bit
22:24early in a way because it's now since the matilda's won it's now really all about female kit
22:30you know kit that actually isn't men's you know small ones but you know made for them the period
22:37underwear and breast protection things like that too so in a way we're probably a bit early but i
22:42wouldn't change a thing because it brings you to where you are today if that makes god yeah and how
22:48difficult slash frustrating was what you just described then i could imagine it'd be a lot of
22:53women listening going oh jesus like the fact that when you were trying to get on the phone call to these
22:58decision makers there was not a lot of uh cut through but then you know your hubby calls and
23:04they got a bit of a history and they can have a bit of a blokey chat and then suddenly the door opens how
23:09frustrating must that be really frustrating because he he clearly doesn't have boobs and um it was just
23:19it was sort of surprising but in hindsight it's not surprising because
23:24we still sort of live in a bit of a world like that and and what's your or how have you navigated
23:30that clearly you've done it with great aplomb but how have you navigated that and for for women and
23:35girls listening how would you advise them to navigate those sort of structural things that are still there
23:40well i have to say that a tool like linkedin has been great because i sort of plant those seeds in in you
23:51know what my narrative might be i'm very good at like um publicizing facts maybe having a go at
23:59something you know like you know i mean even about investment you know you've got guys people are
24:04throwing themselves at you know guys who've had about three weeks of a business that haven't even
24:09sold a piece of equipment or whatever but you know like you know we're less than two percent so
24:14i found that a really good way to open up conversations and um you know i i'm probably
24:23digressing or segwaying into something that maybe you didn't mean me to talk about but it is an amazing
24:29tool that the amount of doors that have opened through me doing it in that platform interesting
24:35oh i love linkedin and and what's it allowed you to do like to reach people that you otherwise might
24:42not not have reached or to get other absolutely i've i've reached the most powerful people in the
24:48sports industry through linkedin and what because you know it's funny i look at linkedin at times i
24:54think geez you know there's a sea of uh at times insincerity on linkedin you know you see a lot of
25:00platitudes how have you been able to cut through and i mean obviously you speak from the heart
25:06naturally so that's an asset but what's your advice to people when they use linkedin like how do you
25:12get that resonance well i actually did a call so there's a woman called tori archibald tori archibald
25:20why am i saying that wrong tori archibald the name it sounds wrong i'm so it sounds like i'm saying
25:25the wrong surname but i'm not so tori was someone put me onto it i think it was the girl who worked for
25:31modibody and modibody were one of the first to do the period undies and i was looking i loved the way
25:37their advert their the way they advertised was really risque and i it was a real you know whoa
25:45this is full on so he said look you know apart from that she said i've actually left the company
25:50but i did this amazing course with this woman called tori tori taught us all the ins and outs of how to
25:56sort of negate sorry to what's the word you know get your way in and out and i suppose i didn't know
26:04how linkedin worked at all i'd been very anti it but um it's really about i mean you can find anyone
26:10on linkedin and you can send them a message and they can respond or not respond but a lot of the times
26:15you get some amazing responses that really open doors or through a connection connection and connection
26:22you become visible to these you know um people that you would never even probably find their name
26:2910 years ago well and the fact you were able to get into off the bat into rebel sport that's huge
26:35like how did you create that connection i'm trying oh i know what happened it was in covert
26:43and i reached out to a guy let's say his name was john john was amazing john was like yeah we'll try
26:48in 30 stores we'll do this we'll do that but i was like whoa this is easy then john disappeared john
26:54it's like john died and then about six hours really pissed off for ages and i was like what the hell
27:01happened to this guy he's not returning my emails anything then out of the blue i thought i'm going
27:05to email john yeah and john said oh i went to shoes department so then he put me on to joe and then i
27:15flew up and presented to them and you know we pretty much went into store there look there's great
27:22obviously it's great for exposure but if you're in the right spot so we're meant to be merchandised
27:27with bras because clearly we go with bras but you could go to a store and not even find it and it might
27:32be in with the tennis balls or something like that so that's the hard thing of such a big
27:37store like a rebel and or any of the ginormous ones overseas as well is they get lost unless you're at it
27:44that sort of nike or puma where you've got your sections and you've got people controlling those
27:50sections little old susie's brand is just going to go well i dare say little the little aspect of
27:57your brand i think clearly is changing you know like i just in researching you during the week you
28:03know you got a lot of great media coverage and obviously now the awards you've won in german it's
28:08only going to ramp up more and more so how do you and i know you mentioned before you said you
28:13know you haven't done necessarily advertising what's your goal with with in terms of making
28:18it so that in the same way that when you think of nike you think of shoes you think of boob protect
28:23and you and you know it's the automatic solution on people's minds is is that your goal to get it to
28:28that place like and how do you go about it what are you thinking oh absolutely so we were boob armor
28:35but we had a legal issue with under armor and we had to change her name um so people know boob
28:41and people know boob protect but we are i suppose the first of its kind in breast protection that is
28:48not a garment so we are you know a compliment competent complementary to what is already available
28:55now whether we do collaborations down the track with um apparel companies is another story because
29:01that's just you know a no-brainer that that will happen and that will obviously amplify the messages as
29:08well but it you know i'm so passionate about the whole breast protection thing and getting it into
29:13grassroots level because as i said you can be flat-chested you can obtain an injury and when
29:18your boobs grow it could be deformity asymmetry so that is needs to be amplified and it needs to be as
29:27soon as girls start playing sport breasts need protection yeah and particularly what you said before
29:32about you know the aspects which it can affect breastfeeding and all these different things like
29:36obviously until you said that i had no idea about that and i dare say a lot of people wouldn't know
29:40that they wouldn't and do you how do you go about that like would you go into schools do talk like
29:47part of the curriculum even for primary school with their sports and pe like how do you get that
29:53message out well yeah exactly i mean that's why linkedin such a great tool for someone like me
29:58doesn't have you know being a bootstrap business who doesn't have the budget now in saying that we have
30:03tried advertising but because in hindsight that creating the category the category wasn't there so
30:11it wasn't hitting the mark it wasn't getting the right people so it's basically a huge waste of money
30:16and i refuse to sort of enter into that again until we know exactly you know where we're sort
30:23of heading which is still a bit it's a bit you know creating a new category it's jumbled so it's not as
30:29simple um it's not like it's a new tennis ball or a new tennis shoe it's boot protection so at
30:36in the us our biggest market is amazon and that is because you know remember the us as you would
30:44know you buy anything it arrives that afternoon or whatever and they're looking for different things
30:48that affiliate you know we don't live in that world in australia yet we're getting there but it's
30:54not like it is in the us so you know the keywords their work yeah yeah so you know i think we had
31:02our biggest month there like i think last month and that's amazon they go to amazon more than our
31:08website fascinating and do you know what those keywords are like is is someone just typing in
31:14breast protection it would probably be it wouldn't even be breast protection it might be affiliate to
31:20mouth guards or yeah so going in on different angles interesting interesting yeah and then from
31:29that health point of view is there a potential uh time with government like health department
31:34where they you know maybe they buy it in bulk and then give it to primary school age girls that are you
31:40know how amazing that would be in the in the uk i have a a friend who i know through this they have a bra
31:48business and they go through they tour the private schools um and they every girl is given a sports bra
31:57now that goes on their bill but they don't know that so there's no money trick conversation but every
32:02girl is given a sports bra i would love to see something like that rolled out here in parallel a sports bra
32:08with protection because you know you need it in if you're playing netball if you're playing you just
32:15need it in everything but you need a good bra that fits in the first place to hold hold them in but
32:20you need a good bra anyway and that's what i did find you know when i was going out and fitting some
32:24of the rugby clubs you know some of those girls i'd hold i'd go that bra man and like the elastic
32:29would be up here i'm like you need a new bra and then they said a lot of those girls can't afford bras
32:34so yeah so i mean look you know there's it'd be great to be affiliated with um health funds like
32:44our mouth guards are or i've i've done outreach to schools over the years i don't think one person
32:50replied to one of my i i sent a sample and i sent a letter with all the facts to i reckon
32:56oh about 60 schools not one person responded now that was a couple of years ago
33:01um but we still need to you know revisit it the new year will be bringing more revisiting
33:09you know what i mean you know we're talking big picture but so where i live in new york i walked
33:14to the gym down fifth avenue and kim kardashian you know her brand skims she's got a really big i think
33:19it must be their flagship store on fifth avenue it's very like you can't miss it it's lit up magnificently
33:25and they've done a time with nike you know so you've got skims the power of kim kardashian
33:31nike but you know i just think like because skims obviously it's underwear and these different
33:35things like a tie-in like that would just be a perfect fit for boob protect you know i mean like
33:40that that sort of thing so anyway well let's just see what what we can't do in 2026 well i did i i i
33:47have two minds about that skims um uh collab because it's a really easy solution isn't it put two massive
33:54brands together don't don't go left or right just let's chuck two massive this doesn't make any sense
34:02to me but anyway good luck to saki and good luck to kim kardashian because she clearly doesn't need it
34:07yeah um and so how about you so as you look to conquer more of the rest of the world the northern
34:15hemisphere and specifically the american market over the next couple of years what what sort of
34:19your strategy for that so we in the market in the states now which is great we've got a good team over
34:26there who really know what they're doing and and really publicizing the whole part of the breast
34:32injury story especially through the college system which is excellent is key because we as i said you
34:38know we want it to be it's not like grassroots in australia where you know it's different in the
34:44states as you would know it's not college sports is really where they're getting their their teeth you
34:49know into the into the sport as such so um you know i don't know i look sorry why do i do not there's
34:56a lot going on that needs to be brought together to then you know the next steps there i don't think
35:03it'll be uh retail as much because i don't think it needs to be um i don't think we need to be in a
35:11dicks or whatever because we you're going to sort of face those same problems unless we've got
35:16a major collaboration with a major brand um so it is you know getting it out there i mean we've got a
35:23lot of you know there's sports over there that we're not even playing here but you know like one
35:27of the things that i'm passionate about water polo is the number one sport where girls are getting
35:32breast injuries multiple times my like i think it was the french water polo term i think they were
35:39like a minimum of six so so incorporating something into that would be a great you know um collaboration
35:49for me in you know saving those girls because there's a lot of kicks to the boobs in those
35:53gotcha um and i on your website and i encourage everyone to jump on boobprotect.com boobprotect.com
36:03your price point is fantastic 79.95 like and that that sorts you out your job done and dusted so if i was a
36:11woman or girl listening to this and i log on how do i go about it in terms of like sizing and all the
36:16different particulars you know what what process would i undertake so it's pretty easy we've got
36:21a fit calculator on there that you put in your size of your chest size then your boob size as in
36:27with a measuring tape and then it'll ask you the different shapes you put that in and it'll give you
36:32your exact size because it needs to be snug well they need to be snug so that you actually they don't
36:38move um so we want them on the smaller side and then you know give them a whirl and see how how much you
36:45you play out of the roof does that make sense yeah i like it at 79.95 like that's such a good price
36:54point and you know i mean it's a it's an expense you can't afford not to make i would dare say um for
37:02your future and for your health and for your safety so as i say you go over to germany you've already won
37:08the the the big gong with the uh women's excellence leadership awards you're the victorian winner of that
37:14category um so you do that in australia then you go over to munich and you're part of the astn
37:21delegation along with maria baker a good mate of mine from nobody's princess and anti-ordinary so we had
37:27three aussie companies boob protect nobody's princess and anti-ordinary congratulations to the
37:33three of you for making the trip and you go to the ispo and sports tech nation event in munich a huge
37:39event as i say ispo brand new is the largest startup competition for sports products anywhere in the
37:45world and then there's the top 16 startups uh get to uh present and susie take us through what happened
37:52so you're there you're in the top 16 and you literally had to sing for your supper some sort of
37:58like pitch battle knockout almost like boxing but rhetorical and you conquered the day take us through
38:05what exactly happened in munich please so i found out that morning must have been that i was going
38:12to be up against in my four category i was going to be up against a japanese um sports shoe and what
38:20happens is one is putting the red it is a boxing ring so there's a red corner in the blue corner and we
38:26are given so red corner will start you're given 60 cents set 60 seconds to pitch your product then blue
38:33corner goes i was blue corner then you're given 60 seconds then the red corner has 60 seconds to attack
38:40your business or i didn't like the idea of that so that's why i was like i'm just going to play that by
38:46ear then you get 60 seconds to defend it then the blue corner attack the red corner and they get 60
38:54seconds to defend now and then out of all the judges that actually were the ones who were the who
38:59voted you to be in the top 16 you get assigned a judge who will ask you a curly question and i think
39:06my judge asked me about patents and team i actually can't remember which was lovely and then you have
39:12another judge who comes up and said well if i like this best business or product better and then the
39:18crowd hold up red or blue card oh wow yeah so it was a little i couldn't hear when my um japanese guy did
39:27his pitch i actually couldn't hear a word he said it was very very difficult to hear him so when i just
39:32had to you know attack as such his business i mean i'd only really looked at his website i was like oh
39:38it's a locked website it's got a few pictures on it um that make no sense there's nothing on his
39:43socials it's another white runner i don't even know what it does so um i sort of and then i can't i won
39:51that so then i had to go up against the other person in our section who was a pair of weird
39:57goggles that i didn't know what he did and he was very rude and was trying to like hold up a
40:02piece and say well i'm a doctor and this is how we protect our breasts and i basically said to him
40:07clearly you don't have boobs because if you had boobs you would know that that ain't going to do a
40:11thing um and i think the crowd seemed to like that yeah so yeah i won that and then the final
40:17was the next day where oh absolutely um a sustainable ski brand and then another one who
40:27my final i was against um goggles that you wear in a blizzard and i did say to him i said who the
40:34hell wants to ski in a blizzard i said i'm all for an accessory but wouldn't you rather drink
40:38schnapps and dance on the table with your top off because they were all so niche like everything
40:47even the goggles were like uh you know well i think they were like thousands so who can afford
40:54that then the beautiful sustainable skis was six thousand dollars that's not for your kids
41:02i think i was the cheapest product there yeah and and clearly the most essential to be honest you
41:07know from that's right and i what i didn't know gopro won this award and that's how they were
41:12created and on running one that won it too jeez well you're in good company i know that's incredible
41:21well yes i heard from uh someone who was in the crowd that you absolutely owned it and particularly
41:26that bloke that was rude to you i believe you you won the crowd very very much that day i sort of can't
41:33help her i can't help her um and so now what do you look to do so you got these these awards which
41:41is a tremendous credit to you like out of the whole world you've gone there as a company a startup from
41:45melbourne and you've won you didn't just win your category but you won the overall award as well which
41:50is phenomenal um so like you mentioned there you got back from munich you've been sick you haven't
41:56really had a chance to reflect on it like how special does that feel the whole journey that you've been on
42:01on and even you know what did your daughters and your husband say when you told them the news because
42:05like they've been there with you side by side it was sort of hearing from your daughters that they
42:09have you know they have received injuries but there's not really a product on the market
42:14like as a family that must have been a very special moment for you all well for some of them it was some
42:20of them who paid attention um so my husband's like wake me up after like wake me up when and i
42:26i ran and i said i won anyway oh good on you well done and then i realized a couple of days later i
42:32was getting texts from people he swims with and i'm like what are you telling people gerald and he
42:37goes what do you mean i said i won the whole thing not just the category they're like i heard you on
42:42your category i'm like no i won the whole thing come on come on gerald exactly so look i think they're
42:49all very proud of their mum um i think yeah they were it would have been nice for some one of them to
42:55be there to you know be excited with but i was so lucky having martin and you know the great rob
43:02and the great maria to be there with because you know we've all done that journey um you know along
43:09the way so you know it was nice having some good guys there as well yeah bloody oh and actually so
43:14shout out to gerald and your daughter's names what are their names i've got jasmine who's my eldest
43:19and then maggie who's my youngest and then ned in the middle who's you know the voice of reason so
43:23oh very nice well shout out to the whole betts family congratulations susie um all right last
43:29question we do this interview say we i'm sure we're doing a couple others in between but 10 years time
43:35we're doing an interview and we're going to look back at everything you've achieved between now and
43:39then what do you want to get done i want it to be i want breast protection to be recognized and be
43:46in every sports kit of every girl as soon as they start playing sport and in some sports it made
43:52mandate that it you know like no mouth guard no play no breast protection no no play and there'll be
43:59new iterations of the product this is the og you know i'm looking at different materials to do other
44:06ones you know i haven't found anything i love yet because it is key that they're not squished no matter
44:12what so there's some great technologies out there but they're just not right um and then maybe doing
44:19some different potty parts as well and who knows who knows the sky's the limit boobprotect.com boobprotect.com
44:2779.95 money you can't afford not to spend susie betts thank you so much for your time thank you
44:34what an absolute ripper uh that's our final show for the year to each and every one of you our listeners
44:39thank you so much to martin schlegel and the astm and thank you very much to you all and to our
44:45wonderful friends at daily motion jean baptiste allery our delightful sponsor thank you so much
44:51to all of you have a very merry christmas happy new year and we'll see you in 2026.
45:09oh
45:15you
45:15you
45:15you
45:15you
45:15you
45:15you
45:15you
Comments