Veevus Q&A

A while back my good friend, Dutch fly tyer Hans Weilenmann was on the phone:
"What's this company Veevus?"
"I don't know..." I had to say. "Never heard of them."
"Well, you're Danish and they are Danish. It's your duty to know!"

So I looked into the name and found a newly established Danish company producing some very interesting fly-tying thread: thin and strong and available in many colors. I contacted Emir Ceric, the man behind the company, and asked him a few questions.

Veevus threads

Veevus

1) Tying thread...?! Whatever made you start producing tying thread?

I always wanted to have my own company, so I studied the industry to find a void in the marketplace. After spending some time researching, I developed an exceptional product with a great price point to offer to consumers.

2) It's obvious that you can't reveal your production secrets, but describe what is special about your thread.

Before I started this, I had two goals:
1. To produce something that was better than what was currently on the market
2. To make the product much cheaper
I already knew the purchasing price of the other threads, so I knew that I could make it better. Prices are higher due to the "middleman factor". So the goal has always been to have the best quality and price by selling directly to the stores if possible.

For those who are interested, they can see more about the products online, amongst other things the breaking strength test.

3) You deal in other products, some of your own making and some made by others. Is the thread your main act, or will you spread out and produce other products too?

Thread is the main product of the Veevus Company. I thought that it would help our company in the beginning if we had more items for sale, but in fact it was the exact opposite.
It turns out stores really like that you have a specialty item, rather than just re-selling products that everyone else has.

4) With the current crisis and the very competitive market for fly tying materials, it's natural to ask: how is Veevus doing?

I would have to say that I am more than happy! We are doing much better than expected. I was hoping to be in one or maybe two countries the first year. However, due to excellent consumer satisfaction, we are in five countries after a little over three months on the market, with more countries coming soon!

5) What's the next step? New markets, new products, new...?

The next step is most definitely expanding the thread to other countries. Once you get into a country, there is still a lot of work to be done, so a lot of time is spent on advertising and marketing. We do have some other products under development right now, but it's not 100% sure yet when that will be ready.

We have also opened a "Fly Tying Community" (Unfortunately this community is now gone and the links is dead...), the first of its kind. (At least I haven't found anything like it). The easiest way to explain it would be to say that it's a "Facebook for fly-tiers". It's a place where anyone can register for free, share pictures, videos, chat, post on the forum, create events if they need people for a fishing trip, etc., and much more.

Facebook was created for friends and family, but I noticed that fly-tiers like to promote themselves. Out of the 3000 "friends" on Facebook, perhaps 30 or less are family & real life friends. Even with such a big list you are limited, because anything you post is still only visible to your friends. On the Veevus Community anyone can see the videos or pictures you post.

As an extra bonus, we are giving away free gifts each month along with free shipping. Currently, we give away 1 free gift per month, but this will increase as the community of users increases. All one has to do is become a user, and be active on the site. We will choose the lucky winners randomly from the active users list. The gifts vary from tools such as Scissors, Braid, and Spools of Thread.

6) What's your own background? Do you have a fly fishing and or fly tying background?

I don't have a fly-tying background, but my father has been tying flies for over 40 years! We used to have two shops when we lived in Bosnia, but sadly, we lost that in the war. Fishing has always been the family business.

I do this because it's exciting bringing new products to the market.

Veevus thread

Martin Joergensen

PS: I know we usually bring pictures of the people we interview and try to show something interesting from "behind the scenes".

But Emir Ceric of Veevus had no pictures of his facilities he wanted to share. "The only thing I can't do is show my production facilities. They are a secret" he wrote me. On top of that he also claimed to be quite camera-shy and did not want to be depicted in the article. "It's the products that are in focus, not me..." as he wrote.

So much against my will I have to illustrate this article about an interesting person and some exciting new production methods... with pictures of thread spools.

A video demonstrating the strength of Veevus thread.