From coal mining to laser tattoo removal entrepreneur

As founder and chief executive of Think Again Laser Clinic, Mike has overseen the rapid expansion of the tattoo removal specialist business, including its philanthropic services, across Australia and now overseas. Born in Campbelltown in south-west Sydney, he now lives in the city's north-west. 

We might not be able to appreciate it at the time, but every so often in life there comes a major turning point. A sliding doors moment.

For Mike Anderson, one of those moments came in his mid-20s. He was working in the coal mining industry at the time and bringing in a very decent salary, but he knew it wasn't a path that he wanted to follow forever.

"I always saw myself getting out at some point, because I didn't really like taking instructions from people or being bossed around or working to 
a clock. I've always had a bit of an entrepreneurial streak, too.

"My first business was when I was 12, washing cars, which I ended up franchising by getting other kids in the neighbourhood to wash the clients' cars.

"So, I always had that spirit and I always planned to do something else, I just never knew what."

The turning point for Anderson and his then girlfriend - now his wife - came when they were about to purchase a home in Sydney's eastern suburbs.

He was torn, though. The financial commitment was considerable, so he knew that if they did pull the trigger, he would be locked into a job he didn't love for the next 30 years.

Finding inspiration in Thailand

With the contract all but in front of them, the couple took off on a short holiday to Thailand. It was there that inspiration hit.

"I remember being there, looking around at the businesses and just feeling like I had the time and space to think clearly about ideas.

"We saw that the tattoo removal industry was taking off, but at the time it was being really poorly executed. So, we started doing some research on the beach in Thailand and then four months later we had opened our first clinic."

The business is Think Again Laser Clinic. Ten years on under Anderson's leadership as chief executive, there are now nine clinics operating throughout Australia and New Zealand, plus a major expansion into the US to come.

Not quite so permanent

Getting a tattoo will be viewed, by many, as a permanent decision. Yes, they can and do fade over time, but realistically they are designed to last 
a lifetime. That's the point.

Like tattoos themselves, people change. And in some cases, so do their views of the artwork on their body. These people are Anderson's clientele.

"It's not as interesting or as crazy as people might expect, but the primary reason that people come in is because they got a tattoo when they were young without putting a whole lot of thought into it and they've since gone through career changes, lifestyle changes, partner changes - things like that.

"For a lot of people, it's just a single tattoo that they got in Thailand or on a schoolies trip, which they no longer feel reflects them, so they want to go back to clear skin.

"There are more extreme ones. We do things like traumatic tattoos when people have fallen off motorbikes and they've got gravel rash stuck on them.

"Then there are spelling mistakes, and some pretty interesting ones at that. But the primary reason really is just people changing their minds."

Going against the grain

While the figures vary, it's estimated that as many as one in four Australians has a tattoo.

Anderson says that a motivator he increasingly hears from clients, particularly younger ones, who are getting rid of their tattoos is that they want to go against the grain.

"I would say that a lot of people are getting their tattoos removed just to be different. It's very hard to get accurate data, but there's obviously a lot of people in the 18 to 45 age range that have them now.

"And for some of those people, as they get older, they want to go back to having that clean skin and being judged on their personality rather than the artwork on their body."

Test subject for his staff

When Anderson talks about tattoo removal, he's not just approaching it from the perspective of a business owner, but as someone who has been through the process. In fact, he's been a test subject for his own staff to hone their skills.

"Personally, I've had 120 sessions and I've removed basically a whole body's worth of tattoos.

"I had my chest, back, legs, arms - basically everything tattooed. But now I'm down to my last tattoo, so we're running out of material for our staff to train on."

As it turns out, the science behind the removal process is fascinating. But to appreciate how tattoos are removed, it's worth understanding 
how they are created.

"The way that tattoos work is that ink particles are injected through a needle into the dermis - the second layer of skin," says Anderson. "So, millions of needle holes basically sit alongside each other to create a picture. And the reason why those particles are permanent is that they're too large for the lymphatic system to process."

While it's difficult for the body to break down the ink, it certainly wants to. This is where the removal technology comes in. Though, as Anderson explains, his technicians are more enablers than removalists, because the body is actually doing the work.

"The way the technology works is basically a concentrated beam of light which, when put into the skin, cuts into the pigment of the particles and causes it to absorb that energy and fracture into small fragments, which the lymphatic system then takes care of.

"In a client's first session, we'll break down the top layer. Then the period between sessions is not for healing, because that actually happens pretty quickly. It's to allow that fracturing process to occur so that the light can get further in and further down in future sessions."

Giving back to the community

Beyond the more run-of-the-mill appointments, there's another side to Think Again Laser - one which Anderson is immensely proud of. These are charitable initiatives, the first of which provides free tattoo removal for cancer patients with radiation markers.

"These markers are put on patients in order to get radiation in the correct spot each time that a person goes in for cancer treatment," Anderson explains. "It saves them having to be exposed to more radiation through extra scans and having to have longer sessions. So, basically, these are tattooed markers where the radiation is applied each time."

"When people enter remission, that tattoo can obviously be a reminder of what they've been through, which can be something people want to be able to put behind them. Having a tattoo can be a barrier to that, which is why we offer the removal service."

Then there's the Chance for Change program. Again, the initiative offers free tattoo removal, but this time it's for people with gang tattoos 
or with tattoos expressing racist or extremist ideologies or for survivors of domestic violence or sexual assault who have their abuser's name tattooed on them.

"Our Chance for a Change program probably has the biggest impact on the community. We're able to help people who wouldn't otherwise have been able to access our services to ensure that they can put these things behind them," says Anderson.

"We've had situations where people have racist tattoos but no longer share that ideology, and have been concerned about the impact they're having on young or impressionable kids or family members. So, in that situation, it's about being able to help people break that chain of influence."

California, here we come

After having delivered close to 150,000 removal sessions over the past decade across clinics in Australia and New Zealand, the business is set to hit another milestone in early 2025: the opening of its first North American clinic in Beverly Hills.

This is, in large part, a possibility, thanks to significant investment from venture capital firm Clutch Capital, which acquired 50% of Think Again Laser Clinic in 2019.

"We've basically got an unlimited funding arrangement, which means that as long as we're contributing to the operations and new clinics, we're able to open as many as we want anywhere in the world," says Anderson.

"So we've expanded from two clinics out to nine pretty quickly and in doing so we've tested various approaches to get the expansion model right before we go into the US market.

Everything we've done in the past 10 years has been with the vision to move into the US, based on the fact that the market is so much bigger and that it's actually quite underserved."

It's a long way from Beverly Hills, but casting his mind back to that beach in Thailand more than 10 years ago when the seed for the business first emerged, Anderson says the journey that he and his wife have been on feels surreal at times.

"I had a pretty humble upbringing - you know, my mum was a single mum of five kids. And I lived a very humble life until I was 25 and took that big risk in opening the business.

"So, my wife and I still have pinch-me moments. Even things that may sound small, like a new staff member turning out to be a superstar - to us, that's huge.

"It's small wins like that we're very appreciative of and that we make sure we celebrate. But we also keep focus on the bigger picture as well because we believe in the journey."

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