Latest / EGGS! The Podcast / Eggs 464: How to Build a Truly Sustainable Business from Scratch with Kate Assaraf

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Eggs 464: How to Build a Truly Sustainable Business from Scratch with Kate Assaraf · EGGS! The Podcast

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2:04
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Exit Podcast.
2:06
Today's special guest is Kate Aserath, the the founder and CEO
2:09
at DIP. How are you, Kate?
2:10
Thanks so much for joining us. I'm great, thanks for having me.
2:14
Absolutely. I'm thrilled to death to have
2:15
you and I'm really excited about what you bring to the table
2:18
here. You got a really exciting
2:19
business, which by the way, I love your branding.
2:21
Everything is awesome. I come from marketing.
2:23
I love that. Let's talk a little bit about
2:25
your business and what you do and and how we got here today.
2:28
Sure. Yeah.
2:29
So my name is Kate Assaf. I own Dip sustainable hair care
2:34
and what it is is plastic free hair care and personal care for
2:37
people that have kind of are kind of fed up and written off
2:41
sustainability. And I think that there's a lot
2:43
of people out there that have, you know, invested in the
2:47
plastic free deodorants or the hair care or just all of the
2:50
swaps and have felt very disenchanted with the movement
2:54
because they found that the products weren't better
2:56
substitutes than what they were already using.
2:59
And so I found a lot of people were leaving sustainability and
3:02
just returning back to their plastic clad items.
3:06
And my goal with dip was to make something so good that the
3:09
plastic free part of it didn't even matter.
3:12
Yeah, I love that. Well, it's one of the things I'm
3:14
constantly telling our kids. But it's like, you know, be
3:17
undeniable and then people can't say anything about it, right.
3:19
So to your point, you know, the plastic freeness was great, but
3:22
the fact that the product itself is actually significantly
3:25
better, you know, is undeniable in this case is actually the
3:28
difference maker. The plastic thing is great, but
3:30
you know, the other part is the actual differentiator.
3:32
So it's amazing. In fact, we never, it's not
3:35
never, but we rarely talk about being plastic free in our
3:39
marketing because it's really not the big part of the story.
3:42
Big part of the story is that this is really good, it's made
3:44
with great ingredients and it'll last you a long time and save
3:47
you money. Yeah, I love that.
3:50
I think that's great. So let's talk a little bit
3:52
about, I guess sort of your entrepreneurial beginning then.
3:54
So, you know, for a lot of people, maybe they have the
3:58
family that inspired them to get into a business, or maybe, you
4:00
know, grandma and grandpa ran a hair care company and then you
4:02
moved into this, you know. Can you talk about your
4:04
experience and what that was like?
4:06
Sure. So, you know, I grew up in a, in
4:09
a family that was peppered with, I wouldn't say littered with,
4:12
but peppered with entrepreneurs. And, and so my dad was an
4:16
entrepreneur, my stepmother, my brother, my, my, my two brothers
4:21
and my sister. Now that I'm like thinking about
4:22
it, my step sister, I guess there are a lot of entrepreneurs
4:24
in my family. So I, I'm the youngest in my, in
4:28
my family tree. So I had a lot of wisdom ahead
4:33
of me and I saw a lot of the good, but also a ton of the bad
4:38
with entrepreneurship. So it's something I didn't
4:40
really want to step into lightly.
4:42
In fact, I'm not sure I ever really wanted to be an
4:44
entrepreneur at all. But you know, when you see I'd
4:48
been in the beauty industry for 20 years, when you see like a
4:52
problem you can solve and it becomes an unscratchable itch,
4:56
as I've heard it described, that's exactly what it was for
4:58
me. It was like, I know I can make
4:59
this hair care great like that. I, I know that because I was, I
5:03
was, I've been on a mission to reduce my plastic for now.
5:06
It's been almost 12 years, but like the idea that I couldn't
5:10
find something that was up to my standards really, really upset
5:14
me because I was creating more waste than I was doing the
5:17
opposite of what I intended, which was like reducing waste.
5:19
But instead I just had like all these shampoo and conditioner
5:22
bars in my shower and I, I was like, I know I can solve this.
5:25
I'm, you know, and it's like, I know I can do it better than
5:29
what's out there. So here we go.
5:31
It's time to roll up my sleeves and join.
5:33
Join all the other audacious people that start their own
5:36
business. Yeah, No, I love that.
5:39
Well, it's, I think that's like kind of a core spot where like
5:43
entrepreneurs are born right as they discover something that
5:46
bugs, bugs them or a problem that they're trying to solve.
5:49
And so, so I think that that's like a very pure way of getting
5:52
into this business. I think it's also cool or
5:55
interesting. And you sort of alluded to this
5:57
at the beginning or mentioned at the beginning, which is you had
5:59
initially sort of this notion about, you know, trying to get
6:02
rid of plastics or trying to be better in that regard, but how
6:05
that's almost become irrelevant at this point.
6:07
You know, it's like a, it's a, it's a feature, but it's not the
6:10
whole thing. And, and so I love that from
6:13
just sort of a foundational perspective, which is trying to
6:15
build a product. You know, I, I think sometimes
6:18
people get caught up and this is where people will like try and
6:20
cut corners to get profitable. Like, so they'll use a cheaper
6:23
material or they'll use whatever.
6:24
And you know, it's kind of this, I don't know, it's like addition
6:28
by subtraction or something, right?
6:29
They try and figure out a way of making a product by doing less
6:33
of something or whatever so that they can increase their margins.
6:36
And it sounds like for you in particular, the process might
6:40
have actually been opposite, which is, you know, or maybe,
6:42
and, and I'll let you fill it in, but maybe it wasn't that big
6:45
a problem to actually use better ingredients.
6:47
Like, so it's like, why are we being cheap and why are we using
6:50
these terrible chemicals and things like this that, you know,
6:53
that you're seeing in hair care products and, and really all
6:55
products, you know, so maybe I, my naive brain is going, oh,
7:00
well, it's a matter of cost, right?
7:01
It's like, OK, we can get this thing cheaper if we buy this
7:03
crappy chemical and it's only a few molecules, molecules worse.
7:07
You know, it's fine. And you know, but in your case,
7:09
you actually went the other direction where you started
7:11
building better quality. And it seems like maybe at least
7:15
in the beginning, maybe profitability or you like making
7:18
a cheaper cost, you know, cost effective product was less of a
7:21
factor than building a good quality product.
7:23
Yeah. Well, so I've been in marketing
7:26
for a long time. And what happens often in the
7:28
trenches of marketing meetings and, you know, your listeners
7:30
probably already know this. Someone brings a product to a
7:33
place to a manufacturer and is like, make this at, you know,
7:36
whatever the fun price points are, can you make this so I can
7:40
sell it at 999-1999, you know, 29 like you, you build the
7:45
product to the price point. I did not.
7:49
Obviously there's some flexibility and beauty, right?
7:51
So I worked with a chemist who had been making salon hair care
7:55
for 40 years. And so he was kind of his kind
7:59
of like transcended like trends and all of these things in hair
8:04
care. He knew it was like tried and
8:05
true. He also knew it was new in the
8:07
market. And I said with, with him, I was
8:10
like, let's make the best bar ever, regardless of what the
8:15
price is going to be. That's how I started.
8:17
I didn't start with like build backwards and subtract all, all
8:21
of the bells and whistles until we can meet this marketing price
8:24
point. And I knew because I'm, because
8:27
because it's a solid format, I knew I could grow the bars to
8:31
make the value. Do you know what I mean?
8:33
So well, if you so the conditioner bar, for example,
8:37
like most people in hair care and, and in luxury hair care
8:40
want to sell like a tube of expensive conditioner every
8:43
three to five weeks. They want someone on that like
8:45
fast to consume system. And so for me, I was like, well,
8:51
you know, I'm sustainable. I want to buy less.
8:53
What if I made the best conditioner bar out there and
8:56
just grew it so you only have to buy it once a year?
8:59
So that was, that was kind of how I managed putting really
9:03
great ingredients into it. I made the value for the
9:06
consumer, not for me. And I was banking on the
9:10
consumer being so excited about it that they would tell others.
9:14
And so then that was that was how I did it.
9:16
And I, and it's for my love of someone trying to reduce
9:20
plastic, that I did it that way. Yeah, no, it's so interesting
9:24
because it seems so counterintuitive or different
9:26
than the way that like, you know, the big companies do.
9:28
And, you know, obviously I don't buy a lot of hair care products,
9:31
so I can't totally speak to this, but but I can tell you
9:34
that, you know, at least in my marketing or like, you know, my
9:36
wife, you know, ever since having kids, you know, her hairs
9:40
had had been thinning and things like that.
9:41
So she's tried everything under the moon to try and make
9:43
something work. But it seems like most of these
9:46
big companies anyway, it's kind of gimmicky, like they come up
9:50
with a new thing or there's some new chemical or some new mineral
9:53
out of Central Africa or something that is going to be
9:56
the thing, right? This is the the new thing.
9:58
So the rest of it's still the crap that it always was, but now
10:00
we're sprinkling a little of this whatever magic in it and.
10:04
But it's marketing ingredients. So most of the base is going to
10:07
be the same across many different things.
10:10
And the market ingredients they come in, oh, a new extract or a
10:13
new like peptide or a new ingredient that just, you know,
10:17
especially in shampoo, conditioner, most things are,
10:19
they rinse off. So like, it's not like a skin
10:22
care where you're letting something sit on your skin for a
10:24
long time and then you get the benefits.
10:27
Yeah, no, I think it's such an interesting thing because yeah,
10:29
I mean, they just, I mean, I can think of some different brands
10:32
that my wife's been experimenting with.
10:33
Like there was one that was like a hemp thing or something that
10:36
was like, so hemp was the big trend for a hot minute, you
10:38
know, And I don't know, I mean, maybe it is good.
10:40
I mean, I have no idea if it's good or bad in reality, but you
10:44
know, but nonetheless, it was the big brand.
10:45
It was the thing to try. It was whatever they were
10:47
selling at one of these fancy salon stores, you know, and, and
10:50
so she went for it. And so.
10:52
But what's interesting about your approach is, you know, I
10:54
mean, not only was price not a factor, but you did actually, I
10:57
guess through the, you know, the scaling like you were talking
11:00
about, you're able to kind of make it cost effective.
11:02
And then, you know, I think the other thing that people do or
11:05
that your approach is really unique for, But I think with
11:07
women in particular, they're willing to spend money on this
11:09
stuff, especially if it is good, you know, and, and I think they
11:14
would love to only have to buy it once a year and things like
11:17
that. So your perspective, you know, I
11:19
mean, again, it's kind of, OK, so you were sort of fighting the
11:22
war against plastic. But what that says more broadly
11:25
about you as a person is that you sort of care about society
11:28
or people or things or the planet or whatever, right?
11:30
But there's this care outside of yourself in this little
11:32
corporate version. And so I think if you
11:35
extrapolate that out to something more broad in terms of
11:38
the product you're building, all of a sudden it starts to sound
11:41
like, OK, well, I actually did build this for you and this is
11:43
good for you. And yeah, you only have to buy
11:45
it once a year. And maybe it costs a little more
11:47
than what you were buying yesterday, but you're only
11:48
buying it once a year. And, you know, but like all this
11:51
was for you. And I think that that's a very
11:53
different perspective than you see in a lot of marketing and,
11:56
and a lot of, you know, even in healthcare and marketing or
12:00
sorry, beauty, beauty, it's, it's not a common thing, I don't
12:04
think. Well, thank you and and care for
12:07
myself and care for others and my customers, not mutually
12:10
exclusive. And I think if you build that
12:12
kind of framework into your company, that is, is the sweet
12:16
spot. Like I'm, I, I feel so fortunate
12:18
that I really do love what I do when I like spring out of bed to
12:22
run my company. But I also, you know, I'm, I'm
12:25
so hyper aware of what it's like to be a consumer trying to do
12:30
better for the earth, you know, because so many people are
12:33
trying to do better and you know, they buy into like these
12:35
sustainable gimmicks and it like ends up really annoying them and
12:39
turning them off. So I, I wanted someone to be
12:42
like to, to buy dip and feel like surprise and delight.
12:46
They're like, Oh my God, I can't believe this works.
12:48
I can't believe my hair feels the same way it would feel
12:51
coming out of a salon. Like those are very emotional
12:53
things. Hairs likes is so emotional.
12:56
You get a bad haircut, like it could ruin you for, for a solid
12:59
amount of time. As as I see, it's like my
13:01
favorite tik toks to watch is when someone like tries to do
13:04
the phone. Thanks.
13:07
Always cut more than you need, you know, but but yeah, I just,
13:11
I just I feel for someone who's trying to do right by the earth.
13:17
And I feel that there were, there was a time when there was
13:20
a lot of like private equity vultures kind of swooping in on
13:24
this time of, on this type of consumer, like the person who's
13:27
like wants to buy plastic free items and selling them things
13:30
that just were only plastic free, but not good.
13:34
Yeah, no, it's funny cuz I remember, and it's not totally
13:37
related, but I remember the hype around the Toyota Prius was that
13:42
you'll save the earth, you'll save gas money, you'll do all
13:44
this stuff, all these things. And then later it came out that
13:46
there was some tests that they ran on it or something, some
13:49
report and it said basically that the amount of Petro
13:52
chemicals used to make a Prius is like 10X what you'll ever use
13:56
to offset. You know, so it's like to your
13:58
point about marketers trying to sell this to people who are
14:00
trying to do good, it's, you know, people are making
14:02
decisions to try to do the right thing, But there's a little bit
14:05
of this bait and switch thing where it's like, well, yeah, I
14:07
mean, it's better than your, you know, current car, but you know,
14:10
you're actually still doing all this damage.
14:12
So it's like, right, you know, And so so having a product like
14:15
that that's I guess a little bit more true to the cause is good.
14:17
But I think also and just to transition a little bit, that
14:21
sort of mindset or your approach to this too, I think is really
14:24
indicative of how you've grown this business as well.
14:27
So not only in trying to scale, one of the big things that
14:29
you've been a little bit anti is trying to avoid the, the big box
14:33
stores and these big online platforms and things, the
14:35
Amazons of the world. And in, you know, in part, not
14:39
only take your, your sort of brand or your mission, you know,
14:42
to your consumers in a better way, but also sort of elevate
14:45
the small business world and things like that, you know,
14:47
where these, you know, smaller shops can start to carry your
14:50
products. And what I think that does is I
14:52
think exactly your goal, which is it builds brand affinity.
14:55
It makes people actually love you versus, you know, just any
14:59
product. I mean, you know, hey, I might
15:00
run out and buy $0.99 suave, but it's not because I love them.
15:03
It's because it's cheap and it smells like apples.
15:06
Yeah, but you know, but it's probably terrible.
15:09
So. But I don't have any affinity
15:10
for those guys. That's my point.
15:12
And so, but in your case, you know, people actually like, I
15:15
guess the the money and the cost or whatever start to become
15:18
second or third when you really love a brand and you love what
15:21
it stands for. And so can you talk about I
15:23
guess sort of the conscious decision to try and avoid these
15:26
sort of, I guess, more commercial routes that maybe
15:29
more obvious decisions that the aforementor, aforementioned PE
15:34
vultures would have gone immediately, which is to Amazon
15:37
and to the big box stores. Making that actually part of
15:40
your process to not do that is is, you know, for I think for
15:44
some people it would be considered risky, but I think it
15:46
actually plays into exactly who your brand is.
15:49
Yeah, this is my favorite topic, by the way.
15:50
It's like I so, you know, I'm almost five years, I'm 4 1/2
15:55
years into owning dip. In the very beginning when I set
15:59
out to support indie retailers, I, because I became I came from
16:05
big box background and beauty background and, you know,
16:08
Sephora, Ulta, Target. This was like the those were the
16:12
goals back then Amazon, right? Like I by all my former
16:17
colleagues, I was pretty much scoffed at and laughed at from
16:20
my business approach. Like you're like, Are you sure
16:22
you're never going to stay off Amazon?
16:23
You're, you're like the second Alto is willing to write a PO,
16:27
you're going to run into it. And, and, and I don't think they
16:30
understand because the, the sustainable, like consumer I am
16:34
that I have been refilling since I discovered refilling.
16:38
And if anyone doesn't know what refilling is, there's refill
16:40
stores all around the country. You go in with like your empty
16:44
laundry jug and you refill laundry or you refill your hand
16:48
soap or you like for me, like the, the, the death of me is
16:51
going to be these mangoes, these dried mango cheeks.
16:53
Like I'm always revealing a big tub of those and I eat them at
16:58
my desk, but I refill as much as I can.
17:00
So I'm not constantly buying containers and constantly buying
17:04
plastic and packaging. So because I've been part of
17:08
that community since I, you know, now it's been 7 years,
17:11
I've been part of this refilling community.
17:13
I knew, I knew that that's where sustainability actually happens.
17:17
That's where the real conversations about
17:19
sustainability happen. That's where people go to like
17:22
these in store events and they, they, you know, that's where you
17:26
go for discovery. And I call it like Refill is the
17:28
new record store. So if you remember back in the
17:31
day when you wanted to find something cool in music, you
17:34
would go to the record store. You talk to the the kind of like
17:37
that counterculture person behind the counter and be like,
17:40
I like this band. Like what else do you have for
17:42
me? Like it's like that
17:43
sustainability now and it's this grassroots movement.
17:47
It's like punk rock economics to like go and refill.
17:52
I think it's so cool. And so it, it, it sounds like
17:56
I'm like anti corporation and all these things.
17:59
I'm not anti corporation, but I know this moment I put dip on
18:03
Amazon, People will flock to Amazon to buy it and not to the
18:06
refill stores where I know sustainability matters the most.
18:11
And I don't know how to explain this with any more like
18:15
enthusiasm, Like I love, like I know them now.
18:20
I know these people personally, these refills, there's probably
18:22
like 4 or 500 at any given time in the country all the time.
18:26
I know these people, I interact with them.
18:28
I know all about their stores. I've visited like refill stores
18:32
in almost every state and met their customers in person.
18:35
Like I love this movement and I will do whatever I can to get
18:41
people in those doors, yes, to buy dip, but to buy dip and have
18:45
that like target effect where like you go in for one thing and
18:48
they were like, oh, OK, I need this.
18:49
And before you know it, you've made a bunch of swaps that you
18:52
didn't know you needed. And for me, like there's so much
18:58
digital pollution out there and so much, there's so many like
19:01
bad actors trying to sell you sustainable goods.
19:04
Whereas like if you go into a refill store, that person behind
19:09
the counter, the owner has like vetted every version of every
19:12
product. Like they've tried 50 shampoo
19:14
bar brands before they bring in dip.
19:16
You know, they've tried every version of like replacing Saran
19:20
wrap before they give you, you know, Stasher bags and like, you
19:23
know, whatever brand that they choose.
19:26
So that's that was my that was my whole goal.
19:30
I've now gone. I've now been on a soapbox for
19:32
too long so. Well, that's OK.
19:34
I think it's actually literally your job to be on a soapbox.
19:37
That's kind of the kind of the gig.
19:39
No, But one thing that I think is really interesting about it,
19:42
and this is like a dichotomy that I've been kind of exploring
19:44
a lot. I mean, I have been writing on
19:46
this topic for a long time, but it's this idea of this movement
19:49
back to sort of these grassroots things, right?
19:52
And I think it's actually getting faster and faster.
19:54
As much as everybody thinks the world's going to implode on AII
19:57
think actually what's going to happen is people are going to
19:59
resist AI and move back towards more like, I don't know.
20:03
Tangible things is what how I describe it.
20:05
And so and you start to see some of this happening when like
20:08
craft beer and you know, beard oil and some of these things
20:12
that are a little more relevant to my male audience.
20:14
But but you know, nonetheless, though, the point of those
20:17
things is, I mean, all the way down to your phone.
20:19
I mean, like now we're totally button free.
20:21
And if you're pressing a button, it's like not even a button.
20:24
That's a picture of a button. You know, like you, you've even
20:26
lost the tactile sensation of pressing a button on your phone.
20:29
And, you know, and I think that there's something in humans that
20:33
and, and I, I kind of distill it down to relationships, but I
20:37
think it's relationships with yourself, with people, with
20:40
things, right? And I think that we like as
20:42
humans to have some kind of physical relationship with
20:45
something. And so in this case, whether
20:48
it's a, you know, whether it's a conditioner bar or it's, you
20:52
know, a some some product that was made by, you know, somebody
20:56
down the block or whatever versus buying the commercial
20:59
version, I think sometimes people just like that even if it
21:03
is. And I really like how you
21:04
phrased it as being kind of a little punk rock economics here.
21:07
But it is kind of that, right? There's also this contrarian
21:10
thing that people wanna do totally where it's like, well,
21:13
yeah, well, you bought that one. I got this one and it's handmade
21:16
by Joe over here or whatever. This one's kind of cool because
21:19
it's unique, it's different. It's not the one that's
21:21
mainstream, you know, and it's like I always complain about
21:24
Costco jeans. For example, they started
21:27
selling Lucky brand jeans. And when I was a kid, I loved
21:29
Lucky's. Like I was broke and I could
21:31
never get them. And one day when I could afford
21:33
Lucky jeans, finally I started buying them.
21:35
And then Costco started selling Lucky jeans and I've never put
21:38
on another pair of Lucky jeans. And you know, part of it was I
21:42
bought a pair from Costco because they were cheap and I
21:44
tried them and they weren't the same Jean.
21:45
It was something else that was made for Costco, but it was just
21:49
lucky branded. But for me that did so much
21:51
damage to the reputation or the exclusivity or the cool factor
21:55
of having these lucky jeans that it totally changed my
21:58
perspective on those pants, Right.
22:00
And even if you can go into a high end retailer or whatever
22:02
and buy fancy lucky jeans still like I, I don't know if you can,
22:05
but maybe you can. It's lost status.
22:08
I wouldn't, I wouldn't now like among the new brands, you know?
22:11
What I mean, it's also lost that emotional piece, like when I
22:14
think buying something and parting with your own earned
22:17
money and putting your money in the hands of a brand is
22:20
emotional, right? Even if it's just fast, it's a
22:23
fast transaction. It's an emotional thing parting
22:26
with your money because it once it becomes stuff, it's no longer
22:29
money, right? And so, you know, you buy
22:32
something and you like think you're like, oh, these jeans,
22:35
these lucky jeans have some sort of prestige to them.
22:38
And then you go see them kind of like everywhere on everyone.
22:42
And then it's like, Oh, I actually don't think that this
22:44
choice was the same choice I thought I was making.
22:48
Yeah, yeah. And don't get me wrong, I mean,
22:50
like I spend plenty of money at Costco and there's plenty of
22:52
things that I think Costco is good for, but but there's like a
22:55
slickness to that stuff when it kind of loses, it's like, and
22:59
even if it's totally just my naivete, right?
23:01
My added, I mean, Lucky Jeans is probably selling gazillions of
23:04
pairs of jeans. I mean, they're not that
23:05
exclusive really, right? But for some reason, when they
23:08
hit a place like a Costco, there's a slickness that
23:10
happens, right? And so, and I think that that is
23:12
maybe what's being avoided here in your case by your philosophy
23:15
of avoiding these big box stores and stuff too.
23:18
Not only are you, you know, really appealing to your
23:20
sustainability edge, but I think if you moved your product into
23:24
Amazon, for example, like all of a sudden now you're competing on
23:26
price or you're competing on whatever other factor, you know,
23:29
and it might be an easier delivery mechanism for some
23:31
people. But in order for you to stand
23:33
out on Amazon, like you're gonna have to start making decisions
23:35
that are maybe different, like you're not gonna be able to, you
23:37
know, your, your main audience may still buy it from Amazon,
23:40
But I mean, but, but there's gonna be like, if you're gonna
23:43
try and win net new business, and now you're gonna have to
23:45
maybe make some concessions to try.
23:46
And, you know, maybe you have to optimize.
23:48
So you show up in search or you have to, you know, lower a price
23:51
or let them use their smart pricing or, you know, whatever.
23:53
And so all of a sudden it's, it just changes the whole dynamic
23:56
and maybe back to this notion of slickness.
23:58
Well, now it's easily gettable. I don't have to work for this.
24:01
There's no relationship. I just, you know, I can click
24:03
now and I'll have it tomorrow. And, you know, it loses a little
24:06
bit of that if I have to go to the refill store, like I have
24:08
skin in the game, right? I have to go do this.
24:10
If I want my product, I have to go get it.
24:12
And I think that that's actually kind of a good thing in some
24:15
case. I think so too.
24:16
I think the friction's important because I think impulse shopping
24:20
is not really healthy for people and I want people to have a
24:23
little bit of friction before they buy it, make sure they
24:25
really want it. But outside of like the cool
24:28
factor and all of all of that, of just not being on Amazon
24:33
mice, independent stores, some of them that carried dip, some
24:36
of them. But I, I have one in particular
24:38
that sold, you know, about $200,000 worth of dip since she
24:42
started carrying it. She could never do that if it
24:44
was on Amazon. I have another, I have plenty of
24:47
stores that sell between 50 and $75,000 in one store per year of
24:53
dip. And that is something I'm very,
24:56
very, I'm very protective of because these are these are
25:02
people who are have put like everything on the line to open a
25:05
sustainable store. It seems almost like backwards
25:08
in today's commerce world. And I think it's so cool that
25:10
they do it. And I think that if more brands
25:14
like took their stuff, you know, I know everyone's making a
25:17
killing on Amazon pretty much, but I think if more brands
25:20
really protected their retailers, I think they would
25:23
still do well. Like I I do well enough to
25:26
support myself, my family, seven team members and I have my own
25:29
factory. Like without being on Amazon, I
25:33
don't think it's like a necessary part of the of the
25:35
chain. And I like, and it's not that
25:38
I'm anti Amazon. I would be I'm pro indie stores
25:43
because I think that every community needs to have like
25:47
they're like the last truth tellers in commerce because you
25:49
they have to look you in the eye to sell you something and then
25:51
they have to you know, if you don't like it, then usually you
25:55
can return something. So like, there's, there's so
25:58
many ways to deceive people online right now that I love the
26:01
idea of someone being able to go into a store being like, hey, I
26:05
heard dip is great. Is it is, is it was it what it
26:07
says it is? And that person behind the
26:09
counter can be like, yeah, I stock it because XYZ, you know?
26:12
And I think, I think people are yearning for that kind of
26:17
authenticity more than any kind of convenience.
26:21
Yeah, I think most people are tired of whatever's going.
26:23
On no, I think that that's a huge thing.
26:25
And and I mean, you know, of course every master marketer or
26:28
whatever is going to really be advocating for big box or things
26:30
like this just for distribution sake.
26:32
Just how do we move more product, right.
26:34
And I, you know, there's arguments for that and I think
26:36
it's fine for plenty of products, but I think like in
26:38
your case, I, I really like the metaphor you used earlier of of
26:41
sort of the local record store right there.
26:43
My local record store when I was a kid was Budget Tapes and
26:46
Records. And I used to love, love, love
26:48
that place and any opportunity to go.
26:51
I mean, I've explained this stuff to my kids a million times
26:53
because musics all digital now. They don't have like a
26:55
relationship with their CD case and reading the leaf notes and
26:58
yeah, trying to understand all the things that like, you know,
27:00
I mean, you actually had back to this notion of relationships.
27:03
You had a relationship with that product.
27:05
But like, you know, and so and if you were a kid or a younger
27:08
person, you know, you walk in there.
27:09
I have $20 to spend. I get one CD and there's a wall
27:12
full of new releases. Like, how do I decide?
27:14
So you talk to your guy at the, you know, behind the counter and
27:16
you learn, you know, what kind of music is it, you know,
27:18
because you didn't have the Internet for all that stuff.
27:20
So it's so much, you know, so the bond that I built over that,
27:23
like I remember when they finally closed or sort of
27:25
evolved into like dubbing VHS tapes for people or something.
27:28
And it's like, what are you doing?
27:29
You know, it's just like such a heartbreaker.
27:32
And so. But you know, I think that
27:35
having those kinds of relationships is so important
27:37
with with your products and things like that.
27:39
And like you mentioned, if, if you started competing by putting
27:43
your product on Amazon and started actually eating the
27:45
business of your small retailers, like I mean, you just
27:47
kind of turn into the dog eating its own tail, right?
27:50
Like it actually probably does you more harm to do that
27:53
depending on I guess what what are your priorities?
27:57
It's so unspecial. The, the shopping experience on
28:00
Amazon, you know, it's, it's there's I love, you know, I'm,
28:05
I'm not anti consumerist. I'm anti like hyper consumption,
28:09
right? So like that experience of
28:12
shopping, I always, I grew up with it, you know, being social,
28:16
being something that I did with my sister or my mom or my best
28:19
friend. I love the idea of in person
28:21
shopping making a comeback and OK, of course it's lofty, right?
28:25
Like it's lofty for me to be like everyone, you know, shop in
28:27
person. Like of course you can still buy
28:29
on my website and stuff, but I don't think people realize the
28:32
more they kind of take all of their hard earned money and just
28:35
give it to a few, like a few retailers.
28:39
Like say you buy everything on Amazon for convenience, like all
28:42
of your salary goes to Amazon. It doesn't come back to you.
28:45
There's like no method for it to come back to you.
28:47
But if you're shopping in your neighborhood at least like
28:50
they're paying that store or that business or restaurant,
28:53
whatever. It's like paying the taxes that
28:55
make your neighborhood cool. Like make it just makes it it's
29:00
you want to keep your own money that you earn flowing in your
29:03
own micro economy. It just makes more sense to me.
29:07
But I don't think people think that way.
29:08
Like I study at economics and I think that way, but I don't
29:11
expect everyone to consider that when they're shopping.
29:14
Yeah. But I do think we are moving or
29:16
starting to move in in a direction that's a little bit
29:19
more of that. I think part of it is inflation
29:21
driven and the fact that the dollar has become worth less
29:23
than it used to be. People, families especially, or
29:26
having to make, you know, more decisions based on what they can
29:29
afford and what they can't afford.
29:30
Yeah. And they're gonna start doing
29:32
some of these things and they'll actually find out.
29:33
I mean, you know, of course there are deals on Amazon.
29:35
And don't get me wrong, I mean, I spend plenty of money there
29:37
too. So I've, I've crapped on all the
29:39
big guys, but I definitely spend plenty of money there, you know,
29:42
so, and there are plenty of things that I'm good with buying
29:44
on Amazon that just, you know, it's not important to me or I
29:47
need it quick or whatever, or it's convenient or for whatever
29:50
reason. But I definitely think that as
29:52
people are having to be a little bit more discerning with their
29:54
money. And, you know, maybe there's,
29:57
you know, a, a portion of them too that are interested in
30:00
sustainability or other things like that, You know, maybe,
30:02
maybe there's those social causes that they're interested
30:04
in. But I think so much of it will
30:05
just come down to economics. And I think that is going to
30:09
lead to sort of a resurgence of this kind of relationship with
30:12
retailers and stuff like that. And I think people are going to
30:15
start trying to dodge some of that slickness that we were
30:18
talking about where you're going to the big heavy retailers that
30:20
you're just, you know, one more cog in the machine, right?
30:23
I don't know, it feels good to interact with people.
30:25
And the more that we spend time in our phones and all that
30:28
thing, every now and then when we have to run something out and
30:30
we get to meet somebody or have a good, you know, visit with
30:33
the, you know, retailer in some shop or whatever, like, I mean,
30:36
the more those things are going to be good.
30:37
I mean, like my wife as an example, has been actually going
30:40
the other direction, which is, you know, and it's actually good
30:44
for us. It's better for us.
30:44
But we've been eating out a lot lately because our kids are in
30:47
sports and we're all over the place.
30:49
And but our attitude is just that everything's become so
30:53
expensive. The people are kind of terrible.
30:55
Like nobody really wants, you know, customer service is in a
30:58
bad spot. The food's not that great.
31:00
Like, you know, everything is kind of slipping.
31:03
So the experience of even doing that stuff is kind of lost its
31:05
luster. And so now we're doing, I guess
31:07
the home based version of going to your local retailer, which is
31:11
we're just going to cook at home instead, you know, And so, but
31:14
as we also start doing different things, you know, my wife goes
31:16
to a lady for nails. She doesn't go to the fancy
31:18
chain salon. She goes out to somebody's house
31:20
and gets their nails done in someone's basement, you know,
31:23
And so it's like some of that kind of stuff where I think that
31:26
the relationship driven factors are going to become more and
31:28
more important. And I think that's where a
31:30
product of yours will really start to shine.
31:32
And so maybe let's talk about just, I guess, some of the early
31:36
growth of your company. Obviously, you talked about a
31:38
couple of success stories that your retailers are having and
31:40
some things like that. But we don't go from nothing to
31:43
a lot. I mean, there's a journey here.
31:45
So can we talk a little bit about just sort of your early
31:47
days? I know one of the things beyond
31:50
just sort of your personal drive to try and be sustainable and
31:54
some of this other stuff you didn't do, some of the things
31:56
that a lot of businesses are going right into.
31:58
You know, we already talked about the big box stores and
31:59
things, but you're also not reliant on like influencers and
32:02
things like that. It seems like the relationships
32:04
that you're building are, and you use this word earlier too,
32:07
which was they're a little bit more authentic.
32:09
You're are building real relationships with real
32:12
customers and retailers and that's transitioning or, you
32:15
know, becoming sales for your company.
32:17
You know, so the economics are working, but can you talk about,
32:19
I guess, I mean, part of it is making conscious decision to do
32:22
that, which is, hey, you know, we're going to do this
32:24
grassroots versus destroying a bunch of money, you know,
32:27
marketing plan or something and you do a big media buy or
32:30
something and blitz the Super Bowl or something.
32:32
And so, you know, so there's a different approach here that
32:35
you're taking all together. And I think it could be really
32:37
inspirational for people who are like, they don't know where to
32:40
go, or maybe they're starting with no money and they don't
32:42
know how to get moving without buying ads, for example.
32:46
Yeah. So I'm, I'm contrarian myself.
32:49
I have issues with authority myself.
32:51
I think my mom was also a rebel. So I don't know whether I don't
32:57
know what it is, whether it's birth order or whatever it is
32:59
that makes me like not want to follow the rules.
33:03
But I'd been in, so I'd been in beauty for 20 years.
33:06
I'd seen kind of, you know, how the sausage is made with
33:10
influencers, with, you know, deceptive marketing, with the
33:14
the playbook that you kind of see all over the place.
33:17
And, you know, a little bit, I think a little bit of arrogance
33:21
peppered in with the audacity and the then that other piece of
33:25
me that likes to solve puzzles. I wanted to know if I could make
33:28
a genuine word of mouth brand. That is what I set out to do on
33:32
my own and I was like, I can use all of the things that I hate
33:36
about beauty marketing, you know, like only using young
33:40
model and now it's changed over time, right, but like only using
33:42
one kind of look and deciding like, you know, that Gray hair
33:48
is just as important as, you know, bubbly blonde young hair.
33:53
You know, like I, I took everything that I found, I don't
33:59
know, kind of irritating about beauty marketing and I just
34:02
turned it on its on its head and I was like, OK, I'm not going to
34:07
use influencers. How do I turn that into my
34:09
marketing story? It was like, I just, you know,
34:12
broadcast, Hey, there's no fake hype here.
34:15
If there's an affiliate or an ambassador of dip, they have to
34:19
purchase dip first to be even considered to be an ambassador.
34:23
So it's not like I just give out free products to everyone and
34:26
everyone's like, oh, dip is great.
34:27
And then they move on to the next shampoo and they're like,
34:29
this is also great. And then the next one, you know,
34:32
so I was very protective of who talk about dip and, you know,
34:36
just the reality. Like I wanted, I wanted
34:39
everything to be so real because I knew people were going to
34:42
crave reality at some point. Like it's only a matter of time
34:45
before someone's like, OK, I've bought like 10 things that suck.
34:49
Like I want something that someone's actually purchased,
34:51
you know? And so there was that piece of
34:54
it. And then the other piece of it
34:55
was 20. We launched at the end of 2021.
34:58
It was, you know, we're still in COVID at that time, but it's
35:02
like the starting to like the rules were starting to like lift
35:06
and I saw everyone was, was approaching everyone else
35:10
digitally. And I thought, what if I just,
35:13
you know, went analog? So I called stores, I walked
35:16
into stores. I, I basically, you know, took a
35:20
page from Sarah Blakely's playbook from the, the CEO of
35:24
Spanx and she like just went around to the place and showed
35:27
people like, this is what I made and This is why it's great.
35:30
So I just did that at refill stores all over the country and
35:35
that's how I started. And within 18 months, we were 7
35:38
figure business. Yeah.
35:39
Well, and it's so funny too, because it's so commonplace.
35:41
Like that was the way business was done prior to 2020.
35:44
And so it is very interesting how big of shift it was.
35:49
And I mean, there's a lot of ways that this has been maybe
35:51
positive or negative. I know it's really affected our
35:55
school age kids and stuff like that.
35:56
Where this big move to digital. I spent a lot of time during
35:59
that period of time cuz I've always kind of worked remote in
36:02
one capacity or another. I spent a lot of time then
36:05
teaching companies how to work remote and how to manage
36:08
people's feelings and make sure that, you know, people weren't
36:10
feeling isolated and alone and all these kinds of things.
36:12
You know, but it's like, but now looking at it and seeing some of
36:15
the damage it's done, it's funny how it's actually novel just to
36:19
do something in person or to reach out to somebody by phone.
36:23
You know, I, I love going to these network events and meeting
36:25
people, but there's so many people that just want to
36:28
armchair network, for example, through LinkedIn or whatever,
36:30
right, That have really no real incentive.
36:33
But like, I could get more done in 5 minutes with somebody just
36:35
talking. Then, you know, spending six
36:38
months with them on LinkedIn going back and forth, you know,
36:41
it's so it's so funny and, and it's just insane that it's
36:44
actually a little counterintuitive now because
36:47
it's just the way that we were. And there's a whole generation
36:49
of young people coming up right now that, you know, their whole
36:52
mode of communication is on My, my youngest son is 14 and you
36:57
know, so he's deep into the social media and all that kind
36:59
of stuff. But, but the one thing he does
37:02
it's, I mean, considered insane by his friends is he calls his
37:05
friends all the time. And so like when he's, you know,
37:08
they, they'll get online and they'll play Fortnite or Call of
37:10
Duty or whatever, and they'll be on PlayStation and they'll be
37:12
playing with each other on the network.
37:14
But he will call them instead of using the in game chat or
37:18
whatever, he'll just put them on FaceTime and he'll just sit in
37:21
FaceTime with his friends the whole time.
37:22
I think they think it's bizarre. But for him, this is how he
37:25
likes to communicate. He's a huge like relationship
37:28
guy, even if he doesn't think about it that way.
37:30
Yeah. And but it's funny because it's
37:32
my older son is not that way. He would rather be left alone
37:35
most of the time. And so, so digital has been
37:38
great for him because he can reach out and talk to people and
37:40
and do what he wants that way. And so I think that there's such
37:43
a, I mean, it's such an interesting thing, but it's like
37:45
you hear people say stuff that we've all all heard and all
37:49
thought was stupid, which is like getting back to the basics.
37:52
But I think that the basics are actually kind of where it's at.
37:54
And so, so 10. 1000 years human commerce was face to face,
38:00
right? It's only very recently in human
38:02
history that digitally, like digital commerce has been
38:06
around, but for so long there was like a code between buyer
38:10
and seller and I feel like that code has been lifted a little
38:13
bit with the Internet, like there's less accountability from
38:16
either side, right. I think buyers are are allowed
38:20
to be more terrible and so are sellers just because of the
38:24
nature of just digital commerce and and the holes that are left
38:27
in between the, the relationship.
38:30
And so I love, I know, I mean, like it's, it's a little bit of
38:34
like a, you know, a love letter to the way I grew up in like the
38:39
late 80s, early 90s where I just love, I loved the experience of
38:44
shopping face to face. And, and I think that
38:48
accountability is really important between buyer and
38:51
seller. I think I could stop 100 people
38:52
on the street and 100% of them would have a story of how they
38:57
bought something that didn't measure up to their expectations
39:00
and they had a hard time returning it.
39:02
You know, and I think that that is what is happening with
39:07
digital commerce a lot like you can oversell and under deliver
39:10
very easily and then you throw people into like an AI customer
39:14
service hell loop and you try and fatigue out the customer.
39:18
And so for dip, another thing that we do is we have an actual
39:21
human being. Janet is our customer service
39:23
person and she's amazing and everyone is treated like a human
39:26
being instead of, you know, just served AI.
39:32
Can I? How can I help you stuff?
39:34
Yeah. No, I think, I mean it's
39:35
incredible. I think it's a very cool thing.
39:37
We may have already kind of covered some of these ideas, but
39:40
what are some scrappy things that you did that maybe wouldn't
39:43
scale and this goes back to maybe some of these hands on or
39:47
analog marketing approaches, but things that wouldn't scale but
39:49
did actually work. So I think we, we hear a lot in
39:53
startup culture, especially, you know, this notion of scaling.
39:55
And it's like, how many voices can we, you know, how many
39:57
people can we hear and being OK with only 2% of people even
40:00
hearing our message or even giving a crap.
40:02
And you know, you know, there's all this stuff about like a
40:06
bigger microphone. But what do you, what are the
40:09
things that you did early on or even maybe still do that you
40:13
know, even though it didn't scale to your contrarian point
40:16
of view, it was still effective. One of the one of the things I
40:21
did was I started hosting small groups of retailers in little
40:27
summits for dip. We call them dip trips.
40:30
And so we did one. I took our top ten stores to the
40:33
Dominican Republic. It was just the few of us
40:37
talking about, you know, none of them had met each other.
40:39
They've all met each other digitally because the refill
40:42
stores are networked, but they've never really met each
40:44
other in person. So we all got together and we
40:45
had this thing in common and, you know, we, we had a great
40:50
time. It's just a couple days in the
40:52
Dominican Republic together. And, you know, we, I took a few
40:56
stores to Morocco for two weeks. And when you think about big
41:01
marketing campaigns, these are ways, way smaller price tags for
41:05
me to do these very intimate gatherings.
41:08
And they ended up, you know, I know my relationship with these
41:12
people and they have real, I have real memories with these
41:15
people. You know, instead of this kind
41:18
of like I sell you shampoo and you sell it to customers kind of
41:22
thing. So, you know, we, we did this
41:24
Catskills. I did like hosted a big summer
41:26
camp and the Catskills and I had one of my most fun childhood
41:30
friends out there. Like we did like trivia with
41:32
like super soakers. We did like a big boat contest.
41:34
Like everyone had to build their own boat out of cardboard, like
41:37
real human fun things. And as far as marketing budgets
41:42
goes, they were small for marketing budgets, but big, big
41:45
impact for me. And like, they're big impact for
41:49
everyone because then they go back to their stores, which are
41:53
all over the country and they're like, let me tell you about dip
41:56
and what we did. And it was like they're, you
41:57
know, it's, it's a, it's really fun.
41:59
And, and even the riskiest thing I just did recently was I
42:02
brought on two of my competitors.
42:04
I, I adore the founder of High Bar, which is a major competitor
42:08
of mine and plain products. And I was like, Hey, I do these
42:12
trips. Do you want to we sell in all
42:14
the same stores? Like let's get together with
42:17
like 30 of our retailers. We went to Nashville and like,
42:20
let's talk about how our three brands, how we are actually
42:23
friends behind the scenes in sustainability and how the three
42:27
brands coexist and serve different types of customers
42:31
that might walk into your doors. And that was like a really,
42:34
really fun, profitable thing for us that, you know, again, has
42:39
like the a tremendous ripple effect in both reputation and
42:44
just you can't buy that kind of relationship with someone.
42:48
Yeah, no, I love that. And it's one of these things,
42:49
you know, you've probably heard or people talk about, you know,
42:52
the the butterfly effect, right? Like a butterfly flaps it's
42:54
wings somewhere and then that's making tsunami waves in Japan or
42:57
whatever it is. Yeah.
42:58
But but I mean, kind of what you're describing here, and you
43:02
even use the word ripple, this notion of what happens and, you
43:06
know, when you connect with people on that kind of level,
43:09
you know, to your point, yeah, they go back to work and then
43:12
they tell everybody at work. And then when those companies go
43:14
to or those individuals move to other companies, they take that
43:16
message off them. And like, you know, then these
43:19
ripples start to collide. And that's kind of where the
43:22
real magic starts to happen, I think.
43:23
And it's kind of what you were describing where you're actually
43:25
working with competitors to go out and do this because it's all
43:27
for the greater good. Like, you know, it's not about
43:29
business or being cutthroat. Instead, it's more about being
43:32
authentic and showing up and being.
43:34
Entrepreneur is lonely and so being an entrepreneur in
43:37
sustainability is even lonelier. So I don't, people don't realize
43:41
like we we're networked with each other because it is a
43:43
lonely road to be like, hey, buy less, buy better stuff.
43:47
And like hopefully you understand that the plastic part
43:51
is just like we just all want you to ditch the plastic in the
43:54
long run. We all have the same goals.
43:57
No, I love that. Well, and it's like the I, I was
44:01
meeting with somebody the other day trying to pitch somebody to
44:03
work with us the other day and they asked us kind of they said,
44:06
well, who are your competitors, right.
44:07
And I didn't have a good answer for them because basically I
44:10
said, I don't look at anybody as a competitor.
44:13
Like I feel like there's enough work out here for all of us.
44:15
So it's like, you know, I mean, so you can work with me or you
44:17
can work with somebody else, but I'm not competing with them.
44:19
Like either either choose me or don't, but I don't even see them
44:22
that way, you know? So it sounds like in your case,
44:24
you know, I mean, obviously these people are competing, are
44:26
competitive in terms of, you know, maybe shelf space or you
44:29
sell similar products, things like that.
44:31
But the fact that you were able to kind of pull it all together
44:33
for the greater good, I think just goes back to that
44:36
sustainability messaging, sort of that being at your core and
44:39
all that stuff, you know, and it's just one more layer of
44:41
authenticity that gets carried through the whole process.
44:44
And I think that that's where so many of these companies fall
44:47
apart is that they don't actually have that level of
44:49
connection to their product or their customer or their, you
44:52
know, their business in general. You know, most of these
44:54
companies, especially the big box stores and things like that,
44:56
are just selling products. And it's just who, who will give
44:59
us the best margin, who will give us the best whatever, whose
45:02
product is most popular and gonna, you know, like because if
45:04
I'm going to give up some of my shelf space at Target, then I
45:08
have to have some guarantees in place.
45:11
I gotta know that I'm actually gonna use that space wisely.
45:13
Otherwise, it's gotta go to some company that'll do better.
45:16
And so just the relationship is so different.
45:18
I don't do not envy being a buyer at Target.
45:21
I think that is very difficult. It's gotta be the worst.
45:24
Well, cuz even as an individual, well, because you've got your
45:27
own values and then you've got to balance the values of just,
45:29
you know, box stores trying to be profitable.
45:32
You've got whatever, you know, I'm sure big company like that,
45:34
you know, they've probably got some different social incentives
45:37
that they're trying to work for. Or, you know, maybe they have
45:39
causes that they love and they want to try and build that into
45:42
their, their types of products they sell and stuff like that.
45:44
So there's just so many, I don't know, so many kings to please.
45:47
It's like I couldn't imagine doing that for work.
45:50
I think that's a really tough job.
45:51
And I also think just, you know, the the sway of public opinion
45:57
in and out of target is, is something it's probably very
46:01
difficult for a buyer to navigate.
46:03
Well, especially when you're doing your buying six months, a
46:06
year or two years in advance and then it's like, oh crap, now
46:09
that's not cool anymore, you know, or.
46:11
Whatever it is, I know. So yeah, it's such AI couldn't,
46:14
couldn't imagine. One thing I wanted to talk about
46:17
with you too is sort of, you mentioned that you guys were
46:20
basically 7 figures in about 18 months.
46:23
What do you think about, or how do you think about sort of
46:25
growth speed versus staying aligned?
46:27
And obviously, I mean, just from this conversation, I can tell
46:29
that you're wildly aligned with your values.
46:31
So I'm sure that this is, you know, pretty predictable
46:34
response. I, I suppose, but you know, how
46:36
did you factor in, you know, yes, I, I am really, this is my
46:39
thing. But yes, we do need to grow too.
46:41
Well, growth was. I think it's because growth was
46:44
a byproduct. It wasn't the goal.
46:46
So I think if you, if you know what your, your actual goal is,
46:51
my goal was to support as many refill stores, independent
46:54
salons and surf shops as possible.
46:57
You know, that that was my goal. And the little bit of the
47:01
selfish goal was like, can I do this without running any ads?
47:04
And can I do this without paying Zuckerberg a dollar or anything?
47:07
Like I had these other like little internal goals that were
47:10
selfish, but like, you know, I, I, I wanted to know if I could
47:14
create this, this company like a real authentic company.
47:17
It was a, a marketing thing I'd never seen done before.
47:20
And I just wanted, I just wanted to know if I could do it.
47:23
And now 4 1/2 years in, we've, we're, we're about to run ads
47:28
for the very first time. But like, that decision has come
47:32
as like, I owe it to my team who's been working really,
47:35
really hard and it, you know, and the stores like refill
47:40
stores, surf shops, they're closing, you know, I can't save
47:44
them all as one brand, right? But what I, what I can do is try
47:49
and scale the awareness of what we're doing, which I've never
47:52
done before. So I'm going to scale the
47:54
awareness and try and get people to understand to go buy these
47:57
things in stores. So that is my next phase of
48:00
growth, which is kind of exciting, you know, so that, I
48:04
mean, I haven't started running ads yet, but that's my next, my
48:07
next thing. And it really is, I'm not trying
48:12
to save the world, right? Like saving the world is like a
48:14
very egotistical thing to say, but I am trying to save the
48:19
refill community and I have to do that by leading by example.
48:27
So I have to show, like I've already shown in the past five
48:30
years, like what a company can do and how they can do it and
48:33
what the road map is to like build an authentic company.
48:36
But now it's time to like to scale it up a little bit and
48:39
make sure that this leading by example is effective for people
48:43
that don't really know what we're about.
48:46
Yeah, well, and I and I think we're in a like an economy right
48:49
now. We're in a world right now where
48:50
like people are ready for this kind of messaging too.
48:52
So I think it's kind of heading at the right time.
48:55
I think we've all been, you know, like we were talking about
48:56
COVID and stuff before. I think we've all gotten to a
48:58
point where like we've kind of done what we were going to do
49:00
with digital. And, you know, and don't get me
49:03
wrong, I mean, AI is going to be crazy and there's going to be
49:05
all the, I mean, there's other stuff too, but, but I think for
49:08
a lot of humans, we're definitely hitting a point of
49:10
exhaustion on a lot of this stuff.
49:13
And, you know, we're overwhelmed and inundated.
49:15
And I think that only gets worse with AI.
49:17
And, you know, I, I think I've said this on the last five or
49:20
six podcasts. So everybody, I'm sorry, but but
49:24
the I keep using this metaphor, I come back to this vision of
49:26
this notion of like a post apocalyptic Tokyo.
49:29
Every pane of glass, every whatever is a video screen and
49:32
there's just moving everything. And then you've got like this
49:35
old dude slanging ramen like on the street corner from his
49:38
little, you know, little rickshaw or whatever.
49:40
And that thing stands out so much in that field full of just
49:45
crazy. And that's kind of how I think
49:47
things are going to go with AI. I think you're going to get to a
49:49
world where marketing is so inauthentic because literally
49:52
being written by robots and it's already begun.
49:55
You know, that stuff is starting to get everywhere.
49:56
It'll get better and it might become more convincing or
49:59
whatever, but at the at the end of the day, it's still going to
50:01
just be more, you know, it just enable it enables people to make
50:05
more stuff for less money. So they're just being noisy.
50:08
And I think in a world that's super noisy, there's
50:10
opportunities for companies like yours.
50:11
And so I love that you're putting out a, you know, sort of
50:14
a road map or an idea or even just, I don't know, kind of
50:17
affirming people who might be interested in having a product
50:20
that's a little bit more in line with what you're doing, which
50:23
is, you know, maybe not necessarily even in your
50:24
vertical, but saying that, you know, this is the thing I'm
50:27
passionate about and I love this.
50:28
And there's room for me to build a business on this thing that I
50:30
love without having to sell out or give of myself or whatever.
50:35
I can stay true to what I'm trying to do and that my goals
50:39
don't have to be aligned with the goals of private equity or
50:42
some of these guys that are just throwing money at companies.
50:44
Because I think at least for a little while, and I've seen it
50:47
really up up close and personal here in Utah because we've got
50:50
such a thriving like start up community.
50:52
There's like these steps that everybody must take and you're
50:56
not successful if you don't. So if you don't do a big
50:58
fundraise, then I guess you're not successful.
51:00
If you're not a big Unicorn or you don't have a giant exit or
51:02
whatever, then it's sort of is like almost putting everyone
51:05
else down. If you don't figure that part
51:07
out, you know, and and it's created this bar that's so
51:09
unachievable for a lot of startups.
51:12
You know, I mean, not every startup is going to go through
51:13
like a Series A or series B. You know, they do, they just
51:16
what every company does that. But I think what's really cool
51:18
about your story is that you're showing that it's not necessary
51:21
either. And that, you know, there is a
51:23
unique path for just about every business out there and anybody
51:26
can do whatever it is they want to do.
51:28
And you know, with, you know, passion, interest, hard work,
51:31
you know, all the, all the tropes you can accomplish
51:34
whatever you want to do. And there's actually a place for
51:36
you to do it while staying true to yourself.
51:38
You don't have to try and pretend to be something else.
51:40
And I think that's something that's really inspirational
51:42
about your story in particular. Thanks.
51:44
I, I never anticipated success. You know, you just don't know if
51:49
it's going to come or not. Like there's it just is not
51:52
something that you, you want to bank on yourself, right?
51:55
You want to start a business and bank on yourself.
51:57
You just don't know what's going to happen.
51:59
And you know, for me anyway, like there's so there's so many
52:03
twists and turns that got me to where I am now.
52:06
So I don't want anyone listening to think that it was easy.
52:08
Like at one point my contract manufacturer went bankrupt and I
52:12
was like, I don't know if I'm going to have a company
52:13
tomorrow. And it was like in that
52:16
crossroads. I just, that's how I became a,
52:19
you know, AUS manufacturer. Now I have my own facility that
52:22
has doubled in size over the years.
52:24
And so these, these are things that like, if any
52:27
entrepreneurship or any entrepreneur is like listening,
52:30
it's just there's going to be a lot of twists and turns and it's
52:33
going to be crazy. And like the best thing you can
52:36
do is, is think about a lot of things as noise.
52:41
I think a lot of the advice I got in the beginning has
52:44
absolutely turned out to be noise and has absolutely turned
52:47
out to be exactly the opposite of my path.
52:49
And it is and it that I think is what makes DIP special and like
52:53
you know, for anyone else out there that is wondering whether
52:56
they need to kind of sell out or fundraiser any of those things
53:00
like build the thing you want first and then kind of it will
53:04
open the options for you later. Yeah, I love that.
53:07
And I think if people really play that through, like if they
53:09
just think about life in general and stuff like that, like, I
53:12
mean, you know, I mean, we all know, you know, whatever, you
53:14
get old and you die or whatever. But I mean, like, but
53:16
everybody's path is so different, right?
53:18
And we're all all pursuing different things and we all have
53:21
different interests and all that stuff.
53:22
But I think there's this expectation in business that
53:25
there's sort of a road map like you should be able to do AB and
53:27
C and now we're successful. And the reality is, and it's the
53:30
one thing that I always point to in doing this podcast, for
53:32
example, we've been doing this for nine years.
53:34
You're going to be our 460 second interview.
53:36
And so in talking to that many founders, business leaders, CE
53:41
OS that we've heard everybody from every walk of life up to
53:43
and including like literal rock stars.
53:45
And at the core, what there is, is this sort of, you know,
53:50
freedom to actually work within a process that you create.
53:54
There is no road map. And I think as soon as people
53:57
can give themselves permission to start looking for a road map,
54:00
they can learn from, you know, maybe they'll grab a piece from
54:02
you that is, hey, you know, it's OK for me to be authentic about
54:05
the thing I care about. I don't need to fake it just to
54:07
try and get more ears or whatever.
54:09
And you see so many people doing this on social media where
54:11
they're just trying to put out an act or something.
54:13
But I mean, people smell that stuff.
54:14
They know what it is. And so, so I think it's, I think
54:18
it's really, I don't know, I think it's encouraging to hear
54:20
from people like you, but I think it's also good to just
54:22
kind of reinforce that notion that it's never a straight line
54:26
and that's OK. And so and the adversity and the
54:29
problems and the hurdles and the things that you jump over,
54:31
that's all just part of the process.
54:33
Totally. I mean, you're never gonna.
54:35
It's never smooth sailing for long.
54:39
Yeah. I love that.
54:40
Some smooth seats, right? Yeah.
54:42
I just kind of wanted to leave you with one last thing, which
54:44
was I wanted to talk to you and you kind of already alluded to
54:46
this a little bit. But what do you hope to
54:48
accomplish as you're moving around and you're doing this
54:50
podcasting and you're starting to to guest and you're going out
54:53
there and you know, obviously you're introducing people to
54:55
your brand and your philosophy a little bit.
54:57
But like, is there anything in particular that you would want
54:59
to leave behind or might be the thing that you might, you know,
55:02
leave for the entrepreneur, the founder?
55:04
And, you know, and we talked a little bit before the show, you
55:07
know, I mean, just being a female founder in a sort of male
55:09
dominant world, maybe not beauty specifically, but in a sort of
55:12
entrepreneurial sense, you know, it's tends to be a little bit
55:15
more male driven. You know, anything in particular
55:17
for either young women or maybe that men should be more aware
55:21
of, or, you know, just things that you've encountered that
55:24
it's like, man, it'd be easier if everybody just went along
55:26
with this. So I, as a younger woman in
55:31
business, like I studied economics and math and I tried
55:36
to study the hardest things that I could in order to be able to
55:40
kind of, you know, exercise my brain.
55:42
And I didn't love math, but I knew it was really hard and I
55:45
wanted to challenge myself. And I'm, I kind of navigate my
55:48
life and trying to do really hard things.
55:50
And I want to say to, to a lot of women out there, like now
55:55
I'm, I'm in my 40s now and it's only now that people start to
55:59
like take me seriously. Like for most of my life, I, you
56:02
know, even though I think I've had pretty good business acumen
56:06
and all these, these things, like do not listen to the people
56:10
that don't take you seriously. You are, are probably like very,
56:14
very smart and articulate in all these things.
56:18
And like, if people can't see that about you, do not let it
56:22
discourage you because you can prove anyone wrong.
56:25
It's very easy to prove someone wrong and let like someone
56:29
underestimating you actually be your best asset.
56:32
Yeah, I love that. Well, Kate, we're getting to the
56:34
end of the hour. Do you want to just give people
56:36
a quick where they can track you down, how they can reach out to
56:39
you or connect if they're interested, how they can find
56:41
your product either online, not at Amazon or in person where
56:45
they might be located someplace? Yes, if you want to find me, I'm
56:49
Kate Asaraf on LinkedIn and if you want to find
56:53
dipitsdipalready.com or at dip already on Instagram or at dip
56:58
already on TikTok, I'm always in the DMS of Instagram.
57:02
That's where people want to ask all the questions.
57:04
So, and if you go on dipalready.com and you're
57:07
curious, you don't want to listen to me and about my
57:10
products, you can go on the store locator and it'll pull up
57:13
the store closest to you and you can go and walk in store and
57:16
check it out for yourself. That's awesome.
57:19
Well, thank you so much, Kate. This has been sweet and I really
57:21
appreciate the conversation. Lots of cool stuff in there and
57:23
I'm really excited for the future of you and dip and
57:25
everything. And so so kudos for that.
57:28
But thanks for coming on the show.
57:29
I appreciate you. Thank you so much, Ryan.
57:31
Absolutely. Thanks so much to to Kate and to
57:34
everybody who listens to the show this week and every week.
57:36
And we'll see you guys next time.
57:37
Bye.