Latest / The Growth Class with Phil Masiello / Circular Economy Strategies: Scaling Local Reuse Models with Lindsey McCoy

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Circular Economy Strategies: Scaling Local Reuse Models with Lindsey McCoy · The Growth Class with Phil Masiello

• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: Hey everybody and welcome back to the Growth Class.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: We talk a lot on this show about the difference between a business that just sells a product and a business that solves a fundamental problem.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: And today's guest is a masterclass on the ladder.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: After spending a decade in the Bahamas where the reality of plastic waste isn't hidden by first-world infrastructure, she didn't just see a problem, she lived it.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: And that experience led her to co-found Plain Products, a B Corp that has successfully removed over 700,000 plastic bottles from the waste stream through a brilliant circular loop system.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: She's transitioned from a direct-to-consumer powerhouse to partnering with the glamping and hospitality industry to prove that sustainability and salon quality luxury.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: Lindsay McCoy.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: Lindsay, thank you for coming on and taking the time out of your busy schedule to tell us a bit about your business.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: So if you could sort of take us back, tell us the story, how you got to where you are today, we'd love to hear it.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, uh, when I was growing up, if you wanted to do good in the world, you didn't go into business.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um you didn't.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I ended up in nonprofit management, and my husband is actually from the Bahamas.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I got to live there.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: And really at the time, my only environmental credential was that I'd lived in Boulder, Colorado, and I had been to a zero waste farmer's market.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I didn't really know much about the environment when I got started, but I got to go to these beautiful places with scientists and I would find plastic or I'd do beach clamps with kids and find plastic.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, scientists started to say there could be more plastic than fish in the ocean by 2050.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: And it and as you said, without this amazing infrastructure we have in the US, um, make things disappear.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I could see it.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: And it just didn't make sense to me to use something once and then throw it away.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Even though, you know, a lot of time and money has been spent convincing us that disposability and convenience is the most important thing.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it just kind of started to drive me crazy a little bit.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I wondered why we couldn't reuse bottles.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: And at the time, Netflix uh still sent you DVDs back.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: So you'd get a DVD and you'd watch it, and then you'd send it back and they'd send you another one.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, why can't we do that?
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it turns out that's how the world used to work.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, before everything became disposable.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: Soda bottles, beer bottles, all sorts of stuff.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: You used to send it back and people washed it and then reused it.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: So my sister and I just wanted to see if that was possible.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so you know, moved back to the US in 2015, spent two years doing a lot of research, talking to a lot of people, trying to figure it out.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: And in 2017, we launched with three products.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah, we um sell the bottles online, you pick it out, and then when you're running low, we'll send you a refill bottle, and then you use that same package with the return label inside to send it back to us.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: We wash it, sterilize it, refill it, send it back out into the world.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Turns out it's not that hard.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: It is funny, you know, when I was a kid, they sold they still sold sold soda like Coca-Cola and things in uh glass bottles.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: And um and also uh milk came in glass bottles.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: And you used to get a nickel, it w uh it was in New York, you used to get a nickel for every glass bottle that you brought back.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: And we had this big coke plant down on um uh the Grand Concourse.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, so my friends and I used to just go around Van Cortland Park and just collect bottles and bring them in, and we'd make, you know, a couple of bucks a week just doing that.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: And uh it was pretty easy.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: They placed a value on that packaging, and that packaging had value to them, and it was a great deal for them to pay you five cents to get it back, you know?
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: And everybody everybody wins.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, there used to be washing facilities all over this country until plastic was so cheap that it was easier to just throw stuff away instead of washing it and reusing it.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um it turns out that that's just for a lot of reasons not sustainable.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: And the other thing that's making a a uh comeback is uh uh diaper uh cloth diaper laundry services because people don't want to use disposable diapers.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: And that's you know that was the norm when I was, again, when I was a kid.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: I think pampers had just come out, or maybe maybe they were out but nobody used.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: I don't remember, but yeah.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's it's funny how things are, you know, going back.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: I know that there were a couple of companies that tried to do this in the juice world.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: They they weren't successful, but that's really because um they really didn't have a model.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: They just set it.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's interesting.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and we we purposely pick something, you know.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I was interested in the packaging piece of it, and I was staring at these plastic bottles in my shower, but we were thoughtful about it, you know, something that there's a flexible price point with it, that you have it for long enough that it makes sense.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, drinking a juice bottle and then turning it back in if you're not there or you don't have some sort of infrastructure is a little bit trickier.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: But this is something, you know, that's in your home for long enough.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: You can have one waiting for you under the sink, swap it out, send it back when you're, you know, there's so the some products and some models that make more sense in different different industries.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, absolutely.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the juice was uh if you look it up, juice it was called Juicero.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't a very smart model and it wasn't bottles.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: It was these, it were these pouches that went into this machine that squeezed it, and it blew up because people online had to buy the machine for$700.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: People online were uh people online were were saying you don't need the machine and people were just showing how you'd squeeze how you squeeze these things.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: And then they were sending them back, and they weren't getting anything for sending them back.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: They were just trying to do good.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: And it turns out that when they uh shut down, they found all these old packages in there.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: They never did anything with them.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: The whole thing was just it wasn't very well executed or thought out, but you know, but I can see it with I could see it with glass, I could see it with hard plastic, uh things that have a long uh life to them, like you said.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell Yeah.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, aluminum makes a ton of sense because for much less energy we can wash them, refill them, and reuse them than it takes to melt them down and reform them.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: But when they do get dinged up, when the labels do become unreusable, we can just turn them back into more bottles.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's it's easy, easily, readily recyclable.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: So the great thing is about none of this packing ever needs to end up in a waste stream.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, we do have tons of land in the U.S., we've got lots of room for it.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: But eventually, you know, we need to start thinking about do we want to just keep using up all of our resources and throwing them away?
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Or does are there things that make more sense?
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think uh other countries have s sort of tackled this issue in a different in different ways.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um and because they have to.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, we don't feel I don't know what the issue is.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: I I think we could probably do much better in this country with it because it winds up in places where you don't want it to be.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: Winds up in the ocean, it winds up in streams and rivers.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: And um I mean it's uh it's amazing uh how much gets pulled out of the rivers and streams and and oceans every year.
• 7:43
  unknown: You know?
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it's causing, I mean, problems.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: And now, you know, we're also learning that maybe it's causing problems with our health.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we I recently got into this, you know, I saw the the pollution and and wanted to have less plastic in the world.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now that there's a new documentary out on Netflix, you know, that's saying turns out when you make something from a toxic chemical and and put stuff in it that you're ingesting, maybe that's not a great idea.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe we need to give that some thought too.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I think there's, you know, we're just learning so much every day about all the materials we're using.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we got into all this disposability because it seems simple and easy, and it turns out that there's a cost to it.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, nothing's nothing's great.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um so well, I think, you know, what happened was I can I only know this from being in uh I had a business that was retail.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we they were retail food stores and we had one of the first meal sites on and we got acquired by a supermarket chain and I had to go work there.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I remember that they owned a milk plant, dairy.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: They owned their own dairy.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: And they'd never shipped the um gallon or half-gallon jugs.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: What they did was they had a blow molding machine right in the plant.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: So all they did was buy the chemicals and then they blew the the gallons and the half gallons.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it that occurred to me that that's sort of where it started, because when you think about shipping and shipping weight and shipping efficiency, you know, you're shipping glass bottles, right?
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: The dairies were shipping glass bottles.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: And it's heavy.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: And and we it it really comes down to rethinking, uh in my opinion.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: Really comes down to rethinking the entire supply chain and how things work in order to really um really uh uh tackle the issue because that's where it starts.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know, uh it really comes down to and and again you see it in so many other places, relocalizing things again.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, how do you not how are you not constantly shipping things across the country?
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: How how can you keep something more local so that that packaging can just stay there and be reused?
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, and then maybe you ship things in mass somewhere and it gets put into smaller containers.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: But there's there's a lot of different ways we can do it.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think we were all just seduced by how cheap plastic was and how it could just create any form.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it seemed like the perfect solution.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: We just didn't know these external costs that we're now figuring out.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I don't know.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: I think people know I think it's like I I think it's like cigarettes.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody always knew, right?
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean certainly there are people who who knew.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: There are people who knew.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: But I I think the other piece of that is is is that you're right.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: You just said something that, you know, producing locally in certain categories, right?
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: Dairies, uh, you know, bakeries, things like that.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: We got into this world of efficiency and s and um centralization where you would get a massive bakery that decided to build a plant in, you know, Kansas City or the center of the country and then ship out from there, or the same thing with a dairy and be able to ship out uh mass quantities and that save money, et cetera.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: So it was all it always comes down to you know saving pennies at at the cost of something.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: I think, you know, we're we're figuring out that we're paying that cost in other ways.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, those those things that then you ship everywhere, you gotta put a lot of preservatives in them to keep them fresh.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: You got to do a lot of other things that also maybe have some costs that we're just kind of figuring out.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: So there's there's, you know, we're paying in healthcare, we're paying in pollution, we're paying in all sorts of other things.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I mean, I think we're gonna end up turning back around to maybe where we were doing things before.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, right now, yes.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um am I paying too much for shipping?
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: Is shipping too much of our model?
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: Of course it is.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: But did solar panels make sense in the 80s?
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: No, they didn't.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the people that could do it did it, and the infrastructure was built and and volume, scale, cost came down, now it's cheap.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I think these conversations are important to talk about supply chain, to talk about reuse, to talk about packaging.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: And once people start to see it, and the more conversations we can have around it, you know, that's that's the change that we need to make.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell I have uh we we have a client that has a brand uh and they're in the olive oil business and very great, great company, great quality olive oil.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: They own the the uh olive vineyards in Spain and it's really great stuff.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: And they bottle locally.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: They bring in the bulk, but they have stores, and you go into their stores and the olive oil is in bulk.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: You buy the bottle, you fill it, and then when you want to refill it, you know, you clean the bottle at home, and then you come back and you refill it and you get a discount on on what you're buying.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it's sort of a unique model or a neat model, but it turns out that it's quite common in uh in Europe.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's quite common that whole process.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I was because here we're so we're I've I'm so used to buying like olive oil in a bottle, I could read the label, I have to understand it.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: But here they're selling it as a um, you know, in a in a bulk format, which is really it was real it's really cool.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: And they do a phenomenal job with it.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it really phenomenal jobs.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it tastes amazing.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: My God, it tastes so much.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the beauty of it is like e they have dates on everything.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: Because what they'll they'll say is that this particular olive oil is only good for, you know, you have to sell it within a year.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: You've probably got another year to use it, but that's it.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna start to deteriorate.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it's gotten, you know, the whole olive oil business, that's a whole different world, but it's gotten a little bit complicated in in terms of what people know and what they don't know because there was truth in labeling and there were problems with labeling, and that's a whole different discussion.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: But um, so they're doing it really right.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: And it shows people have a great loyalty to the brand.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: They're uh expanding rapidly and you know doing a fantastic job.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, certainly I think our relationship with our customers is very different than your average brand.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, we are very transparent.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: We we make sure to your point that we show that we're washing the bottles, you know, people see the bottles coming back out.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of trust.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we're very open about our ingredients and what's going on.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: And um the our customer loyalty is amazing.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: And as a small brand, you know, they tell people about us, which is invaluable.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: So so tell us about the brand, what you're doing, what your products are, where you're selling, how you're selling.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we we haven't gotten to that part yet, huh?
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: So, yes, we started with a shampoo, a conditioner, and body wash.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we now have 16 different SKUs, hair care, skincare, styling products, travel all the way up actually to gallon size.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we do glass gallons for people.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then we also work with refill shops, just what you were talking about.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: They're now popping up all over the US.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: So there's we work with a little over 200, but I think there's probably even more of that.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and people are starting to embrace this idea of, you know, coming into stores, filling themselves, getting what they need.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so we're working with that.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then we're also doing the direct-to-consumer model for people who don't have a refill shop or who that's just not where their lifestyle is right now.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: They want it delivered to their house and send it back when it's convenient.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: Are they your ref refill shops or are they other people?
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: No, they're not.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um they're independent.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: And they're using your brand?
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: They are using our um I think there's probably a few that are white labeling it just as a shop brand, but for the most part, they are using our brand.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's because they're independent, there's sort of a mix of things going on around the country.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: And some of them are doing incredibly well.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:34
  unknown: Yeah.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: I remember Whole Foods experimented with that piece for um body and and hair.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I don't remember why they stopped.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it probably had something to do with COVID, but um but I know that p it was discussed when we were in the beauty business and and it was sort of rejected for things like eye cream, face cream, things like that, because people felt like they wanted to get it sealed, you know.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: And which I can I can understand because you want to, you know, want to put things on your close to your eye that, you know, could potentially anything that has active ingredients, you know, drugs, anything that's that needs to be controlled is is a different situation.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, I mean, we're all plant-based products, aloe, you know.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it's we're very stable.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: So we're that's not a concern of ours at all.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the problems that I mean, the products that you're you're doing are more, you know, functional.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: You're you're doing hair care.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: And and we're not um, you know, again, not using any chemicals, not using anything that you're worried about, some instability or s or some some variations.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: So Yeah, yeah.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's uh it's it's an interesting business.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: I love the I was in we were in the beauty business for a long time.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: I loved it.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: I thought it was a a great business.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: We're still in it in different ways because we help a lot of beauty brands.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's one of the the best when you have a cle once when when a brand has a clear point of difference, you know, it's a very great business.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: When you're just a commodity and you're just trying to, you know.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that's I mean, that's honestly, you know, I mean, I obviously in some ways I'm not a great beauty owner because I'm like, I didn't get into this for the shampoo, you know, I don't I don't have a but it is a great industry in that people feel passionately about it.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: They're willing to do a little bit more research, they care about their hair, they want it to look good, they care about their skin.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then us being able to, as you say at the beginning, solve a problem as a part of that.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: Whether that's less waste in the world, whether that's clean ingredients, whether that's participating in a solution, you know, that gives us a marketing edge that also happens to be good for the planet.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: So it it's a lovely differentiation for us that really helps, you know, when out of the when you're scrolling through the feed, at least it's something a little bit different that we can talk about.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then it gives other people something to talk about as well.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, no question about it.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's uh, you know, it's great for storytelling, uh, which is uh, you know, a clear point of um, you know, how to get across your brand today.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's it it has to be very you have to be able to tell tell a great story.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: I had uh somebody on my show the other night who did who does a brand, and what he's trying to do, his i again, talking about the whole sustainability piece, his whole point is he hated the fact that clothed clothing became disposable.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: And when you think about uh when you go back, you know, 100 years ago, 75 years ago, people bought a pair of shoes.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: That pair of shoes lasted, and when it got a little worn out, they brought it to the cobbler who rebuilt them, right?
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: And they kept that pair of shoes for a long period of time.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: Nowadays, we get a pair of shoes, we wear them for a year or two, and then they become worn out and we throw them away, became disposable.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: So he's built it, he built this brand and it's doing quite well all around the world.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: He's been in business for a long time, and it's really focused on high quality.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, they guarantee their product forever.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: If the product rips, they fix it.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: If the if the button breaks, they fix it.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: And um, but he he said, you know, they've had very few returns because they build the so qu so so uh so well.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: And people are willing to pay.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I think one of the things that has sort of forced this is this decision-making principle that people aren't willing to pay for high quality anymore.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: But I I don't think that that's true.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I I think that we got into this world where we need a hundred different shirts and a hundred different pairs of pants.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: And and you you really don't when you think about it.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: When you start looking at what you're wearing every day, it's probably 10 or 15 things, at least for me.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's a but of course I'm not a fashion maven.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think it is again, you know, it's it's the reality of we have gotten caught up in this marketing consumer machine that needs us to keep buying things.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: And if you keep buying things, no, you can't afford to buy really nice things.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: But if you buy a few really nice things, it turns out you don't have to keep buying things.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I mean, again, it's it's um just helping people take a step back and take a breath long enough to have that thought for themselves and understand, you know, what they're caught up in.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: And again, a lot of money, a lot of effort going into keeping that going.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I it's it's it's great to see um brands like that, brands like us talking about, no, buy one of these.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: No, get this fit.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there's a right, you know, right to repair that's coming back of you should be able to fix things, you should be able to replace a battery, you need to be, you know, as versus planned obsolescence.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right, right.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: You're a hundred percent right.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, this this whole thing with Apple with with right to repair is a is a big deal because you know, people are they're sort of forcing you with their model of getting a new iPhone every two or three years, which you know, is it gets costly and it's you know great great.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's new features and all that stuff, but you know, do we really need it?
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: And the resources that are going into that.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, every one of those.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about how we need all these rare minerals.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: Turns out, you know, there's a lot of them in here that we can probably still be using.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, that's the other piece is just back to the you know, the five cents for the bottle, but there is value in these things that we are throwing away.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so we need to figure out how to how to change up our supply chain so we can reclaim that value and and use it.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so where are you manufacturing your products?
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um in Florida, we have a a contractor that manufactures, which is great as you know, the FDA things come.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Online and there's more and more requirements.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's wonderful to have somebody managing that piece of it.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then we get to just do the distribution and then handle that that washing and getting them back to them.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: But oh, is that right?
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's a uh the the regulations around uh manufacturing, even selling, to be honest, with uh you know, what you can say and what you can't say and how you have to say it is uh is is a little restrictive sometimes.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: But it's fascinating to me what isn't restricted in the beauty industry.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's so many rules, but then as far as ingredients go, I mean, if you look at what's legal in Europe versus what's going on, it's it's a whole different world.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: So that was a big learning curve for me.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, gosh, yeah.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: We um we w we had a raw, we had the first raw beauty brand, and um and it was an entirely different manufacturing structure, an entirely different product structure, not cooking ingredients, you know.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: We had to come up with a whole new emulsification process.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: It was really, really challenging.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: And um, but we had to sell, we were selling all around the world because we were on the shopping channels and uh and we had distribution all around the world.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, everywhere you went, you had to basically um, you know, get approval for for your ingredients.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: But we did that ahead of time.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: We knew what we were up against.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: So our in the United States it was easy, it was more difficult for us in in Europe, uh, because we could we were complying, we were trying to comply with Europe first and foremost.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: And once we did that, everything worked in the U.S.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's amazing what's legal to put on your products in the U.S.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, God, I know.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: We were in the uh we one of the biggest disasters we ever had, we were in the supplement business for a little while.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, it didn't work out for us.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: We that's a whole different world.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: But, you know, that's another thing where people are ingesting stuff.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, the things that that that get focused on and versus the things that don't get focused on, the things that don't get focused on are the things that are hurting you and the things you're focused on are like, who cares?
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's it's it's amazing.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: It is it it is amazing.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's yeah, yeah.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, make sure that label has is in this point and this, that, and boxes like this.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: But oh, you're you know, putting some other random stuff in there and calling it fragrance.
• 24:28
  unknown: Yeah.
• 24:30
  unknown: Yeah.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's a it's a crazy world.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: But um, you know, again, I think that's why it's important for brands to be transparent and you know, we talk about what's in it and we tell our customers you should ask other people what's in theirs.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: You should ask what that means.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: You should ask what they're doing about it.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: They should be telling you, you know, you have the right to know what you're putting on your body.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: No, you you absolutely well, it's your biggest organ, right?
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: Your uh your skin is your biggest organ.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: So everything you put on your body, everything you put on your skin is going into your body.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I think more and more people are starting to to recognize that.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's it's good.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I I hate that you know, it's a naive idea that companies aren't giving you things that are good for you, um, you know, and that you have to ask these questions.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: And that was just shocking to me.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, how many things I had been sold over the years that as I look back, I'm like, hmm, that's that I was spending that in my body for 30 years before I knew better.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: But unfortunately, that is the world in which we currently live.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'll tell you a funny thing, because I was in the beauty business and because we were trying to do things, you know, raw, natural, uh, and we had to I I learned a lot about ingredients all around the world and and what's in the products and how it's hidden and things like that.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so I have five children, four daughters, plus I have my wife.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: And all of them come to me before they buy things for their hair, for their skin, and say, is this okay to buy?
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: Is this brand good?
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: Is this brand good?
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's crazy that you have to do that, but it's it's real.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I mean, it is it is a busy world and I get it.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, luckily there are lots of of experts out there that can help you, but guy, I mean, who's got time to know all the things?
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so yeah, you really do just have to try and find some people that you trust.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: So what do you think your biggest obstacle to scaling is?
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I mean, I think it's the infrastructure.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's the comment that we were having earlier.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, scaling is really gonna be about reducing that shipping, being large enough that you can have washing facilities, you know, around the country, so we're not shipping all the time.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: And that's I think either getting other brands involved, getting big enough that we can do that, working with refill shops.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not I'm still not sure what that's gonna look like, but I mean getting to that growth point where it there's enough economies of scale that you can get some some locality built in is what needs to be.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: Have you discussed it with your manufacturer?
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, I mean we're we're having conversations all the time about um you know, how, why, when, and and talking to a lot of other brands too.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think, you know, hopefully um we can get some more people involved and and try and build it up together, which is the best way to do it.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: What's your biggest channel for for new customers?
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I mean it's still Instagram right now.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know, there are still people out there looking, and luckily there are people talking about, you know, solutions and issues and raising these ingredient stuff.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's a lot of different, you know, partners that we work with that we're one of the solutions that they advocate for, and there's a lot of people looking for stuff.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I mean, socials do very well for us because we have the story to tell, because we're a solution to a problem that people are looking for.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: Any last minute, uh last-minute thoughts?
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: We have a couple of minutes left.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: Any uh closing closing remarks?
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: No, I mean, I know that you work with a lot of businesses.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: I just I I want to encourage people to our earlier conversation.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: There is a real market out there for products that are solving things, even if they're a higher price point.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if you're actually really providing a better solution, um, there are customers who are looking for it.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I just always encourage people to get involved.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell Yeah, I agree with you.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_01: I think what what I love about the story is that I think it reminds us that businesses can and should be built on a foundation of truth and transparency.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: I think you know, when I think about plain products, it's not just selling shampoo.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: They're selling a frictionless way for customers and operators to align their actions and values, right?
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_02: So well said.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: Every once in a while I come up with a gem.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's right.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so Lindsay, thank you for joining us on the show.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh thanks for taking the time.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: It flew by.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: I thought it was a great conversation.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: 30 minutes gone.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh it's amazing.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: But um, yeah, thanks for coming on.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for taking the time.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: Love the story.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: And uh people can go to what, plainproducts.com?
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Plane with an E.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: My sister and I share the maiden name of Della Plane.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: So Plane Products, I get it.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: Plainproducts.com.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: And then uh yeah, so if anybody's interested, just go there and and check out the products.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: And uh thank you again.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: And for everybody else, we'll see you next time.